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Factorium

639 karma · joined September 7, 2021

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Factorium··on Oil System Collapsing So Fast It May Derail Renewables
Modular nukes can mean lower need for electrical infrastructure, because they can power mines/military bases/towns directly without huge reliance on a national grid.

We can start by mandating EVs-only for vehicles priced $100,000 and higher, and lowering that threshold by $10,000 yearly. We entirely overhauled our manufacturing in WW2 with much less technical capability than today - we just need the political and social willpower (which I guess war provided).

Electric busses are already here. Those other uses require minimal levels of fossil fuels in the scheme of things.

Public transit is not attractive because its not point-to-point, and you have no control over the other passengers on your ride. Autonomous minibusses with demand-driven routes, private subscriptions, and passenger reviews are the solution. Or, just plain old electric scooters if we can get rid of enough street parking/car lanes and install bike paths.

Factorium··on Oil System Collapsing So Fast It May Derail Renewables
Areas of high density can be heated with nuclear power, tapping directly into existing district heating systems.

Insulation and design standards need to be stepped up, with passivhaus the standard if it isn't already.

Factorium··on Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks
This is the case all over the Western world. Federal Government politician salaries need to be 10x higher.
Factorium··on Oil System Collapsing So Fast It May Derail Renewables
About 2 years at the factory, 2 years onsite:

https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactor...

We need to be ramping up these immediately... and targeting production of at least dozens per year. Its the perfect industry for a country like the UK to pump money into right now.

Factorium··on Oil System Collapsing So Fast It May Derail Renewables
We need to rapidly:

Adopt modular nuclear reactors, and produce hundreds/thousands of them yearly.

Electrify transport.

Figure out how to get to a global population of 4 billion: ie massive family planning drive in Africa/West Asia encouraging 1/0 children. (Keep in mind this is just the population level from 1974).

Factorium··on Tesla is outrunning the supply chain crunch
Tesla just seems to have simpler and better designed vehicles. There are fewer bottlenecks because there is just less stuff in the car.

Check out the teardown of the Mach-E Thermal System by Sandy Munro for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1dQtlrI7uU

The ICE vehicle business model is to treat spare parts and servicing as a profit centre... vehicle designs reflect that.

Factorium··on Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%
Just to be clear, this is just 30% --> 15% for subscriptions.

One-off purchases for large companies ($1m+) still attracts 30%.

Factorium··on FlixMobility Acquires Greyhound to Expand U.S. Intercity Bus Services
I hope we'll eventually get autonomous minibusses in US cities, operated privately. Tesla FSD is already suitable, maybe with remote human operator takeover for the 0.1% of exceptional conditions.

One of the problems of public transport is that the clientele is not exclusive enough, and the routes do not automatically align to the pickup and dropoff points of the passengers. A private members-only service with an app would solve this.

Factorium··on Pfizer-BioNTech Booster Shot Restores Full Covid Protection in Large Trial
Its only a matter of time before booster shots are mandated for everyone, every 6 months, forever.

This is why we need to oppose vaccine mandates, now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

We fought a second world war for this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code

Factorium··on Apple still won’t mandate vaccines, will require employees daily Covid-19 tests
Why don't they accept antibodies as proof of vaccination, like Intel?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28842717

Factorium··on Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer
https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2&selY...

51% of Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter is committed by about 7% of the US population. This is directly from Government data.

There are real biological factors identified for this discrepancy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A

Factorium··on Study: Recycled Lithium Batteries as Good as Newly Mined
Reusing glass uses a similar amount of water and about 30-40% of the energy as recycling:

https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/282173/1-s2.0-S221282711...

So my point stands, we could see significant environmental improvements if we mandated standard glass bottle and container sizes.

Something like: Food, Carbonated Liquid, Beer, Wine.

Sizes: 150ml, 300ml, 500ml, 750ml, 1L, 1.5L, 2L.

Factorium··on Covid-19 Vaccines and the Menstrual Cycle
If you're a healthy 35 year old White woman in the UK, your risk of COVID death is 1 in 166,000:

https://qcovid.org/Calculation

And hospitalisation 1 in 4484.

By contrast your risk of death from anything at that age and gender is 1 in 1106 annually:

http://www.bandolier.org.uk/booth/Risk/dyingage.html

COVID risks are extremely concentrated to the obese, unhealthy, and elderly. It doesn't make sense to vaccinate the entirety of the population especially with a leaky vaccine.

Factorium··on Windows 11 will hobble gaming performance by default on some prebuilt PCs
Microsoft should just release a $149 Software upgrade for Xbox S/X that allows/requires full mouse+keyboard UI and access to Windows store apps (Windows store would probably need to be cleaned up and properly curated), Edge browser, plus printing support.

Then in a few years they could also release a portable version of the S, with a battery, 15.6" 1080p 75hz screen, and a few hours of battery life. If you reduce the size of the cooling system in the S (possible with 5nm), and have an external PSU, this is definitely possible.

Full Windows is basically overkill for the average consumer.

Factorium··on Covid-19 Vaccines and the Menstrual Cycle
Shouldn't this kind of research have been carried out before billions of people were vaccinated? Is it ethical to enforce vaccinations (via mandate) with these matters unresolved?
Factorium··on COVID vaccine injury claims mount, but recourse is lacking for those harmed
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

COVID deaths ages 0-17: 542, out of a total of 723,880 total COVID deaths.

0.075% of COVID deaths.

Factorium··on COVID vaccine injury claims mount, but recourse is lacking for those harmed
https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks...

Top stock owned by members of congress -

Pfizer #6

Johnson and Johnson #7

Moderna stock up 387% YoY: https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks...

Bill Gates invested $55million into BioNTech in October 2019: https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det...

Why are people with COVID antibodies from successful recovery forced to get vaccines? Why are children when COVID presents no risk to them?

Factorium··on California ports among world’s least efficient, ranking shows
I live in Ukraine and Bulgaria and throughout the entire pandemic, everything has been... available, and cheap. Including imported goods. In many cases, electronics are cheaper here than in the USA, despite 20% VAT.

There seems to be something going wrong in the Anglo countries to be facing such ongoing shortages.

Factorium··on Tesla Q3 2021 Earnings
https://www.eenews.net/articles/automakers-blast-ev-tax-cred...

"the measure also offers union-made EVs assembled in the United States an additional $4,500 tax incentive."

Factorium··on Tesla Q3 2021 Earnings
The chief political risks are from the USA, not China:

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/19/president-bidens-pick-f...

https://electrek.co/2021/09/29/elon-musk-calls-out-biden-con...

Factorium··on Outdated, vulnerable open source components shipped with Windows 10 and 11
Windows should just become a Linux Distro already.
Factorium··on Study: Recycled Lithium Batteries as Good as Newly Mined
The solution is to standardise packaging so that it can be re-used by multiple brands and companies, with just a clean out and new set of logos glued on.

This might not be suitable for a Pringles can, but at least suitable for glass containers and bottles.

Factorium··on Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants
Immigrants are brought into the US to fill existing positions under poorer conditions than US workers, and to generally boost aggregate GDP (mostly to the benefit of capital/land owners).

Canada and Australia have extremely generous immigration systems, but are backwaters for software development compared to the USA, and IT salaries are worse.

Additionally, there is no diversity or equality in the US H1B intake: Indians make up 75% of the intake, and 78% of them are male:

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b...

The H1B visa could be hugely improved if the intake was limited to 10% max from any one country and max 49% male from any one country. The US Diversity Lottery has per-country intake limits already.

Factorium··on Apple’s Gaming Revenue Reportedly Exceeds Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo Combined
Apple probably makes more profit from Gaming than from every game developer on the planet combined, despite not making any games.

If anyone is thinking of working in the Games Industry: don't. All of the profit will be skimmed off by platform owners. Its why wages and conditions are so poor at development studios.

This is probably unlikely to change given that Apple is the #1 most owned stock by the US Congress: https://investinganswers.com/articles/10-most-popular-stocks...

Factorium··on Long-term NAEP scores for 13-year-olds drop for first time since testing began
Are these results broken down by race? If not, we could be seeing static or even improving results, hidden by the shifting demographics of the USA.

When you examine Goodschools data for a given area, there is a very high correlation between the White/Asian student population and the overall performance of the school, including for Black/Hispanic children.

Additionally, how much have politics impacted results for the worst performing students? Anecdotally, its a lot harder to expel or discipline certain consistently disruptive students now.

Factorium··on High schoolers are training to drive 18-wheelers amid shortage of truck drivers
I am Polish. Poland reverted back to COVID-normal a lot earlier, and was later to implement lockdowns, than the UK.

For people on the fence about going back home, lockdowns were a major driver. Additionally, Poland has rejected vaccine mandates, whilst the UK seems on the cusp of implementing them, and requires them for re-entry to the UK.

For people who have experience living under totalitarianism, being forced by the Government to take a medical treatment (often for no purpose since many working-class people already survived COVID) is unacceptable.

The other big factor is that a lot of people who have worked in the UK for the last 5-10 years have now saved up enough money to buy a nice house in Poland. By contrast UK real estate remains continuously unaffordable due to the restrictions on development and continued population expansion from immigration (legal and otherwise).

These trends of de-migration would have played out slowly over the next 5 years but COVID rapidly accelerated them.

More opinions here: https://emerging-europe.com/news/the-poles-disappointed-by-b...

Factorium··on High schoolers are training to drive 18-wheelers amid shortage of truck drivers
This is good. We should be training more people directly from age 15/16 for direct entry to the workforce.

University should be only suggested to the top 20% of each yearly cohort, and senior highschool to the top 50%.

Factorium··on MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch
To be specific, 14" or 16" Macbook Air closer to the $999 of the 13".

I guess that would cannibalise sales of the Macbook Pro, but the M1 Macbook Air is totally sufficient for regular browsing and officework.

Factorium··on MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch
I wish we could get a Macbook Air in these screen sizes. I don't need the extra power, just the bigger screen.
Factorium··on Arthritis drug that cost $198 in 2008 is now more than $10k
Is this the socialised price after Government subsidies?

If so, the cost of medicine is just borne elsewhere: the average tax wedge is 38% in France vs 18% in the USA for a married couple with 2 children:

https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf

Sales tax is also 20% vs less than 10% in all US states.

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