grumpy-de-sre

Yeh this has more to do with the failures of federation and has nothing to do with socialism.

Federation is a huge part of why Germany struggles to deliver on it's digitalization goals.

Having every podunk authority handling ticket issuance basically guarantees signing keys will eventually be stolen/misused. The lack of a robust revocation mechanism is the nail in the coffin though.

Thanks for sharing those studies, fascinating stuff, I had no idea the delirium tremens sleep disturbances were so similar to narcolepsy type 1 (but given narcolepsy is treated with essentially GHB it checks out).

Kind of like an extreme REM rebound. A lot of the GABAergic drugs seem to markedly suppress REM. Interestingly cholinergic drugs seem to do the opposite (increasing REM at the expense of slow wave sleep).

It's very much like REM and SWS (CSF flushing) are a kind of a biological yin and yang.

And when that happens, of course HN has the answer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15997016

We're expecting our first in a few months.

NGL I'm low key wondering if my messed up natural rhythm of 9pm-4am is going to be potentially handy.

Might aswell outsource the responsibility of fund management to highly regulated third parties and you're basically describing Australia's superannuation scheme.

Issue is due to the same politics as everyone else, Australia is having trouble reigning in the state pension (ideally in this scheme meant as a fallback to provide a minimum subsistence level).

Eg. I'm pretty optimistic about some of the Chinese exoskeleton startups I've seen. If you can keep people mobile, living at home and avoid falls they will make a huge difference.

Not to mention self driving vehicles allowing for more independence in old age.

Sign me up.

Pensions are an insane ponzi scheme but I'm somewhat optimistic that dignified aged care is a problem that can be solved.

However there is no denying sacrifices will have to be made.

I mean as long as you don't put systematic barriers in the way of doing the right thing, eg. missing sidewalks and food deserts.

I have no idea from where I sit, but I wonder how much of this is down to the increasing demographic share of Guang Gun [1] vs the older conservatives.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guang_Gun

Yep, nationalism isn't something you can turn on and off at will.

For an example I'm reminded of the recent public backlash to the K visa scheme [1].

1. https://www.ft.com/content/01a0029c-9f7c-4b31-a120-d1652f198...

It's worth acknowledging that Mao became increasingly erratic with age. Some of his early achievements are still very much seen in a positive light (eg. as a nation builder).

Colon cancer is an interesting one, Hank Green [1] recently covered a new paper [2] that showed a massive reduction in colon cancer risk for folks that engaged in moderate, regular, exercise. The authors speculated that mechanical stress leading to increased shedding might play an important role.

Weirdly enough that's the same mechanism hypothesized to play a partial role in why breast feeding is also associated with a reduced cancer risk.

Fascinating, weird, stuff.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RXSX93mvg8

2. https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2502760

Thinking about the three examples I gave, I think it's more that the externalities of not doing these activities aren't priced in.

Tabloid press is fantastically profitable, but fake news over time will erode a great deal of social trust.

Closed source software might be individually advantageous but collectively holds back industrial progress. It's a similar reason to why patents were first introduced for physical goods.

And yes people voluntarily without kids should have to pay significantly more social contributions.

Naturally many a startup has also failed due to similar factors (only for the core idea to be resurrected some years later to great success).

Or just maybe free markets expose the bitter truth. That can take a lot of self reflection to come to terms with. Applies to a lot of aspects to life, eg. career planning, creative endeavors etc.

But at the same time it's true that some vital public activities aren't rewarded by the system atm. Eg. quality journalism, family rearing, open source, etc. Often that's an issue of privatized costs and socialized rewards. Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal.

I suspect concerns about the impacts on agriculture are a big part of the reason why the Chinese authorities haven't clamped down on this stuff yet.

Sovereign cloud might theoretically mean sovereign control over data.

Does absolutely jack shit about the blocs trade deficit in the cloud services space though. Hundreds of billions of euros being sent abroad every year.

Without some kind of collective trade policy [1] sovereign cloud initiatives will continue to be a waste of time for everyone involved (including engineers). Also if you see the phrase Gaia-X ... run.

1. https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/now-how-to-get-that-europe...

Few individuals have touched anywhere near as many lives as he has, perhaps only matched by Fritz Haber/Carl Bosch and ammonia synthesis.

Most of the stratospheric approaches I've seen aren't so much about exploiting low altitude weather phenomenon but rather flying above it. Which of course is exactly what you want for long term remote sensing.

I'm thinking systems that mostly exploit thermals and updrafts, engaging in a kind of bird like automated soaring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-zvzOC8dzA

I'm kind of keen to see if large electric cargo motor gliders might one day become a thing. Traversing great distances via ambient energy harvesting. Maybe even self landing at certain designated airfields to top up on energy and avoid bad weather.

A migration of the machines so to say.

For some more hope [1][2].

Times are tumultuous but potential exists all around us.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g80av4zlDco

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUVoWxvvJ5Y

I feel like a lot of our (EU) legal structures are totally inadequate for long term periods of peace. Eventually everything gets bloated and ossified and vested interests gain more and more influence/control.

Existential threats always seem to have an interesting way of unlocking progress.

Just look at how quickly Germany was able to build the north sea LNG terminals in the face of the russian gas crisis [1].

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7u4rhjVJoI

I'm assuming it depends a fair bit on the model of the turbine. The park near us is rather new so I'm sure they are using the latest options.

Yeh I'm about 2km from a large wind park, it's the least obnoxious thing imaginable. Jogging through them at night with their dim red blinking strobes or watching them work overtime on a windy winter day is great and gives you a sorely needed feeling of optimism and hope for the future.

Yes directly underneath them there is some gentle swooshing noises but I think beyond 500m it's basically imperceptible. Nothing I'd call offensive, car traffic is easily 10x worse.

The young folks that I've talked to locally, overwhelming share the same perspective.

The opposition has to come from folks who cannot see the bigger picture and just view them as some kind of excessive ugly infrastructure. Not properly recognizing / or caring about the societal benefit of clean abundant energy or the future.

I kind of find it interesting that a lot of historical landscape art from northern Europe featured windmills. Nobody viewed them as a blight back then.

Over the last few years I've been drifting away from focusing on pure technology plays. Somehow I feel like maybe that might save my bacon someday ... or maybe AI will completely consume the world and we'll all be left behind.

I always thought it was only a matter of time before the general public heard the term "antibiotic resistance" and had a freak out.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that they're literally feeding the stuff to livestock to improve growth rates / feed efficiency [1]. Talk about dangerous gain-of-function "research". Industrial vat grown protein cannot come soon enough [2].

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eaTIe_TBZA

Yep in a lot of ways it's a failure of the electricity market.

It's absolutely bonkers how much I pay for electricity while I sit in the shadow of a giant onshore wind farm in Brandenburg. Transmission losses are nothing at this distance and the turbines cover the towns needs many times over.

But because of the lack of regional and dynamic pricing (and tax burden) we pay ridiculous rates.

I think if folks could financially benefit from renewable projects in their neighborhoods, suddenly citizens opposition would fall apart.

Maybe balcony solar is just a tax minimization play, in that the energy you get from panels isn't burdened by excessive network charges, consumer taxes etc.

Exactly! Wind expansion has been going great as-well.

I guess the more fundamental question is why these expansions haven't led to savings for energy consumers and why the economics of these micro-systems are so attractive.

Thanks for the update! I wonder if he changed his mind on the Berkeley offer [1]. Part time role though so maybe he just hasn't relocated.

1. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/habeck-gastdoz...

Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU

The fact that balcony solar has such short payback periods really emphasizes the scale of the failure. Why can't utility scale operators use bulk purchases of the exact same panels, in a more optimal installation (south facing, unshaded etc) to achieve similar or better payback periods?

Balcony solar is a whole lot like Uber, a way to side step onerous regulators, landlords that won't permit/invest in rooftop installations, planning approvals, transmission bottlenecks (eg. SuedLink [1] being forced to use underground cables) etc. The German government tolerates it because it keeps voters happy and helps reduce dependence on foreign gas.

At the end of the day though balcony solar is better than nothing, so let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good.

1. https://www.jacobs.com/projects/Germany-SuedLink