Hacker News Reader

jbuon Elon Musk Just Doesn't Understand the Sci-Fi Visions of Iain M. Banks

“That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.” - Kim Stanley Robinson

jbuon UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

Bye.

jbuon Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

I do wonder if the cost of capturing that carbon has been included in the published cost of a launch? at $0.5/kg that's $10,000,000.

jbuon 2023 state of the climate Entering uncharted territory

One of the authors (Johan Rockström) created the planetary boundaries framework (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries) which includes all of those. So they are being included by most.

Certainly there are investors who might want to build, say, a wind farm on a coral reef because it's cheap. That's worth resisting?

jbuon UK's Housing Crisis Needs a London-Sized City to Fix It

ok. yep that's a thing.

jbuon UK's Housing Crisis Needs a London-Sized City to Fix It

I keep hearing this, and it doesn't make sense. We don't have a london-sized tent city anywhere. But we have generations that can't afford to buy a home, and the rental market is brutal, but we have piles of london 'investment properties' sold offshore and then left empty as speculation (and other market distortions). We have enough houses, but we distribute them badly.

was talking about this with a friend who knows more. He did point out we need to replace old housing stock, which we also don't do, so just have cold, mouldy old houses. But that's not what's being talked about here.

I also had a twitter conv with a housing charity once, who agreed but pointed out that the financialization of property is hard to overturn, and it's easier to just advocate for more building. Problem I see here is that the new buildings will just be more stock for existing portfolios, and actual prices don't seem to reduce.

jbuon Weaveworks is shutting down

I know a bit of the history with this one.

Back in the day there was a smaller consultancy with awesome developers called LShift (mentioned here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_London_Tech_City). They worked out that an open source messaging thing would be useful, and created RabbitMQ (there were details about who, how it was funded internally, etc). That got sold to VMWare, and a bunch of people went with it, but LShift went on as before, happy, but always looking for another Rabbit. Didn't find one, was aquihired in the end.

Meanwhile, some of the Rabbit people formed Weave, looking for the killer business around the early container ecosystem (https://www.weave.works/oss/net/ was interesting, eksctl, flux, CNCF, lots of good things). But I guess they took a bite of the VC apple and sustainable technical contributions was no longer the goal.

I've huge respect for everyone I knew from Weave. Great people all. Best wishes and I know you'll land on your feet.

jbuon Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

That's why we now have the Vimes Boot Index - https://www.vimesbootsindex.co.uk/

jbuon We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

9 mortal men? Look out for the one ring to rule them all…

jbuon Australian Env Scientist – Gagged and grief-stricken, but not without hope

Why is reporting scientific findings considered political?

jbuon Bill Gates Says Planting Trees to Solve Climate Crisis Is ‘Complete Nonsense’

It's useful to realise that humanities yearly CO2 production is greater (by weight) anything else we make. by far.

So yes, if we don't stop producing industrial quantities of CO2, we'd need to plant about 1 USA sized forest/year to compensate (and keep it away from fire etc). Obviously Complete Nonsense.

Also a strawman argument. We need to stop producing industrial quantities of CO2. Then reforestation can help (a bit, perhaps).

jbuon Wet-bulb temperature

I really prefer Ministry to termination shock. I mean, it's a fun book, but it offers no solution (eg sulphur seeding does nothing for ocean acidification, not to mention termination shock). The fact that people read it and thing it offers a solution is puzzling. Now Anathem is another matter! Brilliant! (although again I have quibbles).

jbuon Stop Calling Each New Disaster “The New Normal”

News people don't like is often dismissed as 'hysterics', 'alarmism', etc, which is a well known cognitive bias. Nearly all people trying to improve the future do so sensibly, following established processes and norms and trying to be nice, but you haven't heard of these people because that's not how change is made in the face of established power that doesn't want the change. Most of that good work gets sunk. Change in the face of vested interests is 'noisy, hysterical, disagreeable', at least to the vested interests.

jbuon Naomi Klein investigates ‘conspiracy theory culture’ that has shaken her life

I guess you mean Naomi Wolf, as the sub-title makes clear? Quite different people. Klein is an excellent writer and thinker. Wolf is deep in the conspiracy hole.

jbuon UN Human Rights Chief Urges UK to Reverse ‘Deeply Troubling’ Public Order Bill

There was a fascinating(!) thread here https://twitter.com/ProfColinDavis/status/165555527715073229... with a longer story:

Right-wing "English Constitution Party" were going to demonstrate with rape alarms (https://twitter.com/ProfColinDavis/status/165555531421578035...) and that got 'confused' in the more rabid press as 'eco-zealots' plot' sort of stuff.

The Met decided they needed to be seen to act to remove the "dangerous" rape alarms, but the easiest way to do that was to arrest these poor folks (https://twitter.com/ProfColinDavis/status/165561644937587509...). The police knew they knew were around and had rape alarms because that's their job and the police gave them the alarms.

Anyhoo, the rabid press, the deeply populist government, and the disgraced met police (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65164489) are quite a mix.

jbuon Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

I live in (as I remember it) the prime example here. Birmingham UK. There were many articles about it some years ago. So, to fact check from the ground, there are no no-go areas. We're multi-cultural, and we do it well.

jbuon There’s no planet B

True. But whenever I discuss the climate crisis/future with non-billionaires (i.e. most people I know) there's a significant population of 'don't worry we'll move to mars if it gets too bad'.

I mean, have you been on HN for long?

jbuon Barnes and Noble's surprising turnaround

Laser cutters. every library should have one. https://www.oodihelsinki.fi/en/services/urban-workshop/

jbuon Barnes and Noble's surprising turnaround

We should do a thread of our favourite libraries:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Birmingham * https://www.oodihelsinki.fi/en/ * https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/Wuw19yIAAK1Z3Smm * https://www.gladstoneslibrary.org/

others?

jbuon Marie Kondo your software stack with open source

Yes! Also https://uther.wtf/blog/the-life-changing-magic-of-refactorin...

jbuon Scotland ‘snow-free’ for fourth time in six years

Perhaps for you it's fine. For low lying states it's not good. Turns out that's Florida too. Australia had to add levels to their fire danger charts. etc, etc... look, on the off chance that your remark was in good faith and you're really interested in an answer, try the recent Chatham House report [1], or the IPCC ones, or the US national assessment (forgot the name - google it for me will ya?) [1]https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-ass..., or the Potsdam Institute ones, to scratch the surface. You know, do your own research.

jbuon Scotland ‘snow-free’ for fourth time in six years

It seem we do have the ability to control the climate, because that's what we're doing. So, we can stop making it worse which is good!

But we're definitely going to have to adapt because even if we stop it we've already changed things somewhat. The question is who, where, how much. And how much the adaptation will cost, and whether people can afford it, and and and.

jbuon Danny Yee’s Book Reviews

Danny is awesome

jbuon Patagonia founder gives away the company

Yeah I had a jacket that had worn through, and sent it back to them for repair for free. Brilliant.

jbuon Death by hockey sticks

Ohh, I loved this blog - glad to find it again! Particularly remember https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/08/recipe-for-climate-change... - an understandable back-of-the-envelope calculation of how f*&ked we are with CO2 emissions.

jbuon The world’s first hydrogen trains started passenger service in Germany

If the train had enough battery to get through the tunnel, but was charged on the main line, that would work wouldn't it?

jbuon Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points

It sounds like you are doing a lot in your personal life. Well done!

Don't be so quick to disempower yourself. Everyone has something they can do (you're already doing a lot). Even just talking about it is extremely important (https://www.ted.com/talks/katharine_hayhoe_the_most_importan...)

FWIW there was a good comment piece in nature recently about activism. Summary thread: https://twitter.com/ThierryAaron/status/1564276454904430596 . There was another study - can't find it now :( that showed that actions from Insulate Britain (blocking roads) were effective.

jbuon Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points

I've stopped at Activism. I accept that it's already happening, but how bad it gets is entirely up to us.

I don't get the <throws hands in the air>It's just a done deal, back to netflix</> attitude, and prefer the 'Hey, our generation(s) have a task, let's get it done' one.