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morepork

397 karma · joined November 10, 2021

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morepork··on The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
People say Russia, Canada and Greenland look big in the Mercator projection, but what they miss is it makes Antarctica enormous, your app shows it nicely. So much so that many maps just cut off the bottom otherwise it looks a bit silly, but then the equator isn't in the middle.
morepork··on Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity
I assume that they sign up to long term contracts to secure the price of power.

When it comes to renewal, the DC operator obviously has a sunk cost that they don't want to walk away from. But the electricity generators are also in the same boat. If the DC shuts up shop then there's x00 MW that the generator won't be able to sell and could suppress prices across the whole country. So both parties are incentivised to come to an agreement.

morepork··on Earth is now heating up twice as fast as in previous decades
Both 2023 (probably) and 2024 were over 1.5°C according to Berkeley Earth, 1.54±0.06°C and 1.62±0.06°C respectively. 2025 was (probably) a shade under at 1.44±0.09°C. Unfortunately it looks like that goal won't be attainable, but all the more reason to make the changes we can.

https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023...

https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2024...

https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2025...

morepork··on Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
They also never managed the massive economies of scale for regular solar panels that have driven down prices. Solar panels that can be mounted on any kind of roof, in fields, etc.
morepork··on Google Search Is Down
I noticed it too, first time I genuinely used bing, and it worked fine.

I don't think I ever remember seeing gws go down, there will be a big postmortem on this

morepork··on Canada's first sovereign wealth fund
I thought that honour belonged to the NZ super fund with an annualised return of 10% before tax since it's creation in 2003. I couldn't find a comparable figure for the CPPIB, but it looks to be lower.

https://nzsuperfund.nz/

morepork··on SpaceX files to go public
I am not an expert, but my understanding is most funds don't change allocations immediately, but it would be part of normal rebalancing, e.g. VOO and other indexes that track the S&P500 do it quarterly
morepork··on Why New Zealand is seeing an exodus of over-30s
This is not new, the article spins it as a big increase using a low during COVID as a baseline.

Alternative article with stats back to 2001: https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/137340/current-exod...

Note also that the population has grown around 30% since 2001, so the rate is probably lower than in the 2000s.

NZ is a small country, cities are small, it can be expensive, and the job market is relatively limited. For some it's made up for by the abundance of nature, the laid back attitudes, etc. but that's never going to be everyone's cup of tea.

morepork··on Google ends its 30 percent app store fee and welcomes third-party app stores
For card payments sure, but if you buy with play store gift cards bought from a third party retailer, I don't think Google is making much if anything out of that.
morepork··on Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid
Or alternatively, a hundred 10 mile by 10 mile installations. Or on average 2 such installations per state. Hardly seems anywhere near comparable to a Dyson sphere
morepork··on Florida to end all school vaccine requirements
Honest question: do you get charged more for health insurance in the US if you and/or your family aren't vaccinated?
morepork··on Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
This looks similar to what Meta (then Facebook) did a decade ago and basically broke the agreements between Apple, Google, etc. to not poach each others employees
morepork··on ICE test train reaches speeds of up to 405.0 km/h
Also a German ICE test train was clocked at over 400 km/h back in 1988
morepork··on Studio Ghibli marks 40 years, but future looks uncertain
There are notable Studio Ghibli films that were not made by Miyazaki such as Grave of the Fireflies, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and When Marnie was There.

All of those were in my opinion excellent films and similar in style to ones made by Miyazaki, and I think fans of Miyazaki's work will also enjoy them.

morepork··on World fertility rates in 'unprecedented decline', UN says
Difficult, but not impossible. We fit 3 across the back seat of our Mitubishi Lancer for a few years. You do need to be selective in which car seats you get, and I wish it was easier.
morepork··on Why walking is the most underrated form of exercise (2017)
Or

> Shannon-Leigh Litt has run 500 ultra marathons in 500 Days

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360690060/northlander-runs-her...

Out of reach for most of us though.

morepork··on The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority
Maybe not to the same extent, but an AWS EC2 m5.large VM with 2 cores and 8 GB RAM costs ~$500/year (1 year reserved). Even if your engineers are being paid $50k/year, that's the same as 100 VMs or 200 cores + 800 GB RAM.
morepork··on Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days
Probably vendor specific whether it works, but alarms and calls should still work before unlocking/decrypting in "direct boot" mode
morepork··on How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.
On Android you could add a second user which gets its own passcode and set of apps/accounts. If they know what they're doing they could see there are multiple users on the lock screen, but it may be enough.
morepork··on How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.
Have you considered using an Android emulator to run these apps? It should be much easier to make full image backups that way.
morepork··on Hackers stole billions in crypto to keep North Korea’s regime afloat
In many cases if you lose your physical wallet, someone else will find it and the cash will stay in circulation, but even if not, as physical currency is much more inflationary it's no big deal.

The second point is that most people keep a lot less money in a physical wallet, usually no more than say a few hundred dollars. Whereas a bitcoin wallet will often contain thousands or more so is more akin to a bank account.

morepork··on Sid Meier's Civilization VII
Like now, where Civ VI Anthology which I think includes all the DLC is currently on sale for $9 on Fanatical (activates on Steam). It's always much cheaper to game a generation behind.

https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/sid-meier-s-civilization-v...

morepork··on Station of despair: What to do if you get stuck at end of Tokyo Chuo Rapid Line
There's an episode in the second season of Colin from Accounts that is basically this scenario, but in Sydney
morepork··on Tesla sales plummet in the UK, France, and Germany
BYD will most likely sell more battery only EVs than Tesla this year and appear to have no problem scaling, they also sell cars that fit the majority of market segments.

Maybe Tesla's strategy of only 3 models and betting on robotaxis is the right one, but they have a serious risk of falling behind.

morepork··on Warren Buffett is no longer donating his money at death to the Gates Foundation
They do, for example Buffet donated $5 billion last year. His fortune is so vast that is only perhaps 3%.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/28/buffett-donates-another-5poi...

morepork··on How to Send a Swift Wire for Developers
Should be fine up to about 9 quadrillion[1]. Though with arithmetic it can get messy. The example doesn't show, but I hope dollar amounts are in cents and don't use decimals.

Maybe when sending money to Zimbabwe it could be an issue.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...

morepork··on Intel: New Core Ultra Processors Deliver Breakthrough Performance
I like AnandTech's tag line (rip): Lunar Lake: Designed By Intel, Built By TSMC (& Assembled By Intel)

https://www.anandtech.com/show/21425/intel-lunar-lake-archit...

morepork··on Intel: New Core Ultra Processors Deliver Breakthrough Performance
We did go from 16 to 32 and now to 64 bit, so there have been some significant changes in that time, plus all the new instructions added. But ARM chips are taking over, I think there are now more than 10 ARM chips for every x86 one sold
morepork··on Can solar costs keep shrinking?
Depending on the surface being covered it may actually increase the heat. Any electricity produced will eventually become heat. Solar panels will absorb more heat than surfaces with a high albedo where a lot is reflected back into space.
morepork··on Can solar costs keep shrinking?
Having more things certainly is good for GDP. But I don't know about you, but I'm pretty saturated on things already, with a bunch of stuff that I've purchased and barely use.

Perhaps this comes down to a quality of life vs GDP per capita not being identical. While I could use more energy to consume more, I don't have a very strong desire to go much above my current level of consumption.

But outside of the wealthy there is still huge latent demand for energy and what comes with it.

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