pietjepuk88

> The 300MW Thurrock Storage project, developed by Statera Energy, is now energised and delivering electricity flexibly to the network across London and the south east.

> With a total capacity of 600MWh, Thurrock Storage is capable of powering up to 680,000 homes, and can help to balance supply and demand by soaking up surplus clean electricity and discharging it instantaneously when the grid needs it.

Unless they updated the original post, that all sounds correct to me. It's a 2-hour battery, rather common in the industry.

EDIT: Ah, you mean the https://stateraenergy.co.uk/news/thurrock-energisation is wrong, with the fantastically outrageous statement of "delivering its full output of up to 600MWh within seconds."

I thought the ECMWF models were (and always have been) global?

I thought that idea finally died a few years ago, but never say never I guess

(I assume you're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal )

Locks are fun! (Can you tell I'm Dutch? ;) )

I think the main reason is that the (big!) ships just don't have room to pass each other anywhere other than on Gatun lake. They can't pass in the Gaillard cut, and not really in the approach harbors either. So it's one way traffic basically.

Also, anything taking the old locks out of operation for a few weeks/months is basically a no-go. That's just too costly.

As a side note, do keep in mind that water is already "saved" a little by going up in a convoy. With the three lock chambers, you get to reuse the same water three times. Not exactly true of course because convoys start and end, but you get the idea.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38255225 for a back-of-the-envelope calculation of why it's intractable to pump the water back.

And see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38256185 for why the water saving basins are not as great as you would think (at least for the new locks). For the old locks, adding them would probably just add too much too the leveling time. And the construction would take those locks out of operation for at least a couple months, and they just cannot afford that.

In the Netherlands there are locks with pumps for directly leveling, reducing/preventing salt intrusion, or "evening out" the loss of water with a separate pumping station (look up Krammersluizen and Kreekraksluizen). But we're talking a meter or 2 water level difference, not a whopping 26 meters. And those locks are generally not as big, and even then we tend to get rid of those systems where we can (Krammersluizen) as it's just too expensive to operate and maintain.

The thing that complicates the use of the water saving basins, is that they tend to make the salt intrusion into the lake a lot worse [0]. So to limit the salt intrusion (through the new locks), they have to _not_ use the water saving basins, or flush the locks every now and then using a lot of fresh water from Gatun lake.

This was (and is) not as much an issue with the old locks, as passage of ships there is ridiculously fast with the use of mules. With the new locks, it's mostly tug boats, and substantially bigger/slower ships obviously.

[0] Mostly on the Agua Clara side. The Cocoli side is generally fine, as the salt wedge doesn't reach the lake. Drinking/irrigation water intakes there probably have to be (or have been) moved though.

> > The ability to redeem LUSD for ETH at face value (i.e. 1 LUSD for $1 of ETH) [...] create a price floor

That is not entirely true though; it costs money to redeem LUSD for ETH. Earlier today it was 2%, so not particularly cheap. That would put the floor at 0.98 at least momentarily.

> You can take an interest free loan out against your Ethereum

Well, you do have to pay to take out a loan. Closing a loan is free, and redeeming LUSD for ETH (if it's not your loan) costs _at least_ 0.5%. And being liquidated costs you money (10%?) as well I guess.

> What happens if many people do that and never repay the loan?

Nothing? What do you think is supposed to happen?

> you are suddenly dealing with real like risk that cannot be ignored.

The only risk I know of is a cascade. If a trove drops below 110% because the ETH price drops, and someone liquidates the trove and gets the ETH at a 10% discount, and then _sells_ the ETH, the price drops even more causing other troves to be liquidated, etc.

> I shall refer you to my first post up there!

No, that's what _you_ think the reason is or should be. I'm asking what the reason (or answer) is that the _SEC_ gives in the application process.

> The SEC is saying that these schemes are securities, and you categorically cannot operate unregistered security schemes. The SEC is saying that these things must be registered, and until/unless they are registered they must stop.

My question was about the registration. If you _want_ to register, and the SEC replies with "<silence>", what are you supposed to do? Or if you ask if you should register, and get met with silence. I don't disagree with your assessment of "The SEC is saying that these schemes are securities", but instead of answering the question upfront they seem to prefer to punish/fine after the fact. Worst of all, they ban Kraken from ever offering any staking services in the future, even _if_ there is/will be a legal way to do it.

I _understand_ Gary's SEC's stance of keeping everything deliberately vague that way, because it gives him a lot of power to punish and discriminate on a one-off basis. I agree with Peirce (and CFTC's Pham) that's it's a bad and very lazy way to "regulate" (air quotes) though.

But what _is_ the reason they can't get through the pipeline (and that you think is a "very good" one)? Isn't just the SEC saying "We don't feel like answering your request. Continue as you see fit, but we can't promise we won't come after you for whatever reason"?

I'm not sure what you mean by "until when?".

> do you think they wont start forcing the needle?

The article is about _fining_ people, i.e. negative monetary incentives. Your reply outlined a bunch of positive monetary incentives. There's probably enough research out there which of the two works better (negative or positive), so I won't get into that. I will say that I think it's quite a stretch to say that either is a step-up to "forcing a needle in you", and that I find it a bit disingenuous to imply that this slippery-slope argument only applies to negative monetary incentives.

> they shouldn't be forced

I was under the impression that you'd just get fined if you don't get your shot. It's not like they are going to take you prisoner and stick a needle in you.

> I think that the most fascinating fact about this upcoming IPO is that, to the best of my knowledge, GitLab is the first remote-only (i.e., no-headquarters) company in the world filing for an IPO.

"Akshually" that was Coinbase [0]. Although maybe not, because they did a direct listing so not strictly an IPO. Matt Levine talks about both these points in his Feb 25th 2021 Money Stuff newsletter.

[0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679788/000162828021... "Address not applicable"

I'd say the most effective way for me to scrub a lot of CO2 out of the air is to burn a lot of fossil fuels, and then scrub 80-90% of it (or however efficient scrubbers are). Seems like the wrong incentive?

I feel this is somewhat similar to the story with trees. See e.g. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-04-21/money-... and https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/11/negotiat... .

In a sense it sounds a bit like immunotherapy for allergies. That is typically about injecting pathogens into your body (e.g. under your tongue, under your skin, or in your lymph nodes), and then over time teaching your body that these pathogens are harmless.

As far as _why_ that works instead of sending someone into anaphylactic shock... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The immune system is weird and complex, and I guess that's why they want a medical specialist around in case you're one of the unlucky ones. (Only the first time with sublingual tablets as far as I know)

> In his article, Vitalik claims Electrum’s cosigner model isn’t good enough, without mentioning it by name.

He says multisig has been very successful for organizations like the Ethereum Foundation, but suggests that it's possible to better for individuals. You are free to choose something that reduces to N-of-M, if you want to trust financial institutions, family/friends, and/or (mostly) yourself.

If I'm understanding what he writes correctly, it's somewhat similar to a "1 OR 4-of-7" multisig concept. Fairly sure this is supported by the Bitcoin protocol, although I don't think any wallets support it. There might be additional options you can implement on Ethereum that might be harder (read: require protocol upgrades) on Bitcoin. Time delays, maximum spend amounts (with exceptions), etc.

Also, I'm not sure why you're calling it the "Electrum cosigner" model. I thought multisig was a feature of the Bitcoin protocol, and not of the Electrum client?

(I have no clue how to reply when the depth is reached)

> Because as a user I am now sitting in front of 24 websites which look equally "meh" in terms of trustworthiness (fancy design and huge claims), each of them trying to get me to hand out money to their software (that's what a wallet is about!), and almost all of them seemingly being for-profit companies which avoid listing their address.

Yes, I guess that's definitely a disadvantage of the ecosystem growing so much. It's great that that happened, but it also means that the EF does not control everything anymore. They cannot advertise just one solution with so many out there, lest they rub someone the wrong way. But they also can't say nothing either. And then it just becomes very confusing with this information overload for beginners (though I think "list of 24 websites" is a bit of an exaggeration; it's not _that_ bad imo [0])

I don't think this is entirely new in the world of software though. Generally you then get to things like looking for advice on forums or word-of-mouth, and then there's a guy like me saying "if you're a beginner only wanting to make transactions on Ethereum, get a Ledger Nano X hardware wallet and use their Ledger Live application". And "if you then want to move on interacting with dApps, use Metamask and connect it to your Nano X".

> A single 1 well-known website of a non-profit would "work better" for me as a user in terms of trusting my choice to keep my money safe. (If I had any, not buying ETH in this situation :)

Well, you would definitely know cryptocurrency is a bit different than a website securing your funds. Someone needs to hold onto the private keys. If you're looking for something similar to a bank, then get something similar to a bank (Coinbase?). But this difference (custodial services, private keys, hardware wallet) definitely adds to the barrier one needs to overcome to get started. I would also argue that "1 well-known website" (or 1 major client implementation that then becomes the defacto standard) does not quite fit into the whole "decentralization" aspect of cryptocurrencies, but not everyone cares as much about that.

> Do you notice that you're actually arguing in favor of my point? :)

You could look at it that way I guess ;) Progress is a function of money, and the EF has more to attend to than just software/wallet development. They could certainly blow through all their ("our") money in a year building a super fancy wallet. Or, as has happened, spend a little to jump start the ecosystem, and then comes along not one but multiple better wallets _for free_! None of "your" money was spent on developing these. Seems like a good deal to me, as now "your" money can be spent jump starting other awesome things that no one is paying much attention to yet.

[0] https://ethereum.org/en/wallets/

I guess I shouldn't have put the "human" in parentheses. I did give an example of how the EF is spending their money on development of the ecosystem though, hoping that'd make it clear what I meant. I even chose a grant to a wallet as the example.

I personally prefer the role of the EF as a facilitator more than monolithic employer. And they can (and do) do facilitate in more ways than just handing out grants. It's just they experience has shown that helping out this way for wallet development (or even more generically software development) works better.

To add, they did start out providing the software as you say. After a certain point though, their efforts were outpaced by community effort or business opportunities arising in the Ethereum ecosystem. At this point it took a while for them to figure out what new role to take on with their ("our") funds, eventually settling on what they're doing now.

With the advent of hardware wallets, and so many competing wallets/interfaces out there (tailored to different user bases), I feel it makes little sense for the Ethereum Foundation to pour their own (human) resources into this. They will support the ecosystems as necessary though, e.g. Metamask got funding way back in 2016.

I have to say that I'm happy that Ethereum does not do on-chain governance for this very reason. It more or less follows the IETF principle of "rough consensus". [0]

As far as smart contracts are concerned; they're hardly "contracts", but you probably already knew that. Even Vitalik Buterin regrets calling them that way [1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus

[1]: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/105116093269977088...

If I remember correctly, the Ebola vaccine is the first approved vaccine to use another virus as a vector. The first one to be approved (by Merck) does not use an adenovirus, but the second approved one (by J&J) does.

Note that approvals of these were late 2019 and the summer of this year. So still very new from an "approved on humans" point of view (although not _as_ new as mRNA-based vaccines). The techniques have both been in development for years and years of course, including determining their safety profiles.

Monero is unfortunately not really anonymous either in many common scenario's, like repeatedly sending payments to or from the same address. [0] It's definitely better than Bitcoin though, but far from anonymous.

Overall I think that cryptocurrencies (and the internet overall) could use some better privacy strategies. Tor-like routing, no possibility of finger printing, etc.

[0] https://slideslive.com/38911785/satoshi-has-no-clothes-failu...

What defines the volume to get to that number? From what I can tell from the ARC specs the plasma volume is 141 m3, and the expected power output is 200-300 MWe, which makes it 1.5-2 MWe/m3.

Do you have some numbers on a PWR reactor vessel? I was trying to look up some details on the APR-1400, but could not find any.

I always thought it made sense that the improved efficiency comes at a cost. Our (human) kidneys are not as efficient, and we require a lot more water intake. Then again, we don't have as many kidney problems. This kind of argument certainly _feels_ right ("no free lunch"), but that does not necessarily make it so.

I feel that repeated inbreeding can (but does not have to) cause issues like sensitive kidneys in cats, but it probably also has to do with domestic cats growing relatively old. Things like faulty kidneys (or thyroid issues, or diabetes) bound to show up eventually if cancer does not get them before age 10.

I have posted this before, but please do not think this will ever work. The thing will fall apart (again) as soon as it is exposed to anything but a calm sea. It definitely brought attention to the issue, but that's about all the good it did.

I don't blame anyone for having the idea of making something like this, but I do Boyan and his team for seeing it through to implementation when all preliminary and scale model tests showed clearly that they would fail. Talk about a waste of money and bright minds...

I would say it only helps because it prevents (or reduces) the amount of additional green house gasses released in the atmosphere. I doubt converting wind energy to electricity and then "storing" that electricity/energy somehow and somewhere (such that it doesn't turn into heat) is a stupidly inefficient way of using that wind mill to reduce further global warming. Use the electricity, and don't use the fossil fuel that would have otherwise been used.

Related question I guess for someone with more knowledge about this... If green house gas concentrations were as they were before the industrial revolution, but we were outputting in the current world's energy consumption in heat, what would the temperature rise be? I'm guessing it's almost negligible, with the sun's radiation hitting the earth in one hour supposedly being enough to power the entire earth for a year.

> Lascar stands for Ledger’s Advanced Side Channel Analysis Repository. Its goal is to gather and provide common tools and techniques used in the field of Side Channel Analysis, within an open, customizable library.

It's not an attack. It's just something that the Ledger security team has been working on.

Have you seen the grasshopper[0], which had roughly the same purpose for the early Falcons? That hardly looked like a space vehicle, but did its job quite well. I do very much agree it all feels a bit rushed (working during weekends as well), and I really do wonder why they are in such a hurry.

Also, plenty of Falcons have exploded in one way or another, I'm not sure what is new (or unexpected) about that. Things will go wrong a few times and as Elon said in SpaceX's early days "failure is an options". It will have to go right often enough before it gets even close to human-rated. I guess for Mars that means going there and back again a few times (without humans).

[0] https://i.pinimg.com/474x/44/4f/3e/444f3e51839ba246a02bd3d29...

Coinbase mentions a few reorgs without double spends, and a quite a few more with: https://blog.coinbase.com/ethereum-classic-etc-is-currently-...