Proviso of this is that, globally, politicians grow a spine, along with a sense of morality, and long term planning. It would also require them to deal with the money hoarding issues with the hyper rich.

• The first step is a massive push for renewables. They should be representing 200-500% of grid demand regularly. If nuclear can get up to speed and be part of this, great, but we can’t wait on it.

• That excess power should be soaked up by large scale, portable, energy storage. Green hydrogen is the current best option, but synthetic fossil fuels could also take up the slack. Depending on the area, desalination could also be combined into this.

• We seriously decarbonise the transport networks. For vans and smaller, electric vehicles win. BYD have demonstrated that low cost electric cars are viable. For larger vehicles, where electric becomes inefficient, hydrogen is viable. This is where a lot of the excess hydrogen will be going.

• Carbon credits with teeth. Rather than relying on a planned economy mindset, we can make capitalism work for us. We need a global fixed carbon emission limit. This limit should trend towards net zero on a preset timetable. Credits are bid on, akin to stock market trades. Companies must have credits by the end of the year/period. The fine for not having credits should be a multiple of the closing credits price (10x?). The fine for falsification should be multiples of that, erring towards corporate execution levels.

This will force easy savings out of the market quickly. It will then force compulsory emitters to factor in Carbon costs.

• Combined with the carbon credits will be negative credits. If a group takes a ton of CO² out of the air, long term, they gain a new credit. They can sell this to emitters. This will provide the CO² emissions industry requires, while meeting net zero.

An example of this might be large scale bio capture on the open ocean. Grow seaweed etc on pontoons, and turn it into a solid. This can then be locked up (old coal mines?) taking carbon out permanently.

• Geo engineering. There are multiple methods of reducing incident sunlight on the earth. Everything from powders in the upper atmosphere, to mylar solar shades at the Lagrange point. They will be short term fixes, but will buy us time.

None of these require massive reductions in quality of life. They do require changes in how we do things. It’s also worth noting that I’ve not covered the numerous problems to be solved e.g. power grid upgrades to account for renewables. None of these should be insurmountable however, just engineering, or political/policing challenges.

An no, I’ve no fucking idea how to get politicians to grow a spine and do what’s required for our long term comfort/survival. Fixing the planet? That’s just a (really big) engineering problem. Fixing human nature? …Fuck knows.

Some beds have storage underneath. They have a lift mechanism that lifts the whole mattress. If you used one of those as a base, then cleaning gets a lot easier.

Off the joke topic, but something that made it make a lot more sense.

Scientists have studied this. Women do what are known as IOIs (Indicators of Interest). Most men can pick up on these. When they flirt, the rate doubles, or even more.

The problem lies in the base rate. It can vary a lot, from 5/hour to 120/hour. At this point men are left with a conundrum. Is a 60/minute lady a 10, desperately flirting, or a 100, who’s slightly off put by you. The lady’s friends have an instinctive read on this rate, so it’s quite obvious. Most men have been burnt however, so tend to be over cautious. This can lead to a lot of flirting at oblivious men, who think you’re just being polite.

Context also matters. A funny joke to 1 group will fall flat with another, without the social context.

It’s also worth notice that /jk indicates a joke, while /s indicates sarcasm. They are related, but not the same thing.

We used to, but too many arseholes used it as social cover. They would say something racist/sexist etc then, if it turned out people called them out, they broke out the “it’s just a joke” card. By tagging at the beginning, they lose that excuse. 90% of the time, it’s not needed, but we also don’t want the arseholes hiding behind us. I’d rather clarify than help them.

It also helps, since this is an international community. What is obviously a joke to you, won’t be to another English speaker from elsewhere. Let alone someone with English as a second language.

ChatGPT is useful for casual discussion facts. As seen as anything remotely important leans on it, it shouldn’t be trusted any more than a guy down the pub.

In the UK, they’ve taken some tills out. About 4 tills become 16 self checkouts. They still have plenty of tills for normal checkout.

It definitely lets less staff get more people through, in less time. So far, it’s not been excessively abused over here. It’s also made my life significantly less annoying.

To be fair, that’s a fairly universal problem. In the UK it’s a basket Vs trolley split. They do have trolley self checkouts, but it’s separate, and mainly intended for scan as you shop.

On a side note, what’s with American supermarkets not having baskets at all. Did I just have really weird luck?

I went to the US for a few days. Their self checkouts seem to be universally awful, compared to the UK or German equivalent.

While the hardware is far less reliable, and more convoluted, it’s the users that seem the main issue. Self checkout is generally intended (over here) to shift the fast, small shops out of the main queues. 1 big line and a dozen or more tills. In the states they treat it as just another till. Built for trollies, and 1 queue per till. Combined with a slow user and it becomes hell rapidly.

I’ve got one of the bands (10, I think). That seems to be a solved problem. I can’t interact with it in the shower, but it doesn’t go haywire.

As for the heart rate, it’s at least consistent. It matches what my blood pressure measurements report, and follows exercise, rather than steps.

I’m bad at breaking or losing watches. I don’t buy expensive smart watches, I aim for a cheap, functional one.

I think it’s more that if you stop advertising, you start seeing a significant drop in sales. It’s an easy experiment to test.

The dark art is increasing sales via advertising. That’s where the marketing people pull off the real bullshit.

Apparently it’s mostly about familiarity. Even if we are annoyed at the time, we will often forget about it completely between then and shopping. By the time we are in the shop, we just have a vague sense of familiarity with the product. We instinctively buy the more familiar, as the “safer” option. It takes conscious effort to overcome this (which most people don’t have to spare).

In saturated markets, this leads to a zero sum situation. Every customer you get is stolen from a competitor. Apparently the tobacco companies actually loved the UK ban on tobacco advertising. Their ads were intended to counter the ads of their competitors. None of them were roping in new smokers at a high enough rate to matter. The only ones winning were the ad agencies.

There needs to be room to escalate. Ultimately he’s just a small fry patsie. By keeping it light, it sends a message, but makes it easy for police to keep it low priority.

There’s also the fact that we don’t even know if it’s related to his role. He might just have mouthed off at a couple of teenagers, and gotten “educated”.

Agreed

https://cuberule.com/

The fuses aren’t to protect the circuit, they protect the end and intermediate devices. The breakers protect the actual circuit.

E.g. you’ve got a thin flex for a low power lamp. You don’t have to worry about a short allowing 40A to flow down a 2A cable.

For safety, the BS1363 (UK, type G) is by far the best.

• It’s fused. (Seriously why the hell aren’t all plugs fused!)

• Live and neutral can’t be reversed.

• Holes are gated (so no kids sticking spoons in).

• High capacity, 240V at 13A gives 3kW of power.

It’s only real downside is its size.

It has several modes. The most basic is speech to text, pattern match, then implement. It also has text to speak for feedback. No actual AI in the loop.

It’s also capable of tying to AI models in various ways. It’s mainly intended for question answering. Either general, or about your data.

I personally don’t trust a non-deterministic AI having direct control of my house, so the split is useful.

It also needs to fail gracefully. A smart switch needs to fail to a dumb switch, not “no switch”.

Home assistant is capable of it. Unfortunately it’s not yet overly user friendly about it, but it’s getting better rapidly.

It can, actually be done. It’s just inefficient and requires too much trust.

You either do a general broadcast of power. This is incredibly inefficient, at any real range. To get power to the edges, the power near the transmitter will likely be enough to cook your cat.

The other method is directed. You basically put out a power beam that improves efficiency. Unfortunately, you also now have a directable energy weapon in your living room. I wouldn’t trust something capable of cooking my brain, while I’m sat on the sofa, if it gets hacked.

Neither are likely viable for general use, though both could be useful under certain conditions.