UP8's recent activity

  1. Comment on Carbon dioxide pipelines and underground injection can cut greenhouse gas, but community opposition is fierce in ~enviro

    UP8
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    The argument for it is that, in the long term, some industrial processes will be hard to decarbonize and carbon capture and storage will be necessary somewhere. In the short term the oil refinery...

    The argument for it is that, in the long term, some industrial processes will be hard to decarbonize and carbon capture and storage will be necessary somewhere.

    In the short term the oil refinery is the economically most attractive platform for this because the CO2 separation technology is the kind of chemical factory process which is already running 24-7 at the refinery (unlike many power plants that start and stop.) Around 10-20% of the CO2 emitted from diesel or gas comes from operations at the refinery so this could take a big chunk of CO2 out in a small footprint. On top of that, people in the US South are already gonzo for running pipelines and drilling holes and have been pumping CO2 sideways since the 1980s.

    That might still happen. But the plans to expand projects like this

    https://www.adm.com/en-us/standalone-pages/adm-and-carbon-capture-and-storage/

    where they capture CO2 from fermentation at an ethanol plant in the US Midwest have been already shot down. The economics for this are particularly good because the CO2 from fermentation is basically free from atmospheric nitrogen and doesn't need expensive separation to be clean enough that to behave properly when compressed to 1500+ psi and injected into a pipeline. Trouble is it is connected to a corn-based ethanol plant which (like the oil refinery) is not an ecological positive.

    Frankly anything that involves transferring money through taxation or markets is pretty fraught. One of the better answers would be to impart a carbon tax of about $100 a ton of CO2 which adds about $1 to a gallon of gas. Close to that price it ought to profitable to add CCS to oil refineries and power plants. This scheme in general though is particularly fair in that it rewards you for riding a bicycle or taking the bus as much as it does for some plan that 'picks winners' such as electric vehicle subsidies. Politically it's tough to implement so we get stuck with policies such as subsidizing a particular carbon pipeline network.

    13 votes

  2. Comment on Is Emacs or VIM worth learning in today's day and age? in ~comp

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    I used ed-family editors that were predecessors to vi when I ran OS-9 on a TRS-80 Color Computer and met GNU Emacs in college. Emacs was my favorite editor from 1989 to maybe 2005 but I decided to...

    I used ed-family editors that were predecessors to vi when I ran OS-9 on a TRS-80 Color Computer and met GNU Emacs in college. Emacs was my favorite editor from 1989 to maybe 2005 but I decided to switch to vi for a few reasons:

    (1) I was cutting-and-pasting text from web browsers, using IDEs like Eclipse, etc and found it was easier to use vi side by side with modern editors because (a) damn that ^S in emacs is inconsistent with most of the applications I use, and (b) the continuation characters in emacs when you wrap around a line mess up "cutting"

    (2) Often when you have to log into a Linux machine to do some admin it is in a bad state and you want to make some edits without having to install an editor (often I don't expect to log in often, just have permission to resolve a problem as opposed to install software, ...): vi is always there so you can be 100% productive right away.

    When I edit text I mostly use the editor built into JetBrains tools: if I am editing source code it could be in PyCharm, WebStorm or IntelliJ IDEA, but sometimes I need an editor for some random thing (or a remote machine) and then I reach for vi.

    Even if you use Windows you can install vim on your computer and use it instead of Notepad just to keep in the habit.

    5 votes

  6. Comment on Fast-growing asparagus once flourished on California farms. Why is it disappearing? in ~food

  8. Comment on Bike brands start to adopt C-V2X to warn cyclists about cars in ~transport

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    My understanding though is that it still uses the cellular network for authentication.

    My understanding though is that it still uses the cellular network for authentication.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on Bike brands start to adopt C-V2X to warn cyclists about cars in ~transport

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    V2X communication is one of those areas in technology where there is chronically a lot of talk but not a lot of action. Earlier there was 802.11p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11p which...

    V2X communication is one of those areas in technology where there is chronically a lot of talk but not a lot of action. Earlier there was 802.11p

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11p

    which is a simplified version of WiFi which deletes all the security. There is nothing (technically) to stop you from putting a transmitter in front of your house that makes it look like a demolition derby is going on which might get people to slow down, particularly if it triggers automatic braking.

    After 20 years of no progress, Congress took away half the bandwidth allocated to that sort of thing.

    Interested has moved to systems that lean on the cellular system

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_V2X

    which of course gets the support of the cellular carriers but even if they are getting monthly subscription money they still are unlikely to extend the coverage of the wireless network to really cover where people drive. (Driving around upstate NY I find that the state has cell phone dead spots bigger than some European countries.)

    1 vote

  11. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

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    KonoSuba Season 3. KonoSuba has a great name, translated as God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! and written この素晴らしい世界に祝福を or Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! but they just peel the first...

    KonoSuba Season 3.

    KonoSuba has a great name, translated as God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! and written この素晴らしい世界に祝福を or Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! but they just peel the first two syllables off of Subarashii to get このすば or "KonoSuba" and they prepend this neologism to the front of the title like a typical arXiv paper.

    It's another issekai, the angle here is that it's comedic in the tradition of Gin Tama or The Simpsons. Many people could find a lot to be offended about in this show because it centers around crass and crude humor but some people were offended by Saturday Night Live back in the day.

    The character Megumin from KonoSuba is one of the top anime characters of the 2010s, she is an edgelord wizard of the Crimson Demon clan who devotes her entire life to the practice of explosion magic which she can cast just once a day and which so depletes her energy she has to be dragged away from the scene. Darkness is a warrior who can'hit anything but seems to take great pleasure in taking pain. Aqua is a stupid alcoholic goddess who reminds me of Homer Simpson whose only saving grace is being an undead magnet and casting a mean turn undead spell. Kazuma, the protagonist, to his credit, is always respectful of Megumin because she's a minor.

    I thought Season 1 was a hoot but that the recurring gags were getting cringey in Season 2. They made a spinoff series about Megumin which has less off color humor than the main series because Megumin is a minor but it's less funny overall. If you're going to watch it you're going to watch it anyway because you moe for Megumin but I did find myself liking Megumin a bit less at times because of her being cruel to YunYun.

    Season 3 just started last month so I binge watched the beginning and would say: it's still funny but less cringe and so far has had 3 good episodes and 1 of filler. I like it's formula of humor based around very single-minded characters who are a blast to watch interact even if they don't always like each other very much.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Is TV advertising still relevant? Does anybody under 60 even watch traditional TV anymore? in ~tv

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    Sometimes I watch antenna TV from Syracuse, maybe 50 miles away. You can watch many of the same programs you would watch on broadcast TV or cable (say reruns of Alf or Hell's Kitchen) not to...

    Sometimes I watch antenna TV from Syracuse, maybe 50 miles away.

    You can watch many of the same programs you would watch on broadcast TV or cable (say reruns of Alf or Hell's Kitchen) not to mention things you wouldn't like Korean anime and South American soccer, nightly news from distant cities, etc on "FAST" services like Pluto, Plex, Haystack News and Tubi which work with a phone, game console, PC, streaming box, whatever.

    These have a completely different advertising economy than traditional and right now the ad load seems much less than on antenna TV. That could change. For now, services like that don't even require that you register.

    See also https://tildes.net/~tv/1fxp/into_the_tubi_verse

    FAST viewership is rapidly rising, here are some statistics and projections for the industry:

    https://decenterads.com/blog-fast-channels-the-growth-trajectory/

  13. Comment on You can bet on every aspect of the NFL Draft. But do sportsbooks actually know anything? in ~sports.american_football

    UP8
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    For a "gambler" who has inside information, it is easy to make a profit. For the average person who gets some pleasure out of having some money riding on something, less so. If sportsbooks were...

    For a "gambler" who has inside information, it is easy to make a profit. For the average person who gets some pleasure out of having some money riding on something, less so.

    If sportsbooks were run like high frequency trading they'd want to make the informed better pay through the nose for liquidity but I guess they aren't.

  14. Comment on You can bet on every aspect of the NFL Draft. But do sportsbooks actually know anything? in ~sports.american_football

    UP8
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    Betting on a game is one thing, betting on a decision that an individual or a small group makes is another. I just can’t believe anybody bets on the color of Gatorade that people bathe in at the...

    Betting on a game is one thing, betting on a decision that an individual or a small group makes is another. I just can’t believe anybody bets on the color of Gatorade that people bathe in at the Super bowl.

    2 votes

  17. Comment on NFL draft pool shrinks as NIL money entices more players to stay in school in ~sports.american_football

  19. Comment on AT&T announces $7 monthly add-on fee for “Turbo” 5G speeds in ~tech

  20. Comment on AT&T announces $7 monthly add-on fee for “Turbo” 5G speeds in ~tech

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    As I see it the thing holding back cellular technology is coverage not speed. I spent a summer driving to as many state parks in Upstate NY as I could and I took two phones with me on two major...

    As I see it the thing holding back cellular technology is coverage not speed.

    I spent a summer driving to as many state parks in Upstate NY as I could and I took two phones with me on two major networks and I came to the conclusion that most of the state (at least 80%) was a cell phone dead spot. The only radio station I could count on was the occasional big AM station that carried The Rush Limbaugh show at noon.

    I’m one of very few mobile developers who don’t own a smartphone with a plan (though I have a box of cheap Androids) because they don’t work at my house. Practically I travel with a tablet, almost always I can pull into a gas station to make a Skype call. My only trouble is some people have gotten phone-anxious and you can’t really deal with them unless you can send and receive texts 24/7. When I needed to use the Ticketmaster app to get into a Red Bulls game I connected to the stadium WiFi.

    If I could pay $7 a month and get better coverage I would be for that. For that matter, “enterprise” use of IoT is particularly sensitive. If you can’t cover the 20% of stations that are hard to cover you won’t sell the 80% that are crazy profitable to cover.

    2 votes