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    1. Using work OSX machine while travelling

      I will shortly be travelling for work. I do not have the capacity to bring anything other than my work machine. In addition to working every day I would like to: legally stream movies in the...

      I will shortly be travelling for work. I do not have the capacity to bring anything other than my work machine. In addition to working every day I would like to: legally stream movies in the evening, work on writing, email friends etc. At home of course I use a separate laptop for this but in this case I won't have that option. Any thoughts on how best to achieve a separation of concerns while travelling? How do people on Tildes manage this case?

      p.s I know in a best case scenario it's not ideal, hence my behaviour at home, I just need a working method for this particular case.

      12 votes
    2. Northern hemisphere gardeners - share your 2024 plans!

      Please share your garden plans, ideas, and wildly overambitious green fantasies here! Weird and treacherous climate change weather is distorting my garden sense. Normally, it's not a good idea to...

      Please share your garden plans, ideas, and wildly overambitious green fantasies here!

      Weird and treacherous climate change weather is distorting my garden sense. Normally, it's not a good idea to plant anything tender until late May here, but I'm betting we won't get frost past May 1 this year, or nothing that can't be handled with strategic use of row covers and cloches.

      My fingers are itching to get the hot peppers started. I'm restraining myself from starting the tomatoes too early (again!), and the snapdragons and other slow annual flowers are starting to germinate. I could probably sow kale now.

      We'll see which of last year's bulbs survived the critters until the spring. Reinforcement of the deer fencing is happening as soon as the ground is thawed deeply enough to set proper posts, and dry enough to work with wood frames and cattle panel.

      I'm going to get a few logs set up for shiitakes, oysters, maitake, and maybe see if last year's happenstance wood chip pile morels can be encouraged. Fingers-crossed that December's wild garlic (ramps) test planting took hold - if that works, I'll get more slips and expand the patch in more of the shady areas that aren't suitable for much else.

      Depending on how my hands and spouse's shoulders are holding up, there's a lot of digging in this year's permaculture expansion. A couple of Hugelkultur beds, some (mostly?) American chestnut trees, more berries and apples, planting the overwintered pawpaws, and another try at elderberries. I've got vague plans for building a grape arbor this year, but that's going to depend on availability of spouse's hands during the busy winery season.

      Looking forward to hearing from you!

      21 votes
    3. Help: iPhone SE (2020) home button not working; “Unable to Activate Touch ID”

      Really hoping there’s an easy fix for this, because it’s making using my phone a pain. Relevant info: I never actually set up a fingerprint, and have only used passwords. phone memory is almost...

      Really hoping there’s an easy fix for this, because it’s making using my phone a pain. Relevant info:

      • I never actually set up a fingerprint, and have only used passwords.
      • phone memory is almost full (I have too many photos I still haven’t offloaded, I don’t use iCloud)
      • I did drop the phone earlier today, but there was no visible external damage
      • case does not cover the home button
      • I’ve tried force restart, it didn’t work
      7 votes
    4. Is Apple Music on Android good?

      So before the question let me add some context: I'm planning to move from iOS to Android, mostly because how difficult is to backup photos from iPhone into my computer. I don't want my photos on...

      So before the question let me add some context: I'm planning to move from iOS to Android, mostly because how difficult is to backup photos from iPhone into my computer. I don't want my photos on iCloud so I make my backups copying all the photos and videos into my computer, I currently use Fedora Linux and keep my photo library on digiKam which I think is better than the Apple Photos app for Desktop. It certainly was easier when I used my Macbook for that, but being a Macbook from 2015 the battery is almost dead and I no longer use it.

      Recently I saw reviews for Android phones from last year and fell in love with the Asus Zenfone 10, I love small phones and that one looks amazing, but I'm still tied to the Apple ecosystem, and the service that I would miss the most from them is Apple Music. So that is actually the only reason that I'm still using an iPhone, (that and the camera which was pretty amazing back when my iPhone13 was released).

      So I'll have several options:

      • Keep using iOS and suck it up, maybe even giving up and doing my backups to iCloud (it's 10 years worth of photos and videos).
      • Move to android and use Spotify like everyone else. (I really don't want to go back to Spotify so that's the last thing I want to do).
      • Use Apple Music for Android. Which I really don't know how good or bad it is. I'm even surprised that there's a version for Android.
      • Just have an mp3 library like in the good old days. This is a viable solution since I listen to music almost exclusively by albums and it's easier to download music album by album than song by song. But that also means I'll need to be caring around my music library and making backups of it.

      So the question is: have anyone here used Apple Music on Android? Is it good?.

      16 votes
    5. AHOY! Cruise ship versus airplane emissions: data and commentary

      Last year I inquired how one might take sea passage across the Atlantic. The realistic answer is that there are various ocean liners and transatlantic cruises traveling multiple times per year,...

      Last year I inquired how one might take sea passage across the Atlantic. The realistic answer is that there are various ocean liners and transatlantic cruises traveling multiple times per year, none faster than 7 days and many taking closer to 10 or 14. Repositioning cruises, when the ship is being moved from one region to another and you just tag along, are infrequent but the cheapest option.

      In February, I will unavoidably be in the United Kingdom. I am flying there, but have not purchased a flight back yet. I am thinking about taking a ship in repositioning from England to the US Eastern Seaboard as there is very conveniently one such ship leaving a couple days after my event is over. That would probably be Southampton to Miami (from there, I would take a train home) and would take 11 or so days, zero of which are at intermediary ports.

      I was thinking about a ship over a plane because the last time I flew it was like my ears got blown out for an entire day afterward. I don't know what it is about my sinuses but they have never handled flying well. My height makes the experience particularly cramped and unpleasant and I have gotten sick on every plane I have taken in the last six months. It's the most miserable thing I do to myself on a regular basis.

      Unfortunately, all the research I can find on passenger ship emissions seem to indicate that it is worse for the environment on a passenger-mile basis than flying that same route, at least as far as cruise ships are concerned (there is zero research on emissions from being a passenger on a container ship). As of 2006, the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner supposedly emits about 0.43kg CO2e per passenger-mile, compared to 0.257kg CO2e for a long-haul airplane. But emissions estimates vary so ridiculously widely that it is a little bit hard for me to take these figures seriously:

      Emissions factors for individual journeys by cruise ships to or from New Zealand in 2007 ranged between 250 and 2200 g of CO2 per passenger-kilometre (g CO2 per p-km), with a weighted mean of 390 g CO2 per p-km.

      That's literally an order of magnitude. I think there is some guessing going on here. To translate from p-km to p-mi, that's ~402–3545g CO2e/p-mile or a weighted mean of 628g CO2e/p-mi. I would speculate that a repositioning cruise (which spends no time in intermediary ports because it is specifically supposed to get somewhere efficiently) would be on the lower end of the spectrum. So, honestly, while worse than an airplane in terms of gaseous emissions, it's not... that much worse. From the way articles seem to talk about cruise emissions, I would have thought it would be at least an order of magnitude. (For reference, the difference between a train and a plane is about an order of magnitude.) Which I guess it can be based on the higher figures there, but I am pretty sure that that is derived from non-direct routings (port visits apparently contribute massively to emissions) or from luxury behaviors (i.e. having an enormous stateroom and other amenities that decrease space efficiency).

      One may notice that those sources are almost 20 years old. There is more recent research on cruise ship emissions, but the non-academic stuff all seems to cite the Queen Mary 2 statistic (not sure where it even originated). I attempted to discern what cruise ship emissions looked like 20 years ago versus today, but was unable to find any specific information about passenger-mile emissions year-by-year. I don't have institutional access to most journals anymore, so feel free to share if you know anything.

      There have definitely been new environmental regulations since 2007. In 2020, some new regulations limiting high-sulphur fuels went into effect. But sulfur dioxide is more of a health concern; it isn't a greenhouse gas. It's toxic to marine life too, and all other life, but wouldn't be considered in a passenger-mile CO2e emissions figure. Apparently the regulation has encouraged more ships to switch to less toxic liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuels rather than the literal bottom-of-the-barrel sludges they've traditionally burned (maybe a 20%-ish improvement at face value), but most ships have just installed scrubbers to continue using the same fuel and emit fewer horrible particulates. Apparently a switch to LNG, while favorable for human health, does not really reduce GHG emissions due to increased methane output.

      Aakko-Saksa et al. 2023 seems to be the most comprehensive journal article I can access that covers current strategies in reducing greenhouse gas emissions for ship engines now and in the future. It mainly talks about fuels and technical stuff about engines I don't understand. This paper remarks that the switch to LNG could still be positive; it suggests a 30% reduction in GHG emissions compared to diesel fuel but a 6–23% reduction depending on how much "methane slip" happens; the IEA thinks it's 10% or less. That's still a meaningful reduction, though there is quite a lot of variance. The authors' takeaway is that there could be a significant benefit to switching to LNG and then blending that with greener fuels at increasing proportions over time.

      There are many proposed ways to decarbonize the industry. It is not clear to me which of these have been adopted recently. The industry seems to have some interest in decarbonizing, or giving the appearance of having interest, as Norwegian claims to want to "reduce GHG intensity by 10% by 2026 and 25% by 2030, compared to a 2019 baseline with intensity measured on a per Capacity Day basis." And they are actually thinking about it: they have ESG staff and a 2022 ESG Report lays out a few relatively specific and achievable metrics (or so it seems to me, a layperson and a landlubber):

      We were very excited to announce in early 2023 that two of our Norwegian Cruise Line newbuilds, expected to be delivered in 2027 and 2028, will be re-configured to accommodate the future use of green methanol. Green methanol is a fuel that we see as a promising future solution. Compared to conventional fuels, it can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 95%, nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 80%, and all sulfur oxide and particulate matter emissions.

      Environmental goals:

      • Reduce GHG intensity by 10% by 2026 and by 25% by 2030, compared to 2019 baseline, and pursue net zero GHG emissions by 2050
      • Decrease fleet-wide fuel consumption of boilers per day by 2% annually, compared to 2016
      • 100% of fleet equipped with Waste Heat Recovery by 2027
      • Increase the percentage of our fleet with shore power capabilities to 50% by 2024, 70% by 2025, and 100% by 2035
      • Increase the percentage of treated wastewater compared to untreated sewage discharged by 2024, compared to 2019
      • Reduce bunkering by 4%, as compared to 2019, by 2025
      • Decrease the total volume of sludge offloaded fleetwide by 5%, compared to 2018, by 2023

      Green methanol is apparently a real thing. The figures Norwegian uses are lifted directly from the Methanol Institute. It does seem like methanol production capacity is increasing and is on track to continue increasing, according to this source. If a cruise ship uses about 250 tons of fuel per hour (91250/year), and current green methanol production is just shy of 1 million tons/year, then if all of that production were directed toward cruise ships then it could fuel about... 11 ships. Hmm. If by 2027 production increases (generously) by an order of magnitude, that's still only about 100 ships, or less than 1/3 of the total fleet worldwide across all cruise firms. Better than nothing...?

      Norwegian claims to be "on track" for all of these metrics, especially fuel consumption, but of course they will say that. I can't really figure out what their "-50%" and "-80%" figures mean and I suspect they mean nothing. Frankly most of these commitments are ridiculously insufficient, though it isn't reasonable to expect revolutionary changes to happen in just a couple years. I think we should take these commitments with a grain of salt, but it does make sense from an operational perspective why industry would be interested in improving their own efficiency, especially to avoid potentially crippling regulations from governments who they can clearly see are honing in on emissions.

      From what I can tell, many or most of the emissions are not just from the transportation itself (i.e. the burning of fuel for the purpose of moving mass from point A to B) but rather from the hoteling aboard the ship (12x more emissions than land-based hoteling) and from other luxury-related activities. Intuitively, if we know how energy-efficient it is to transport goods by sea, this should come as no surprise: if we're comparing fuel costs, it simply takes less fuel to move objects by water than by air. This is why ferries have so few emissions per passenger-mile. Ship fuel is particularly nasty stuff as far as human health is concerned, but many resources appear to primarily emphasize the non-fuel waste produced by these enterprises. So the CO2e emissions of cruise ships would seem to originate not just from fuel but rather from the inefficiency of human habitation at sea. Norwegian is at least vaguely calculating multi-scope emissions (p. 15) with, for example, "purchased goods and services" apparently making up ~21% of total emissions in 2022 (fuel itself is about 55%, and "fuel and energy-related activities," whatever that means, being another 12%). I assume "capital goods" (18% of their emissions) are the emissions from the ships themselves, which is more of a decarbonization question for manufacturers.

      There are also significant non-GHG environmental impacts due to operational procedures taken by cruise ships. Wikipedia has a whole page on the environmental effects of shipping (not just cruise ships, but they are included). Waste dumping, noise pollution, etc. Those externalities are different than the externalities produced by airplanes; same idea, but apples to oranges, so I don't know how to compare them.

      Anyway, this is all to say: greenhouse gas emissions from cruise ships are pretty rough. Given the relative lack of information on repositioning cruises specifically, the age of much of the data, and newer emissions reductions which are maybe not yet reflected in the literature, I am going to speculate that such a trip has an approximately equal GHG impact as a long-haul flight, assuming a typical stateroom and a direct voyage. On average, it probably works out to somewhat more emissions, though I personally think ships have a clearer (easier/faster) path toward net-zero (ish) emissions than airplanes given the limitations of each mode.

      I will go to sleep and decide tomorrow whether I will fly or sail home, but right now I am leaning toward the sea for this occasion. I am not sure about future voyages yet. We will see.

      29 votes
    6. How do you journal?

      Apple recently released a journal app in their latest iOS update. I used to journal when I was younger and thought it would be a good opportunity to get back into it. I usually use it as a...

      Apple recently released a journal app in their latest iOS update. I used to journal when I was younger and thought it would be a good opportunity to get back into it. I usually use it as a reflection of my day, but some days nothing happens and I feel like there's probably a plethora of things I could be writing about.

      So for those of you who journal what do you like to write in it?

      43 votes
    7. We techies are responsible for "You'll own nothing, and you'll enjoy it."

      This hit me while watching the latest Gamers Nexus video discussion with Wendell, and Steve recited the quote. It's often brought up as the inevitability of modern product ownership as company...

      This hit me while watching the latest Gamers Nexus video discussion with Wendell, and Steve recited the quote.

      It's often brought up as the inevitability of modern product ownership as company executives push profit-first practices like subscriptions, licenses and anti-right-to-repair designs. However this neglects the fact that these systems don't come from nowhere - they have to be built by programmers, engineers and designers.

      I don't know if those same people support right-to-repair and freedom to manipulate what you buy in their private lives (or if they have even thought about it), but it seems like every techie I speak to does support it, yet somehow these things keep getting made.

      I want to try and escape my bubble about this. I don't believe the engineers are powerless against the executives - if the engineering community works together and don't backstab, I think these systems can be prevented at the technical level and never see the light of day.

      What happens at these notorious companies (John Deere, Apple etc.) that I'm missing? Is the lure of money too great? Is the threat of being back stabbed too large?

      41 votes
    8. I lost my older brother and my mother gave up

      I'll try to be brief. I lost my older brother March this year. Barely a year after I moved to the same city as him, he passed away from a bacterial infection he got in a hospital. He went for...

      I'll try to be brief.

      I lost my older brother March this year. Barely a year after I moved to the same city as him, he passed away from a bacterial infection he got in a hospital. He went for stomach surgery, everything went fine. Suddenly, a month later, this bacterial infection got to his brain and he was gone.

      It was a big shock to our family and things are not the same anymore. My parents are old, mother is 73, father is 78.

      My mother is simply just existing these days. She is barely eating and is now weighing 48kgs (105 lbs). She needed to go to the hospital a couple of days ago because she was so weak.

      She already had problems before the death of my brother. She is losing her eyesight and despite all the treatments, it does not get better. She can see up close, she can use her smartphone, but it's hard for her to recognize people if they are not right up in her face.

      She has three hernias and can't stand too much. She can get up to make breakfast or coffee, but after 20 minutes has to lie down because of pain. It does not help that she barely eats and is getting weaker every day.

      She does not want to go to a psychologist. She just says she is not crazy and won't go. I tried contacting one that can go to her house, but she says she simply won't open the door. My father is trying to convince her, but I know it won't change.

      I can understand her and I can't see what more can I do. She never had much going for her, now her oldest (and dearest) son is dead all of a sudden, she has all this physical pain going on for years, eyesight getting worse and I can understand the fact that she simply don't care for it anymore. She simply lost her appetite.

      She is going to doctors to take exams, she did a battery of tests and everything seems fine. Even her cholesterol which was problematic is fine.

      He prescribed something to help with her appetite and vitamins, but it is not the first time. Don't think this will change much.

      I don't know really what I'm asking here. I sometimes think I should do more, but there is already my father which lives with her and my other brother who is there in the same city. I already tried sending a psychologist to help her at home, I don't know what more can I do.

      I go visit every two or three weeks (i am going for christmas and new year) and she is the same way. 80% of the time lying down in the couch, she gets up to make food or coffee, go sit in the front of the house for some time, then it's time to go to bed. This is repeated every day.

      It's not like it was much different before, but at least she ate some food. There was a day that she just ate an apple and that was it.

      She goes out of the house if she needs, like going to the doctor or groceries, but avoids for any other reason.

      41 votes
    9. How to disable Mac prompt to connect to iCloud

      Long story short--I don't want to connect my mac to my iCloud account, but every time I login to my laptop, I get three popups in a row that say "This Mac Can't connect to iCloud because of a...

      Long story short--I don't want to connect my mac to my iCloud account, but every time I login to my laptop, I get three popups in a row that say "This Mac Can't connect to iCloud because of a problem with [my email] ...".

      I can't find a setting that allows me to disable this, and online searches have been fruitless.

      9 votes