ChingShih's recent activity

  1. Comment on US announces $6 billion long-term military aid package for Ukraine in ~news

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    Keep in mind that the ~$61B aid package for Ukraine is mostly being spent in the US, and even the money not spent internally, is being spent on US initiatives that directly benefit US military...

    Keep in mind that the ~$61B aid package for Ukraine is mostly being spent in the US, and even the money not spent internally, is being spent on US initiatives that directly benefit US military goals (and likely a fair number of US contractors). I think Perun might have a broad overview of the aid package in one of his videos, certainly one of the older ones mentioned that most of the spending was actually internal to the US military and a fair chunk of it is really about paying to back-fill 155mm artillery ammunition and increase production capacity to meet new stockpile goals for the US.

    Here's a bit from The Guardian:

    In the Ukraine bill, of the $60.7bn, a total of about $23bn would be used by the US to replenish its military stockpiles, opening the door to future US military transfers to Ukraine. Another $14bn would go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, in which the Pentagon buys advanced new weapon systems for the Ukrainian military directly from US defense contractors.

    There is also more than $11bn to fund current US military operations in the region, enhancing the capabilities of the Ukrainian military and fostering intelligence collaboration between Kyiv and Washington, and about $8bn in non-military assistance, such as helping Ukraine’s government continue basic operations, including the payment of salaries and pensions.

    6 votes

  2. Comment on Hawai'ian scientist quests to find and save the state's native sugarcanes in ~food

    ChingShih
    Link
    The title is kind of bland. The article is generally about one scientist's quest to revive the use of multiple cultures of sugarcane, understand their use and importance through primary sources,...

    The title is kind of bland. The article is generally about one scientist's quest to revive the use of multiple cultures of sugarcane, understand their use and importance through primary sources, and also see what industries are interested in having a diversified crop of sugarcane (hint: it would make Captain Jack Sparrow very pleased).

    Noa Kekuewa Lincoln remembers when he first encountered native Hawaiian sugarcane in 2004. The fresh stalks, bursting with color, might have sprouted from Willy Wonka’s imagination, not the soil.

    Lincoln, a kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) expert in Indigenous cropping systems and an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii, said: “I grew up seeing grayish-green cane fields. But these canes are fluorescent pink, bright apple-green striped. They looked like huge cartoon candy canes. They almost don’t look real!”

    ...

    Sugarcane was originally domesticated in New Guinea around 8000 BC and brought to Hawaii as one of Polynesian voyagers’ original “canoe plants”, critical species that form the core of Hawaiian agriculture and foodways. The ancient islanders put sugarcane to various uses. Sugarcane windbreaks decrease wind damage to root crops and maintain soil moisture. Native canes provide mulch and attract nitrogen and nutrients into the soil. With those natural enhancements, Hawaiians were able to grow bigger and better sweet potatoes and taro alongside sugarcane, which itself adapted into new varieties suited to its new environs.

    "Foodways" is the term to describe folk/cultural traditions as related to food. Wikipedia goes on to explain "Anthropologists, folklorists, sociologists, historians, and food scholars often use the term foodways to describe the study of why we eat what we eat and what it means."

    Today, Lincoln finds an ally in a businessman who worked in Hawaii’s once-robust sugarcane sector. Bob Gunter, president and CEO of Kōloa Rum Company, worked with Amfac, considered one of Hawaii’s “big five” sugar businesses, and its Lihue plantation, one of the earliest and longest-running sugarcane operations. It closed in 2000.

    Gunter said: “Hawaii was world renowned for its high-quality sugar and the concentration of its sugar. It produced tons of sugar per acre – quantities unheard of in other countries. But the trouble is that it couldn’t compete with countries that heavily subsidize sugar or don’t pay their labor well. It wasn’t a level playing field.” Kōloa, which produces its rum from granulated cane sugar, had purchased tons of the ingredient from Hawaii’s plantations as they announced their closures. But eventually the rum maker had no alternative but to buy sugar from east Texas, Louisiana and Florida.

    ...

    Lincoln attributes this renewed interest in kō to two movements: a larger one to reclaim Native Hawaiian identity, culture and cultivation practices, and the craft beverage movement, propelled by local distillers who see the use of heirloom Hawaiian canes as good marketing. “We can confidently say that more heirloom cane is being grown in Hawaii now than at any time in the past century,” he wrote in a 2022 article.

    Still, Lincoln acknowledges the tension between economic and biocultural values of heirloom Hawaiian cane. On the one hand, businesses can appropriate Hawaiian knowledge and stories. Yet the fledgling rum agricole business “has provided new opportunities for preservation, dissemination and observations of the Hawaiian canes, as well as new platforms for sharing of indigenous perspectives”, he wrote in that same article. For example, when commercial producers grow large quantities of single varieties, scientists can better detect mutations within those varieties.

    There is also a clear benefit to rum aficionados. Juice from heirloom sugarcanes can produce very different, fragrant rums. Lincoln said: “You wouldn’t dream of drinking a wine and not knowing what grape it came from.” Perhaps one day, more of us will sip native Hawaiian rums and taste their distinct nuances.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Many Americans who recently bought guns open to political violence, survey finds in ~misc

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    Yeah I hear you. Addressing policing, courts protecting police, and also addressing the perceived services that law enforcement provide are all really important and tie into where and how people...

    Yeah I hear you. Addressing policing, courts protecting police, and also addressing the perceived services that law enforcement provide are all really important and tie into where and how people feel comfortable protesting. And policing does need to be addressed in order to preserve civil rights.

    That's a battle that's long been fought and unfortunately in the past people chose to legislate away those civil rights as a means of putting additional constraints on the civil rights movement.

    8 votes

  5. Comment on Many Americans who recently bought guns open to political violence, survey finds in ~misc

    ChingShih
    Link
    For a long time I've been telling my friends, particularly the white ones, not to be any more worried about going out in public now, compared to several years ago, simply because of higher gun...

    For a long time I've been telling my friends, particularly the white ones, not to be any more worried about going out in public now, compared to several years ago, simply because of higher gun sales. As a firearm owner I know there's not a 1:1 correlation between a firearm and a new owner - lots of owners have more than one firearm. But lately we have seen a lot of new firearm owners in the U.S. and with that ownership there has probably been a change in the demographics of firearm owners, as well as how many people would be considered radicalized.

    I've posted about firearm sales and suicide rates before, and I've posted about correlations between violence and religious extremism. These are things that should concern everyone and by identifying these correlations, causes, and the underlying socio-political issues, we can arm ourselves with the knowledge of how to continue to participate in public events instead of withdrawing from them. And we can support the organizations tackling these issues in rational ways. Because even if at an individual level we feel better by withdrawing, it only discourages the more courageous folks from attending peaceful protests (or concerts or parades or school) and only fills those spaces with more of them, which emboldens them and sets further bad precedents.

    But it is the kind of thinking highlighted by this survey that should be of concern to anyone who visits public spaces regularly, or works near their state capital and other buildings highlighted during the election/vote-counting process.

    If broad legislation is not achieving the results on gun control that people want or feel is necessary, then there are some common-sense things that people could be pushing for at smaller scales that would dramatically impact how safe people feel when going to heavily politicized public spaces. For instance, states could restrict the ability for protesters to carry firearms, or to leave firearms in vehicles while attending a protest. What other very specific legislation would people suggest to better define public spaces as places of free-speech without intimidation?

    7 votes

  7. Comment on Jury finds Jennifer Crumbley, the Michigan school shooter’s mother, guilty of manslaughter in ~news

  8. Comment on The US will lose more than thirty gigawatts of solar energy during the total eclipse — roughly the output of thirty nuclear reactors — as sunlight is blocked during prime generating hours in ~enviro

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    Yeah I was curious about that, too. The U.S. EIA projected 163 billion kWh of solar power generation in 2023, but that's kWh and not KW ... the article mentions KW. 1 Watt = 1 joule per second; 1...

    Yeah I was curious about that, too. The U.S. EIA projected 163 billion kWh of solar power generation in 2023, but that's kWh and not KW ... the article mentions KW.

    1 Watt = 1 joule per second; 1 kilowatt-hour = 3.6 kilojoules over 1 hour (3600 joules / 3600 seconds). The loss of 30 gigajoules per second, for the equivalent of one second (the measurement they picked), sounds like a blip. The loss of 30 GWh would be substantially more but ... not the end of the world? We're still here? Power companies plan for spikes in usage, including sporting events.

    I wonder if Bloomberg knows or cares about the difference. I also wonder if they run articles about how many kWh are lost when hurricanes threaten the Gulf.

    10 votes

  9. Comment on I bought a house, now what? in ~life.home_improvement

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    Yeah it's really shady/lazy/pathetic when builders don't register the warranty on behalf of the future buyer. Especially when houses can sit unsold for several weeks or months. It may be that HVAC...

    Yeah it's really shady/lazy/pathetic when builders don't register the warranty on behalf of the future buyer. Especially when houses can sit unsold for several weeks or months. It may be that HVAC companies have changed the minimums, which would be welcome news. I read that California has consumer protections where buyers (of anything) may not have to register the warranty to be entitled to a manufacturer warranty. Would be nice if more companies were like that.

    A while back I had to buy a new dryer and I chose a well-priced Electrolux. Within about a month I had an issue with a sensor in the door. I contacted the store I bought it from, they contacted Electrolux, and they got not only a new control module out for the door, but also a new motherboard because they "couldn't be sure which was causing the problem." I didn't have to return any extra parts, send in any paperwork myself, or anything. Completely hassle-free. That's how warranty service ought to be.

  10. Comment on I bought a house, now what? in ~life.home_improvement

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    This is really vital info. I want to add one point of clarity my HVAC guy told me that was specific to new house builds, in case anyone buys anything from a "starter home" to a custom house. The...

    So most companies have 10 year warranties on their equipment if it's registered with the manufacturer, HOWEVER that warranty does NOT apply to the house, it applies to the purchaser.

    This is really vital info. I want to add one point of clarity my HVAC guy told me that was specific to new house builds, in case anyone buys anything from a "starter home" to a custom house.

    The builder is responsible for registering for the warranty of the HVAC system. They have anywhere from 30-90 days to do this from the time of installation by the HVAC guys. If the builder does not register for the warranty, the warranty may drop from 10 years to 1, or 0 years. Zero! That's crazy. Don't let builders be lazy. Ride them and make sure you have proof that the HVAC system has a warranty at all before you buy or build.

    5 votes

  11. Comment on I bought a house, now what? in ~life.home_improvement

    ChingShih
    (edited )
    Link
    Just some quick notes from having gone through this process a few times with relatives: Great that radon and termites have been checked for. I assume someone checked for asbestos or knows that...

    Just some quick notes from having gone through this process a few times with relatives:

    Great that radon and termites have been checked for. I assume someone checked for asbestos or knows that it's not a problem in a house of that age/in your region?

    What kind of heating does the home have? If it has heat pump unit(s) outside, have they been checked/serviced recently? What's the age of the furnace/air handler? I see above that you think it's 10+ years old, but understand that the life expectancy of many of these are 10-14 years. And by 10 years old their efficiency will have already dropped off significantly, leading to substantially higher heating and cooling bills.

    there are no smoke detectors in this house wtf

    It might be illegal in your state to sell a house this way. You may be able to talk to your agent and they will know how to negotiate this. In many cases during the buying process there is a period where, while the money is held in escrow, that the buyer and the buyer's agent are able to go through the house before any agreement is absolutely formalized and say "this isn't to spec, this isn't legal, this needs to be fixed based on the agreed-upon contract," and so on. The buyer's agent should put together a list and an "appropriate" monetary value to fix such things. The seller has two options. Fix it, or the escrow company will refund the monetary value. If they don't, you can threaten to pull out of the purchase of the sale (presumably with no consequences for you, because this is meant to protect the buyer, but this may vary by state/province). Basically, don't pay for anything that isn't your responsibility.

    If there is a deck out back, raised patio, etc., you should check to see if the supports are up to code. It may not be an issue for selling the house, but you want to avoid that surprise if you ever renovate it (because it'll seem more like a full rebuild). Ask me if my deck was up to code when I bought it. D:

    Speaking of code, consider that in some areas any professional changes to a stairway require that the stairway be inspected to meet code. If you need to make a stairway more accessible, and this may include outdoor stairs, you may need to consider "formal" professional renovations or the less formal "I found a handyman who won't ask questions" type.

    On another note, check whether the vent above the oven/range (electric or gas, it doesn't matter) is vented properly. It's probably illegal for a gas range to not have a vent. It's also a very bad idea for any kind of range to vent into, for instance, the cupboard immediately above it or, and I've seen this, directly into the floor above. Your inspector may have forgotten to check for this. It's not a fire hazard you want to have.

    Speaking of fire hazards, check for lint build-up in any dryer exhaust line. Some homeowners don't know how clothing lint works. This is how actual fires start.

    If your home inspector went around with a 3-prong outlet tester to check circuits/outlet wiring, great. You should strongly consider replacing a lot of those outlets with GFCI versions. It's worth it to have properly surge-protected outlets. You may be able to do this yourself, but you can also find a handyman (or a very generous electrician) who will do this kind of small work. There are electricians that specialize in smaller jobs like this or just do some of this kind of stuff for elderly and disabled folks. They won't charge you the $80/hr rate for that.

    There are shower seats and chairs. But the thing that makes any bath-shower combo more accessible is the shower bench. It straddles the bathtub and lets a person slide along it into the tub area. It's a good intermediate step until renovations are made to allow for a more user-friendly shower or whatever is best for your spouse. I'd also recommend avoiding any suction-based shower rails. Install rails that use screws (or screws and cement/adhesive/whatever is appropriate). Depending on accessibility, there are also grab bars for use around a toilet. I found for my relative with limited leg mobility that a fold-down 36" (90cm) long rail worked really well in one of her small half-baths. It let her use the bar to get up and down from the toilet, but then I could raise it so it wasn't in the way of the door when I had to transfer her to the wheelchair (because the wheelchair didn't fit the bathroom's doorway).

    Edit: Forgot to recommend storm windows. If you live in a windy area, think the house might be drafty, live in a cold area, live in a hot area, or want to improve the longevity of your windows, consider installing storm windows (they're not hurricane shutters). You can order custom-sized windows from Lowes (and I assume Home Depot and other large hardware stores) to match the sizes of your home's windows, then have a contractor install them. Will save a lot of money on energy bills, and make windows last longer and avoid air/water leaks.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in ~enviro

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    I'll have more time to address this tomorrow, but I realize it might actually be more informative if I just direct you to a couple organizations that have pretty well-constructed reports on their...
    • Exemplary

    I'll have more time to address this tomorrow, but I realize it might actually be more informative if I just direct you to a couple organizations that have pretty well-constructed reports on their activities specific to elephant-human conflict mitigation. I can't speak to individual preserves, and certainly some of them, like zoos, aren't run well, but if you find out the name of the documentary I will take a look and reply accordingly.

    This is wordy, but clicking through the major links will prove to have more engaging content than what I can produce. :)

    Wildlife SOS is a NGO in India that runs not one, but 12 rescue and long-term centers for everything from snakes and small mammals to bears, leopards, and elephants. When people ask about NGOs doing great work that aren't a bunch of westerners going overseas and telling local people how to do things, I point to Wildlife SOS. They've been nailing this since their founding in 1995 and their impact is enormous. Specific to human-wildlife conflict, they have several programs that all target different challenges communities face when living near wildlife, including: rescuing leopards from communal wells and building animal-proof alternatives; supporting policy to build better visibility and safety corridors for trains passing through dense forests (the habitat of elephants and tigers); educating local communities and holding law enforcement seminars about the false basis of folk medicines relying on bear parts; I think they also do the same with respect to tiger and leopard parts; and a program and 5 rescue hotlines (getting literally over 1 million calls a year) to provide resources to people who unexpectedly have an animal visitor. No matter the size or number of legs, they send professionals out to cities and rural communities to catch-and-release or to bring the animal to a rehab center for a checkup.

    The most high-tech Wildlife SOS program is probably their method of sharing elephant alerts with local communities based on information from tracking collars. Many NGOs have been using GPS or radio-based tracking collars for years or decades and they're placed on select elephants during health checkups and other veterinarian-supervised activities. Wildlife SOS and a number of African NGOs I'm aware of including Elephant-Human Relations Aid and Big Life Foundation, now use this data as an early warning system so that communities can be more careful when driving down a specific road (everyone has seen those videos of elephants suddenly appearing from densely forested areas to stop trucks and steal their bananas) or to give the community time to deploy commercial or home-grown chili pepper. The early warning system is phenomenal and the data-sharing is also instilling more trust between the communities and the neighboring NGOs. The beehives have proven quite effective in preventing bulls and herds from raiding crops and discouraging them from an easy meal that infringes on the livelihoods of rural farmers. I've visited a couple communities in Namibia where people grew the peppers in their personal gardens. They found it really funny. As someone who really loves elephants, I don't think it's very nice, but at least it's non-lethal. As a quick tangent, beehives have been shown to ward off elephants while also providing farmers with a lucrative source of income. I don't know if Wildlife SOS is also trying beehives due to that probably attracting bears, but Save the Elephants seems to have sponsored a project in India in the past.

    Big Life Foundation, a Canadian NGO operating across ~1.6 million acres of East Africa, has been incredibly successful and I wish more of their success stories made the mainstream news. They have a number of programs that have been helping the Maasai people and neighboring groups to better coexist with changing wildlife and land usage patterns (including in recent history the Kenyan government blocking them from grazing cattle on public lands that in some cases may have historically been tribal lands).

    Big Life has a predator compensation fund that's not only protecting lions, leopards, and other carnivores from retaliation killings, but they are also helping to educate communities about predators and frankly helps communities to keep some of the livestock farmers honest. There's a short video and some blog posts that go into more detail. Big Life isn't the only NGO out there with compensation programs. Snow Leopard Trust, operating in Central Asia, also has one. Several NGOs have picked up this idea because it's cheaper to pay for some of these individual incidents and also instill some communal responsibility, than it is to spend money arresting people involved in revenge killings (whether they kill the correct animal or not). All of these NGOs have very readable annual reports that, yes, have a lot of feel-good stuff inside them (and fluffy leopards), but also report on some of the major and minor successes of these programs and why it's meaningful to the local community.

    Big Life is kinda notable in that they have what I would say is the most impressive and sophisticated elephant conflict mitigation programs (complete with rangers and veterinarians deployed by helicopters) to provide non-violent solutions when elephants enter tribal land or communal space as well as provide medical aid to animals injured by humans, whether that be by poison, spear, or firearm. You can read more about their results in their quarterly and annual reports. Pick one, they're pretty nice and graphical.

    These aren't the only NGOs doing some great work on providing non-lethal alternatives. Various groups are working on both practical solutions that are working in other regions, as well as policy. They're constructing wildlife corridors, working with states/provinces to better plan roads, improving national park habitats to retain animals rather than allow them to disperse into human settlements (and even cities), educating people in rural communities who have no formal education or oral history of coexisting with megafauna, and much more. I'll try to get to that next time!

    6 votes

  13. Comment on Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in ~enviro

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    What a even-tempered and well-considered post! I'm focused on these sorts of wildlife issues (and human-wildlife conflict in specific) in just this area of the world! So let's talk facts! You...
    • Exemplary

    What a even-tempered and well-considered post! I'm focused on these sorts of wildlife issues (and human-wildlife conflict in specific) in just this area of the world! So let's talk facts!

    You might be interested to know that big game hunters were a huge boon to tourism of southern Africa, particularly South Africa, up through the 1980s. They helped to pave the way for a whole variety of different kinds of travel, safari drives, and other types of tourism entertainment and at increasingly affordable prices. That, plus the acceptance of international air travel and the boom in camera ownership in the mid-1970s, made photo-safari tourism a truly viable option for so many people.

    Tourism makes up a good chunk of GDP for many African countries, though usually not as big as people expect. Pre-pandemic, South Africa had about 15 million tourists and the tourism sector accounted for about 2.8% of GDP in 2018. But even a small chunk of that GDP is important, and if trophy hunting is a big part of that, then we should be able to see it make a difference.

    In a 2015 report commissioned by Safari Club International, it was claimed that in 2012 the tens of thousands of trophy hunters visiting eight countries in southern Africa spent as much as $426 million. As you said in your comment, that money is spread across a few different sectors serving tourists (airlines, restaurants, etc.). I've talked with hunters in almost every one of those countries because I spend a fair amount of time out there. I would imagine that at least half of that money goes to the property/company selling the hunts. $426 million sounds like a lot! But compare that to the $17 billion spent by tourists that same year across those countries. It's about 2.5%. So how could it be true that trophy hunting is that economically important?

    SCI's report claimed that South Africa, the most popular trophy hunting destination, had 8,387 hunting tourists in one year. Those hunters spent at least $141 million. South Africa's GDP has been somewhere in the range of $323 billion and $458 billion each year for the last 15 years. So no matter what year you pick, $141 million, or even twice or three times that, isn't a significant part of GDP. But let's back up a minute. 8,397 trophy hunters? South Africa had around 9 million tourists that year. Are all the hunting tourists super-rich? No, unfortunately for their narrative they're not, and some of them a budget big game hunters. And that's from SCI's own report! SCI's figures for Botswana suggest trophy hunters spent $7.2 million, which is a single-digit percent of tourist spending and an even smaller fraction of Botswana's $13.9 billion GDP that year.

    And all along we've been taking a pro-hunting company, that actively lobbies in the US and internationally, at face value. Their own numbers don't even show that trophy hunters are making a materially important impact. If they've inflated their own numbers, and they likely have, then that suggests the economic importance of trophy hunting is further over-stated.

    There's an interesting report that serves to disprove SCI's claims. But there are several reports that do and I know a few Africans who used to work at hunting concessions who will also tell you the same thing. Trophy hunting isn't as profitable as they claim, nor are local communities helped much, if at all, by the revenue. This report also explains how some of the land used for trophy hunting could generate revenue if it were put to other use -- so if trophy hunting stopped entirely, like it did in Kenya, people in surrounding communities wouldn't suddenly become poor.

    Unfortunately, people in communities surrounding private game reserves (PGRs) already are poor. Why is that of PGRs are bringing in all this revenue? Part of it is because of the massive amount of corruption that fails to direct tax revenue towards the programs it's earmarked for. Part of it is because there isn't enough money being generated by PGRs to serve the population. And part of it is because many private game reserves are set up like LLCs in the US and have some creative ways of marginalizing their actual profits and using tax loopholes.

    It's pretty clear that trophy hunting has been contributing less and less as a percentage to tourism revenue over time, and GDP in general, maybe with the exception of the pandemic when tourism was dramatically reduced. It's also pretty clear to anyone who has been out there that communities aren't benefiting from the presence of many of the PGRs around them, including some of the biggest photo-safari destinations, because there is an extreme imbalance in sharing the proceeds, in tax revenue even being distributed properly, and a crippling practice of disenfranchising the poor as much as possible. Thula Thula has come under a lot of scrutiny for this and if they can, then so can hunting reserves.

    So I want to caution people that while it's easy to continue to repeat things that sound convenient and have a history of being said, and might have even almost been true 40 years ago, that doesn't always make it true today. There are lots of common myths that people believe and we give it little credence, but really it's repeating those myths and perpetuating them that is continuing to build the foundation for the harm that's actually being done. And that's because it's often self-serving and suits the personal philosophy of the person saying it. There's already been at least one commenter in this thread busy confirming their own biases by agreeing with a complete myth that only serves the interest of a few people -- people they might identify with on the surface, but actually have little real commonality with that -- big game trophy hunting in a very loosely regulated part of the world, for instance.

    I'm literally on the way to a wildlife conference where people with experience combating human-wildlife conflict and poaching -- people who are actually involved in successful programs to reverse the damage done by the racist policies that helped to shape the map of land ownership in southern Africa. If you'd like me to ask them some questions on your behalf, shoot me a message and I'll see what I can do. I'm actively focused on wildlife conservation, have traveled all over southern Africa, and I'm sure I can help bring the facts into focus for you and others who have questions. And I'm sure the people I know who are involved in anti-poaching and counter-trafficking operations would be happy to help dispel this myth that not only puts the brakes on their momentum, but also steamrolls over their positive success stories and helps to feed the mechanism of bribery and corruption that is such a problem in these countries.

    By the way, if you've never seen what a trophy hunt could look like, and I'm totally cherry-picking here, I encourage you to watch one of these videos. Have you ever seen canned hunting? Or seen a hunt conducted entirely from the back of a moving vehicle? It's illegal, but it happens. What about a lion that's darted multiple times to make it easier for a hunter to shoot? If it sounds unpalatable, consider what poverty is like for the people in the communities who often aren't getting a cent of the trophy hunting proceeds because of tax loopholes. And because people keep repeating things that make them feel good and take the eye off of real solutions. Really makes the whole situation worth it, doesn't it? Want to talk real solutions? They exist and you're not talking about them. Let's do that when I get back instead of talking about myths.

    24 votes

  14. Comment on You're wrong about Aptera's car. It's ridiculously efficient (and solar powered). in ~transport

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    You've already commented further about this lower down, but I love the idea of using solar power for cars as well and wanted to look deeper into this so decided to use this as an excuse. There are...

    You've already commented further about this lower down, but I love the idea of using solar power for cars as well and wanted to look deeper into this so decided to use this as an excuse. There are three cars using solar panels that immediately come to my mind:

    • China's Karma Revero (2017-2020) based off the original Fisker Karma. The earlier Fisker Karma (2013) had a solar roof that solely charged the 12V lead acid battery.
    • Toyota's Prius Prime (2016-present) with the optional solar roof.
    • Fisker's Ocean Extreme (2022-2024) which has been in the news a lot lately and not for good reasons.

    The Revero was a hybrid, with 500km of range and about 80-130km of that in all-electric mode. The company that made the solar roof stated that the car had a 200 watt solar array and that was able to charge the 21.4-28 kWh battery (depending on spec) in a way that provided around 8km of range per day in the best case scenario.

    The Prius Prime is a hybrid with something like a 4.4kwh battery. An optional solar roof that can produce up to 10.2 km of range per day, assuming you live in a place with 12 hours of direct sun per day. Realistically, it's about 5km of range per day.

    The Ocean EV, in its Extreme trim level, has a 77.4 kwh battery providing up to 560km of all-electric range. The solar panel provides about 5.6-8km of range per day. By far having the largest battery, the amount of range the solar panels provides to the Ocean is incredibly small compared to its range and battery size. Conventional charging will always be the better option for EV owners outside of the most ideal circumstances (and really if your commute is that short and your weather is that good, consider bicycling).

    Solar panels on cars are just not enough. And you can't solar charge overnight, when most people sleep, which is really the ideal time to be charging for the sake of convenience. The other time is while at work (or even driving), but that requires that you park the car in an uncovered spot, which is both inconvenient due to weather and not accessible in many cities where this kind of electricity generation would be most practical.

    In order for solar charging to work we need to see solar electricity-generating windows come to market, incorporate more solar into other panels of the car (hood, perhaps?), and most importantly lower the weight of the car to improve range. Oh, and we need heat pumps in all EVs. I only learned today that Rivian's first-generation models don't have heat pumps. That's stupid and range-reducing in an extreme way.

    For the cost of these solar panels to be incorporated into the car, let's say it's $1-2k including R&D and manufacture per Prius, I'd rather people pool that money into a program that builds out industrial-scale solar arrays and then gives those car buyers a share of the money from the output over the life of the panels they are "buying." That way it's an investment and we're building solar in places that make sense and at scales that make sense.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Fisker's EV prices slashed by up to $24,000, Tesla freezes them as trades in ~transport

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    That video was recommended to me the other day so I watched it. It seems like the Ocean definitely had a bunch of problems and lack of features enabled by software prior to the 2.0 update. MKBHD...

    That video was recommended to me the other day so I watched it. It seems like the Ocean definitely had a bunch of problems and lack of features enabled by software prior to the 2.0 update. MKBHD has a new video out as of today (I watched it earlier) and he reviews a different spec'd Ocean with the OS 2.0. It adds a number of things that people had requested/expected, though falls short on fixing everything.

    On the note of MKBHD, keep in mind that he hasn't reviewed that many cars in general and his knowledge of the vehicles he reviews seems to fall a little short compared to other YT reviewers and "car people." There are much worse cars than the Ocean, but the Ocean does fall short of what the company hoped to deliver and falls shorter still on what customers deserved to receive.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on The film fans who refuse to surrender to streaming in ~movies

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    I think what really killed this is that companies stopped pushing integration of disc drives in laptops and other mobile devices (remember when we had DVD TVs as a standalone device?). The quirky...

    ...watching the movies in a power outage...

    I think what really killed this is that companies stopped pushing integration of disc drives in laptops and other mobile devices (remember when we had DVD TVs as a standalone device?). The quirky electronics companies that would've made blu-ray players to hang off the back of your car's seat and plug into a cigarette adapter for power don't exist in the mainstream (or at all). Fortunately, a couple companies like Panasonic and LG still make external blu-ray players to connect to a laptop (or potentially a tablet?). For more formal movie watching situations, I hope people have invested in lead-acid battery backups for general power outages and surge protection.

    I think it's a worthwhile thing to have a disc drive handy even for what are increasingly legacy purposes. Getting one that plays (and writes and re-writes) to blu-rays has been nice. That doesn't get around some requirements for an internet connection for blu-ray films requiring BD-Live internet connection stuff, but largely that's for the extra content that some companies made (like Pirates of the Caribbean had a web-based game that would stream to your player). According to Wiki the only discs requiring internet to watch the content were blu-ray 3D. The rest of the online content on non-3D discs may or may not require internet connection as described previously.

    That said, some discs might check that you have a certain version of DRM or something installed, which does require that your player remain updated. I can't imagine a realistic scenario where that really prevents collectors from being able to access their films, because if you use your player enough, you probably keep it up to date. And if you prefer to stay offline, you'd know as your collection increases whether or not your player has "aged out." Even a zombie apocalypse wouldn't prevent players from ageing out by very much, because the flow of professionally stamped discs would stop, too. ;D Maybe that's how we put an end to DRM once and for all! ;)

  17. Comment on What email client do you use? in ~tech

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    Same here. I use Outlook for work (and some old personal emails) and then Thunderbird for accounts for my website. On devices where I don't need to check those email accounts, I use Thunderbird...

    Same here. I use Outlook for work (and some old personal emails) and then Thunderbird for accounts for my website. On devices where I don't need to check those email accounts, I use Thunderbird exclusively for RSS feeds.

    Thunderbird is a great piece of software (MS shenanigans not withstanding). It's come a long way and really is solid and does everything I need it to. I feel a lot more comfortable recommending it to people who want a stable, daily-driving email client.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on Fisker's EV prices slashed by up to $24,000, Tesla freezes them as trades in ~transport

    ChingShih
    Link Parent
    I really thought this time around they would've partnered with Geely/Volvo for a platform. The way that Geely's Polestar has. Polestar seems to be trying to take the design cues that Fisker...

    I really thought this time around they would've partnered with Geely/Volvo for a platform. The way that Geely's Polestar has. Polestar seems to be trying to take the design cues that Fisker didn't, but Fisker's look is much closer to Volvo's, interior and exterior.

    As far as the money aspect, a lot of these people seem to make a game of finding venture capital and building themselves up. It's an amazing ability, really. All of the schmoozing and the glad-handing that's turned into fairly large amounts of capital. If only they'd use it for something useful like supporting an end to human trafficking, or building a desalinization plant.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on Fisker's EV prices slashed by up to $24,000, Tesla freezes them as trades in ~transport

    ChingShih
    Link
    Last week Fisker's talks with another car company came to a bad end. The company's stock price is less than $0.25 and it's looking like the company is burning through the last of its cash and will...

    Last week Fisker's talks with another car company came to a bad end. The company's stock price is less than $0.25 and it's looking like the company is burning through the last of its cash and will go into default.

    Edmunds says flat out: Do Not Buy a New Fisker Ocean, even at the new prices (which really are available right now on the Fisker website). Interestingly, it's the fully-featured models with a 360 mile (580km) range that have the biggest price discounts.

    Ocean owners who bought the vehicle at full price aren't just having buyer's remorse, they're worried that the company won't last long enough (long, but worthwhile read) to deliver on the features promised when the car was purchased, some of which depend on OTA updates. Some owners don't even have paperwork showing proof of sale/ownership!!

    18 votes