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Cake day: February 21st, 2026

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  • Implementing long-distance high-voltage transmission lines is a common counterargument against the inherent fragile and unpredictable nature of variable renewable energy systems.

    It’s fairly frequent (several times per decade) to have high/low pressure systems with a radius of 100’s of km, at which point a variable renewable system (wind+solar) can reach an output below <1% of installed capacity (when combined with the winter season) for extended (hours to several days) periods of time.

    At that point, there is the choice of grid-scale long term energy storage up to a magnitude of TWh’s (potentially seasonal), long-distance transmission (up to 1000’s of km) or ensuring that other energy production systems exist that can pick up the slack (requiring redundant capacity, which is inefficient).





  • The autobahn already achieves this on a daily basis for personal vehicles. It should absolutely be doable to build dedicated busses along highways that can reach this speed assuming separated lanes.

    A key benefit here is that existing highway infrastructure can be repurposed rather than needing to buy (expensive) land and building a rail system from scratch (takes time).

    This is an outside the box solution that might be self-justifying: providing faster (better) service than cars and potentially offloading enough passengers to reduce more than 1 lane of traffic. Many ways to get more public transit usage in the US are probably better than the status quo.

    Would proper rail be better? Absolutely.

    This is terribly inefficient in comparison, but maybe could be cheaper, faster and easier to implement. Worth having a few guys look into it at least.




  • Certainly an interesting article and it would certainly be a good thing if OAI was forced back into being a non-profit actor (though not for Musks sake).

    At the heart of the case is his accusation that OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman betrayed the company’s original nonprofit mission.

    This seems accurate.

    …and the proposed consequences:

    Along with seeking to force OpenAI back to a nonprofit structure and oust Altman and Brockman, Musk has sought as much as $134 billion in damages – which he has pledged to redirect to the OpenAI nonprofit.

    I could get behind so long as those 134Bn never enter Musks hands.


  • One could argue that if euthanasia is legal, then there would be situations of: “Hey, granny is kinda taking too much resouces… maybe we should just pull the life support?” or “Okay my child has cancer and takes up too much of my money, and all this money would be wasted if the treatment fails, I’m gonna talk to the doctor and end this parasite once and for all”

    Which is exactly why I’m in favour of euthanasia for humans on a moral level (people should be able to decide their own fate) but against it on a societal level (it will likely result in people getting pressured into “choosing” death.)

    The harm of the people who are unable to choose death (a.k.a commit suicide) on their own suffering is a lesser evil compared to people who want to live being pressured into dying (in my view).


  • Within Swedish politics there is essentially complete agreement that the union model of labour negotiation should remain. Companies like Tesla are certainly an issue, but comparatively easier to deal with. The larger threat to the union model actually comes from undeclared labour which is a huge, systemic problem.

    It ends up being significantly cheaper for the employer (no taxes, benefits, regulation) and can (in the short term) be beneficial for the employee (higher wage, still cashing in unemployment benefits etc.) even if it is disruptive for the collective long term.

    In some businesses such as salons for hair dressers or mani-pedi, as many as 40% of labour is undeclared. Restaurants, construction and transportation are also high up.




  • ironically the majority of those are government employees and police

    It’s not ironic in the slightest. It’s for government employees that the conflict of interest between what’s best for the government (often low costs of labour) and employees (generous benefits and wages) becomes impossible to ignore.

    Similar incentive structures do exist on a national economic level. For instance lower wages often provide a more competitive industrial basis internationally, even if that is not neccessarily beneficial for the individual employee.







  • Compared to the massive increase of meat consumption in the population-dense developing world & other major influences on price such as improvements in the efficiency of meat production, the impact of the veg-movement is nigh negligible.

    The price impact is rather on the side of restaurants & grocery chains in their logistics, now requiring a more diverse offering to be able to serve both the traditional clientele and veg-customers. Spreading the same demand over a larger range of products leads to a lower per-item throughput. Hence slightly lower efficiency, more waste & more overhead, which leads to marginally increased food prices overall in western countries.



  • I do think we agree on the practical implication for jobs - just that laws don’t align with that where I’m at. (If you can’t/refuse to do the job, you shouldn’t be working it)

    That’s odd, because one could just say “I can’t change the job description without changing the role I am hiring, and I only need that role.”

    It’s central to the problem. Individuals from religious groups sue employers (often successfully) citing that not hiring them or firing them for refusing to fulfill the job description would be discrimination. (This is not unique to any one group btw)

    you’d prefer to force people to not adhere to their religion

    No. What I’m saying is that they should be solely responsible for the consequences of their faith. Other people should not be forced to give them special treatment due to their religion.

    I think you’re referring to Muslim practice as delusional

    I wasn’t. I was creating a hypothetical of somebody non-religous (or at least not an adherent to a major religion) placing greater or equal value on not shaving as a religious person might. The point being that major religions are given preferential treatment as compared to other beliefs and preferences.

    So to be clear, yeah, a faith to the Muslim god which forbids shaving is respectable and not delusional.

    There are certainly different ways for religious folks to be faithful. However, in the modern day, literal adherence to many modern religions essentially amount to centering your life around a myth. At best, it is a sign of being misguided and ignorant with regard to scientific fact (which is incompatible with those myths) and at worst it amounts to a delusion (yes, I will use that word). Willfully rejecting overwhelming evidence.

    Somebody can be respectable in spite of that, but in my book, it is a clear negative.