black0ut

joined 2 years ago
[–] black0ut@pawb.social 1 points 5 days ago

They probably mean using a Microsoft/Apple/Google account with their OS

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 2 points 1 week ago

SMRs are snake oil. No SMR has really been built, and they share the exact same problems as "normal" nuclear. They're expensive, still super slow to deploy, expensive to maintain and still produce waste. And all without the econony of scale which is what helps big nuclear reactors be "affordable". You can read multiple articles on them, but here's an example.

https://www.theenergymix.com/the-nuclear-mirage-why-small-modular-reactors-wont-save-nuclear-power/

Archived version:

https://archive.is/jcf0C

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Nuclear is not feasible and will never be.

For starters, it's expensive. Really expensive. Insanely expensive. It also takes years to go online, and decades to decomission (which should be paid by the owner, but sometimes ends up being paid by the government because the owner went bankrupt or exploited a loophole). It's also not quickly variable, so it needs a very constant demand.

Instead of investing in nuclear, one could invest in solar and wind. The latter can produce energy all day long, and if you have enough locations with wind farms, it starts averaging out and becoming constant. Both wind and solar are also quickly variable, so they can easily adapt to demand. They're incredibly inexpensive and pay for themselves in a few years.

Batteries in the distribution network aren't a good idea, and they're also probably not gonna work. Even though they're still cheaper than a nuclear plant, they're pretty expensive and they have a lot of wear. Technologies have been advancing really fast, and we already have prototypes that look promising. However, they don't make that much sense when you look at alternatives like pumped hydro. Pumped hydro is cheap, has a lot of capacity, can also quickly adapt to demand, and requires less maintenance than nuclear or batteries.

Another solution for energy storage is personal battery storage, which people install in their homes. Almost everyone who has solar already has a battery in their house, and even people without solar buy batteries to charge during the night and use up during the day. These batteries can be made with recycled electric car batteries, so they're also carbon neutral and cheap.

And this is all without touching on the real issue of nuclear waste, which nuclear promoters always sweep under the rug. Yes, the amount of nuclear waste produced is minuscule. Yes, it's not dangerous at all as long as it's properly dealt with. Yes, it's still better than the massive amounts of pollution that fossil fuels create. But it's still a form of pollution, it's dangerous when mishandled, and most importantly, it has to be kept in storage facilities for thousands of years. Those storage facilities are paid for by governments, which in turn are financed by our taxes. And we can only keep building them, because no waste goes out and new waste keeps going in. So even if the number in our electricity bill is small, we still pay more costs related to nuclear with our taxes.

TL:DR: Nuclear is expensive and slow to build and doesn't adapt well to the variability of demand. Renewables, especially solar and wind, are cheap and effective, and there are many ways (not just batteries) to efficiently store excess energy to use during periods of low production. Nuclear also generates waste, which even though it may not be dangerous, is still expensive to store for thousands of years.

Disclaimer: I'm not endorsing fossil or non-renewable energy in any way, I'm all for net zero energy production. But nuclear is not net zero and not a good solution. We can completely ditch fossil fuels without relying on nuclear, and it can work. I live in a country where we're decomissioning nuclear plants and we generate more than 50% of our electricity from renewables. On average, we generate close to the same amount of energy from wind than from nuclear (~20%).

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Out of all the music streaming services, spotify pays artists the least. A Qobuz subscription costs less, and they pay ~10x more to artists per listen.

Spotify is also an evil company, using their profits to promote right wing podcasts (like the Joe Rogan one), to pay for pro-israeli stuff, and to subsidize AI and surveillance companies.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 7 points 1 month ago

Minority Report is the name of the movie, for anyone curious.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It doesn't. It designs part of the chips that go into their phones.

Google also designs chips that go into its phones, and Microsoft has also designed chips and security co processors that have gone into PCs.

(Of course, I'd never consider a Microsoft "security co processor" secure, nor an apple or google one).

[edit] I also do not see your point of apple being better (or more virtuous) than google or microsoft for designing their own hardware, for 2 different reasons:

  • Currently Microsoft and Google have immense control over the software of PCs and phones. Apple wants to have full control of both the software and the hardware, and making their own hardware is a big step towards that goal. It means they're restricting you (the user) from using the hardware you bought for your own purpose.

  • Making custom hardware does not make a company more or less virtuous. Manufacturing/designing capabilities are just spending money in the respective industry. As I mentioned before, both Google and Microsoft have designed their own chips, and they also have designed chips for their servers. I would also argue that we should stop humanizing companies. They don't have human traits, they're not virtuous, they're just there to take your money and go.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Apple gets money from both their monopoly on user data and their high prices. That's why it's above Microsoft and Google in market cap, even though it doesn't have nearly as much infrastructure and reach.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 0 points 1 month ago

There are many free and libre OCR programs, that have way more accuracy than an "AI"

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 12 points 1 month ago

Yes, and no. No app will display the image if it wasn't already capable of displaying webp, period.

However, there are many places (mainly websites where you can only upload certain formats, but it can also be apps) where the underlying infrastructure supports webp, but they do a simple extension check first with a list of file extensions that doesn't include .webp. In those cases, changing the extension to .jpg will get the image through the filter, and the underlying system will detect the format using the magic number at the beginning of the file.

The same thing can happen when your OS has no associated app to open .webp, but the app it uses for .jpg can also display .webp.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Starbucks coffee isn't coffee, it's sweetened sugar with extra sugar.

Sincerely: a coffee addict.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It can't be luigi because he was at my house at that time.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean like 89% of the shit on Reddit is some OF model advertising.

fr

This

Real

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