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Rammed earth is more abundant, potentially cheaper, and has far better sound and thermal insulation properties:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220705-the-sustainable-...

It is more labor-intensive but easily automated, at least one start-up has worked/is working on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TXj5IIkUIY

Rammed earth panels can also be prefabricated and delivered to build site via truck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFddMSRel4A

The city of Shibam in Yemen shows how a high-rise rammed earth/adobe city might look. It's possible to adapt this technique to wet climates with appropriate plasters and maintenance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm8OGIZ7tag


Past thread about rammed earth:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32042797


Pumped hydro isn't feasible everywhere, you really need the right geologic conditions.


It's feasible in most places. You can also usually run power lines to the ones where it isnt.

Europe is essentially already using the alps as a battery.


Sand and basalt-based thermal batteries sound promising. Essentially just heat up rocks in insulated containers, then run Rankin- or Stirling-cycle generators off the stored heat. Power-to-weight's probably awful, but that doesn't matter for grid applications, just cost per kWh:

https://newatlas.com/energy/sand-battery-polar-night/

https://scitechdaily.com/gridscale-storing-renewable-energy-...



Oh, I see... Well, there is a sort of alarmingly high number of people defending what appears be a cesspool of hate and bigotry.


Not exactly (at least I hope not). I think they're defending the rights of cesspools to still have freedom of speech.

(Except it's not government restrictions, so it's not exactly First-Amendment-style free speech.)

(And, in defending KF's right to be on the internet, they're defending other businesses being required to carry them, which is... free speech for KF but not for people like Cloudflare.)


So you wouldn’t mind white Wakandans? One or two Vanilla Panthers? How about caucasian voodoo gods, or demons of Japanese myth? They’re fictional too.

Of course that would be silly, and we both know why. Tolkien’s work is explicitly based on Norse myth and the peoples of Northern Europe, who were and are quite real. He wrote about these intentions and influences at length.

There’s no need for writers to rely on European culture as a crutch. I’d personally love to see more epics set in the Mali Empire, Ghana Empire, or Kingdom of Dahomey. Sub-Saharan Africa has lots of its own rich mythology, too. It seems bizarre that besides Black Panther, the most I’ve seen these stories represented on TV is still the 1990s PBS series “Wishbone”.


> So you wouldn’t mind white Wakandans? One or two Vanilla Panthers? How about caucasian voodoo gods, or demons of Japanese myth?

No, I wouldn't mind. To get hopping mad about this kind of thing you have to be thinking a bit more about race than ... normal people do


Those numbers are still remarkably similar.


Yep. Then you look at wealth distribution and it all makes sense.

Mississippi’s Gini coefficient is around .49, where the UK is around .34.


Male life expectancy at birth in Russia fell by six years between 1991 and 1994. A drop that fast was practically unprecedented in developed economies. It’s not fun being a Millennial, as I know firsthand, but nothing comparable to 90s Russia in the aggregate.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41294-021-00169-w


For sure, I was just commenting that it seems like sometimes generations get skipped. Pre-fall russians reminisce about the good times, people who skipped it entirely might see the better post soviet times, someone who got smacked in the early money making part of their career... less so.


I briefly shopped on Walmart.com because Amazon had marketized, destroying my trust in reviews, brands, and product quality, and Walmart had not. That time is past. Now I find myself sticking to manufacturer websites or buying things in the store again.


BBC quoted a Pakistan government official as saying 1/3 of the country is currently underwater. Even if that’s hyperbole, and I’m not sure it is, the scale of devastation is immense.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62712301


I don't think it's hyperbole. Some civil servant assessed that the peak of the floods would cover a third, the minister simplified that by pretending that the peak is right now, all over the country. Even if the minister is wrong and the peak is a little later in some parts of the country than in others, that's IMO no significant difference. Just a detail, really. A simplification, not hyperbole.

Sigh.

We won't care about this flood. We won't really care even when the Central Valley of California is submerged, and that's full of rich people. And today I saw another new species of insect on the balcony. More southern species show up here every summer.


This type of censorship isn’t unique to China. Numerous scenes and whole episodes of The Office were silently removed from streaming services. The episodes were renumbered so you wouldn’t notice:

https://www.newsweek.com/comedy-central-caves-cancel-culture...

This article goes so far as to praise the censorship:

https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-office-edited-censor...

As usual, piracy (or the legal purchase and ripping of old DVDs) is now the only way to access this material, which was deemed suitable for public consumption as recently as a few years ago.


> Numerous scenes and whole episodes of The Office were silently removed from streaming services

Some private companies vs entire undemocratically elected governments conversation aside…

What entire episode has been removed? I’m an office trivia buff and I’m not aware of this


"Diversity Day" has been removed in its entirety per first link.

The distinction between private and government censorship is increasingly irrelevant to consumers, as in heavily consolidated markets the end effect is the same.


Hmm still definitely in plenty of places though - chiefly NBCs streaming service

https://www.peacocktv.com/watch-online/tv/the-office/4902514...


It was removed during some Comedy Central marathon lmao, it’s still a part of the series, no episode was renumbered, and it’s on Peacock which might as well be the canonical streaming source


I saw it mentioned elsewhere as removed from Netflix, glad it’s up on the NBC streaming service.


The Office isn't on Netflix US anymore. But I can still see that episode here in Canada.


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