Pat @Pat@qoto.org

@freemo @icedquinn

In mid-2020, Fauci said 20,000 cases a day was bad and unacceptable. We're at about 200,000 cases a day now.

We just had every major news network clear the decks and spend virtually every minute of air time to cover the deaths of 20 people who were shot in Texas. But hundreds of people dying every day gets no coverage. More people died from COVID-19 during the time that that shooting was taking place than died from the shooting itself.

And what about the more than one million people who died needlessly? When will there be accountability for that? Don't their greiving family members count?

#2that

@icedquinn

Agree. The US is not a democracy, it's a hypocracy.

Of all of the wars we have gotten involved with during the past few decades, the one in Ukraine is probably the most legitimate in terms of supporting our values. Ukraine was moving rapidly towards democracy and away from authoritarian Russia. So it actually makes sense to support them with a few billion (compared to the trillions we wasted in Afganistan and Iraq.)

@fisunov

Here in the US, virtually all of the network news channels stopped reporting the news because some asshole shot a few people at a school. So I was specifically looking for alternatives, this is why I was viewing that channel more critically. I don't remember specifically what the story was or how they were covering it, but it was so obvious to me that I assumed they were funded somehow by Putin's Russia and never went back to the channel. A little research shows that they have connections to Hungary, another regime with a history of being a Russian ally. They also have had connects with Dmytro Firtash, a pro-Russian oligarch.

Modeling robots after humans in order to go to space doesn't seem to make sense to me. Humans are not well-adapted for space, so I would think that a robot designed for space would take another form, like all the probes we send to the planets.

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #film #movie #luddite #technology #silent #future #past #mediator #propaganda #nazi #naive #socialism

Retro SciFi of the Week…

Metropolis (1927)

This film fell into the public domain in the US in 1953 when its copyright lapsed. More than 50 years later the US Supreme Court declared that it was back under copyright (retroactive to 1996), which of course is illegal to do in the US. Notwithstanding the court’s impotent proclamations, the film will indisputably be in the public domain at the end of this year. You will likely be hearing more about it at that time. It may remain under copyright in other parts of the world because Fritz Lang lived so long.

A decade after this film came out, Hitler exploited the sentiments expressed by the workers depicted in this film to implement socialism in Germany and take away the freedom of those very workers (and nearly everybody else’s freedom too).

A while ago I did a #TruthBeTold that referenced this film but I don’t think anybody understood it at that time (or only partial understood).

(Socialism and Nazism are just about the worst ideas ever and inevitably lead to the loss of liberty and justice.)

@freeschool

Do you mean human err?

@fisunov

I tried watching EuroNews a couple of weeks ago, but it seemed to have a lot Russian propoganda, so I don't watch it anymore.

@fisunov

If you're going to re-invent skin, why on Earth would you give it wrinkles?

@lucifargundam

...or a vibration of ions, maybe.

I haven't done a Truth-Be-Told in a long while.

This is a Different Kind of Truth Be Told.

#TruthBeTold #music #band #radiation #earth #space #satellite #spacecraft

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The truth is…

The Van Allen Belt is a #band of radiation (actually two or more bands) that hold charged particles within Earth’s magnetosphere in space.

Other bands may be created from time to time.

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#TruthBeTold = A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn’t true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies… or just for fun)

(image from: www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/1960120621; by Anirudh Koul; cropped; CC-BY-NA_2.0)

@weepjp

@trinsec

It's been more than a half-century since I've played clue.

@bonifartius

>"for the power tools i've thought about looking into car chargers for those to not have the losses from going from 12V DC to 240V AA to whatever."

That's a good idea.

I had thought that you could just charge the tool's batteries directly from the panels (through a regulator), so that they just charge when the sun is shining, but actually you don't want to be charging those lithium batteries unattended because there is too much risk of something going wrong.

@bonifartius

Also, you need to make sure that whatever you plug into the inverter (that inverts the 12VDC to 240VAC) will be able to handle the waveform that comes out of the inverter. Some devices do not handle inverter generated AC very well, e.g., induction motors or some LED lights, or switching power supplies (which are probably in the chargers for your power tools). In that case, you may need to use a pure sine wave inverter that can generate a well formed AC sine wave as its output.

@mc

Why the wink?

@lupyuen

If it's anything like the US, it will never be investigated because all of the public watchdogs are corrupt and receiving bribes.

@Lyudmila

Good morning.

@trinsec

I'm "clueless" about what you are taking about.

@bonifartius

A light in a small shed is almost nothing, probably <10W. So a very small system should work for that. The batteries in your power tools are probably lithium. If you charge lead-acid batteries from the sun, and then run the current from those lead-acid batteries through a converter to 240V, and then use that 240V to power a charger for those lithium batteries in the power tools, that's not going to be very efficient. (Loss at the solar regulator to lead-acid batteries, loss at inverter to 240V, and loss at lithium battery charger.)

Do you need to recharge the tool batteries multiple times during one day, or can you just allow them to charge when the sun is shining and then use them when you need them?

Lithium batteries generally will hold a charge for a long time without much loss (they don't have a lot of self-discharge). But lead acid batteries will self-discharge quite a bit, compared to lithium. But charging the lithium batteries directly from the solar panels would probably be kind of tricky.

Actually, just charging the lithium batteries at home or something and then bringing them to the shed location when you need them might work out better, and just use the solar system for lighting only.

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The butler did it.