Jason Etheridge @jasonetheridge@qoto.org

@trinsec Definitely! And there's the fact that critical thinking may make kids more skeptical of advertising. Might mess with them becoming good consumers... I don't think there's a nefarious plot, but I could imagine it'd be easier for all concerned if the kids weren't too skeptical.

@trinsec Maybe we weren't so badly off! But I really, really enjoy being able to look up facts in near real time, though. I find myself not wanting to go back.

I thought teaching kids critical thinking at school might help inoculate them to conspiracy garbage. Maybe it would? I guess it hasn't really been tried yet.

Remember in the pre-internet days when you had to go to the library to lookup facts? Or your own (outdated) set of encyclopaedias?

I guess we just didn't know any better at the time, and lived with ambiguity! Hard to imagine now.

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This is exactly the kind of corporate insanity that would make a great Dilbert cartoon.

Bloomberg: Blizzard Manager Departs In Protest of Employee Ranking System.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-23/blizzard-manager-departs-in-protest-of-employee-ranking-system

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@trinsec I hadn't put together the utter flatness of the Netherlands and how that would make pumped hydro impossible. :)

Regarding modular nuclear reactors, the primary reason they're a good idea is that nuclear plants have previously been bespoke, making regulatory approval a nightmare (has to be done fresh every time). With a modular, smaller design, you get the tick of approval from regulators, and then you mass produce them.

I'm guessing that biofuels will eventually be producible at scale, which are carbon neutral and will work in current internal combustion engines. Electric cars are great, but until we get a different battery technology, producing enough batteries given the raw materials required is going to be a problem. Not to discount hydrogen, but as Sabine pointed out, there are some real limitations.

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@trinsec That's an application I'd certainly never heard of. It's a real shame she didn't cover that usage, and I'd likewise very much like to know her opinion as to its practicality.

Is your country's hydrogen pipes a done deal being constructed now, or is it more of a concept? I'm surprised that power via high voltage power lines is that lossy; we transport power in Australia over vast distances using power lines. Maybe a colder climate makes it less viable. Then again, I don't know how efficient it is, though I thought the whole point of high voltage (and zero current) was that effectively no power/heat was lost.

Storing excess power locally as hydrogen does seem like an obvious application once its pointed out; you'd need a very, very large storage area (given ~32 kWh per litre, you'd need to store a LOT to make it viable). That seems to be the only downside: the sheer volume. You could probably store more at higher pressure, though the higher the pressure, the more the engineering problem of the containing vessel.

In Australia, we're focusing on pumped hydro as a way of storing excess power, where they're not using batteries. Which works fine, as long as you've got a nice, big dam handy.

Nuclear does seem to be the obvious solution, though it has its downsides. Depends how serious we are about really combatting climate change, I guess!

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@chidgey l reckon you're right. Tempus has fugit, that's for sure. I can see the allure of becoming a cranky old man. To be held off if possible!

@chidgey It certainly stopped happening for me once I had kids!