sqibkw

sqibkw , 1 month ago

80 megaBYTES? What part of the US are you in?

sqibkw , 1 month ago

Yeah I'm just surprised how fast that is, dang

sqibkw , 2 months ago

Depending on their impact, it is often worthwhile to seek alternatives that are less effective or convenient, but also less dangerous. We've had materials in the past which were also deemed "essential", and yet we moved away from them.

A lot of miracle substances tend to be extremely dangerous. There's nothing quite like asbestos when it comes to fire and heat resistance, but we can still make firefighters' clothes, or fireproof buildings, or brakes, even if it means they're heavier or harder to manufacture. R134 and especially R12 make fantastic refrigerants for car AC systems, but we phased those out in favor of substances that are more complex and costly to implement because of the calamitous effect they had on the ozone layer. Carbon tet is an incredible solvent and great at extinguishing fires too. But we don't use that anymore either.

You could be right, maybe there is truly no way around PFOAs, but I'm just calling out a pattern here. And maybe there's no workaround right now that doesn't cause more harm, but with enough research and investment, we can get there in the future.

sqibkw , 3 months ago

Ok hear me out. I've lived in the US and in Europe, and while Celsius makes sense for all sorts of things (cooking, car engines, PC temps...), I think Fahrenheit actually makes a surprising amount of sense for climate, indoor and outdoor.

While Celsius 0-100 is linked to the states of water, Fahrenheit is loosely a 0-100 on "how is this for a human to experience". 0°F is sorta the limit of "dang that's really cold" and 100°F is "dang that's really hot." And that's the whole reason we look at the weather report.

0-100°F also has more individual degrees than -18-38°C, and when a couple degrees can make a big difference for indoor comfort (or the heating bill), I appreciate more granularity.

sqibkw , 3 months ago

Yep. Making a new thing is how you get promoted. Maintaining or improving an old thing is nearly useless, even at companies with competent managers.

This is the same reason why a lot of companies have awful security practices. From the managers' perspectives, they're burning valuable engineer time on something that doesn't produce any tangible benefits besides reducing the possibility of a lawsuit. And that lawsuit is probably cheaper to just pay up, rather than pay for all that engineer effort.

sqibkw , 3 months ago

This comic is riding a fine line between bone hurting juice and sbahj...

sqibkw , 3 months ago

I'm cool with it in that state. But my concern here is that while it starts out innocent, if demand increases, it's only a matter of time until they start mining it and chartering more ships to transport it. Especially in an economy like Greenland's.

This same pattern has been followed a thousand times in the past. Lots of instances of abusing our natural resources start out innocently.