benjhm
@benjhm@sopuli.xyz
- Comment on A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy 3 days ago:
Indeed it seems Trump picked up some ideas about “Juche” (national self-reliance?) from his best buddy “rocket-man”.
- Comment on Japan to sell more rice reserves as prices soar 3 days ago:
Hmm, so how does the government distribute that potentially lucrative tariff-free quota between importers ? Or if the government imports rice directly, stores it, then resells at a much high price, that’s effectively a tariff.
Seems complicated, but then most countries do something similar, consider price-fixing of food by the EU CAP … - Comment on A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy 3 days ago:
US has only 4% of the world’s population, there are now plenty of super-rich in China, India, etc. who like to flaunt i-stuff.
- Comment on A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy 3 days ago:
Yeah, but you just gave me an idea too, how about AI-directed canines? “apple-intelligence” applied to follow-your-nose. My dog loves to chase small spots of light, which might be a trick to steer them.
- Comment on A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy 3 days ago:
And if chinese buy iphones, do they now have to pay 84% tariff? - maybe HQ in europe solves that too?
- Comment on Japan to sell more rice reserves as prices soar 3 days ago:
So do they also tariff imports (e.g. american rice) that much ?
I haven’t been in Japan since 1997 (COP3) but was impressed by cycling past many little rice fields sandwiched between city buildings - it’s human-scale which is worth defending (similarly to some european agriculture - idea of CAP), the opposite of US prairies. - Comment on Japan to sell more rice reserves as prices soar 3 days ago:
Can anybody explain, how does an easily transportable and storable product like rice get to cost so much more (6$) per kilo in Japan, than elsewhere in the world (including rest of east asia)?
- Comment on A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy 3 days ago:
As a global company, Apple could just re-establish itself in europe, e.g. Ireland, and continue trading with China, they can just put the US on hold for a couple of years.
Meanwhile for those who really addicted to istuff, coyotes can smuggle them across the border, so maybe this solves the fentanyl ‘issue’. - Comment on Why can't we go back to small phones? 5 weeks ago:
I’d like to have no phone at all, I don’t like small screens, nor being interrupted. Problem is that phone apps are now almost obligatory for IDs, transport tickets, passes, banking, etc. So I’d just like a phone-receiver (modem) with a sim card on a USB stick that can enable phone-app-stuff via my laptop or tablet. (Yes some tablets have data sim cards, but we still need sms and occasional phone functions for ‘verification’ etc.). Any suggestions?
- Comment on Nearly 50 percent of Britons favor supporting Ukraine over US 1 month ago:
They say the other side (favour US over Ukraine) is only 20% - so 48:20 is a big difference ( in such surveys, there are always plenty who don’t know or hedge bets - and many people just don’t think beyond their local world) .
- Comment on What are you brewing? 2 months ago:
Thanks for the tips. Indeed i noticed they become gradually more digestible (inulin->frutcose) as spring approaches, but then you can’t store them - they grow…
- Comment on What are you brewing? 2 months ago:
Does anybody know how to make a brew from topinambours aka sunchokes aka ‘jerusalem artichokes’ (silly name) - that’s all i’ve got too many of at this time of year ?
- Comment on Will solar panels overrun farmland? The two are more likely to coexist. 2 months ago:
I saw somewhere a neat idea to align the panels vertically along N-S axis, two sided facing both E and W to catch morning and evening sun at low angles. This helps to top up the grid at periods of higher demand and lower supply, while leaving a wide open strip in the middle for growing normal crops, benefiting from the midday sun (a time when we already have plenty of electricity).
- Comment on Fear abounds as M23 fighters close in on DR Congo's Goma 2 months ago:
IIrc this has been going back and forth for years. Does Rwanda ever explain what they are trying to achieve - permanently take over both sides of the lake ?
What kind of government would local people without guns prefer ? (Goma is far from Kinshasa, closer even to Indian ocean). - Comment on French NGOs to quit social media platform X following Trump inauguration 2 months ago:
OK good, but to be really pioneering change in francophone world, they need to leave Meta too, that’s what dominates.
- Comment on Nigeria admitted as partner country of multinational Brics bloc 2 months ago:
Ok, so now they have enough other big countries, time to kick out Russia which doesn’t fit in a ‘south’ block anyway.
- Comment on African troops 'forced to Ukraine frontlines' while Russians stay in camp 2 months ago:
Modern slave trade. Russia is also driving wars in Sudan, Libya, Niger, Mali, etc. - hope the loss of their Syrian base will reduce their capacity on the ground. Yet their biggest trick has been manipulation of social media algorithms in Africa (with apps made in usa, and anti-european rhetoric), it’s too easy to continue.
- Comment on Richest 1% use their entire annual carbon limit in just 10 days. 2 months ago:
What’s that got to do with the topic ? But since you ask, no. I came to lemmy from mastodon where many people use their real name. Anyway sometimes I refer to my interactive model, from which site my name is obvious. I respect that some people here need to be anonymous for professional or safety reasons, but would prefer people used at least more memorable names, to encourage careful thinking and sense of community.
- Comment on Richest 1% use their entire annual carbon limit in just 10 days. 2 months ago:
It’s good that Oxfam analyses and publicises such data - for too long global comparisons focused on national average per-capita. However, maybe even 1% is too large a group that obscures the diversity within - I guess the 77m people (int that analysis) include many relatively old people who are nominally wealthy by owning a house in an expensive city, but don’t (any longer?) travel much. Heating such houses emits some tons, but not 76tCO2/yr, a figure which must be pushed way up by the fewer jet-set types.
- Comment on Vietnam to build $67 bn high-speed railway 4 months ago:
Makes sense, rail is ideal for such a long thin country.
Probably a nine-hour overnight trip is preferable to a five-hour day trip, but of course there are shorter distances too.
I recall the last time they were thinking about this ±15 yrs ago, a delegate to a COP told me they were already concerned about adaptation to sea-level rise affecting part of the route along the coast. Seems better future-planning than some more ‘developed’ countries. - Comment on He'll try, but Trump can't stop the clean energy revolution 4 months ago:
Indeed there is huge momentum in renewable costs. I recall 20 years ago climate economists starting to model endogenous technological change, but they just had to invent ’ learning curves’ with magic numbers. Now it has happened.
On the other hand, I still wish heat pumps were cheaper. Where I live, the cost is inflated by the requirement for installation by people qualified with refrigerant gases. - Comment on He'll try, but Trump can't stop the clean energy revolution 4 months ago:
Some sense to this - global emissions probably just peaked because China’s housing bubble burst - responsible for much more CO2 than AI/crypto, and even a communist government can’t effectively control such crashes. So no, we are not f****d, but not always saved for noble reasons.
Also regarding crypto - how much of that was sustained by russians evading sanctions - which new team in US is likely to remove ? - Comment on China's push for more babies as demographic crisis deepens lacks real incentives, analysts say 4 months ago:
Your first sentence is correct. But if you look at the historical data, the sharpest drop in chinese fertility rate was several years before they introduced the one-child policy, which also ended several years ago without apparently making any difference. Also, fertility rates in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan are even lower. As these rates are also lower than europe, that maybe related more to housing affordability and density, possibly combined with some common evolution of ‘eastern’ values.
- Comment on BHP, Vale agree to pay $30bn damages for Brazil dam disaster 5 months ago:
Back in 2011, I with my young family took a local bus north from Mariana, which diverted through several villages including that one Bento Rodrigues just below the dam, soon to be washed away. Through gaps in the trees we could glimpse those huge orange lakes just behind earth dams - it was obvious even to a casual tourist that it was a disaster waiting to happen. But the bus was run by the mining company, like all services around there, I suppose that’s why people didn’t complain more.
By the way I was told Brazil didn’t even make much from iron mines, as most of raw ore was exported to China, which got the real value. - Comment on Carbon emissions are now growing faster than before the pandemic 5 months ago:
Emissions grew in 2023, that’s not the same as ‘are now growing’. There is a good chance global CO2 emissions fall in 2024, mainly due to trends in China. Of course it takes time to gather data, but NS should be more careful with the headline.
The spinscore link has useful refs - but keeps mixing up CO2 emissions with “CO2 equivalents” including methane, landuse and minor gases. Methane rising is a big issue, but might potentially be turned around faster. Regarding landuse, deforestation was exacerbated last year by El Niño feedbacks - it’s hard to separate the anthropogenic part of these fluxes.
Rather than simple headlines which encourage fatalistic doom, it’s more useful to explain how some factors progress better than others. They are right to highlight growth in road transport and aviation (even if some growth still covid-rebound), although more effort still needed in all sectors.