megopie

@megopie@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨That's how the world works.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Probably not, ammonia production isn’t exactly a huge portion of natural gas usage, it’ll just have to compete on price with other demands, other things with lower value will get priced out of the market long before nitrogen fertilizer. The price for it will probably go up, already has on futures markets, but not by a huge amount, not even the biggest blip in the past decade. And nitrogen fertilizer is a fairly small portion of overall costs for most agriculture, so it won’t be a significant increase in price.

  The places it might have an impact are on products with really narrow profit margins already, like commodity corn in the US (actually a lot of commodity corn breaks even or even is grown at a slight loss because reasons ) and a lot of that goes in to non-food uses like ethanol(for gas), chemical production, or even for use in construction materials.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Solar is now 41% cheaper than fossil fuels, UN report shows⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  But gas is also more profitable than ever for those involved. Any increase in price gets passed along to down stream consumers, but the margins have increased.

  And since the people deciding what electrical generation are getting put in are not the ones paying the final bill, they have no reason to pursue solar at scale.

  Some places are installing it at scale, but it’s almost always due to some public mandate, or because the people putting it in are the ones paying for the final power.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Solar is now 41% cheaper than fossil fuels, UN report shows⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think it was even a matter of research, or it least it hasn’t been for a while, more it’s a matter of scaling production and competitive supply chains.

  If there are 15 steps to produce a panel and you need to make 20% profit to pay off the capital expense and cover fixed costs, then the final product is going to be expensive, if the scale is large enough to afford to only make 1% profit at every step things get cheap.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And then you have E bike companies producing lead bricks that are non-functional without the motor doing 90% of the work. Or with the massive motorcycle seats that make pedaling actually impossible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"People were just not ready for" Starfield, says game's composer as he talks "visionary" Todd Howard⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It was, in many ways, all the worst parts of their previous games compiled in to one, with none of the redeeming elements. Like, it seems the internal decision makers have an extremely distorted view of why they have been successful in the past, and the actual production line seemed completely disorganized and dysfunctional. The design and goals were bad, and the execution was bad.

  They should have learned from the criticism of oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, 4 and 76, but it seems like they discarded all criticism(genuine or otherwise) on the grounds that the games were successful. And only listened to praise (whether it was wide spread, or from a narrow audience).

  Maybe because it wasn’t a success they’ll actually listen to criticism and take the time to sort through it, or maybe they’ll just assume the issue was the space theme and will continue down the procedural shooter looter slop path.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta's AI display glasses reportedly share intimate videos with human moderators⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Display on my glasses? That would be neat. Camera and microphone on my glasses? Why the fuck would I want that.

  It’s a devil’s bargain. Except that the benefit is pretty slim next to the obvious cost.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No More Neutral ⚛⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Everything would get slightly heavier. Then a lot of compounds would break and a lot of new compounds would form.

  Also a lot of lightning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Godot Engine suffering from lots of "AI slop" code submissions⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “I’m being helpful by supporting their development!”

  doesn’t write a single line of code, just submits claude code without reviewing it or even testing

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The world’s oldest known vertebrates had two pairs of eyes⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It seems likely that its external sensing function faded before the development of “hot blood” (endothermy) as it’s vestigial even in very basal reptiles like the tuatara, so likely it was already disappearing as a sensory organ fairly early in quadruped evolution. Snakes, crocodiles and turtles (all exothermic) all lost it completely as an external feature, snakes are particularly notable as they’re in the same branch as tuataras and lizards, many of whole still have it as a vestigial external structure. It also appeared in some extinct branches of therapsids(many appear to have been endothermic) in some form, but is completely absent in mammals, the only surviving branch of therapsids.

  It does function as a sensing organ in many amphibians, suggesting that it became vestigial for sensing some where in the early evolution of amniotes, but stuck around as an external structure across multiple branches but many have since convergently evolved to loose it as an external structure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My bike lock was full of ice. Hot water bottle cleared it up, WD-40 to keep it clear.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  When I first read the title i saw it as “pouring boiling hot water on it cleared it up” and imagined some part in it cracking due to thermal shock.

  Not sure how big of an issue that would really be, depends on the metals in it I imagine. I know a lot of people destroy car windows trying to melt ice off them with boiling water.

  A hot water bottle is a much better option, slower heating.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cherry Flavour!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a growth medium for culturing cells. It’s a mix of sugars, salts, and amino acids, often with other nutrients.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cherry Flavour!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Forbidden sports drink.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Dorohedoro’ Season 2 Key Visual⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah! They said there would be a second season in 2025, but I guess spring 2026 is close enough! Very excited. Just finished the manga last week. Serendipitous timing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kremlin bans fuel exports until the end of the year as Russia’s supply is disrupted by Ukrainian drones⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  To be clear, this isn’t an end of oil exports, just refined fuels. The bottle neck in oil refining will probably result in more oil exports, which will still provide revenue. The key thing is that they’re getting pushed down the value chain, making less money on every barrel pumped. On top of that, they are being forced to sell the oil at a discount because the pool of countries willing to buy from them is restricted, and thus those countries can demand a lower price.

  That foreign income is important because it is paying both for imports for the war effort, but also for imports of consumer goods. They have to scale back one or the other. One diminishes their capacity to fight, the other increases the internal unrest with the war.

  If their refining capacity is reduced enough, they might actually have to start importing refined oil products, both for consumer/industrial needs, and for military needs. Decreasing their ability to import other goods.

  Over all, it’s constricting their ability to mollify the relevant domestic populations AND maintain the war effort at the current level.

  I think the provocative actions against NATO countries is them trying to create a situation that justifies them shifting more resources from the consumer goods side to the war effort side, ether by further mobilization of conscripts (less money on contract soldiers, thus less competition for imported goods) or by politically justifying drops in standard of living (less domestic consumption of imported consumer goods).