ProdigalFrog
@ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
- Comment on Commodore Industries Is Trying To Prevent The Revived Commodore International From Using The Iconic Name 1 day ago:
I also thought buying the name for so much money (over a million, and Peri refinanced his house to afford it) just wasn’t worth it.
But with so much invested now, they’re likely to fight it out in court to the end. Apparently the Dutch company’s ownership of the name is more dubious, but it will still be costly to fight.
- Comment on What does Oracle actually do? | Good Work [11:47] 3 days ago:
It’s the name of the channel, not a description of what Oracle does.
- Submitted 3 days ago to technology@lemmy.world | 4 comments
- Comment on Promising Graphene Perovskite research may dramatically increase efficiency and lower costs of Perovskite solar cells 4 days ago:
I personally have found Just Have a Think to have far more conservative optimism on newer technologies like this, unlike say, Undecided w/ Matt Farrell.
Some of the technologies talked about by the less click-bait-y and grounded youtubers have become a reality, such as sodium Ion batteries, which many had the same (mostly deserved) speculation about it ever seeing the light of day.
- I'm learning how to run games and software on the Acorn Archimedes (Plus 120V conversion)www.youtube.com ↗Submitted 4 days ago to retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org | 0 comments
- Promising Graphene Perovskite research may dramatically increase efficiency and lower costs of Perovskite solar cellswww.youtube.com ↗Submitted 4 days ago to energy@slrpnk.net | 4 comments
- Illustration from ‘Zen and the Art of the Macintosh - Discoveries on the Path to Computer Enlightenment’, Michael Green, 1988slrpnk.net ↗Submitted 2 weeks ago to retronet@lemmy.sdf.org | 3 comments
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to retrogaming@lemmy.world | 8 comments
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
Ah, gotcha, so when my neighbor’s house needs to be redone because he rewired it himself, I’m on the hook for that.
I’m starting to get the impression you’re not reading my responses entirely. I already mentioned that a community could collectively decide to continue to enforce building codes.
Too bad I have to stand by and let a couple of transient drug addicts cook meth in the house next door again
There would be much less incentive to create drugs for profit in a world without money.
Not saying there wouldn’t be drugs or addicts, but it’s extremely likely the scale of the problem would be fairly drastically reduced, as many people turn to becoming drug addicts due to becoming homeless as a way to find some way to cope with the extreme stress and trauma of the situation. Without money, there would be no reason for China to continue to sell fentenyl and other drugs to the cartels to be shipped into the US, and the same for Cocaine from South America. That would leave only what could be reasonably produced at home, which would likely take the form of weed.
If, on the chance that someone did start producing meth in a community that has collectively agreed to not allow for that, they could potentially be ejected from the community.
Sure thing. That’s totally going to happen. … it fall apart into vague handwaving about how everyone will be all helpful sunshine and smiles, which we know for a fact, people aren’t that at any level of their being.
It seems that you believe people are only motivated by money, status, or power. But we have examples of societies that were able to implement an Anarchist way of existence, such as Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, which abolished money, the state, and was able to thrive as federated communities. George Orwell went there, and spoke of how excellent that mode of society was, to the point that he fought in the war and got shot in the neck for it.
Except it wouldn’t be their home. Someone else built it
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
So the community bears the effort and cost of maintaining houses (or apartments) which they are not allowed to benefit from.
Bear in mind that the community would render aid to anyone who needs assistance in maintaining their own properties as well. It would be mutual aid. For the ‘cost’ of perhaps choosing to maintain a temporarily empty property, you would never need to ‘purchase’ a new roof, heater, or repairs for your own home. The community would help you the same way you helped them.
You’re also ignoring my mention of the benefit that this mutual aid would enable others to travel to maintained community housing anywhere in the world for free.
I think we would see a significant number of people jumping from home to home, trashing each one and then moving on to the next, leaving the community with the choice of cleaning up those homes, or letting them become uninhabitable hazards, and a blight on the neighborhood.
I think you’re putting a bit too much weight into the idea that the only thing keeping most housing stock in good condition is that financial barrier. I think most people would want to keep their home in good condition without financial pressures forcing them to keep it nice. If everyone let their home go into disrepair, then there would be no ‘good’ homes to jump to. It’s in the interests of everyone to maintain good housing stock, so that if you ever did move you wouldn’t only have shitholes to choose from.
If you think people would suddenly start taking care of a home just because they have one, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you, just look at all the litter and pollution people dump everywhere. Take a moment and look at cars in parking lots, and I bet you’ll find at least one that is packed to the brim with garbage, to the point of being dangerous to drive.
I’m not saying in this new way of society that everything will just become magically perfect, but I very much doubt it would be an epidemic on the scale you’re thinking of. Even in your example of garbage filled cars, you don’t find half the parking lot like that, only one at most. Just because a handful of people might not take care of their home doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it to stop millions of people worldwide from suffering and dying on the streets, throwing themselves under busses due to hopelessness.
No, there is a financial risk and financial incentive when you own a home, or even rent an apartment. If you don’t take care of it, then you lose out on that risk.
There are millions of dilapidated homes that are owned by the people who live in them. There are thousands upon thousands of rental properties that landlords will let become unlivable and condemned. Owning a property or even having consequences does not stop that from happening.
but it’s also clear that “just make housing a right and let anyone move into a house that the community has to pay for and work to maintain” is an idealistic dream that naively handwaves away reality.
“It’s easier to imagine an end to the world, than to the end of capitalism.”
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
Maybe it the family in it moved out because they only needed a quick place to stay short term after moving to a new city? Could be that it’s housing for a college student who has gone back home during summer break?
I think in most cases, short-term housing as you describe would be best served by more dense apartment complexes that are maintained by the community, and the people who stay in them for those short periods. They would be maintained in the same way that public transport or libraries would be maintained, as a public resource that everyone has access to and needs.
The benefit to those who maintain such complexes is that they would also freely have access to use such facilities in other parts of the country. This is not terribly disimilar to how Native American tribes were able to travel anywhere in the US and expect accommodation from virtually any tribe they came across (that weren’t hostile due to a larger conflict), because without such universal accomodation, each tribe would be limited in how far they could travel or trade. It was to all tribes mutual benefit to give each other that accommodation, in an early form of mutual aid (you can read more about that in David Wengrow’s book, The Dawn of Everything, a very interesting read).
Maybe a nicer house opened up in the area, so the resident left their old house to go to the new one?
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le’Guin offers an interesting solution to that scenario. In that book, money does not exist, and housing is simply a right that all are entitled to. Couples and families are given larger accommodation when it becomes available, which is managed by an elected housing committee.
A single family home would be unlikely to be empty for long in a desirable area, so I don’t think abandoned homes would be a significantly bigger issue than they already are under our current system. As a current example, In Japan, many smaller rural towns with dwindling populations have such an abundance of unoccupied homes, that they’re actively paying people to move out to the area, and will sell the house for under $10k in the hopes someone will take them up and maintain it.
It would fall on the neighbors to maintain the house until someone else moved in to it.
Only if they wanted to. There would be no one to force them to do such a thing. They may elect to do so since they would have much more free time in a socialist world (estimates usually suggest around 3 months of community work would be required to give everyone a good standard of living, with the remainder of of the year being free time to do with as they please).
How do you think they are going to feel when some “house jumper” moves in who just lets the place fall apart and moves on to another location because it costs them nothing to let the house go to ruins and they have no personal interest in maintaining it?
How is that prevented in our current society? Many home owners let their home go into disrepair despite owning it. Sometimes this is done out of poverty, or a lack of motivation for upkeep. The only way to force someone to maintain their home is with HOA’s who give fines to individuals if they don’t. They don’t have the most popular reputation.
Regardless, a community could decide to implement HOA-like rules if they all agreed to it, and then someone could decide if they wanted to live there and abide by those rules, or go somewhere where there aren’t any (like our current system).
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
Cheers :)
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
I don’t mean regarding maintenance, I mean why are the houses empty?
I could see a very undesirable area having houses left abandoned, just as they are in our current system. But in areas that are desirable, why would a house be left abandoned?
- Comment on Is. It....German????? 2 weeks ago:
No prob my friend :)
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
Could you elaborate what you mean?
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
None of what I suggested is feasible to achieve within a political framework that is ultimately captured by capital. A handful of small particularly ethical landlords may support reform, but most will not, and the bigger corporate landlords will actively fight it with millions of dollars in lobbying, which the politicians have proven time and time again are only too willing to accept.
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
In a theoretical socialist society, people would not be allowed to own multiple single family homes, only the one they’re currently using, since renting an essential need creates a power imbalance.
As a stop-gap, all currently rented single family homes (as in renting the entire house, not just a room in a house), could be converted to rent-to-own contracts, so that at some point that power imbalance ends and the renter is no longer being exploited.
- Comment on Landlords are parasites 2 weeks ago:
Whether or not a small business owner is for or against raising wages depends entirely on their own ethical compass, and whether that compass is strong enough to turn away from the temptation of extra profit. It’s rare that individuals are so altruistic to be able to fully turn off the impulse for profit incentive and personal enrichment.
In contrast, a worker owned coop would not have that issue, as all workers would have equal incentive to raise wages as much as is reasonable while still maintaining the ability for the coop to thrive. Their individual ethics or moral compass wouldn’t factor in nearly as much.
- Comment on Is there any way the average American can insulate themselves from the AI bubble bursting? 2 weeks ago:
The Japanese stock market crash of 1987 only recovered in 2020. That’s nearly 30 years.
If that happened in the US, the average american who invested in the stock market and is relying on a 401k to retire would be screwed.
- Comment on Is. It....German????? 2 weeks ago:
Hm, your posts seem to show up fine from Lemmy.world itself, at least from the desktop browser.
@obinice@lemmy.world, can you see Track_Shovel’s posts from the link above (also, does it make a difference if you a logged in or not logged in?) If so, I can only guess that you may have accidentally blocked Slrpnk.net within Boost somehow.
- I found some toxic old banned insecticides, let's talk about them! | Extractions&Irewww.youtube.com ↗Submitted 2 weeks ago to chemistry@mander.xyz | 1 comment
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to retrogaming@lemmy.world | 4 comments
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org | 0 comments
- Comment on Jeep pushed software update that bricked all 2024 Wrangler 4xe models 3 weeks ago:
A user here emailed slate asking if there would be any tracking, and they responded that it would not, as it wouldn’t have the hardware to make that possible.
We’ll see if they actually follow through on that.
- Comment on She's a pain in my rear but she keeps me straight! 3 weeks ago:
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to energy@slrpnk.net | 1 comment
- Comment on Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal 3 weeks ago:
There’s still time for a general strike. The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor. That tactic was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would’ve had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.
If you aren’t in a union (or even if you are, it’s worth dual-carding), please consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you’ll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to strengthen a general strike if we manage to enact one.
And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn’t listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above.
- Comment on California Shuts Down Its Solar Thermal Plant 13 Years Early 3 weeks ago:
As far as I know, it needed to burn gas to get it up to operating temperature each day.
- Comment on California Shuts Down Its Solar Thermal Plant 13 Years Early 4 weeks ago:
The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility (the plant being shut down) apparently uses quite a significant amount of natural gas to operate (more than anticipated), and seems to be more polluting than a normal NG power plant, though it seems to generate a bit more power for the amount of pollution generated. Per wikipedia:
The plant burns natural gas each morning to commence operation. The Wall Street Journal reported, “Instead of ramping up the plant each day before sunrise by burning one hour’s worth of natural gas to generate steam, Ivanpah needs more than four times that much.”[38] On August 27, 2014, the State of California approved Ivanpah to increase its annual natural gas consumption from 328,000,000 cubic feet (9,300,000 m3) of natural gas, as previously approved, to 525,000,000 cubic feet (14,900,000 m3).[39] In 2014, the plant burned 868×109 British thermal units (254 GWh) of natural gas emitting 46,084 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is nearly twice the pollution threshold at which power plants and factories in California are required to participate in the state’s cap and trade program to reduce carbon emissions.[40] If that fuel had been used in a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plant, it would have generated about 124 GWh of electrical energy.[41] The facility used that gas plus solar energy to produce 419 GWh of electrical energy (more than three times that of the referenced CCGT plant), all the while operating at well below its expected output. In 2015, the facility showed higher production numbers, with Q1 increases of 170% over the same >time period in 2014.[42]
The facility uses three Rentech Type-D water tube boilers and three night time preservation boilers. The California Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission approved for each a stack “130 feet (40 m) high and 60 inches (1.5 m) in diameter” and consumption of 242,500 cu ft/h (6,870 m3/h) of fuel.
The wikipedia article also mentions it has no energy storage capabilities:
For the first plant, the largest-ever fully solar-powered steam turbine generator set was ordered, with a 123 MW Siemens SST-900 single-casing reheat turbine.[23] Siemens also supplied instrumentation and control systems.[24] The plants use BrightSource Energy’s “Luz Power Tower 550” (LPT 550) technology[25] which heats the steam to 550 °C directly in the receivers.[26] The plants have no storage.
However, the similar Cresent Dunes molten salt solar array, does have energy storage, and can store 1,100 MW·he.
- Comment on Great games you would recommend from before 1990? 4 weeks ago:
Mr.Do! Is quite fun.
H.E.R.O. can become quite fun if you don’t mind initially learning its tricks through trial and error (the harder path is always the correct one). It can get pretty flow-state when you get a handle on it.
The early Space Quest from Sierra games are still quite fun if you don’t mind using a text parser. As is Quest for Glory.
Finally, a Mind Forever Voyaging by Infocom still holds up supremely well if you don’t mind pure text adventures. The short story included in the manual alone is worth the read.
