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Cake day: March 19th, 2024

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  • Currently playing MGSV on PC. I never got into the metal gear franchise because I wasn’t willing to keep up with the play stations. But it’s a surprisingly good game. A little fan-service here and there (cough, Quiet) but the gameplay is solid. I like how they tie achievements with in-game rewards, things like rescuing a certain prisoner unlocks a new type of weapon or something. It’s a good motivation to complete all the optional parts of the missions. And the missions are replayable, which gives you plenty of opportunity to get the best ratings and rewards.


  • Whether humanity will survive really is an open question. Despite all the rhetoric and protests and promises the annual CO2 emissions have continued to increase steadily. It’s wishful thinking to imagine that we are going to do anything about this before the consequences of our choices force our collective hand. Any report or scientific paper that includes a phrase like ‘there is still time’ is just not accepting the reality of the situation. A year ago James Hansen published Global Warming in the Pipeline where he wrote “Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C”. A 4–7 degree rise over 5000 years ended the last ice age, Ocean levels rose 400 feet. A 10 degree rise in a century or so would be way too fast for most species to adapt. It would inundate the majority of our most populated cities. I could go on, but I get depressed writing about this.


  • It’s well established in the Star Wars universe that all you need to create gravity is a floor. Take, for example, any scene from within any of the space ships. Gravity is never a problem.

    Of course, a deep chasm also seems to create gravity, as seen in the first movie when Luke and Leia swing from one ramp to another to escape the stormtroopers chasing them.

    Regardless, it’s easy to see from the blueprints that the layout is stacked like your first image.

    Edit: upon closer examination it turns out it’s both. The plans show three ‘concentric surface decks’ that apparently work like your second image. So I guess the answer is ‘it depends on where you are in the death star’, and, I guess, which way ‘down’ is where you are.


  • BobTheDestroyer@lemm.eetoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldFuck oil.
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    5 months ago

    So, serious question, how do you think dismantling the fossil fuel industry would work? As of the last available data world energy consumption is still about 80% from fossil fuels. It is not possible to replace those energy inputs with renewables. “There is simply just not enough time, nor resources to do this by the current target set by the World’s most influential nations. What may be required, therefore, is a significant reduction of societal demand for all resources, of all kinds. This implies a very different social contract and a radically different system of governance to what is in place today.”

    So, since they can’t be substituted with other energy sources, to eliminate fossil fuels voluntarily would mean everyone, everywhere agreeing to give up a large part of the comfort we have become accustomed to. Setting aside for the moment the inequity of the global energy usage distribution, how would you go about convincing people that we all need to stop using the majority of the gas and electricity we currently do? What would that look like? We have built entire societies dependent on on endless low cost energy. What happens in places that can’t function without it?

    It’s going to happen eventually. Fossil fuels are non-renewable. Once we use them up they’re gone. I just don’t see any way we will agree to an organized, cooperative, managed decline in usage. I think we instead we will fight for what’s left and pretend everything is fine until it all just collapses. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to imagine what that will look like.