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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • That’s within a solar system, where distance, time lines and energy is relatively low.

    Any event with enough energy for something to leave the solar system, destroys all life, even microscopic. And even if somehow it does survive and leave the solar system, space is pretty much empty so it will probably never hit anything. But if it does hit something, 99% of what’s out there is stars. So it would end up in a star. And if it does hit a planet, coming in at intergalactic speeds absolutely destroys any life. None of that matters though, because the distance involved is so freaking huge, nothing living can survive that long. Travel times are so long, only fossils would arrive, that’s how long we are talking.


  • If aliens were to visit us it’s a miracle not only in space but also in time.

    Space is huge, for some aliens to randomly arrive here would mean they are just about everywhere. We would surely see signs of them in other solar systems, even if they haven’t visited here. There are so many solar systems out there, you don’t just randomly stumble upon ours. And the space in between systems is also so big our brains literally can’t fathom it.

    But time is huge as well. Humans as a civilization with electricity and technology has only existed for 200-300 years (being generous). Some say aliens have only been interested in us since the atom bomb, which is not even 100 years. However humans as a species has existed for over 100,000 years. And intelligent tool users have been around for about 1,000,000 years. If aliens visited anywhere in that time they would have laughed at the silly monkeys and have been on their way. For them to have randomly stumbled upon us just as we are enjoying our few hundred years of modern civilization is one hell of a coincidence.

    Space is mind bogglingly huge, time as well, for both to line up perfectly for aliens to happen upon us is impossible. Even if life is abundant in our galaxy, the separation of time and space pretty much excludes any chance for contact.


  • I’d go one step further. Not only does our current understanding of the universe not include any possibility for FTL, as far as we understand FTL would completely break reality. Science actively excludes FTL as a thing that can exist.

    Wormholes might be an idea, but they aren’t even at the theory level yet. More of a conjecture that fell out of some math, but can’t exist in the real world.


  • A cancer on humanity? That’s a bit dramatic.

    You know you don’t have to have it dancing in rainbow patterns right? You can choose any color you like and even have it be static. I have most of my keys in blue, with the function and numpad in a soft white. This is a relaxing layout for me that helps me focus. But if you hate it so much, simply turn the lights off, that was always an option. Plus I think you are overreacting a bit, there are plenty of good keyboards out there without rgb that don’t cost much.


  • I did the exact same. Google Play Music was actually a good service back in the day. I hated it when they turned it into YouTube Music. I complained about all the broken stuff, so they gave me a home speaker for free and upgraded me to YT Premium for a year. After that year I stuck with YT Premium, since it was less than $2 extra. They also fixed a lot of stuff I complained about. Not everything, but a lot of it. I think YT Music was released a bit before it was ready. Now it still has some issues, but is mostly fine.

    Usually I watch 1 or 2 YouTube videos a day and without Premium I would most definitely not. I opened a YouTube video on a computer I wasn’t signed in the other day and it started with a 2 minute unskipable ad about crypto stuff (an obvious scam). So I closed it real fast, no video is worth sitting through that. Even with Premium I still need SponsorBlock. But with that combination watching videos is actually fun.

    Still listen to YouTube Music all day at work, so that’s a good value for money for me.




  • Sure! This is the report: https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/LCA_3_FINAL March 2022.pdf

    It has a description of the methods and the ISO standards they use to determine life-cycle CO2, from the cradle to the grave numbers. It also includes all the references and sources. I’m sure there’s a lot more info available about the research they did, but this is the high-level report.

    The UN seems like a pretty reliable source and the report seems very thorough, but I’m not qualified to say where they went wrong. So I would love to see what other sources say on the subject.

    Edit: They even state in their report why the value they give for nuclear is on the low end of most accepted literature:

    This value is comparable to the lower range of literature values because of the following assumptions: revised energy inputs for mining and milling, including electricity inputs for ISL, centrifugation-only enrichment, longer lifetime assumed for nuclear power plant (60 years instead of 40).

    But even if you double the amount, it’s still the best or at least one of the best.



  • You are right, but in this specific chart, they don’t include things like building the facilities, mining the materials etc. They just use the CO2 released whilst producing power, which with nuclear is very low. You can click on the chart and zoom in on the data, it’s pretty cool. (This is wrong, see edit)

    The whole Germany situation is very complex and I was just jabbing, I live very close to Germany and work in Germany part of the time so I know something about it (but probably not everything). To me phasing out the nuclear wasn’t that much of an issue, but it could have been done way slower to make sure renewables filled the gap. Buying gas from Russia with the war in Ukraine is going on permanently hurt my soul.

    Quickly phasing out nuclear is also a big middle finger to the countries in Europe that are looking to expand their nuclear power, but run up against long lead times. They would have gladly bought nuclear energy from Germany, which would mean way shorter lead times and prevent a lot of extra CO2 during construction of new facilities. Whilst building new big nuclear probably isn’t useful in combatting climate change, getting the most out of existing nuclear would have been.

    The fuel coming from Russia isn’t as big of a deal to me, as there are plenty of sources around the world to buy from. With the amount of gas we’ve bought from the US recently, we could have easily bought some nuclear fuel as well. Now all these sources have their issues, I don’t like being beholden to the US and places like Niger or Namibia can have human rights issues.

    Obviously nuclear isn’t the future and needs to be phased out, but in my mind this meant decades yet and not the rushed phasing out Germany did.

    Edit: Just checked the source, they actually do include things like mining of the fuel, construction of the facilities, transport of the fuel etc. into the CO2 calculation. Nuclear just blows everything out of the water in terms of CO2. Only renewables come close, but in terms of CO2 nuclear is the best.