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abainbridge commented on Q&A: New UK onshore wind and solar is '50% cheaper' than new gas   carbonbrief.org/qa-new-uk... · Posted by u/DamonHD
abainbridge · 5 hours ago
In the UK the wholesale price was about £80/MWh in 2025. The retail price was about £270/MWh + a standing charge. If you factor in the standing charge, an average user paid about £344/MWh. So the cost of generation was only about 23% of the retail price. I believe the green levies + CfDs accounted for about another 15% of the retail price.

Does this mean that if generation was free, and there were no green policy costs, our electric would still be expensive?

edit: "Network and Distribution" appears to contribute about 23% of the retail price. I guess green energy increased that cost because wind/solar are more spread out and sometimes off-shore.

abainbridge commented on A Cosmic Miracle: A Remarkably Luminous Galaxy at z=14.44 Confirmed with JWST   astro.theoj.org/article/1... · Posted by u/yread
ben_w · 16 hours ago
I think you've mistaken thousands of years for millions.

As per your own link:

  Solving for z_rec gives value around 1100, which converts to a cosmic time value around 400,000 years

abainbridge · 16 hours ago
Doh. Thanks.
abainbridge commented on A Cosmic Miracle: A Remarkably Luminous Galaxy at z=14.44 Confirmed with JWST   astro.theoj.org/article/1... · Posted by u/yread
abainbridge · 16 hours ago
We're seeing this galaxy as it was 280 million years after the Big Bang. But the universe didn't become transparent to photons until 100 million years after that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recombination_(cosmology)). So that's impossible. Who's wrong, Recombination theory or this paper?

Or have I missed something?

abainbridge commented on A brief history of oral peptides   seangeiger.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/odedfalik
celltalk · a day ago
It’s a great read but is this really the history of oral peptides?
abainbridge · a day ago
Yep, I think it is. The point is there's almost no history of oral peptides, other than stomachs destroying them.

FTA: "So to summarize the state of the art in oral peptide delivery: there are exactly two FDA-approved products that use permeation enhancers to get peptides into your bloodstream through your GI tract. Both achieve sub-1% bioavailability. Both required over a decade of development, thousands of clinical trial participants, and hundreds of millions of dollars."

abainbridge commented on In Tehran   lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/janua... · Posted by u/mitchbob
behnamoh · 7 days ago
It's troubling that most of the free world stands by and watches as a genocidal-level massacre takes place in Iran. Persians don't expect China/Russia to respond, but come on, no action from the West?

Imagine negotiating with Hitler to give up his V2 missiles and nuclear plans while the Holocaust was taking place. History will judge us for negotiating (and therefore, legitimizing) with the islamic regime that's occupied Iran for 47 years.

abainbridge · 7 days ago
The British government continued to negotiate with Hitler after Kristallnacht (November 1938). They only stopped once he invaded Prague in March 1939.
abainbridge commented on Sumerian Star Map Recorded the Impact of an Asteroid (2024)   archaeologyworlds.com/550... · Posted by u/griffzhowl
urxvtcd · 12 days ago
We found an ancient tablet, dated it, reconstruded a long-dead language well enough to read it, reconstructed the night sky on that day, five and a half thousand years ago, found the orbit of this thing, and connected it to a geological formation thousands of kilometers away. Humans can do some amazing stuff.
abainbridge · 12 days ago
Seems like it is no longer considered to be anything to do with a meteorite impact. It's hard to find a good source. This is the best I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_possible_impact_struct...

I think this paper's abstract claims that wooden debris from the landslide has been dated to 5000 years older than the Sumerian tablet: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329153343_The_produ...

abainbridge commented on Kitchen optimizations   natemeyvis.com/kitchen-op... · Posted by u/Theaetetus
zcw100 · a month ago
I've found the blue tape and a sharpie to be a game changer. It helps me keep my fridge tidy without having to go through everything and guess if it's still ok. I find I actually waste less food when I throw things out regularly because I know that if it's in there it's good to eat and it doesn't get lost among old leftovers that aren't any good anymore anyway.
abainbridge · a month ago
That wouldn't make me happy. If the sharpie on the tape said it was bad, I'd still look at it, sniff it and probably eat it. Certain foods scare me though. eg there's a common claim that boiled rice shouldn't be kept for more than a day and then re-heated. I follow this received wisdom even though it never seems bad and I don't know anyone who got ill from eating re-heated boiled rice. On the other hand, raw chicken does not scare me because I have an uncontrollable revulsion to it when it has actually gone bad. And of course, Camembert isn't worth eating until at least a fortnight after the expiry date.
abainbridge commented on Inca Stone Masonry   earthasweknowit.com/pages... · Posted by u/jppope
abainbridge · 2 months ago
> The video does not counter the parents argument about measuring fit.

I know. I mainly just wanted to link that video because it is awesome.

The article does explain how the Inca did it - only the front edges are tight fitting. The gaps between the inside surfaces are filled with mortar. They sat the stone where it was to be placed, but with the front edge raised up by resting on some spacers, then just incrementally improved the fit of the edge and re-tried the fit. I'd have still thought that was impossible without seeing something like the video I linked - my intuition of what can be achieved with hammer and chisel was wrong.

abainbridge · 2 months ago
Edit: I think that was too strong. I don't have any real knowledge of this subject. The explanation in the article seemed reasonable to me. That is all.
abainbridge commented on Inca Stone Masonry   earthasweknowit.com/pages... · Posted by u/jppope
synecdoche · 2 months ago
The video does not counter the parents argument about measuring fit.

What the masons in the video do is certainly impressive. Cutting organic shapes that fit perfectly together, as if they once were elastic, is another level.

Perhaps the did something similar to what dentists do when building on teeth so that the added material is not the only contract point when jaws are closed. That is, a contact sheet that leaves contact marks.

abainbridge · 2 months ago
> The video does not counter the parents argument about measuring fit.

I know. I mainly just wanted to link that video because it is awesome.

The article does explain how the Inca did it - only the front edges are tight fitting. The gaps between the inside surfaces are filled with mortar. They sat the stone where it was to be placed, but with the front edge raised up by resting on some spacers, then just incrementally improved the fit of the edge and re-tried the fit. I'd have still thought that was impossible without seeing something like the video I linked - my intuition of what can be achieved with hammer and chisel was wrong.

abainbridge commented on Inca Stone Masonry   earthasweknowit.com/pages... · Posted by u/jppope
abainbridge · 2 months ago
Pounding stone seems reasonable to me. Obviously I don't have any proof or even strong evidence but I saw a video that changed my perception of what is possible. It showed two old men making a millstone with hand tools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lscs5ZgNQrE. The amount of labour involved and quality of the finished item was astonishing to me. Maybe you'll think that the hideous amount of labour needed to make a simple geometric shape makes you even more convinced the Inca has some other way to achieve their even harder task. But it is a fun video anyway.

Similarly astonishing to me is that Michelanglo's David was carved from a single piece of marble with a hammer and chisel. I mean, just look at it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_(Michelangelo)

u/abainbridge

KarmaCake day1958October 5, 2012View Original