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melomal commented on Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]   judiciary.senate.gov/imo/... · Posted by u/insamniac
paxys · 4 years ago
Social media definitely amplifies it, but consider the economic and social environment that teenagers have lived through their entire lives. Multiple major recessions, a global pandemic, rising inflation, housing and education getting more expensive by the day, prospect of a mountain of debt right after graduation, climate that will be unlivable in a few decades, political extremism becoming the norm, and massive government gridlock that has made fixing any of this impossible. Can't really shield kids from this reality anymore when all of it is one click away. Teens are aware that they are going to inherit a pretty terrible world, and are powerless to do anything about it.
melomal · 4 years ago
History tends to repeat itself and there have been many, many situations much worse than what we have experienced due to poor hygiene, health, inequality in wealth and so on. Kids working in factories from young ages just to make a couple of pennies for a loaf of bread, then being beaten at home and school.

It almost feels like people are completely unaware of various pandemics that wiped out millions, trial by fire and witch hunts and so on. Better yet, the economy has never been better compared to many previous years in the last century and more.

The only major difference has been the advent of social media.

melomal commented on Limits to green energy are becoming much clearer   ourfiniteworld.com/2022/0... · Posted by u/cribbles
abetusk · 4 years ago
This, unfortunately, reads like FUD to me.

There are limits to solar and wind, both in terms of their carbon footprint, their operating window and their storage, but all these costs are quickly dropping and availability is quickly ramping up. Solar and battery technology are experiencing a similar "Moore's Law" of their own (Swanson's law [0] for solar and Wright's law for the more general scenario [1]).

Solar is at $.75 at the consumer level and sub $0.30 at the commercial level, with costs only going down (exponentially so). Deep cycle lead acid batteries are available, right now, at the consumer level, for $0.15 / Wh with LiFePo4 sub $0.10 / Wh in some cases. I would expect non lead acid batteries to also undergo exponential decay in price.

I unfortunately don't have the talk I saw it in, but there's a cute anecdote they give. They show a picture of a busy street in the middle of New York city, with the street filled with horses, carriages and only one or two cars. They show the same spot 10 years later filled with cars and only one or two horses and carriages. Where I live (upstate New York state in the USA), I see solar farms popping up. My expectation is that solar will become widely deployed and adopted in the next 10-15 years.

The author looks to dismiss ideas of exponential growth and adoption. I also am finding more and more FUD against solar and other "green" technology, falsely claiming the coal and the carbon footprint in it's manufacture is commensurate or outweighs the fossil fuel equivalent (it doesn't).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects

melomal · 4 years ago
By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels—much of it nonrecyclable—will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage.
melomal commented on Web3 is centralized and inefficient   neelc.org/posts/web3-cent... · Posted by u/neelc
drugstorecowboy · 4 years ago
Well.. yes that would be a win for the artist. As would a sales tax that goes to artists, or a new law that legalizes pickpocketing for artists. Why is that a good thing? Why should an artist be compensated beyond the first transaction? If this concept took off, how long do you think it would take before Walmart begins taking a cut of every resale? They have just as much right to it as an artist.
melomal · 4 years ago
Well you could argue that it wouldn't be Walmart that does it, it would be the producer so Samsung, Apple, LG, Asus, Acer etc would sell their products with a digital twin (NFT) which provides sales from future purchases.

That being said, it could reduce the need for new products/versions being created every other week. However, there would need to be a somewhat centralized 'marketplace' that facilities the second hand sales which is where Walmart could step in with some perks for selling with them.

melomal commented on Two-minute battery changes push India’s delivery riders to switch to e-scooters   theprint.in/tech/two-minu... · Posted by u/rustoo
ajuc · 4 years ago
Yes I know, we have them in Lublin, but they are priced for occasional short trips not for using them every day. I'd prefer to own the scooter and pay for battery swaps.
melomal · 4 years ago
Interesting. What about during the winter months?
melomal commented on Web3 is centralized and inefficient   neelc.org/posts/web3-cent... · Posted by u/neelc
dalbasal · 4 years ago
So... A method for scalping scalpers?
melomal · 4 years ago
Pretty much. 1000 true fans is essentially the backbone of the NFT argument which basically revolves around artists and their fans parting ways with cash for collectable items. With NFT tickets, the artist always gets paid no matter who is selling the ticket and how many times it get sold. I would say that this is a win for the artist.
melomal commented on Web3 is centralized and inefficient   neelc.org/posts/web3-cent... · Posted by u/neelc
ahtihn · 4 years ago
What's the incentive for the ticket seller to enable that?
melomal · 4 years ago
Royalties. The ticket seller can set that and every time the ticket is resold, they will get % of that sale. For an artist that would mean they can sell a ticket with % royalty set and then profit from future sales on an ongoing basis.
melomal commented on Two-minute battery changes push India’s delivery riders to switch to e-scooters   theprint.in/tech/two-minu... · Posted by u/rustoo
ajuc · 4 years ago
I love the fact there's 2 smaller batteries instead of 1 big one. There's a lot of people with back problems (for example my wife) and this kind of design helps them a lot. Can't wait for this to come to Poland.
melomal · 4 years ago
Poland has a number of e-scooter companies where you can rent them. They are littered all over Tricity, baby blue ones, but they don't seem to be that popular, especially during the winter months.
melomal commented on Twitter based map of Russian troop movements   maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/ru... · Posted by u/jillesvangurp
_xnmw · 4 years ago
I'm in downtown Kharkiv, Ukraine right now (SaaS founder born in Canada). Woke up to explosions at 5 AM this morning. At 12PM still some explosions, can feel the ground shaking, but the streets are mostly calm. Went out to buy some groceries, long lines, but everything still works. Police cars are out patrolling in full force, but no signs of unrest. Church bells tolling nonstop. TransferWise is limited to $200 USD transfers but it worked -- Apple Pay worked at the grocery store. Obviously internet and electricity is still up for now, but water pipes have been shut off in many of my friend's places.
melomal · 4 years ago
Strong people with attitudes to match!
melomal commented on U.S. weighs sending 5k troops to Eastern Europe to counter Russia   npr.org/2022/01/23/107524... · Posted by u/caaqil
snowgrove · 4 years ago
Why is the U.S. sending troops to Europe at all? It’s been 70 years since the end of World War 2, 30 years since the end of the Cold War. Let the wealthy democracies of Europe fund their own collective defense. They can easily afford it. France and the UK have credible nuclear deterrents. Young Americans from poor rural towns who enlist just for healthcare have no business in Ukraine or Bulgaria. Send the young Germans; maybe they’ll stop looking down their noses at countries with functioning armies.
melomal · 4 years ago
Because America has never missed a war. It's too profitable.
melomal commented on Digital real estate and the digital housing crisis   gamedeveloper.com/busines... · Posted by u/jsnell
Animats · 4 years ago
Making ridiculous bank by doing big presales of virtual plots of "land" on the basis that they are going to turn into big UGC-based platforms to rival Steam, Roblox, etc.

The key words being "presales" and "they are going to turn into". That's an investment.

Back in 2018, the SEC started bringing the hammer down on "initial coin offerings" to US persons. They apply the "Howey test" [1] to determine whether something is an investment. First the SEC went after the total scammers. Then they sent letters to every ICO advertising in the US, asking them why they hadn't registered with the SEC for an initial public offering. Where's that prospectus and S1 filing? Many ICO promoters frantically returned the money. The SEC continues to go after the ones that didn't, as you can see on the SEC enforcement page.[2] About one ICO per month gets heavily penalized. Some promoters go to jail. Glenn Arcaro, who was behind BitConnect, has his sentencing hearing on Friday.[3] We don't hear much about ICOs any more.

NFTs were invented mostly as an attempt to create "collectables" which were not regulated investments. Now, that's OK if you're buying something that already exists, like a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. But if you're buying a ticket for something that doesn't exist yet, like virtual land in a virtual world that isn't actually running yet, that's an investment.

So far, the SEC hasn't hammered any NFT operators. The SEC is complaint-driven. They wait until the complaints "I lost my life savings buying land in ..." start coming in.

Probably the first promoters who get in serious trouble will be the ones who overpromised what their nonexistent virtual world would do, and delivered nothing.

[1] https://www.howeycoins.com/

[2] https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/cybersecurity-enforcement-acti...

[3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/56-million-seized-cryptocurre...

melomal · 4 years ago
> But if you're buying a ticket for something that doesn't exist yet, that's an investment.

Out of curiosity, does this include concerts and events?

u/melomal

KarmaCake day496May 21, 2013View Original