notdonspaulding (u/notdonspaulding)

notdonspaulding commented on GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house cnbc.com/2024/12/10/gm-ha... · Posted by u/atomic128

tialaramex · a year ago

In particular, grid decarbonisation means that distance to break even moves after the car is manufactured.

If you live somewhere that mostly burns coal to make electricity, your break even is determined based on the higher efficiency of electric motors and of the (energy efficient but filthy) big stack coal generators compared to the relatively clean but inefficient gasoline ICE.

But if they start building wind turbines and solar farms, because those are just cheaper and easier - suddenly that distance shrinks rapidly (maybe half) even though for you as an end user nothing changed, because electricity is fungible so you charge a car from the solar farm just the same as from a coal power plant.

notdonspaulding · a year ago

> If you live somewhere that mostly burns coal to make electricity,

Which is almost everywhere in the world. Fossil fuels make up around 80% of energy production.

> But if they start building wind turbines and solar farms, because those are just cheaper and easier -

If they were "just cheaper and easier" they wouldn't need huge clean energy investments and subsidies.

I love solar, but don't let anyone sell you on the fiction that your EV is avoiding fossil fuels at any time in the near future unless you have installed enough solar on your personal residence to charge your car every day.

And if you ask the people who have done that "hey, was it cheap and easy to move your car's energy consumption to renewables?" and they reply "Yes!", please bring their story back here and share with the class.

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023/execut...

notdonspaulding commented on 10% of Cubans left Cuba between 2022 and 2023 miamiherald.com/news/nati... · Posted by u/apsec112

achenet · 2 years ago

eh... Germany, Netherlands, even France... Switzerland probably... all those places you'll have bright young hardworking people from Spain or Portugal or Tunisia moving there, getting tech jobs, and finding financial/material success. In many cases becoming citizens so their kids can have access to that life without jumping through a bunch of hoops for visas.

America is totally a place where a hardworking, intelligent immigrant can become fairly wealthy (assuming no catastrophic bad luck, ie. getting shot because the second amendment says that everyone should have a full-auto assault rifle), but it does not have a monopoly on that :)

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

Just a note on your gun death comment. The chance of dying by a gun in the US is very small. Of those killed by guns in the US, less than 3% are killed by anything resembling an "assault rifle". Over half of all gun deaths are suicides, so even those numbers are inflated if what you want to know is "how worried do I need to be about dying because the 2nd amendment allows assault rifle ownership?"

The quick answer is "very little".

notdonspaulding commented on Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021) mydiplomaticlife.com/how-... · Posted by u/Hansig_jw

netsharc · 2 years ago

The last paragraph talks about being cut-off and isolated. He didn't mention Internet or phones for private use, so I wonder if they didn't have that. I can imagine smartphones being disallowed, and even if allowed, limited to home WiFi...

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

They did not have internet. From the article:

> You were in a country that really was sealed off from the rest of the world. No internet or social media. All press and TV (one channel) dedicated not for news but solely for the glorification of the Leader. That is the Kim dynasty and the regime.

notdonspaulding commented on “Dark money” groups help private ISPs lobby against municipal broadband arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/rntn

Teever · 2 years ago

This is all great to discuss in theory but let's be real here. A municipal ISP is a net win for the people that pay for it.

This shouldn't be controversial, and it isn't controversial for people in places where discourse hasn't been poisoned with these go no where derailing talking points.

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

I couldn't be talking from a more realistic standpoint. I've lived in places where incumbent ISPs don't invest in infrastructure, places where a private organization built out a cable network without any subsidies, places where a municipal provider was subsidized by federal grant money, and places where there was no public or private build outs and so I built my own ISP servicing my rural neighbors.

I'm not saying that municipal broadband is a net loss, but there are no silver bullets. Subsidies are one way that a municipality can "pick a winner", and in so doing, it can assure all of the competition loses. Sometimes that's a net win, sometimes it isn't, your claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

notdonspaulding commented on “Dark money” groups help private ISPs lobby against municipal broadband arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/rntn

semi · 2 years ago

> The great thing about a private company "overcharging" or "underserving" a community is that citizens aren't forced to be in a relationship with that company for their services.

But that is rarely true for any privatized infrastructure alternative. There is often direct financial relations through taxation anyways, either tax breaks for the company or outright having the municipality foot the bill(see most stadiums)

Then there is the potential resource usage itself - e.g how much of the land in that city is now dedicate to toll roads that could be free, or in the internet infra case it's often exclusive rights to the poles all of the lines are ran on.

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

> But that is rarely true for any privatized infrastructure alternative. There is often direct financial relations through taxation anyways, either tax breaks for the company or outright having the municipality foot the bill(see most stadiums)

How would you consider those to be "privatized infrastructure alternatives" then? To me this sounds like further evidence of citizens having fewer alternatives available because their money is being spent on things they may not (or may!) care about.

> Then there is the potential resource usage itself - e.g how much of the land in that city is now dedicate to toll roads that could be free, or in the internet infra case it's often exclusive rights to the poles all of the lines are ran on.

IDK, public rights-of-way don't seem to be the place where big disagreements are found? Passing a local law to allow common access to utility infrastructure seems qualitatively different than establishing a municipal competitor.

notdonspaulding commented on “Dark money” groups help private ISPs lobby against municipal broadband arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/rntn

bryanlarsen · 2 years ago

Do you benefit if you don't use a government service but your neighbors do?

You benefit if the local businesses have reasonably priced Internet, rather than paying hundreds of dollars a month for "commercial" services from incumbents. You benefit if your neighbor's kids have access to better education because those kids are the ones that are going to provide essential services to you as you age. And so on.

Everybody benefits from infrastructure even if they don't use it directly.

P.S. Yes in this case your benefits aren't large, but (1) your costs are small because internet is a paid service so the vast majority of the costs are covered by those who directly benefit and (2) infrastructure is cumulative -- the benefit of public infrastructure is greater than the sum of the parts.

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

> Everybody benefits from infrastructure even if they don't use it directly.

...therefore, by definition, any infrastructure project is to be considered "worth it" and should be welcomed by everyone in the community. To be against government rollout of infrastructure is to be against everybody's best interest, right?

I'm not against government-provided services across-the-board. But apologists for infrastructure spending often seem to make this argument as if it's the last point to be made. The great thing about a private company "overcharging" or "underserving" a community is that citizens aren't forced to be in a relationship with that company for their services. That's not the case for infrastructure spending by the local government. It's much harder to vote with your feet than to vote with your wallet.

The fine line to walk with government spending is to find a way to incentivize competition in the local marketplace, without destroying it in the process. It's not an easy problem to solve.

notdonspaulding commented on Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading? · Posted by u/mucle6

smokeydoe · 2 years ago

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman. It’s a great read about early scribe practices and known problems with different manuscript translations in the New Testament.

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

I've not personally read "Misquoting Jesus", but I've listened to Ehrman on YT a bit. Based on that, and having spoken with a few biblical scholars who have read Ehrman, the general impression I get is that he has a "select is broken"[0] attitude toward the reliability of the Bible.

Much like GCC, and the Linux kernel, and the PostgreSQL query planner, the Bible is a battle-tested historical artifact. There may be a slew of yet-to-be-discovered "edge cases" in its interpretation (and perhaps Ehrman is the man to discover them). But in the main, it's an incredibly reliable witness to history.

So, while I wouldn't want to discourage people from starting their study of Biblical textual criticism with Bart Ehrman, I would definitely discourage them from concluding it with him.

    The one who states his case first seems right,
      until the other comes and examines him.
    Prov. 18:17

[0]: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-first-rule-of-programming-...

notdonspaulding commented on Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading? · Posted by u/mucle6

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

I don't tend to reread many books in general. C.S. Lewis and Tolkien's fictional series are probably the only exceptions. However, I do frequently reread books from the Bible, typically the English Standard Version. And yes, I would make the claim that all of these are non-fictional books/letters.

- Jonah: for its description of God's desire to have compassion on a group of people who don't know him, by leaving Jonah with no other option than telling those people about Him.

- Ecclesiastes: For "The Teacher's" many vignettes about how life is a quickly-dissipating vapor, and his pointing to ways to find satisfaction in it.

- Mark: Mark tells the story of Jesus' life and ministry in a no-nonsense, get-to-the-point kind of way.

- Romans: Paul gives a treatise on: the main problem of mankind, the inability of men to live up to any standard of behavior, the source of any confidence that anyone can have that God might be pleased with them, the way the Christian church relates to the people of Israel, and how to live in unity with people with whom you have disagreements.

- 1 John: John never got over the fact that he was loved by Jesus, and this letter is his recapitulation of that same love toward others.

[Jonah]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah%201&versi...

[Ecclesiastes]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1&...

[Mark]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+1&version=...

[Romans]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1&versio...

[1 John]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+1&versio...

notdonspaulding commented on mRNA Cancer Vaccine Reprograms Immune System to Tackle Glioblastoma in 48 Hours insideprecisionmedicine.c... · Posted by u/birriel

SoftTalker · 2 years ago

It is and it isn't. A year and a half would go by so quickly. But if it were a high-quality year and a half and not spent in a hospital ward, I guess it's better than the alternative.

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

It is and it is. My dad died of a GBM in 2022, 17 months after his diagnosis. If he had had another 19 months, I'd have made him breakfast this morning.

I find it much easier to sympathize with people's desire for additional time with terminally-ill loved ones now.

notdonspaulding commented on mRNA Cancer Vaccine Reprograms Immune System to Tackle Glioblastoma in 48 Hours insideprecisionmedicine.c... · Posted by u/birriel

ekianjo · 2 years ago

> but the canine patients lived a median of 139 days, compared with a median survival of 30–60 days typical for dogs with the condition

so you might get an improvement in overall survival but not a cure for GBM

notdonspaulding · 2 years ago

GBM median survival for humans (according to the article) is 15 months.

If the effect is linear, the boost to survival time in humans would be an additional 19 months. With the death sentence of GBM hanging over your future, an additional year-and-a-half is huge.