The technology thread

[Bada-Bing!]

I've rented a Beryl E-bike and definitely find it easier and more enjoyable cycling up hills than the normal pedal bike.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Posting this as a correction to something I posted previously. Basically new boilers, called condensing boilers, came in after 2005. Apparently you can tell them by an extra white pipe that comes out of them. These can enjoy longer periods of being switched on at a lower heat which allows them to retain the steam and feeding it back into the heating system. So by doing this you can keep the average temp higher and use less gas than if you switched it on and off a couple of times. Old boilers prefer being switched on and off as required (which is what I do with my old one).

This guy goes into a lot of detail about such matters and most of it goes over my head.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Some recent progress in the world of EVs. A while back Amazon converted their fleet to EVs (not Tesla). In December the first Tesla EV lorries will be sold. Delivery vans and lorries should quickly become full EV only sectors due to economics. Not even political vested interests should be able to stop that from happening.

Buses are being infuriatingly slow to convert outside of China, although I just had an advert for Hitachi run electric buses in Scotland come up on my YouTube account, so baby steps are happening.

Tesla also just announced plans to release a car with a max price of around £24k, which factoring in fuel costs will likely have cheaper lifetime costs than any comparable combustion engine car (10,000 miles = around £1,200 of petrol per annum at this time). Basically, we are approaching the point where purchasing pretty much any vehicle as a combustion engine model will be economically disadvantageous and that will be the point of no return and I think it'll be before the 2030 political deadline for neww vehicles that many countries have adopted.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Also, earlier this month Musk announced they are going to transplant the self-driving brains of the Tesla cars into their Optimus robots to help them navigate and carry out basic workplace and social functions. He envisages far more than 100 million of these things kicking about in the world in say 10-20 years time (first units on sale in 3 years) and given these things will be able to work without breaks 24hrs a day and get incrementally more intelligent (and do ever more complex tasks using their own initiative) I think we are getting the first glimpse of major changes in workforces just in time for the labour market shrinking due to an ageing population. This might happen very quickly. I think there is a decent chance I'll be having a robot doing my laundry and wiping my arse in 40 years time. Because it will be the most cost effective way to carry out social care of the elderly.

 

[Amiga500]

Also, earlier this month Musk announced they are going to transplant the self-driving brains of the Tesla cars into their Optimus robots to help them navigate and carry out basic workplace and social functions. He envisages far more than 100 million of these things kicking about in the world in say 10-20 years time (first units on sale in 3 years) and given these things will be able to work without breaks 24hrs a day and get incrementally more intelligent (and do ever more complex tasks using their own initiative) I think we are getting the first glimpse of major changes in workforces just in time for the labour market shrinking due to an ageing population. This might happen very quickly. I think there is a decent chance I'll be having a robot doing my laundry and wiping my arse in 40 years time. Because it will be the most cost effective way to carry out social care of the elderly.

iRobot

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Also, earlier this month Musk announced they are going to transplant the self-driving brains of the Tesla cars into their Optimus robots to help them navigate and carry out basic workplace and social functions. He envisages far more than 100 million of these things kicking about in the world in say 10-20 years time (first units on sale in 3 years) and given these things will be able to work without breaks 24hrs a day and get incrementally more intelligent (and do ever more complex tasks using their own initiative) I think we are getting the first glimpse of major changes in workforces just in time for the labour market shrinking due to an ageing population. This might happen very quickly. I think there is a decent chance I'll be having a robot doing my laundry and wiping my arse in 40 years time. Because it will be the most cost effective way to carry out social care of the elderly.

Arsebot 5000

 

[AlRums]

The Jetpack in Thunderball was real as well, just didn't stay up in the air as long as suggested.

Don't forget this fella in 1984

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Excellent video for anyone with an interest in future energy production / energy independence. Kind of depressing and in conjunction with other videos by this guy can be summarised as:

- heat pump installation can be pretty expensive compared to alternatives regardless of whether heat pump prices reduce (probably worth a survey / quote to see if you are one of the lucky ones that that that easily as the other options may be worse long term)

- any form of hydrogen production other than being produced by renewables, is pretty much terrible for the environment and potentially more expensive than gas.

- We can actually produce 'green' hydrogen from renewables at a rate of 70-80% which is way better than what I thought.

- hydrogen cannot pass through existing gas pipe network. Would be an eyewatering £130 billion upgrade for UK.

- to supply the whole UK with green hydrogen would take roughly, 4x the electricity of universal heat pump usage (such is the energy efficiency of heat pumps)

- the no-brainer use of hydrogen is to produce it during off peak renewable times (nighttime), store it, then burn it to produce electricity during periods of low wind (replacing the current role of gas producing 40% of UK electricity). This might be an option to transition via until govenrments get their crap together over battery farms.

Kind of worryingly the SNP (in government with Greens) seem to be wanting to go down the 'hydrogen boilers' route.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I think there is a decent chance I'll be having a robot doing my laundry and wiping my arse in 40 years time.

You're a brave man if you'd let Tesla's AI anywhere near your nether regions!

 

[dullonien]

Excellent video for anyone with an interest in future energy production / energy independence. Kind of depressing and in conjunction with other videos by this guy can be summarised as:

- heat pump installation can be pretty expensive compared to alternatives regardless of whether heat pump prices reduce (probably worth a survey / quote to see if you are one of the lucky ones that that that easily as the other options may be worse long term)

- any form of hydrogen production other than being produced by renewables, is pretty much terrible for the environment and potentially more expensive than gas.

- We can actually produce 'green' hydrogen from renewables at a rate of 70-80% which is way better than what I thought.

- hydrogen cannot pass through existing gas pipe network. Would be an eyewatering £130 billion upgrade for UK.

- to supply the whole UK with green hydrogen would take roughly, 4x the electricity of universal heat pump usage (such is the energy efficiency of heat pumps)

- the no-brainer use of hydrogen is to produce it during off peak renewable times (nighttime), store it, then burn it to produce electricity during periods of low wind (replacing the current role of gas producing 40% of UK electricity). This might be an option to transition via until govenrments get their crap together over battery farms.

Kind of worryingly the SNP (in government with Greens) seem to be wanting to go down the 'hydrogen boilers' route.

Yeah, I don't see the benefits of hydrogen powered domestic boilers on a mass scale. The future is efficient buildings with heat pumps, I think that's clear to see.

Keep hydrogen as a fuel source for transport, where the quick refueling has genuine advantages over the relatively slow recharging of betteries.

Either that or batteries need to be standardised, allowing for interchangeable battery packs - simply pull into a battery station and the entire battery pack is replaced with a fully charged one, with your flat one going on charge for a future customer.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Yeah, I don't see the benefits of hydrogen powered domestic boilers on a mass scale. The future is efficient buildings with heat pumps, I think that's clear to see.

Keep hydrogen as a fuel source for transport, where the quick refueling has genuine advantages over the relatively slow recharging of betteries.

Either that or batteries need to be standardised, allowing for interchangeable battery packs - simply pull into a battery station and the entire battery pack is replaced with a fully charged one, with your flat one going on charge for a future customer.

This. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that in the future we will have computers that can see how a car is aligned in the space and control robotic arms to replace the battery. That or we simply change our way of living and accept longer charging times into our lives. Generally when travelling the sort of distances where you need to charge a battery, you should be having a break anyway. I could see emergency vehicles and lorries having interchangeable batteries though to ensure they have minimal downtime.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

No easy answers what with most homes with gas boilers.

And yes being able to pump through existing network - hence why Centrica are apparently adding blue hydrogen IIRC in increments of 5% to 20%, which can use existing pipes and existing boilers, is the most realistic going forward.

Putting heat pumps in every home will cost an absolute bomb and not really going to be cost effective on a mass scale, without Government support.

Also boils down to fully insulating, double glazing our housing stock as much as we can. Not a given seeing as so much of it is so old.

LED lighting.

Combo of the above and increasing renewables as much as possible - Wind, solar, hydro, Biomass and Nuclear if we can deal with the waste for foreseeable future.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

WhatsApp down for users across UK and world

Many are complaining that they are unable to send messages from the Meta-owned platform.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Excellent to have this tool to identify methane hotspots around the world that we weren't previously aware of.

New NASA instrument detects methane ‘super-emitters’ from space

The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) identified more than 50 methane hotspots around the world.

www.aljazeera.com

Presumably it'll also be able to tell when/if mass methane leaks come out of the thawed permafrost of Siberia and Canada (which some assess to be a possible point of no return for the planet regardless of what humanity does).

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Musk claiming he is buying Twitter to "help humanity", what a ***.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Musk claiming he is buying Twitter to "help humanity", what a ***.

It was mildly interesting watching the 'Elon Musk Show' series.

It would suggest that everything he has done business wise is to have a function on Mars and his genuine feeling it would 'help humanity' to go mulit-planetary. So self driving vehicles, digging tunnels, solar panels, batteries, rockets, robots etc.

It would also suggest his idiotic remarks over Ukraine and Taiwan are because he has some mental damage from a violent upbringing and keeps fixating on nuclear Apocalypse (so he foolishly believes giving dictators what they want would reduce the risk of nuclear war). Alternatively, he could also be far right. He repeatedly talks about there not being enough babies, which typically translates as there not being enough babies of his preferred skin tone (given the world population is still growing).

The documentary would suggest he bought Twitter because he is a ***. Its really grim. There isn't really any major state actor or incredibly wealthy private individual doing a single thing positive for the planet/species so to see one guy who did appear to be making an effort go off piste and waste stupid amounts of money on this crap, which will divert his resources and attention, is a real shame.

Maybe Bezos or Rishi will step up and be the hero we need.

 

[ncurd]

Said it many times before Musk appears to be shrewd investor who is willing to take on high risk projects and able to identify serious talent to mitigate that risk. I just hate the engineering genius Tony Stark persona of which there is little evidence of.

See one of his first acts buying twitter is fire the person who banned Trump. When social media already has a massive problem for the distribution of complete falsehoods and targeting that at people most vulnerable to believe them its not exactly the first step I'd like someone do. Complete free speech is not going to be the answer to this one, it was that attitude that led to Trump in first place including the ability for him to generate clicks that led to his rise.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Unbridled free speech will be the death of Twitter. Funny enough, people don't like being in an environment where others can say horrible crap without consequence. Generally those who see nothing wrong with spewing hatred all the time are those who do it. Also even in the USA, free speech is not unlimited. I think they will find a lot of the nasties making death threats etc who then face legal consequences for their actions, but think somehow saying it on Twitter be real life will protect them.

Musk will either realise this and not go down this path for long or he could kill the platform and lose billions. There is a reason these far right "free speech" platforms all failed.

He's also claimed he wants to remove the bots. Surely free speech includes the ability to make a bot say things? It could be a convenient cover to purge the platform of legitimate profiles.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

He's already started walking back some of the things he's said now that he's realised he needs advertisers on board to try and claw back some the debts he's taken on to put this deal through

He's also claimed he wants to remove the bots. Surely free speech includes the ability to make a bot say things? It could be a convenient cover to purge the platform of legitimate profiles.

"This union account is clearly a bot, ban it"
"This account tracking my private plane is clearly a bot, ban it"
It's weird how he's managed to advertise himself as the bastion of free speech, I give it a month before he's banning people left right and centre

 

[TRF_Olyy]

This is really weird