Germany will provide Ukraine with the largest military aid package since the beginning of the war, worth €2.7 billion

Alcobob · 2023-05-13T12:25:21+00:00

The IRIS-T SLM systems delivered to Ukraine are the first ever produced. They were under production for Egypt, and have been diverted.

And about the Gepards, it's not that there aren't any in storage. The problem is that there is limited capacity to refurbish tanks. So the first delivered were the easiest to get running with minimal maintenance.

Take for example Spain, it has slightly more than 100 Leopard 2A4s in storage. But only was able to supply 6 of them to Ukraine so far. But those were the easiest to reactivate. According to a Forbes article, 53 in total could get reactivated. But of those 33 require extensive work taking weeks or months.

Alcobob · 2023-05-11T13:49:15+00:00

£10-15/MWh i don't think so.

That would mean 1 to 1,5 cent per kWh, while wind is at about 4 cents per kWh to break even (new turbines)

Did you mean 100 to 150?

Alcobob · 2023-05-11T13:12:46+00:00

What huge breakthroughs?

It's not enough to have breakthroughs in one specific area for fusion to become reality, the breakthroughs are required in all areas.

Let's take the very simple question of where the fuel will come from. It's pretty certain that the first fusion reactors will require tritium. (As is is part of the easiest form of fusion we can achieve.)

Nearly universally the tritium we do have comes from fission reactors. But let's look at the scale of the supply of tritium via fission and the demand a fusion reactor needs:

https://www.iter.org/mag/8/56

Estimates are that a fusion reactor will require 100+kg of tritium per year. Meanwhile the global production of tritium per year is 20kg.

So we need 5 times as many fission reactors that currently exist on earth to fuel 1 single fusion reactor.

Helion wants to evade the tritium problem by using helium 3, which it wants to create from the deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction. Yes that's their word from their own FAQ: https://www.helionenergy.com/faq/

Helion produces helium-3 by fusing deuterium in its plasma accelerator utilizing a patented high-efficiency closed-fuel cycle.

Well, the Deuterium Deuterium fusion reaction is way more difficult to achieve than Deuterium-Tritium. But they make it seem like a forgone conclusion that they will do it, barely worth mentioning. They proudly mention how they reached 100 million degrees. Meanwhile 400 to 500 million degrees are required to get that fusion reaction going. Can their accelerator produce enough helium-3, or how many accelerators would they need. Because even if the accelerator is highly efficient, if you need 10 of them running 24/7 to supply one fusion reactor your infrastructure investments will be so high that the electricity won't be able to compete in the free market.

To return: The fuel question is entirely unanswered so far.

Alcobob · 2023-05-11T12:17:12+00:00

Then you don't need a lock in the first place.

Alcobob · 2023-05-10T15:59:37+00:00

Unemployed, mostly because i like having many very long term beneficial traits. The lore reason is that Mr Prepper didn't do anything for a whole year.

Maybe i should add agoraphobia as a negative trait to round out the scenario. But as i said, i like my character to have the potential to become a masterful survivor without any negative traits that earned all the skills from the ground up.

Alcobob · 2023-05-10T13:35:51+00:00

No worries, as i said the lore you create for your scenarios is the right lore.

One of the fun things you can do, if you want to effectively see how the default lore doesn't match with the state the world is in, find a car and drive to louisville on the first day, specifically the radio or TV stations. You will find them overrun with zombies while the radio programs are happily reporting about the knox county incident.

There was no right way for the devs to avoid those issues, as they would either have to remove all the meta lore events that happen in case the population is already dead, or to simulate the panicked people for the first few days while the population is still alive. (Though it would be awesome to play during those day, when looters might be a bigger danger than zombies)

Meanwhile, in the scenario i play, it is 1 year later so all power and water is out and all car batteries are dead. Also the character was a prepper and survived for 1 year on provisions stored at home while hiding behind curtains staying as silent as possible. So now after the provisions ran out, underweight and entirely out of shape he has to face the new world.

Alcobob · 2023-05-10T13:15:53+00:00

The lore is actually contradictory to that:

In the default games, Louisville was not yet subject to the virus at the day the game starts. That's why the initial radio and TV broadcasts are still happening normally.

It's more or less a game design decision that there are only zombies when you spawn, as it would be quite some work to have normal humans go about their days (and drive cars) when they should nearly all be dead after 2 or 3 days.

This is one of the reasons why Louisville is not a spawn point, to keep the suspension of disbelieve intact.

With fuel specifically, i think the devs said it is mostly a game balancing thing.

When it comes to food and water, realistically speaking most shops should be well stocked. The virus must have spread and killed the population really quickly. That the survivor takes 2 days or so to die to an infection isn't a good measure for the general population, as the survivor is one of the lucky few which are immune to the airborne virus.

Edit: That said, whatever you think the lore is for your scenario is the right one. That's why you can create a custom scenario and modify all the settings for it to be just right for you.

Alcobob · 2023-05-10T12:30:40+00:00

Nuclear power plants are anything but short term. They are medium to long term.

Look at Hinkley Point C (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station)

First plans to build new reactors come in 2008, in 2010 the locations are announced, approval for construction was granted in 2016, which was started in 2017 and after many delays the current estimate when the plant will go online is in 2028.

So only 20 years from idea to supplying the grid. (11 of those are construction)

And another 60 years to make up the investment, and that is at a stupendously expensive cost per MWh for 92 pounds, while wind energy has reached a third of that.

Old nuclear power plants should stay online. Everything else should get replaced with wind, solar, hydro, etc.

Nuclear power is dead, and it was killed by economics.

Edit: This part of the wikipedia article says all about the economics of nuclear power:

In July 2016, the National Audit Office estimated that due to falling energy costs, the additional cost to consumers of 'future top-up payments under the proposed CfD for Hinkley Point C had increased from £6.1 billion in October 2013, when the strike price was agreed, to £29.7 billion'.[88][89] In July 2017, this estimate rose to £50 billion, or 'more than eight times the 2013 estimate'.

To say it clearer: The falling electricity prices due to renewables mean that the population will pay 50 billion in subsidies to the Hinkley Point C powerplant.

Alcobob · 2023-05-10T11:17:18+00:00

Serious answer:

Saturday Night by Wighfield.

I hate that song, it was played so freaking often during one summer it burned every piece of enjoyment you could get from it out.

So if i have to take 24 hours of a single song, i'd take the hit of a song that i already burned through than the chance of hating a song after 24 hours i actually like at the moment.

Alcobob · 2023-05-10T07:55:05+00:00

This is exactly the point. These performance upgrades are great for Mercedes whatever you do.

If you shell out 60 € per month for the extra horsepower, the engineers will have likely concluded that it will on average cause 15 € of damage that Mercedes would have to cover under warranty due to the entire system going beyond design specs.

Meanwhile if you go with the DIY method with an aftermarket ECU, great for Mercedes as you just voided the warranty on pretty much all the electrical components.

Alcobob · 2023-05-09T09:38:15+00:00

The strange part is: Processor (so not only intel) sales hit a 30 year low Q4 2022

Meanwhile i bought 2 new servers for my company and no 8 core intel Xeon processors were available so i had to switch to a 6 core.

So from my side, the demand is there, but the supply isn't. But in Intels case, where did the supply capacity go?

Alcobob · 2023-05-08T09:22:46+00:00

that often

What?

Alcobob · 2023-05-04T11:07:25+00:00

They are getting better nowadays when it comes to their climate impact.

For example i took a cruise on a rather old (for cruise liners) and small (for cruise liners) ship last year. 2000km from start to destination (i'll ignore the different ports in between for now) in 14 days. The cruise company said that its average CO2 emissions per passenger were ~60kg per day. So that would mean 840kg of CO2 in my case. You can convert that into 300L of diesel (2,86 is the usual conversion factor)

A 747 burns roughly 12L of kerosene (which is a diesel) per km it travels, so for 4000km (2000km per direction) this would mean 48000L, with about 500 passengers it comes down to 100L per passenger.

So a cruise liner is 3 times worse.When you are in a hotel you also use up CO2 which is included in the cruise ship . Also as i said it was 2000km to the furthest destination. If you would include all the ports in between it would have been 6000km total distance.

In the end, i would say 1,5 to 2 times worse if all things are equal.

But, the cruise ships currently in construction are often designed to run on LNG and equipped to run on shore power (which is not available in most ports right now in the quantity required, but also getting developed), so a further reduction can be achieved in time.

I can live with that carbon footprint, especially as i don't take such a vacation every year (first time i did) and as i took the train to get to the ship in the first place (which would inflate the numbers if you do)

Alcobob · 2023-05-03T21:01:42+00:00

Elon owns 42% of the not publicly traded shares of SpaceX via a Trust. So while he is the largest single investor, he is not irremovable.

Alcobob · 2023-05-03T14:10:28+00:00

The fun part is, it happened to Elon before and he did that to others as well.

Elon founded X.com in 1999, but he was replaced as the CEO by the investors before the year ended, but he kept the stocks obviously. (0 to 1)

In 2000 the investors then merged X.com with another more successful company Confinity that had a product called PayPal. He was made CEO of that merged company (1 to 1) and replaced with Peter Thiel within the same year (1 to 2), who renamed that merged company PayPal.

And that is how Elon Musk made ~175 million in PayPal stocks, even though he never was the CEO of PayPal and neither founded it, didn't create the product called PayPal, and was fired for incompetence twice.

And well, after Elon Musk invested into Tesla he ousted the actual founders later to take over the job as CEO (2 to 2)

So it is 2 to 2 so far in backstabbing. I'll ignore the other companies for now.

Alcobob · 2023-05-02T13:56:20+00:00

Tell me why any US citizen would be against sending weapons and money to Ukraine?

There could be a point if you consider this in a pure utilitarian view, that not sending weapons would lead to a faster end of the conflict thus less casualties.

But as the US is founded on the idea of personal freedom, this should be non-negotiable to supply Ukraine the means to take their destiny in their own hands.

Alcobob · 2023-05-02T09:52:32+00:00

You should also mention that the US placed an embargo/trade restrictions on Japan, for example the Export Control Act of 1940, because of Japans invasion of China.

This included aviation gasoline, airplanes and other industrial goods. Oil specifically however was not restricted, because that would have been perceived as an especially hostile act.

In 1941 the US then placed an embargo on oil and gasoline and froze Japanese assets, which was a huge problem as 80% of Japanese oil came from the US.

So, it wasn't just that Japan wanted more resources. The US massively reduced the resources Japan had access to.

Alcobob · 2023-04-27T13:30:31+00:00

Why has Russia not used the majority of their aircraft to overpower the air defenses?

It can't, because just about every single combat unit in Ukraine has AA capabilities. Just the US alone sent 1600 Stinger systems to Ukraine. On a quick lookover of the list on wikipedia 10 countries send of stingers, with another 1000 (aside from the US supply) where the numbers are listed.

And that is for 1 single system type. Then there are all the other systems of the same category (Strela-2, RBS-70, Mistral 2) and everything only goes up in terms of capabilities from there all the way to systems such as the Patriot.

The airspace in Ukraine isn't contested, it is deadly, for both sides. So the aircraft that do exist are mostly used to deliver munitions from far behind the frontline.

Unlike with tanks, where a local superiority can be achieved with relatively little material of even old equipment, with airplanes you either have air superiority or you don't have an effective airforce at all. Airplanes that are outdated even slightly will get eaten by modern stuff be it from the ground or air.

Alcobob · 2023-04-27T12:54:09+00:00

That would be the obvious take, for the government to take care of their people and put tariffs in place if it is a real problem.

But for some reason many people who have a problem with food/clothes donations seem to think that countries in Africa have no agency on their own.

Alcobob · 2023-04-27T10:52:26+00:00

Soooo, are you playing Rimworld? Perchance, crafting masterwork human leather chairs?

Alcobob · 2023-04-26T13:12:14+00:00

In Germany everyday people can drive in a column and all vehicles act like a single vehicle. It is however important that all vehicles are marked to be part of the same unit (with flags for example), the column contains at least 3 vehicles and you have to register your desire to do so up front with the traffic office.

I think the requirement of registering up front is enough of a hassle that in my decades of driving i have never seen a column (besides military, police and firefighters)

Alcobob · 2023-04-24T09:48:53+00:00

The easiest solution would be for forego the gas mixer.

Under the assumption that you don't want to work with logic circuits for now, you can build the following:

Use 2 volume pumps for N2 and O2 respectively and set the one for N2 to be 3 times what your O2 is, so 75L vs 25L for example.

One problem with that solution is that the volume pumped depends on the pressure in the pipes. If they are vastly different you will get vastly different ratios of gas.

You could fix that in turn by putting a pressure regulator in front of the volume pumps, but it would be easier to simply set the volume pumps manually for the start.

Alcobob · 2023-04-24T07:00:22+00:00

Yes, Australia has the prison population covered, they need the wardens now.

Alcobob · 2023-04-20T15:08:25+00:00

Btw, there is actually a reason why Germany was the likely source.

DKMS (Deutsche Knochenmarkspenderdatei / German Bone Marrow Donor File) was founded in Germany by a university professor whose wife contracted leukemia and none of the close relatives were compatible. So he started to raise awareness for bone marrow donations and helped increase the number of federally registered donors from 3000 to 68000 within a year

His daughter moved to the US later and started to raise awareness for the US equivalent registry (National Marrow Donor Program) and the DKMS is now active in a few different mostly western countries.

I myself registered as a bone marrow donor when the DKMS started a campaign in my local area for a local'ish resident for contracted leukemia, that seems to be the main method by which additional donors get recruited. It is free for anybody to register through them, they will pay for the costs of the blood tests, but they also very much like you to donate to offset it.

Alcobob · 2023-04-20T09:32:22+00:00

Well, that wasn't the case previously. Gas was available for about 6 cents per kWh previously.

Gas furnaces usually have an efficiency of at least 80%, with many running at 90% or even higher. So that results in price of 7 cents per kwh of heat.

Heat pumps are usually 400% efficient. So 1 kwh of electricity givse you 4 kwh heat. With an electricity price of 28 cents of average the years before the war in Ukraine you come back to the same 7 cents per kwh of heat.

But there is a secondary issue that is ignored if you just look at those numbers that result in gas being the cheaper heating source. You can store natural gas rather easily, so the winter demand can be meet with that stored gas.

Meanwhile if you go with electricity, there is no energy storage available to the same scale. So that means you need to produce the electricity on demand. On demand electricity is expensive. So if electric heating would become more of a thing, the prices would rise.

Today however, i think the calculation has clearly changed in favor of heat pumps, with the gas price of about 12 cents.

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