I wish him luck if he tries to make affordable housing more energy-efficient. My idea of an ideal city would be entirely made with zero-heating buildings (and then some), but obviously that is not going to be affordable, so in practice efficiency has to be reduced to a level compatible with affordable housing. Passive Houses that are affordable seem to be achievable though, based on some existing projects.
It’s increasingly likely the grid will get torn down and replaced by cheaper rooftop solar and batteries, because of the costs described in this article. Tony Seba said in 2014 that power grids would be uncompetitive once solar and batteries got cheaper than just the cost of transmission:
Why is this important? Because in most developed markets, the cost of electricity is comprised of two components. The cost of producing the electrons (power plants making the electrons) and the cost of delivering the electrons (maintaining the transmission and distribution lines). Each one accounting for approximately 50% of the costs.
God Parity happens when the cost of producing electrons (via Solar PV) and storing them (via batteries in and near your building) becomes chapter than 50% of the cost of today’s utility-provided electricity.
Why is this important? Because in that scenario, even if one produces electrons for free (via nuclear, fusion, etc), the locally produced and stored electrons will be cheaper than the cost of delivering those free electrons and therefore cheaper than nuclear/fusion electricity.
Given that the cost curve of batteries is following a very similar trend to the cost curve of PV solar panels, this will happen sooner rather than later.
In Australia, this is already happening in the more remote areas with poles being replaced by solar and batteries, and the utility death spiral is now hitting Pakistan and South Africa’s inefficient grids due to very cheap solar.
In case anyone hasn’t seen it, this is the video of Pretti’s execution side-by-side with Kristi Noem’s description of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QF-zWPbuLI
For Panzer General (and Allied General) there’s Panzer General Forever. (The developer of this remake later started his own company and developed Panzer Corps, a spiritual successor to Panzer General).
That would be a zero waste store, there are a few of those around. To find one, this website has an overly generous list of such stores in the United States. Many of the stores listed are not actually zero waste stores though (i.e. Natural Pantry). So for those who want to use that list to find a zero-waste store, it is important to note the stores near them and go to them one by one (or look them up) to see if they are zero-waste and what they offer. If a suitable store is found, then some groceries can be bought without disposable packaging.
This does come at a price, though. The store I use has prices that are, on average, about 3 times higher per unit weight than the bargain brand at a regular store. I can afford that, and for some consumers an organic/local/premium/etc. quality is worth it, but many people cannot afford it. The current system of excessive single-use packaging is unfortunately very labor-efficient (which is why it was adopted in the first place), and that shows in the prices.
Funny, me being here can be considered a protest against Reddit for the last year, and it’s still working fine.
There are lots of people who said that China’s semiconductor industry would collapse. (Many still do think China itself will collapse, which is possible, but not very likely as they think it is.)
I’m not sure why this is surprising or even notable, they’ve been using this 7 nm process since last year.
“Are we the baddies?” -someone in Florida’s state government
I first read about it in the Wikipedia page about post-scarcity, as one of the fictional examples of it. It looked like the most detailed and advanced example of a post-scarcity civilization in fiction, and the Wikipedia page about the Culture series got me interested. That, and it’s the most pure example of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism in fiction.
Since reading the Wikipedia article on the Culture I’ve read A Few Notes On The Culture, Consider Phlebas, Excession, and am working through The Player of Games. Excession is by far my favorite so far.
Ace Combat, mainly Ace Combat 5 but all of them are well known for their soundtracks.
More recently WARNO has excellent music so far, even though most of it was licensed by Eugen from third parties so it doesn’t really count as a soundtrack specific to the game.
There are lots of cases though where it’s beneficial to have the social media be as accessible as possible. I’ve seen many thoughtful and insightful posts from people who wouldn’t be able to figure out the more technical social media. Their knowledge of the Internet and computers had nothing to do with their ability to contribute to the subject of that particular site (like books or tabletop gaming subreddits). Especially for those “help me find the source of this gif” subreddits where it’s important to just have as many people as possible see it, that’s what maximizes the chance of someone knowing the source.
(That, and I liked the joke comments on r/nottheonion. It did- and still does- have an amazing sense of humor to me.)
It doesn’t matter so much exactly where we go, as long as it’s a place that won’t do the same thing and make us go somewhere else yet again. If I move (like I did from Reddit), it’s enough of a pain that I’m going to make sure I won’t have to move again. As best as I can, I’ll use this chance to choose a social media that is as stable as possible.
I considered squabbles.io as one of my options when choosing a new site, and it is easier and better to use than Lemmy and Kbin right now. But it is still centralized, so there’s no way to ensure it won’t be like Reddit 15 years from now. That alone swung my decision in favor of the Fediverse, and once I decided on that Beehaw looked like the server with the best quality discussions. I’m happy to wait for a network to get more user-friendly; I won’t put effort into a site that can enshittify and make me leave all my posts there again.
Which is funny because Imgur was profitable from ads and premium accounts alone before it ever accepted VC funding. It’s only now that the company has to make hard decisions without it.
Reticulum is in its infancy and does what you describe (and can use any communication medium), but that kind of separate intranet system is difficult to search the way the Internet is. It would be like Discord where the inability to search it (unless you have already joined the relevant Discord) makes it hated as a replacement for forums.