mecameron

> The architect said to me that we'll never fully recoup our costs of putting the hat on the house. To which I replied that we don't always to things for economic reasons, and just do them because they are the right thing to do.

I am so frustrated with this analysis and sentiment when it comes to environmental investment. I understand that looking at it with a financial lens can and should be done to inform what we do, and it would be great if a project just paid for itself, but you look at all the other things we spend money on and the same calculus is not used.

People don't buy the cheapest car, house, clothing, or food they could possibly get by with, or analyze the marginal cost of moving up or down the possible price tiers available to them with only the financial payback as a guide. Yet we constantly hear the refrain that you shouldn't spend a given amount of money on solar, house improvements, appliances, etc. that might be better for the environment if the payback isn't somehow positive with a 10-20 year payback period.

I've constantly had to work with contractors to let them know that I still want to pay for the marginal costs associated with investment even knowing that the marginal financial benefit is smaller. For instance, with solar panels in less than ideal locations, tri-pane windows, etc. I have disposable income, and I think the world is trouble for the 8+ billion humans inhabiting it, so I think it's worthwhile that I would spend some of that to make it marginally better even if that means I don't have a positive financial return.

I've used ClojureScript with re-frame professionally for over 2 years, and it's been the first time in over 20 years of development that I've enjoyed working on the front-end. Unidirectional data flow with a single app atom has been a dream to work with.

Added sugar is not necessary for yeast. The yeast is breaking down and using the carbs naturally present in wheat. The simplest breads, like french baguettes, are only made with flour, water, salt and yeast. Sugar is added to many commercial breads because it can make production easier and more consistent and sell more to consumers, but it's not added because it's necessary.

I think one thing missing in the responses here is that there is some culpability without intent. Assume there was not ill intent, the fact that so many things that went on still happens, means they didn't have sufficient controls, or checks and balances in the practices to prevent it from happening. That lack of control is itself part of the problem, and something they could have fixed any number of times.

My 9 year old son always rightfully claims that many of the harmful things he does was accidental. The problem is that he frequently leaves little margin for error in a lot of things he does. Follows his sister just a few feet behind his bike; of course your going to run into her if she stops quickly. Stacking your bowl, cup and silverware on your plate then bring it up one handed; of course they're going to spill.

Facebook's internal controls and practices are insufficient to manage their business. It doesn't matter if they didn't willfully intend to do all of the shit they did. They did intentionally create the controls, practices, and culture in place that allowed it to happen.

I bought a 2013 Model S recently that had its wheels swapped with a 2016 Model S by a third party before sale (I didn't care for the 21" wheels that were on the 2013, and the buyer of the 2016 wanted them). Shortly after driving away from the dealer, the tire pressure sensor system reported faults. After bringing it in to Tesla they said the newer tires and older car were not compatible, but they could easily downgrade the electronics in the wheels or upgrade the electronics on the car. They were both about the same cost, so I just had them update the wheels.

For when you can't find any more pretrained ones. Or to get someone for a lower salary and growing them that provides some loyalty and help solving the problem of not having enough pretrained ones in the first place.

This is the real problem. If the consumer price is $50 but the insurer is paying $250 behind the scenes, then we all pay that price with increased premiums.

We've been using Clojure for 3 years and ClojureScript for 1.5 years. We're actively converting more of our legacy codebase to Clojure/Script.

It's been a great choice for us and even the skeptics have become converts over time. I think it's a joy to work with and allows us to reason about our problems and solve them better than many alternatives.

Fortunately, gasoline cars are so inefficient that you only need about 1/3 of the comparable energy in an electric car to move the vehicle. Still a ways to go, but we don't need to get to all the way gasoline energy density for the equivalent range.

The surface of the Earth is finite in size and has no edges. You can keep progressing forward without hitting an edge.