sverige

I predict the vast majority of people will never again understand that new decades, centuries, and millenia begin on January 1st of years ending in '1' and not '0' because there never was a Year 0. Everyone knew that 50 years ago, which is why Kubrick didn't call it '2000: A Space Odyssey.'

Can't wait to see what happens when systemd-homed becomes entrenched across all distros. What's left after that? Systemd-gccd?

The yield increases have mainly come from two sources: increased use of chemicals for pest control and fertilizer, and genetic engineering. Both of those are problematic, with consequences only now slowly dawning on most people, and heavy resistance by the industry to any naysaying in public places.

One day, we may recognize the problem and pass laws to limit or prohibit the use of chemicals. (I think the horse is out of the barn on genetic modification.) That will mean lower yields. Further, if California's droughts continue, the Midwest may need to start growing a greater variety of crops beyond corn and soybeans. There is no other place in the U.S. with soil as potentially productive and useful. Wasting it on wind farms when literally any other place will have less potential impact on agriculture is ridiculous.

So all the available land suitable for wind turbines has been used? There's no more capacity?

Have you invited the wind farmers to put a turbine on your acreage?

When you do the research, you discover that wind is not the panacea it has been portrayed to be. Building and placing turbines is not carbon neutral, the cleanup costs of decommissioned turbines are completely ignored because they are 40 years out, and they are not very profitable without subsidies. There are better alternatives that are less destructive to the environment.

This also ignores the other part of my original comment, which was to build turbines nearer to population centers. Why aren't the hills east of Oakland and southwest of SV filled with wind turbines?

Why can't we build them nearer to the population centers with high energy demands, then? Why not build them on vacant land near big cities?

There is a lot of prime wind farms land on the hills east and southwest and northwest of the Bay Area. There is a lot of vacant land in the hills above Los Angeles. The Olympic peninsula and western slopes of the Cascades have plenty of room for wind farms to serve Seattle. Same on the east coast: Cape Cod actually had a proposed wind farm that was stopped by the moneyed interests that live there, but that could supply Boston with all the power they need.

What is the answer for not pursuing those areas?

I grew up in Iowa. I inherited 160 acres of prime farmland from my grandparents and parents. I actively participated in the successful lobbying of the county commissioners in the county where my property is located to change the offset rules for wind turbines to make life livable for the people directly affected by them. I personally turned down the offer to build turbines on my land.

What skin do you have in the game?

Do you think that the accountants at Google, Apple, et al. have failed to foresee this sort of pushback? I personally don't doubt they've been planning alternative tax-avoidance scenarios for years. That would include lobbying other jurisdictions for favorable tax treatment in any rational scenario.

To date, they have suffered no serious financial or reputational consequences for tax evasion, so there's no reason to think they won't continue to avoid taxes as part of their overall financial strategy.

Each turbine consumes a minimum of one acre of farmland, and should be offset by at least a half mile from any homes. The problem there is that there are often homes every mile in rural Iowa.

Iowa is a terrible place to build wind farms since it still has some of the most valuable soil on the planet.

Better to build these things on land with steady wind, less agricultural value and nearer big population centers, such as Wyoming and Colorado (near the I-25 corridor from Cheyenne to Colorado Springs) or the barren hills on either side of the Bay Area.

That initial 'if' is extremely unlikely. There are hundreds of jurisdictions that would love to be persuaded to pass favorable laws.

I just gave up on discord last night. Third or fourth time I came across a link to what sounded like an interesting server, then couldn't log in with existing credentials. I want to like it and use it, but frankly it's very tiresome to get going.

I'm not clicking on the link inviting me to your server any more. Have fun with those who fight through the silly spinning spider thing.

This is a welcome development. ProtonMail has worked well for me. Now if I could only find a way to make a Pixel phone accept that email address instead of one of my several one-off fake name gmail addresses that I use for such things.