[-] [email protected] 77 points 21 hours ago

Sandford Fleming (the guy who invented time zones) actually made it easier.

Before timezones, every town had their own clock that defined the time for their town and was loosely set such that “noon is when the sun is at its highest point in the sky.” Which couldn’t be measured all that accurately.

If it wasn’t for Fleming, we’d be dealing with every city or town having a separate time zone.

[-] [email protected] 52 points 1 month ago

Sometimes ChatGPT/copilot’s code predictions are scary good. Sometimes they’re batshit crazy. If you have the experience to be able to tell the difference, it’s a great help.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yes you’re correct. I will qualify my previous statement as hydrogen powered road vehicles don’t make sense for now.

The problem at the moment is that electricity generation is not carbon free and in most countries not even close.

Unfortunately the transition to a carbon free electric grid is being significantly retarded by policymakers that are, as you say, myopic. As a result it will be at least two more decades before hydrogen makes sense.

The carbon footprint of lithium battery manufacturing, is small compared to the carbon footprint of electricity generation. Until that changes significantly lithium batteries will continue to be a better choice than hydrogen fuel cell.

Hydrogen may make sense in a future where we’ve eliminated all fossil fuel electricity generation and there’s an abundance of carbon free electricity that can be used to create green hydrogen as a form of energy storage. Though by the time that point comes, we may have developed battery technology or some other energy storage technology that doesn’t carry the same carbon footprint that lithium ion does today.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Hydrogen doesn’t make sense and never did as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in vehicles.

Most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels, and has a lot of emissions during manufacturing. But even green hydrogen, which is made by using carbon free generated electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen doesn’t make sense.

If you’ve build new renewable power it’s more efficient to use it to charge batteries than to use it to generate hydrogen.

There might be a case for compressed hydrogen, In vehicles where batteries are too heavy like aircraft.

But for road vehicles, batteries are more effective at reducing emission.

If you’re building any new renewable power, you’ll reduce more emissions by using it to displace coal power, the to generate green hydrogen.

Some day when we’ve eliminated fossil fuel based electricity generation, Green hydrogen might start to make sense. But anybody trying to do it right now is not being as helpful as they could be.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Stated goals of the UN charter according Wikipedia:

to maintain international peace and security, uphold international law, achieve "higher standards of living" for their citizens, address "economic, social, health, and related problems", and promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.

Did they even read the charter before having their little temper tantrum?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I think I have you slightly beat… mine was an Apple II+, circa late 1981, with a disk drive, and a monochrome green screen monitor.

First cell phone was around 1997. Though I honestly don’t remember what it was. I recall having a Nokia model from before they made that indestructible model in all the memes, as well as a Kyocera one that I could connect to a laptop and have wireless dial up internet at some abysmal speed like 20 kbps. (0.02 mbps). I had at least two more phones, including a Treo 650 “smartphone” before getting my first iPhone, a 3G. I’m on my sixth iPhone now.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Total monthly posts exploded after Spez enshitified Reddit, and is still growing steadily month over month.

That suggests that the current decline in monthly active users is primarily because lurkers who only came to lemmy after initially hearing about it on Reddit, went back to lurking Reddit.

The number of users that are contributors is still growing, and that’s what’s important.

dgmib

joined 1 year ago