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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • They don’t (usually) display the temperature but they definitely sense it, and react to it. When the sensed temperature is at or higher than the set temperature, the valve will be closed, if it’s lower it will be opened. Mere valves can’t do that.

    That’s what a thermostat is: A negative feedback control system regulating sensed temperature towards a setpoint, and keeping it there. They’re simple, inexpensive, reliable. Yes having the temperature sensor right next to the radiator isn’t ideal but unless the room is quite large that’s not an issue. Also with large rooms you probably have more than one heater and thus thermostat. And you could, in principle, put the thermostat far from the heater but I’ve never seen that done.






  • What are you trying to argue, that humans aren’t Turing-complete? Which would be an insane self-own. That we can decide the undecidable? That would prove you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s called undecidable for a reason. Deciding an undecidable problem makes as much sense as a barber who shaves everyone who doesn’t shave themselves.

    Aside from that why would you assume that checking results would, in general, involve solving the halting problem.



  • Additional ones? None, really. The EU Parliament has declared Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism since 2022, some member states went further and went with terrorist state.

    Without that kind of thing sanctioning Russia to the degree we do wouldn’t even be legally possible. Should we send a hit squad after Putin? It’s not that I oppose on principle but if it was in Ukraine’s interest the SBU would have already gotten to him. Martyrs and power vacuums tend to be bad news.

    The Baltics have long since gamed this out I’d suggest following their lead.


  • IIRC, that used to be a much more significant problem;

    Yep systems that could automatically dose the fertiliser were not yet in widespread use. Farmers don’t want to over-fertilise for the simple reason that fertiliser costs money but before those systems were available it was all too easy to say “fuck it I’ll drown the field so that there’s enough everywhere”.

    Not rotating crops seems to be a US thing, farmers over here never stopped doing that. There’s also EU-wide laws about having to either let land fall fallow, or plant cover crops or nitrogen fixers. You can, in principle, plant your nitrogen fixers year after year on one field and your cash crops on another, but only if you’re a complete idiot.


  • Under solutions, there, is written “compost” and “animal manure”. That’s fertiliser. Import-dependent agriculture is a whole another topic and I didn’t want to get into it, but long story short, no matter how good and natural your soil management is you can’t expect to export nutrients all the time and not develop a shortage. You can pull nitrogen out of the air, that’s nice, but you can’t do that with phosphate and minerals in general. Good news is that good water treatment plants will pull phosphate out of the waste water.


  • Modern tractors already self-drive on the field, fertiliser is applied in tightly controlled doses based on aerial analysis, that future is already there. You don’t plant or fertilise at the same time as you plough so it makes sense for those things being attachments, not integrated machines. The reason combine harvesters are dedicated machines is because they do so much in one go it doesn’t fit into a (sensibly sized) attachment.

    You could also have drones distribute that fertiliser but you can’t work the soil with them, and you already have a tractor to work the soil with so you can just as well use it to apply the fertiliser. There’s also tons of odd lifting and transporting jobs on farms, that’s why there’s forklift attachments. You’ll need something with torque, low ground pressure, PTO and attachment points and well that’s a tractor.


  • I don’t think that tractors will ever go the way of the dodo and when you have proper logistics, say a reasonably dense S-Bahn type rail network that can also handle shipping individual containers, a tractor and a trailer is all you need as you only have to haul to the next logistics hub and there’s no truck load even 100 year old tractors can’t tow: When you can pull a plough through soil torque isn’t something you need to worry about, 20 horses at 5km/h go vroom. 20 horses! Do you know how much those eat.


  • They absolutely can do such things but then the money comes out of their pockets, possibly with the option to sue Rockstar for breach of contract and money back. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Rockstar contacted Valve and said “don’t worry we’ll take the hit”, having calculated what it costs to continue supporting the deck vs. taking that hit. Certainly not a company which has to worry about cashflow a lot.

    Sony also refunded CP77, IIRC without getting CDPR involved, and Sony generally has a shoddy return policy. At that point, to the store, customer goodwill is more important and they’ll figure out things on the backend.

    OP didn’t describe that kind of case, though, but “I bought a game without checking whether it’s compatible with my hardware and didn’t bother to launch it for six months”. Steam isn’t going to refund that out of their own pocket that’s what the 14 days are for, so that they don’t have to do it out of their own pocket.


  • Possibly, technical inspections. I’m not sure whether it’s a requirement for cars to be street legal or just a requirement for cars to be sold on the market. The regulation only mentions that it’s about type approval but it’s not like modifying a car automatically nullifies its type approval.

    Certainly would be hard to argue for authorities that snipping the eCall would endanger others, similar situation as with seat belts I don’t think legislation is unified there.





  • Sounds like the consumer version of the DHL StreetScooter Work (L), with those even the passenger seat is an optional extra. Trouble was that while it’s the perfect vehicle for last-mile distribution routes most companies doing that kind of thing (like bakeries) don’t have the finances to back up an actual car producer, and DHL didn’t want to become a car producer. Taking over the company to get their hands on the trucks, yes, but bringing it to scale so they wouldn’t have to subsidise it? Not their business. And German car manufactures don’t want to build it because small bare-bones vehicles don’t have margin, anything smaller and less fancy than an actual van doesn’t make sense to them given the fixed cost of their production lines. Don’t worry, though, the inventor got the rights back, production is moving to Thailand, new vehicle is in the pipeline, with the core components (chassis etc.) designed for a 50 year lifetime. I’m sure DHL will figure out how to deliver delivery vans.



  • Zyklon B wasn’t really an I.G. Farben product, it was developed (as a pesticide) and primarily produced by Degesch, a subsidiary of Degussa, now Evonik. I.G. Farben bought 30% of Degesch shares in 1930, increasing to 42.6% in 1936, that’s the connection. Degussa also processed tooth gold. Ultimately the people hanged at the gallows for Zyklon B were none of the producers but (aside from the ones doing the poisoning) the distributors, in particular for supplying Zyklon B without odorant. The inventor got an aquittal after sitting six years in remand.

    I guess the whole Zyklon B to I.G. Farben connection is very much influenced by the high-profile process and forced breakup of the conglomerate. Judging by current evilness I’d definitely put Bayer on top. Back then as now, I guess: No, not Nazis, but profiteers without scruples: Plundering industry in conquered lands, forced labour, that’s mostly what I.G. Farben executives were sentenced for. Not guilty verdicts on the bringing Nazis to power part, being SS members, and preparing for war of aggression, though they certainly made money off producing for the war.