Comments on: And its only July

By: ER

ER — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 04:12:32 +0000

Let the free market and the law of supply and demand force us into conserving, re-engineering society to use less energy, and developing renewables. Just slap a tax of X% on all fossil fuels, and adjust X as needed to soften the effect on the economy. Use the revenue so gathered to subsidize renewable energy technology.

Of course, the only problem with that plan is the energy industry will spend whatever it takes to lobby against it. Capitalism loves to talk a lot about market forces when they can get them to work for them. When it hurts profits they go full Socialism every time. Buying politicians and conducting PR campaigns is a lot cheaper than retooling. What they really want is tax breaks, subsidies and lots of government contracts. And you know if they have to they’ll go to war to get it. The world has been fighting for oil since the Brits started powering their dreadnoughts with it a century ago.

So much for “free market economics”. In the end, it always comes down to bayonets.

HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913) The first oil-fired battleship

By: BuckGalaxy

BuckGalaxy — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 02:32:12 +0000

It’s big oil and big coal. The profit motive is strong for those providing energy to an energy hungry world. The world heavily demands electric power and the supply produces ungodly profits. And as free market economics shows, that profit motive produces results that immensely benefit the world in powering cities, water purification, sanitation, large scale farming, hospitals, ships, planes, trucks, trains, cars, computers, TVs, washing machines, etc etc etc. All vastly improving the human condition. And as free market economics also teaches, the profit motive doe not protect the environment. There is no mechanism in unregulated S&D to address negative externalities like carbon emmissions into the atmosphere. Thus the need for regulation to force Oil and Coal companies to pay the costs of the damage they do as a consequence of producing all that energy. It’s been entirely inadequate obviously. But the free market also offers hope if market forces are steered toward a solution. Creating regulations that offer incentives to produce clean energy has always been the key, and thankfully we are now doing that on a larger scale. The tipping point will come when clean energy is cheaper than oil. It is already cheaper than coal, it’s just not upscaled enough at this point to replace coal on a global scale.

By: podrock

podrock — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 04:56:56 +0000

By: ER

ER — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:39:14 +0000

We need to know who those people are, and why they think the way they do, and who is behind them, backing them up,
how, and why. They are all connected, they have a plan.

Carcinogens in tobacco, lead in the gasoline, pesticides, guns, it goes on and on. They never have enough.

Older than Babylon and evil as hell.

By: podrock

podrock — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 21:53:58 +0000

Scientists have been talking ’bout this for literally 40 years or more. Screaming about it. Hell, I’ve known about the concept since college.

But nobody listened. They mocked Al Gore for trying to scream about it.

Oh well, we tried. Good luck, y’all.

By: ER

ER — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 13:28:31 +0000

Yeah, I know the feeling

Determination turns to hope, then to wishful thinking, then finally into despair.

By: BuckGalaxy

BuckGalaxy — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 05:22:52 +0000

shit out of me. Along with unprecedented heatwave hitting the planet this year. Seriously, I feel fear in the pit of my stomach.

Methinks we’re all fucked.

By: ER

ER — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 03:09:10 +0000

is s = 1/2at^2

Its velocity v at any time t is given by the first derivative of the distance function:

v = at

Its acceleration a at any time t is the derivative of the velocity, (or the second derivative of the distance)

a = a The acceleration is a constant.

Near the surface of the earth, a = 9.8 m/s^2 The derivative of a constant is zero (constants, by definition, do not change) so there is no second derivative, or jerk.

However, that is only an approximation for objects near the earth’s surface; at great distances from the earth, the acceleration of gravity is less, but it increases as you approach the earth. For example, at a distance of 8000 miles from the center of the earth, or two earth radii, the gravitational acceleration is 1/4 what it is at the surface, or 2.45 m/sec^2. So an object dropped from that distance would experience a jerk because its acceleration would increase as it approached earth.

What’s really amazing is that the purely mathematical procedure of “taking a derivative of a function” can be used to so accurately predict the motion of moving bodies in a gravitational field, a physical reality that exists independently of the logical structures mathematicians invent and play with.

Mathematically, the derivative is a procedure applied to a mathematical function which gives another function that tells you the rate of change of that function. And you can continue taking derivatives until you finally get to a constant, which has no change, so its derivative is zero.

I don’t know about you, but I find that fucking amazing.

For those of you who haven’t had calculus, the derivative of a polynomial function of the form y = mx^n is y’ = nmx^(n-1). Granted, that expression didn’t just come out of thin air, it is the result of a complex and clever mathematical proof. But the fact that it can be applied to the physics of falling bodies in the real world is just wonderful.

By: podrock

podrock — Sun, 09 Jul 2023 01:43:30 +0000

but any change in the rate of change is a jerk.

By: RobVG

RobVG — Sat, 08 Jul 2023 19:53:04 +0000

I wasn’t familiar with the term. It’s represented by an upward acceleration curve as opposed to straight line acceleration?