@ooli tl/Dr "Photoncycle
Brandtzaeg holds up a chalk-looking substance: “With this, you can store electricity 20 times as densely as in a lithium battery.”
“We're locking up the hydrogen molecules in a solid to basically fix them. We're using a reversible, high-temperature fuel cell, so we're assisting a fuel cell which both can produce hydrogen and electricity in the same cell,” he says.
That means no need to cool the hydrogen down, making it non-flammable and giving it a higher density than an ion-lithium battery"
[Edit: is BEEPER the one Messenger to rule them all? Billed as self-hostable and Open Source, native to Matrix but with integrations to act as front end for What's App, Signal Telegram, Facebook Messenger, etc... this is looking promising! Anyone have experience? https://www.beeper.com/ ]
Remember the great Instant Messenger schism? (I know, I'm dating myself) Back in the day AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, and MSN Messenger were the top IM platforms, while the IT crowd self-hosted IRC servers. None of these platforms were interoperable, each set up with different protocols in walled gardens. What was the answer for those of us who wanted it all? Third party cross-platform apps that integrated with each major API and provided a unified front-end, with Trillian being the most widely adopted to my knowledge.
WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and all the rest of the single-host messengers are just Instant Messenger platforms wrapped an an App shell with different encryption layers. The answer that we are all craving is a Trillian for the current generation, bundling SMS in with all these other platforms, however as I understand it these service providers no longer offer API access that would allow a third party front end client. The walled gardens no longer have gates, and the enshitification is progressing.
Note that there were official attempts to unify the original IM platforms with interoperability, but to quote wikipedia:
"Most attempts at producing a unified standard for the major IM providers (AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft) have failed, and each continues to use its own proprietary protocol.
However, while discussions at IETF were stalled, Reuters signed the first inter-service provider connectivity agreement in September 2003. This agreement enabled AIM, ICQ and MSN Messenger users to talk with Reuters Messaging counterparts and vice versa. Following this, Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL agreed to a deal in which Microsoft's Live Communications Server 2005 users would also have the possibility to talk to public instant messaging users. This deal established SIP/SIMPLE as a standard for protocol interoperability and established a connectivity fee for accessing public instant messaging groups or services. Separately, on October 13, 2005, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that by the 3rd quarter of 2006 they would interoperate using SIP/SIMPLE, which was followed, in December 2005, by the AOL and Google strategic partnership deal in which Google Talk users would be able to communicate with AIM and ICQ users provided they have an AIM account[...]
Certain networks have made changes to prevent them from being used by such multi-network IM clients. For example, Trillian had to release several revisions and patches to allow its users to access the MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! networks, after changes were made to these networks. The major IM providers usually cite the need for formal agreements, and security concerns as reasons for making these changes.
The use of proprietary protocols has meant that many instant messaging networks have been incompatible and users have been unable to reach users on other networks.[29] This may have allowed social networking with IM-like features and text messaging an opportunity to gain market share at the expense of IM.[30]"
History is doomed to repeat itself unless FOSS can win on convenience and UX. One could imagine a big player like Mozilla taking this on and rolling a messenger with an open protocol into their software stack, but that still wouldn't kill the others due to network effect unless it had some killer app advantage.
@ALostInquirer As others have pointed out it is largely a matter of price and durability. My background is in industrial equipment so keep that in mind. It is worth noting what differentiates pipe from hosing at least in my industry, pipe is a tube made of a single solid material of a certain thickness, tubing is a single material tube of a thinner wall thickness, and hose typically consists of multiple layers or materials to maintain flexibility while still being durable. Some industries like medical may call a flexible tube of a single material a hose, but this is usually colloquial and not the official terminology found in standards and regulation.
Because hoses are made of multiple materials and typically laminated or woven and adhered together they are much more complex to manufacture, and so more expensive, often at minimum 5x as expensive. When you look at hoses meant to last for decades this can go up a lot, 10-20x, this is because flexible materials in general degrade over time and become brittle and/or porous, prone to springing a leak. The methods used to prevent this require expensive chemicals, or patented processes which keep prices high.
PEX is growing in popularity because it is flexible and durable but relatively inexpensive, only 1.5-3x as expensive in cost of materials as CPVC typically. PEX is a type of pipe/tubing made of Cross-linked Polyethylene, which is a singly polymer, Polyethylene, that has been either treated with a chemical such as a peroxide or silane, or irradiated with an electron beam, to induce cross-linking of the long-chain polymers. This Cross-linking makes the material much more durable and elastic, while requiring only a single treatment and no lamination or weaving. As such PEX can be manufactured more cost effectively than hose, making it a good middle ground between rigid pipe like cPVC or copper for potable water applications.
@CaptObvious Corporations are subject to boycot, individuals to dialog. If an individual Israeli takes a pro-war/apartheid stance online then they should be challenged, but if they are for peace and reconciliation then they should be supported.
@Siegfried and there have been mass shootings outside the USA, don't forget what happened in Norway for example. In the US the mental health and social support infrastructure is weak, so the meme is actualized more often.
@dope Once a meme hits mainstream consciousness it is tough to get it to go away. Columbine out school shootings in the mind of every child of that generation, and since then toxic online forums filled with trolls have kept the idea alive be it "an hero" "unalive yourself" and just generally the nihilistic attitude of if you feel bade enough about yourself to consider killing yourself, you might as well take out some others you hate with you. This is mental illness at its core, but with the enablement of technology and toxic online "community" culture.
Then there are spin off effects of this mentality combined with the impression of the efficacy of terrorism from a psychological imprint perspective, and some narcissists will mass kill for "the cause". Again mental illness at its core, with a different "community" dynamic.
In both of these cases it is the meme, in the original sociology sense of the word, that has caused the rise of the behavior. The cultural condition of alienation and anonymous communication on the rise, combined with overall eroded access to in-person and in-patient mental health services due to the privatized health system, keeps the meme breeding in the alienated cultural class.
@spaduf I love Baudrillard. It is a bit odd that he has a student or TA rrad his lecture for him, but once you realize his French accent is so deep as to be near unintelligible to an American you can appreciate it. The thoughts are exceptional: https://youtu.be/q3kgjjTE0dk?si=XMlMs6KdhLf6-n
@forg1veforget