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jonringer Continues to Cause Drama and Problems
  • Post title is misleading as he’s not really the one causing the drama.

    it’s simply false to say he’s continuing to cause the drama and problems when all he did was ask to get his commit access back ...

    No. When he realised he wasn't immediately given access as he was asking for it he also made a post on the unmoderated reddit board with "Drama" in the title.

    He inflamed drama during what should have been an otherwise fairly dull bureaucratic process, tried to hide his earlier posts, was called out on it with a timeline, then eventually half-admitted to creating drama.

    ... and tell his haters they’re being assholes

    Engaging with haters is creating more drama, which makes more disruption, which makes more haters, repeat ad infinitum.

    He just needed to ignore them and let the mods do their job, not make their job harder than it already was.

    The drama comes from people who just hate the guy and are screaming about letting him back. His response to that was then very cordial and just calling out them for being to aggressive.

    It definitely appeared cordial on his part, but the timelines of events comment showed he was cherrypicking and trying to change things after the fact. He was being deceitful and manipulative which of course made everything worse than it needed to be. He drove away more of the community.


    All he needed to do was not be disruptive himself, let the mods sort out the initial haters, and let the boring topic of a commit bit be addressed.

  • Netanyahu Blasts Biden Admin For ‘Withholding’ Weapons From Israel In Harshest Criticism Yet: ‘Inconceivable’
  • Looking back at history, it would lead to more propaganda and more support for going to war.

    A population getting attacked only leads to that population wanting to an us vs them mentality and emotional knee-jerk reactions over rational responses.

  • Coalition announces where they want to build nuclear power stations
  • Okay that's good, spaces for hydro storage isn't an issue.

    The only problems/questions left are:

    • Are the spaces spread out in the right areas, and can they be chosen in the right combination that won't lead to problems down the line? (I think that's beyond the scope of that document, but we'll assume it is all good for now)
    • Time (let's just assume it's faster to get it all built than nuclear so we can examine hydro storage more)
    • Cost. Looking at the link I find:

    Thus, the expected cost of a 1,000 megawatt pumped hydro energy storage system with a head of 600 m and 14 hours of storage is about $1.8 billion.

    1000 MW = 1GW : $1.8B

    And your quote says we need 450 GWh of storage.

    So 450 x 1.8 = $810B

    (I'm assuming I haven't made a mistake about the 14 hours of storage and the converting between GW and GWh).

    Our current GDP is 1.6 trillion.

    So we could do it, but it would cost us half of our GDP for one year (but we'd be spreading it out over multiple years).

    I'm assuming economies of scale would come into effect, but how much more efficient can you be at making and pouring concrete.

    I haven't found any source on the fiscal cost of the Coalition's plan (I doubt they even know, and I suspect that they're just trying to extend the life of coal by relying on delays), but it begs the question:

    Would their seven proposed nuclear stations be cheaper than $810 Billion?

  • Coalition announces where they want to build nuclear power stations
  • Nuclear plants have really really long spin up/down cycles so when it's on, it's on for a while. It's not like solar, gas, wind where you can just stop it on a whim. So if you go nuclear, it's already running for a long time, and if they're running for a really long time they're also essentially running as baseload production.

    As for the cost for emergency power, yeah it'd be great if it's cheaper. But the worse the emergency becomes, the less the cost matters. If I had to choose between coal or nuclear for emergency power, I'd probably choose both. Coal (which can be started and stopped quickly) just to cover the spin up time for the nuclear power, then nuclear for the rest of the emergency (and during spin down as whatever the emergency was is in the process of being resolved).

  • Let's chat about these SEVEN nuclear power plants the LNP want to build ...
  • The cost of nuclear is only at the commissioning and decommissioning of the plant. But during the runtime of the plant is remarkably cheap. People just balk at the initial price because so much of the cost is up front.

    Another thing to remember about recycling is that we as a species were producing nuclear waste before we had reactors that could use recycled waste so globally speaking we currently have a surplus of waste. Recently the US had to restart a reactor because they didn't have enough materials to use for powering deep space probes. It's not implausible that we could run out of waste to use and have to produce more fresh fuel.

    On the topic of safety though, modern reactor designs require power coming in to keep the fissile material frozen to continue the reaction.

    As soon as the power is cut, the coolant is cut, part of the plant is destroyed, or something else goes wrong, the plant stops working. If the plant stops working, there's nothing to cool down the fissile material.

    The fissile material's own radioactivity heats it up to the point that it melts and pours away over what's essentially a pyramid plinko drain splitting up the liquid into many separate pools. (If it helps, think of your bath's drain if the pipe splits into two, which split into four, which split into eight, and on and on until a bath tub's water has been separated into an ice cube tray the size of a tennis court.)

    Fissile material only reacts when it's next to enough fissile material.

    And since it's separated and spread out, there's more reaction.

    If you cut the power for the coolant pumps, the fuel melts, separates (by the power of gravity) and the reaction stops.

    If the coolant leaks, the fuel melts, separates and stops reacting.

    If you crash a plane into the reactor itself, the cooling mechanisms don't exist anymore and the fuel melts and pours out the nearest holes (either the drain or spilling outside the reactor into the containment structure, or even outside if need be), spreading out, separating, and reacting no more.

    Modern reactors have more in common with an ice-cube hoisted above the great pyramid of giza than they do the fukushima or chernobyl plants. Both of those were designed to require power to prevent a dangerous meltdown which turn into a runaway reactions, whereas modern reactors make it so a meltdown prevents reactions.

  • Coalition announces where they want to build nuclear power stations
  • That source doesn't have a link to their paper that works.

    But based on what was stated just in your link, they say if we build enough storage then we wouldn't need any baseload generation, which is technically correct.

    In particular, they're relying on hydro and gas storage.

    (specifically renewable gas and not natural gas, because natural gas is still bad)

    But as far as I know we can't build anywhere near enough hydro in Australia. Gas storage could technically work, but you'd have to build a ludicrous and economically infeasible amount of gas storage, or pump it into empty spaces underground (but I don't think we have enough of those in Australia either).

    I'm under the impression that modern nuclear plants as baseload production would still be cheaper than the renewable gas storage we would need to maintain power.

    Do you have a working link to the original paper or a study into how much renewable gas storage we'd require and the costs associated with it?

  • Let's chat about these SEVEN nuclear power plants the LNP want to build ...
  • Energy generation is not an issue at all. It's a completely solved problem.

    It's energy storage that is the problem, and that's why we need nuclear.

    But Dutton isn't pushing nuclear because he's being responsible. He's not actually pushing nuclear, he's just pushing a pipedream doomed project designed to take time/money/effort away from renewables, storage, and actual nuclear, all to keep money flowing to the coal industry shareholders.

  • Let's chat about these SEVEN nuclear power plants the LNP want to build ...
  • The problem of nuclear waste isn't actually a problem, and the 1000 year thing is a bit of an outdated myth. I wrote more about it here: https://aussie.zone/post/10867702/9731416

    Energy storage is actually the biggest problem in energy right now (save for a crazy discovery like perpetual energy, or cheap mass produced super conductors that could optimize the absolute shit out of our energy transmission infrastructure and reduce the amount of energy that we need to produce in the first place).

    The energy storage problem is actually the biggest reason why we need nuclear with our renewables.

    Nuclear can run our baseloads, renewables plus storage can run our peakloads.

    It's renewables AND nuclear, not renewables vs nuclear.

  • Coalition announces where they want to build nuclear power stations
  • Nitpick: Nuclear isn't obsolete, it's as modern as the design you choose.

    Nuclear isn't a replacement for renewables (like the coalition tries to suggest), and it isn't evil (like an internal faction in the greens tries to suggest).

    We need:

    • Renewables: for the best power production we can produce (when available)
    • Energy Storage: to store excess renewable power for when it's not available
    • Nuclear: to maintain baseline power (as opposed to peak power) for emergency scenarios.

    Sidenote: Since whenever anyone suggests that nuclear isn't to be abhorred whenever it's brought up, here are the 3 common things brought up so no one has to ask it.

    1. Risk of meltdowns
    • Modern designs are meltdown-proof with passive safety built in (as opposed to active safety where you need to keep providing power to keep things safe like Fukushima). You can fly a plane into a modern nuclear reactor and the reaction just stops.
    1. Nuclear proliferation
    • We have our own large amount of uranium on the continent. We don't need to encourage others to mine and sell it, and we don't need to sell it overseas ourselves.
    1. Nuclear waste
    • It's common practice today to simply recycle nuclear waste as nuclear fuel. That way you get many more uses out of with less overall fuel that needs to be produced. By the end of it you have a kind of nuclear waste concentrate that burns itself out much quicker (meaning you only need to store it for about 100 years as opposed to 1000s of years). Also, that concentrate itself can be used in things like betavoltaics (think weak but long lasting batteries in things were you don't want to have to replace the batteries, e.g. pacemakers, smoke detectors, scientific sensors, etc...)
  • Why do so few people cycle for transport in Australia? 6 ideas on how to reap all the benefits of bikes
  • First, AI is garbage at best, a shield to look busy, move money, and claim benevolence at worst.

    Secondly, who is funding the AI?

    If I were a company that makes more money the less people cycle or work from home, I'd rename one of my departments the AI consultant department. Then I could pay myself as much as I wanted, be able to spew buzzwords at investors/governments/naysayers, generate nothing of value (as intended), then say to all the governments and cyclists: "Sorry, we spent $X and it looks like putting more gas guzzling cars on the road is still the best solution".

  • The experience that made me hate programming, but that's all on me
  • Better to ask a rubber duck than an LLM.

    It has better results, is cheaper, and makes has a positive compounding effect on your own abilities.

  • Monthly Release Notes - May 2024 (version 1.90)
  • This particular release didn't seem to add much to the core app in terms of features, but it's nice to see they're putting work into making the rest of the ecosystem better.

    The thing I'm really hoping they fix is the Find / Select feature gap to help power users:

    Find & Select support Find String Find Regex
    & Select every match Supported! Supported!
    & Select which match Supported! No Support

    I made a bug for it: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/212562

    Besides that, and maybe better modal support (for improved vi mode, or alternate modes like kakoune/helix), I'm not really seeing any notable feature gaps anymore, which is great!

  • Southern Hemisphere's first cryogenically frozen client at rest in regional New South Wales facility
  • Except that there may be better ways to treat mental health issues in the future.

  • Southern Hemisphere's first cryogenically frozen client at rest in regional New South Wales facility
  • If future generations can revive someone, they've probably also cured aging. So for adapting they'll have all the time in the world, potentially more.

  • The 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey is live
  • At least it was better than the developer survey that was only about AI. That one still makes me facepalm just thinking about it.

  • Sticky trick: new glue spray kills plant pests without chemicals
  • Because: "The dose makes the poison".

    In other words, any chemical—even water and oxygen—can be toxic if too much is ingested or absorbed into the body. The toxicity of a specific substance depends on a variety of factors, including how much of the substance a person is exposed to, how they are exposed, and for how long.

  • Is it possible to get the value of a CSS property in an HTML element, using XPath 1.0?
  • Asking just because I'm curious... why are you using xpath?

    Also, is this for a website you control or for some else's website?

    If you're rendering the page (in a browser, e2e test-runner, spider bot, etc...), have you considered running some js on the page to get the image? Something like: const imagePath = document.getElementById('exampleIdOnElement').style.backgroundImage

  • Stash changes on branch switching
  • The reason I recommend it is because you can't rely on the CLI itself. Git commands can do weirdly counter-intuitive things depending on the version and settings of your git install. A command that works for one person may not work for another. Or worse, appear to work and fail silently. Or even worse, cause a problem that you won't find out about until later (if you can even determine the root cause at all).

    That's why I recommended Fork.

    Also, it's not $60, it essentially has an unlimited evaluation period (a la sublime text) so you can try it out for free for as long as you want, and pay if you want too (I have).

    The linux port is in progress.

    EDIT: just a sidenote, if you really want to force youself to go CLI only, you'll want to look into how git behaves differently depending on config. I recommend starting with this talk at NDC to get a good enough git config, then move onto Julia Evans blog as she's currently going on a public journey of untangling how the same commands can do different things in modern git.

  • Stash changes on branch switching
  • You'd probably be better off switching to a more powerful git gui like fork

  • Ubuntu Criticized For Bug Blocking Installation of .Deb Packages
  • Shouldn't you have an adblocker to block those scripts?

  • I made a thing

    Single HTML element + CSS only

    1. Inhale for 4 seconds
    2. Hold for 4 seconds
    3. Exhale for 4 seconds
    4. Hold for 4 seconds

    And repeat

    Inspired by: https://quietkit.com/box-breathing/

    Note: The current Safari version has a bugged linear() implementation that has been fixed in the upcoming version.

    3
    Typescript 5.2 Released
    devblogs.microsoft.com Announcing TypeScript 5.2 - TypeScript

    Today we’re excited to announce the release of TypeScript 5.2! If you’re not familiar with TypeScript, it’s a language that builds on top of JavaScript by making it possible to declare and describe types. Writing types in our code allows us to explain intent and have other tools check our code to ca...

    Announcing TypeScript 5.2 - TypeScript
    0
    Opinions on using CSS' last few years of features
    www.smashingmagazine.com Writing CSS In 2023: Is It Any Different Than A Few Years Ago? — Smashing Magazine

    CSS is evolving faster than ever. With all of the new features that are now available — and forthcoming — since we got Flexbox and Grid years ago, the way we write CSS is evolving, too. In this article, Geoff Graham shares which features have had the most influence on his current approaches to CSS, ...

    Writing CSS In 2023: Is It Any Different Than A Few Years Ago? — Smashing Magazine
    0
    High End CSS: Abusing scroll-based-animation to interpolate values through children in a container
    kizu.dev Position-Driven Styles

    After solving the fit-to-width text, stuck state for sticky elements, and scroll shadows, I wondered: how many other items from various CSS wishlists could I solve with scroll-driven animations? A lot. Styling flex and grid rows and columns, staggered animations, wrap detection, and m...

    0
    Typescript 5.2 beta announcement
    devblogs.microsoft.com Announcing TypeScript 5.2 Beta - TypeScript

    Today we are excited to announce the availability of TypeScript 5.2 Beta. To get started using the beta, you can get it through NuGet, or through npm with the following command: npm install -D typescript@beta Here’s a quick list of what’s new in TypeScript 5.2!

    Announcing TypeScript 5.2 Beta - TypeScript

    Shows a great example of JS' new using keyword (similar to defer in D, Go, Swift, etc...)

    1
    A simple hack to compose two js objects together
    developer.mozilla.org Spread syntax (...) - JavaScript | MDN

    The spread (...) syntax allows an iterable, such as an array or string, to be expanded in places where zero or more arguments (for function calls) or elements (for array literals) are expected. In an object literal, the spread syntax enumerates the properties of an object and adds the key-value pair...

    Spread syntax (...) - JavaScript | MDN

    Answer: create a new object with the properties of the two original objects using the spread operator.

    The order you insert the objects into the new merged object determines which object's properties take priority over the other.

    Linked example:

    ```js const obj1 = { foo: "bar", x: 42 }; const obj2 = { foo: "baz", y: 13 };

    const clonedObj = { ...obj1 }; // { foo: "bar", x: 42 }

    const mergedObj = { ...obj1, ...obj2 }; // { foo: "baz", x: 42, y: 13 } ```

    You can find more discussion here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/171251/how-can-i-merge-properties-of-two-javascript-objects-dynamically

    0
    The Grand Unified Theory of Documentation (AKA: Your project needs all 4 types or you have bad documentation)
    documentation.divio.com Documentation System

    Find the software documentation system for Divio. Includes comprehensive tutorials, how-to guides, technical reference and explanation. Learn more here.

    The mistake most devs make when trying to document their project is that they only make one (maybe two) types of documentation based on a readme template and/or what their mental model of a newcomer needs.

    Devs need to be actively taught that:

    1. Good documentation isn't one thing, it's four. To have good documentation, you need all four distinct types of documentation.
    2. What the four types of documentation are (this is discussed in the link)

    If you don't have all four types of documentation, you have bad documentation.

    7
    spartanatreyu spartanatreyu @programming.dev
    Posts 13
    Comments 146