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[–] 97 points 2 months ago* (5 children)

Hundreds of years of burning coal has spread mercury compounds all over the land, so that quite often when they build a new dam for hydroelectric power it's dissolved into the water and ends up concentrated in fishes that people eat.

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  • [–] 29 points 2 months ago

    having to be careful about how much fish you eat due to mercury is one of the top dystopian things to me. People think about agriculture and grains with civilization but when you look at how important and common fish was to our diet for so long. Its crazy.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I dunno man, sounds fucking woke to me

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  • [–] 87 points 2 months ago

    There's no way to make a backdoor for encryption that keeps the encryption secure. Politicians and government flunkies can't seem to wrap their pea brains around that concept.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Gateway_Protocol

    I'm surprised we don't have global internet outages more often.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Also, the route back to the source host doesn't have to be same as the route out.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago*

    Despite the many issues that it can cause, that is an important feature of BGP. Since network connections can be asymmetrical, and outbound and inbound connections can have different requirements, the best (or most adequate) route from A to B might not be the best route from B to A.

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  • [–] 39 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    The longevity of concrete isn't just tied to the cylinder break strength.

    Also, concrete with certain aggregates end up creating silica gel, which is bad for concrete.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Which aggregates?

    What are some other tests you can use to decide which concrete is best for you?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Aggregates with a lot of unstable silica like strained quartz can cause the creation of silica gel when exposed to cement. The aggregate supplier should be the one running tests to prove they don't have reactive silica.

    Other tests include air entrainment and the slump test. The concrete mix requirements should be chosen by the engineer or architect.

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  • [–] [S] 36 points 2 months ago* (4 children)

    An example from my field of expertise: Mixing different kinds of metals in wet environments causes the less noble one to corrode.

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  • [–] 36 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    The phrase "sacrificial anode" comes to mind

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  • [–] 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    The asphalt pavement of roads must be 4 inches thick to last forever. 3 inches lasts 5 years, 2 inches lasts one year, 1 inch is crumbling before you finish. You constantly see crumbling roads in the third world because of corruption, they don't put as much pavement down as they charge for.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago
    [–] 15 points 2 months ago

    You need to test your restore procedure all the way through & periodically to have confidence in your backups

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  • [–] 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Concrete being called cement.

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  • [–] 29 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Microwaves can cause water to become super heated and explosive upon touch.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 months ago (14 children)

    Adding an extra lane to a congested road will always cause that road to be more congested, and will also increase traffic on nearby roads.

    When China removed a highway, it reduced car traffic thought the entire city while not reducing the number of people travelling to and around the city.

    The only solution to car traffic is viable alternatives to driving.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    This is definitely not always true. They added a lane in my city a few years ago and my commute went from 45 minutes to 30 minutes.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    IIRC the trend is observed over longer periods, where it feeds into people's decisions about whether to have a car or second car, and how far to commute. And even then, congestion and travel time are two different things - an extra lane probably makes no difference, but a new route or higher speed limit will get you there faster regardless.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    Which this actually isn't a straight example of, exactly. Jevon's paradox says more and better roads will mean more cars operating, not less. That happens, but in this case the increase is so great, that it leads to the same level of congestion on the roads all over again.

    The wiki uses the example of coal. Better boilers and engines increased the use of coal, but it's fair to say industrial Europe had better coal powered equipment afterwards, not the same or worse. (Although, to be fair, congestion is only one metric of traffic performance)

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    I agree, Jevon's is not the perfect way to describe this affect. Is there a better way to classify this? It's bugged me for a bit as I've had good debates about adding biking lanes and better sidewalks instead of just more lanes for cars. But Jevon's is the best I could come up with.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    No, it's relevant enough, thanks for bringing it up.

    You could say something about the elasticity of road usage being 1, but if you're not a wonk that means nothing. Induced traffic is another technical term you might see around. Saying "research suggests another lane means an equal number of additional cars, eventually" is about what gets the best comprehension.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Probably not always. You build a 12 lane road entirely within a random small town, and it will stay empty and stupid. But, in the range of what actually might be built, yes, there's pretty strong empirical evidence that cars fill any available space.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

    this logic asssumes more road == population growth

    sure, and telescopes created all the stars in the sky.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    The number of car-hours per person per year isn't even close to fixed over the long run. The trend is basically that in the past, people might have carpooled, taken a bus or even hitchhiked, and usually lived close to their job. If the roads get better, they drive more.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    so your idea is installing a system is pushing for classism and hoping to furthering socioeconomic downturn on the landscape of select neighbourhoods with select individuals with large populations that are struggling, paying the most taxes, yet expected to travel for lower wage jobs and you want to make their travel to work harder.

    how bigotted.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Among many other reasons, the biggest reason for me that the US stock market cannot be trusted is because market makers combine 3 techniques to create fraud and push risk to others to dilute unwitting companies and investors: borrow stocks, selling a borrowed stock to buy later, strategically failing to deliver stock.

    Borrowing stocks doesn’t create a clean paper trail, can be done repeatedly, and steals shareholder votes.

    Selling a borrowed stock to buy later can strategically intend to fail from the start where they don’t even have to locate (not even acquire as you might assume) a share to borrow, effectively creating new shares out of thin air. Market makers in the US can legally do this, even for the benefit of their hedge fund counterparts (sometimes under the same company).

    Fails for stock delivery are allowed, so they’re a strategy. Cash in lieu is not the same as share ownership. Cash is fungible, stocks are not, and this gap can create technically infinite risk.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Nah, the stock markets were fixed in 2008!

    They created dark pools.

    But in seriousness this unrealistic playground should be completely separated from real economics and fucks everything up.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    The borders between countries in the Middle East including India/Pakistan were deliberately drawn to cause conflict. Of course when that conflict started to come back home everyone was shocked pikachu faced about it. I really don't understand why people of those countries don't just throw away the map and sort it out amongst themselves like adults, but I guess expecting world leaders of a majority of countries to act like adults is a bit much to ask most of the time.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago

    The Dunning-Kruger Effect.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    The people designing and building large machinery and cars dont ever have to maintain them

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  • [+] 4 points 2 months ago* (2 children)
  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    It's just helpful as in the picture, TBH.

    Which capitalism? If you don't specify what you mean, you sound like you're selling something. And if you do, capitalism might be an extra word you don't need.

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  • [+] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Okay, but most of that stuff existed before industrialisation, which the man in the picture would have called pre-capitalist. So, if anything, it's less clear, now. Were the Romans capitalist? What about the USSR?

    Like, this is a great example. Am I any closer to solving any of this? No. Do I understand more than before? Hell no. It really is like being handed some lettuce floating in a bowl of oil.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    money is credit ( debt )

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