Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

Right now, could you prepare a slice of toast with zero embodied carbon emissions?

Since at least the 2000s, big polluters have tried to frame carbon emissions as an issue to be solved through the purchasing choices of individual consumers.

Solving climate change, we've been told, is not a matter of public policy or infrastructure. Instead, it's about convincing individual consumers to reduce their "carbon footprint" (a term coined by BP: https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook).

Yet, right now, millions of people couldn't prepare a slice of toast without causing carbon emissions, even if they wanted to.

In many low-density single-use-zoned suburbs, the only realistic option for getting to the store to get a loaf of bread is to drive. The power coming out of the mains includes energy from coal or gas.

But.

Even if they invested in solar panels, and an inverter, and a battery system, and only used an electric toaster, and baked the loaf themselves in an electric oven, and walked/cycled/drove an EV to the store to get flour and yeast, there are still embodied carbon emissions in that loaf of bread.

Just think about the diesel powered trucks used to transport the grains and packaging to the flour factory, the energy used to power the milling equipment, and the diesel fuel used to transport that flour to the store.

Basically, unless you go completely off grid and grow your own organic wheat, your zero emissions toast just ain't happening.

And that's for the most basic of food products!

Unless we get the infrastructure in place to move to a 100% renewables and storage grid, and use it to power fully electric freight rail and zero emissions passenger transport, pretty much all of our decarbonisation efforts are non-starters.

This is fundamentally an infrastructure and public policy problem, not a problem of individual consumer choice.

#ClimateChange #urbanism #infrastructure #energy #grid #politics #power @green

This is amazing.
I'm a few days behind, but basically all of Copenhagen found out this weekend that laws currently in force allow bicycles to park in all city car parking spots, when a representative of the "Socialist" party made a public proposal to put up informative signage to that effect.

The Technical and Environment Commission would like you to be aware, however, that it could have unforeseen consequences to inform people that bikes can be parked in the same spots as motor vehicles

I fully expect this law to be reversed at the earliest opportunity, but until then: Let the hilarity ensue!

https://kobenhavnliv.dk/amager/frygter-kaos-her-er-parkeringsreglen-kommunen-ikke-vil-skilte-med (danish)

140+ Low-poly 3D models in a cooking theme!

These are available early for supporters here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/restaurant-bits-89254266

Will be released in 2 weeks time on itch, for free (CC0) licensed :)

#gameassets #gamedev #godot

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“Wie het systeem precies gebruikte, wat eruit werd gehaald en naar wie deze informatie werd gestuurd, werd niet bijgehouden. Medewerkers konden opgevraagde informatie zonder controle exporteren naar Excel-sheets en meenemen op eigen schijven of usb-sticks.”
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/09/14/extern-onderzoek-naar-omstreden-database-belastingdienst-a4174396

Some of you all have never read about cointelpro and it shows.

Snitchjacketing, fashjacketing, badjacketing, agent provocateur, character assassination - some of the terms you may want to start googling.

how it started: "string theory is this and that"

how is it going: "why capitalism is good"

like how did we even get here
did she become a grifter

Brief bouts of mischief: David Zinn’s chalk drawings imbue everyday street scenes with playful character.

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/08/david-zinn-chalk-drawings/

#art

sabine hosselfender is the prime example of why people who are experts in one field should not delude themselves with thinking it automatically grants them knowledge in other areas, especially if they barely know anything about them

@mekkaokereke there’s seriously a massive bloc of trans folks who came straight out of 4chan, and many of them didn’t bother shedding the horribleness in the process

I honestly have substantially less sympathy for folks who get shafted for corporate decisions, like Unity's, when the disaster scenarios they're describing are already just like, par for the course for folks like me

a lot of the stuff I make is incredibly slow to make because I don't use all the proprietary tools. yeah, it feels awful. but the solution isn't to crawl back to companies and ask them to take back their actions, but to sit down and realise where we are and why companies are the issue

like, my life would be a lot simpler if I just paid AWS to host a billion services and chain them together myself, or if I got loads of fancy editing software to make videos, or used proprietary game engines and other tools

but I don't. not only do I not have the starting cash to invest in that nonsense, but the fact that it prevents so many people from using what I've made (because I need to charge big bucks to afford it) is also a non-starter

like, sure, I have made a lot of money (most of which has gone into rent or food or other necessities) by working with these tools for companies. yes, it feels easier. no, I do not want it.

the solution is solidarity, not crawling back to companies and asking for their support instead

That Day I Inlined Two Functions And Performance Went Up By 10% I'm Not Even Kidding

https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/20880/commits/e53872fcb3a9ee93b576f449178af6c347e6d590

I keep seeing people saying they are happy to use AI text generators as sources of factual information, because they're confident that when the thing generates an inaccurate answer they'll easily spot it.

Speaking from my experience of 20+ years of professional fact-checking: the errors you can spot easily are not the ones you need to worry about.