Interesting Links for 08-05-2017

[andrewducker]

Nigel Farage says Theresa May is winning because she has stolen all his policies

(tags: UKIP Conservatives uk politics europe )

Iceland drills three miles into volcanoes to produce clean energy

(tags: iceland volcano renewables )

The Lost Picture Show: Hollywood Archivists Can’t Outpace Obsolescence

There would seem to be an opening for an archive company which _will_ support their technology for more than a couple of years. Because they know what "archival" means.
(tags: movies tv Technology history )

Tips For Not Condemning Millions Of Americans To Sickness And Death

didn't The Onion used to be satire?
(tags: politics usa healthcare )

Actual words my coworkers have said to me, a woman in tech

The woman who shared this with me said that she'd heard nearly all of these personally.
(tags: women technology sexism )

Mass Extinction And The Structure Of The Milky Way

tl;dr - when we're inside a spiral arm (60% of the time) there are a lot more comets and gamma bursters nearby.
(tags: space life death earth )

Huge relief after only 11 million people vote for a fascist

(tags: fascism voting satire europe )

Strength Through Unity - is America becoming a fascist state?

(tags: fascism usa comic )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I wish I knew more about the Icelandic electricity system. Or geo-thermal power.

I can totally understand why the Icelanders are reluctant to have their electricity system hooked up to Europe. Given that they have a relative abundance of energy being able to sell that to the mainland can only drive up retail prices. If I were their economy minister I'd be on the hunt for more energy intensive industries to locate to Iceland with perhaps some moderate increase in immigration - but I've no idea if Icelanders welcome increasing their population. I'd also see if I could electrify more of the transport. I expect the bits that aren't renewable is diesel for four wheel drives and fishing smacks.

I'd be surprised if subsea drilling for thermal energy and a massive cable under the Atlantic was cheaper than other forms of generation. Not that I'm against the massive cable

Not for the first time I'm left wondering about the feasbility of buying an old oil tanker, filling it with batteries and sailing it from Iceland to Rotterdaam.

Volcano Powah

[andrewducker]

Unless Iceland is operating on a purely capitalist basis (unlikely) they wouldn't need to raise their local prices to the global electricity market levels just because they hooked up to the grid.

In fact, they could sell at raised prices and then use the profits to subsidise the local markets even more.

(Or, as you say, move business closer. In fact, they could do both.)

Re: Volcano Powah

[danieldwilliam]

The article that is linked to in the article you linked to suggested that the Icelanders were concerned about the local price impact of connecting their grid to the European grid.

Doing a quick dig in to the Icelandic electricity situation the local electricty company seems to be mostly owned by the Icelandic government and the city of Reykajavik. They are in the EFTA which I don't know enough about but unless I'm misunderstanding something grossly then, yeah, either a) they could do some deal whereby the cable gets electricity to export only if the price of electricity in Iceland is below the current price or b) the price of electricity is market driven but the additional profit goes to the state and municipal council through their ownership of the utility company.

They may have spooked themselves but with a population of 300,000 and having lived through the GFC I'd expect them to know their onions about their own internal markets.

[naath]

I thought they were into large scale aluminium smelting but icbw.

[danieldwilliam]

Iceland does have a lot of aluminium production. Currently 11th in the world by output which must make them the highest aluminium producer per capita in the world. Looks like they've been exploring additional refineries. I think they might be cautious about the environmental impact and the risk of having too much dependence on aluminium smelting.

[danieldwilliam]

I think they also use some geothermal power to warm greenshouses to produce fruit etc.

[calimac]

Wouldn't an easier solution than migrating epic quantities of data every few years to the backwards-compatibility problem be to just keep a few of each older generation of reading machines in working order? What am I missing?

Archival

[andrewducker]

You'd think they could make sure they could have a few spares lying around. Of course, this would all be solved if the new generation drives were compatible with the old tapes. Which, I would have thought, would be simple enough to design in...

Re: Archival

[theandrewhickey]

Might it be a printer/cartridge problem? If their business model is based on profits from selling the tapes, rather than the machines, that would explain it...

[zz]

media degrades too, though. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

[calimac]

Yes, but that they have covered. (The article goes into this.) It doesn't degrade at more than a tiny fraction of the rate at which it goes obsolete, so it's a lot less difficult to watch for.

[zz]

reading the article?! this is the internet, we don't do that sort of thing.

[miramon]

Tape drives degrade, plastic goes brittle, rubber pickup wheels just turn to dust, springs lose their tension. I've seen old LTO drives where the read heads were covered in magnetic oxide from the tapes (and the oxide then gets onto the pickup wheel and ruins the tension so the tape doesn't read properly and you're risking it being chewed up). You can only buy old kit on eBay for so long before it's useless. Anything with moving parts is a disaster waiting to happen.

[calimac]

Yes, but I did specify "keep in working order," not "buy some old ones on eBay." These aren't casual hobbyists, but large corporations with whole staffs of technical departments.

[miramon]

And I also am talking about large corporations. I've worked on projects where IBM was buying old kit on eBay to keep a couple of ancient servers running. The tape drive I referred to belonged to a major hospital (who, incidentally, were running a 20-year old VMS system that was a lot less trouble than the tape drive but was still the cause of an 8-day outage). You just can't replace the guts of a tape drive unless you have access to the original manufacturer's technical department and spares.

[calimac]

No, you're not talking about a large corporation. You're talking about a hospital that called in IBM for help with a failing system, instead of having them keep it in working order all along.

[cmcmck]

The same Farage who is whining because la belle Marine didn't win in France you mean?

May is many things that I despise but I don't think she's (quite) a fascist.

Iceland drills three miles into volcanoes to produce clean energy

[doug]

No good can come from this. Cheap, low-emissions electricity is too much of a free lunch. Isn't this the setup for a scifi disaster movie? Or the plot of a Doctor Who episode?

Re: Iceland drills three miles into volcanoes to produce clean energy

[njj4]

Isn't this the setup for ... the plot of a Doctor Who episode?
It's pretty much exactly the plot of a Doctor Who story. Before we know it, we'll find ourselves in a parallel Earth where the UK is controlled by a fascist regime, except they'll be wearing eyepatches. Mind the Primords.

Re: Iceland drills three miles into volcanoes to produce clean energy

[doug]

Aha! Thank you. That was precisely what was in the back of my mind. I knew it. I shall keep the location of the nearest fire extinguishers in mind. (Top tip for anyone else: in any modern nonresidential building, you should find them on your fire escape route.)