Interesting Links for 26-06-2018

[andrewducker]

£1.3bn Swansea Bay tidal lagoon electricity project thrown out

(tags: electricity wales ocean )

Die, Die, Die Against Exquisitely Animated Lovecraftian Hordes In Sundered

Just started playing it, and really enjoying it. Can be played in small chunks, which works well with my free time.
(tags: games review )

Six unconventional introductions to economics

(tags: economics )

Trump's Tariffs Are Forcing Harley-Davidson To Move Jobs Overseas

(tags: trade OhForFucksSake usa )

Today's youngsters able to delay gratification longer than those of the 1960s

(tags: self-control psychology children )

Men's testosterone levels largely determined by the environment they grow up in

(tags: testosterone environment men children )

Dislike and dehumanization are not the same thing

(tags: psychology humanity )

No, the Government didn’t just ban transgender people from public bathrooms

(tags: media lgbt transgender uk law )

"I work in Brussels alongside the EU Brexit negotiators and I find it incredible how little the UK government understands"

(tags: uk europe )

The Last Jedi: what would the $200m fan-funded remake look like?

(tags: StarWars diversity satire )

The lead singer of Tool/A Perfect Circle is a rapist

(tags: rape music )

How music lessons can improve language skills

(tags: music language hearing )

You don't need to believe in free will to be a nice person

Dammit, there goes my last excuse to be a bastard
(tags: FreeWill morality )

Baking "Have I Been Pwned?" into Firefox and 1Password

(tags: passwords security )

The AI learning to play DOTA

(tags: games ai )

Why nobody ever wins that car giveaway at the mall

(tags: fraud cars lottery competition )

Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but Are Less Likely to Get Them

(tags: money pay women inequality )

Why One Island Grows 80% of the World's Vanilla

(tags: poverty madagascar food )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

Vanilla - hand pollinated by poor people? Jings.

I'm surprised that the bee that does the polinating in Mexico hasn't been transplanted too.

Or that Mexico isn't the world's largest producer given it's natural advantage in labour costs (Mexican bees being cheaper than Madagascans).

[andrewducker]

I'm also surprised. Wish there'd been an explanation in the article.

[danieldwilliam]

A quick read of wikipedia suggests the following.

The bee thought to be responsible for natural pollination turns out probably not to be.

Even with natural pollenators the chance of pollination is about 1%.

Harvesting is by hand and appears to be quite labour intensive so the time saved by not hand pollinating probably doesn't help offset the harvesting costs.

I feel a robot might be the answer. Along side some sort of ATR for ripeness.

But making poor people redundant is low down on the list of roboticists things to do.

[cmcmck]

The amazing thing about the trans and loos thing is that the law was settled over a decade ago and hasn't been changed.

And if I'm not saying, how does anyone suppose they'll know?

TERF mischief making is going to cause real harm sooner or later!

Why nobody ever wins that car giveaway at the mall

[jack]

...apparently I was still far from sufficiently cynical! I assumed it was one of those "they don't tell you the odds so the chance of winning is just really small" type things, not "there's not a prize at all, they just want to hard-sell you" :(

[danieldwilliam]

It is clearly the fault of Harley Davidson that they have responded to a flawed economic policy by behaving rationally.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not sorry to see the Swansea tidal lagoon power station not happening.

Compared to Hinckley Point C it's expensive for intermittent generation. If we're going to be spending £100 / MWH or there about I'd rather have a nuke. Or a windfarm and a battery.

I've never been convinced that the environmental case for the lagoon was sound.

[nojay]

That's the Swansea tidal lagoon idea, not the Severn Barrage project which has a pricetag with a couple of extra noughts on the end and which would devastate the Severn Estuary's basis as the ecological hinge of the migration patterns of a large percentage of the Northern Hemisphere's wading birds (and the financial aspects of the project probably wouldn't work out either).

The Swansea tidal lagoon project is a bit like the French La Rochelle tidal barrage, a slightly modified harbour structure with a gate/door on one side. It's too small to generate a lot of energy per annum but substantial enough to cost a lot to build.

[danieldwilliam]

Ah - I've clearly muddled two Welsh water schemes in my head.

Thanks for the correction.

[nojay]

Tidal barrage/storage systems have a number of advantages in terms of predictability -- we know how the tides will behave for decades out from today, we've got a good idea of the tidal heights at any location and hence the amount of energy a barrage can generate for each cycle (allowing for seasonal spring/neap tide variation). The pool/drain behind the barrage can be used as a temporary energy store and that energy translated into electricity at the best times within limits (an hour or two delay before the next high/low tide typically). The bad news is that a barrage needs a lot of materials and construction for what is not a lot of energy generated since the low/high tide levels are usually only a few metres and height is everything in hydro schemes -- the Niagra Falls hydro plants have a drop of 89 metres by comparison.

La Rochelle (aka Rance) in northern France has a short stretch of barrage across a natural harbour mouth, it has a decent tidal range and the top of the barrage provides a roadway as a bonus. It's still marginal in electricity generating costs. The Swansea barrage would have been a big loop of wall built out from the coast into the sea forming a man-made harbour, much more expensive.

[redbird]

I don't know if there's free will, but I can't think of a reason to behave as if there isn't. If there is free will, I should choose to do the right thing; if not, my believing there isn't shouldn't affect my choices. (On a meta-level, if there's no such thing as free will, people aren't really "choosing" to believe that there is, or isn't.)

[andrewducker]

I don't believe that people choose their beliefs in any case. Either one is persuaded of something's truth, or one is not.