Interesting Links for 11-07-2021

[andrewducker]

Quest for "green" cement draws big name investors to $300B industry

Extra info https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27795416
(tags:materials co2 cement )

Off-Patent Osteoporosis Drug Also Found to Extend Lifespan

(tags:lifespan viaDanielDWilliam )

The Planets with the Giant Diamonds Inside (inside two fascinating planets you don't hear much about)

(tags:space planets history astronomy )

Why Do Gamers Love Speedrunning So Much Anyway?

(tags:games speed )

Government's Mass Infection Plan pushed by Great Barrington Declaration Lobbying Effort to End COVID Protections

(tags:conspiracy vaccine pandemic UK government OhForFucksSake )

Not wearing a mask is associated with antisocial traits

(tags:psychology pandemic )

Boris Johnson's £11.6bn climate fund to be swiped from aid budget

(tags:UK globalwarming aid OhForFucksSake )

What is "The child-annihilating zipline"? (with bonus terrible kitchen redesign)

(tags:death children engineering )

No bids for over 70% of Indian coal mines up for auction

(tags:coal India )

Comments

Indian Coal

[danieldwilliam]

If I've read that right that's the second auction of coal mines in India with both sets of auctions having lots of no bids.



Anyone up for bidding $1 for a bunch in round 3?

Re: Indian Coal

[andrewducker]

I suspect they come with responsibilities that I would struggle with!

Re: Indian Coal

[danieldwilliam]

There's some combination of reserve price and revenue share model required for the later sets of auctions.

https://www.livemint.com/industry/energy/coal-mine-auction-34-bids-for-19-mines-in-second-tranche-11625830527240.html

Re: Indian Coal

[andrewducker]

I think probably out of my competence zone.

Re: Indian Coal

[danieldwilliam]

Wardogs are our roll models.

Re: Indian Coal

[andrewducker]

That feels like a reference to something, but I can't place what!

Re: Indian Coal

[danieldwilliam]

The film about the US Department of Defence procurement system.

Speedrun

[danieldwilliam]

I like watching fake speedrun videos on Minecraft.

Re: Speedrun

[andrewducker]

I'm a fan of lore videos.

Re: Speedrun

[danieldwilliam]

Lore?

Re: Speedrun

[andrewducker]

Some of my favourite games have plots that are obfuscated and opaque. They require multiple playthroughs trying different approaches to understand what everyone is up to, and lots of the "lore" (or background detail of the universe) is secreted around the place in item descriptions that are fragmentary and incomplete.

So when people work together to piece it together in forums and then someone turns it into a video I enjoy that.

https://youtu.be/McXJj7sjcZ0

(That's a brief overview, there are dozens of in-depth videos going into more detail.)

Re: Speedrun

[andrewducker]

Although I am regularly impressed by the competence levels and determination they show.

The people who have managed to play all three Dark Souls games, in a row, without getting hit are frankly staggering.

Re: Speedrun

[jducoeur]

My standards for speedrunning got way inflated by my brief time in the industry. The QA folks play the same game, over and over, and wind up better than I would have naively expected to be humanly possible. (Eg, playing all the way through Thief in 55 minutes, just using the bow and trick arrows and never confronting or killing any NPCs. Or something like that -- I don't remember the details, but I remember going, "You can do that?")

Green concrete

[danieldwilliam]

Green concrete is a good example of what politics and states are for; a problem involving coordinated action, externalities, (prudently) conservative vested interests and variable timescales and the solution requires tax policy and regulation.

Re: Green concrete

[dewline]

The project of inventing a process of climate-respectful cement/concrete(?) is certainly one worthy of investigation and investment on principle.

Re: Green concrete

[danieldwilliam]

Absolutely, big of emitter carbon, and as the world gets richer, more populous and more urban there's going to be a lot of building materials needed.

Re: Green concrete

[armiphlage]

A large amount of concrete is currently used where other materials could work just as well, with far lower emissions. If concrete's cost included emissions charges, then we'd go back to using actual stone for pavestones and curbstones, instead of molded concrete. Concrete would be saved for the applications where it is truly useful.

Re: Green concrete

[danieldwilliam]

Undoubtedly true at the margin. I don't know how big that margin is. I wonder what the price (or more importantly overall cost) advantage of concrete over real stone is.

Re: Green concrete

[doubtingmichael]

What I found interesting is that apparently governments mostly haven't introduced green concrete incentives yet, but the companies are investigating it in anticipation of those incentives being introduced later. Of course, as soon as one company has a good solution figured out, they'll start lobbying for incentives to be introduced as they'll get a competitive advantage from them. That will make them much more likely to be introduced. So it may only be the threat of incentives that will cause them to happen.

Re: Green concrete

[danieldwilliam]

I think you are spot on about the lobbying.

Not wearing a mask

[snippy]

"more callous, hostile, and deceitful" certainly represents the people I know who refused/refuse to wear a mask.

[calimac]

"Not wearing a mask is associated with antisocial traits"

Ya think?

[andrewducker]

I think a lot of things. It's always nice to have data to back my thoughts up.

Masks and antisocial traits

[anna_wing]

In countries where mask-wearing is merely an uncomfortable inconvenience, and does not attract the visceral irrationality that it does in much of the West, non-mask-wearing is associated in poorer countries with poverty, ignorance and supply-chain problems; in richer ones, with mental illness of the more antisocial kinds, or being an antisocial foreigner with entitlement issues.

The zoledronate information sounds very promising, especially in respect of extending "healthspan". Most countries with shorter lifespans could probably already extend them with basic public health interventions.