andrewducker | Interesting Links for 18-05-2022

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Interesting Links for 18-05-2022

1. The surreal, but also real, problem of Britain's gas glut: (tags:gas UK Europe electricity economics )
2. Getting past the anxiety/avoidance cycle: (tags:anxiety advice )
3. Doctor Who: Any Colour You Like Provided It's Not Black: (tags:racism drwho )
4. Movies that change genre halfway through: (tags:movies genre )
5. EU warns 'all measures at its disposal' if UK overrides Northern Ireland Protocol: (tags:europe uk trade doom NorthernIreland )
6. Coca-Cola introduces built-in bottle caps in bid to boost recycling and help prevent litter: (tags:coke recycling )
7. How Beatboxing Was Invented (mostly because I spent half an hour looking for this and nearly didn't): (tags:games music video funny )
8. Why I love the new labour movement: (tags:unions economics viaDanielDWilliam )
9. Statement by the EU on the UK threatening to break its agreements: (tags:UK Europe Doom )
10. Surely Thatcher would approve of this enterprising young man?: (tags:margaretthatcher vandalism funny )
11. The Open is the oldest golf tournament in the world, it has a prize pot of over $11m, and apparently they need people to work for them for free: (tags:work golf money volunteers viaLizzieCassMaran OhForFucksSake )
12. Twitter turns the tables on Elon Musk, will "enforce" merger: (tags:Twitter ElonMusk funny )
13. The trailer for Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice looks like fun: (tags:terrypratchett cats movies trailer video )
14. Asymptotic burnout and homeostatic awakening: a possible solution to the Fermi paradox?: (tags:fermi aliens civilization apocalypse )
15. Can your characterafford to be without a Non-Fungible Trident?: (tags:blockchain funny dungeonsanddragons satire )
16. MRI images of foetuses are terrifying: (tags:MRI babies scary )

I think I'd be okay with the Open asking people to work for free at the actual golf, given that tickets to the Open have a value and there is a trade of value - entry to the golf for work as a guide.

Less okay about the Open asking people to work for free in the carpark.

The question isn't "Is Musk up to something?" The answer is always yes.

The questions are "What is Musk actually up to" and "Is what Musk is actually up to as clever as he thinks it is?"

I suspect he thought the owning the means of communication was a good idea until he realised what was involved. And then had second thoughts and wanted to back out. And isn't able to, so it's going to cost him a fortune!

That's too bad.

I'm torn between this: https://twitter.com/screaminbutcalm/status/1105577845642878976 and this: https://giphy.com/gifs/SkhPpSCNFANLa

I'd go with both.

I would prefer that Musk back out of the Twitter deal. Aside from averting a "bad owner" outcome, the kill fee might spread out the wealth a little more to more people and that's not a bad thing to see happen.

I don't think he can. Twitter are going to hold him to it. The kill fee was for if he couldn't raise the money, not if he just decided not to...

Thank goodness the UK has sufficient gas storage to store all this cheap, excess gas for the winter when we really need it! Oh hang on, we got rid of all our storage and moved to a JIT model? Doh!!!

D'oh indeed!

CAES - compressed air energy storage is a thing.

Morecambe Bay has a gas field; there was talk of turning it into a gas storage facility.
Morecambe Bay also has several offshore wind farms.

Would it be too much to hope that the pressures involved are similar enough that we could combine all three ?

I wasn't aware that anyone had CAES up and running commercially, I thought they were still trying to get it efficient enough.

Checking where things are at the moment, it looks like 60% efficiency is plausible, and about 30Wh/L - Lithium Ion has about 85% efficiency and about 260 Wh/L. So only worth it if CAES is a fair bit cheaper and you really don't care about space. Which we might not, if it was underwater, or using an old gas storage facility!

Aha! CAES going commercial in China! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-18/china-eyes-compressed-air-as-battery-competitor-in-energy-storage

4. In every instance of the movies that change genre partway through, at least one of the two genres is one I have no interest in watching.

8. I want to tell this writer, don't apologize for the labor movement. Sure, unions can do bad things, but if we're going to criticize an institution for that, ten times the amount of obloquy that goes on unions should go onto corporations. What, ten? More like a hundred.
However, I like the writer's "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" attitude towards the robot apocalypse.

9. Nothing in this statement surprises me in the slightest.

10. *chuckle*

14. What, these people think a civilization could change course in response to an impending crisis? Not in human experience it wouldn't.

We have occasionally. The ozone layer, for instance. And we have, in theory, put an awful lot of money into renewables, batteries, etc. But not nearly enough, and not into some of the things that would help ordinary people in the short run (like insulation, better building regulations, etc).

6. Black plastic is recyclable, but last I heard most recyling centres c/wouldn't recycle it.

That's going to be fun for them when it comes attached to the bottle!

It confuses the IR sensors in our municipal facility, or that's what we are told at least.

"4. Movies that change genre halfway through"

this brings to mind a film about Ophelia (the entire filmed from her perspective) and it was "okay" for me until we got to the last few mins where she didn't
*really* die but woke up again ––– i nearly reached thru the screen and did it myself! don't f*** with my Billy Shakes! haha

That thing about anxiety and avoidance is exactly right, but you have to find the momentum to keep doing it, which is cumulatively draining.

Oh yes, definitely tiring. Thankfully, for me, when I can get some inertia the anxiety levels drop again. But I know that's not the case for everyone.

8 The Victorians beat them to it with the 'Codd' bottle.

Oh yeah, lots of restaurant water bottles like that in my experience

LNG facilities are scary, and not something you want near a port, city, or other area of value.

Boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE), asphyxiation, cryogenic burns, and vapour cloud explosion (VCE), not necessarily in that order.

#6. It seems like it was 20 years ago (edit: it was!) when I first heard of a new aluminum can design that would use carbon dioxide to eliminate the need for refrigeration of soft drinks. Why did that never happen? Oh...

Edited 2022-05-19 02:30 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't see the second link (not available in the EU/UK). What happened?

Reading this interview (https://www.packagingdigest.com/beverage-packaging/chill-can-presents-new-twist-demand-cold-beverages) it seems that it reduces the volume of a can by 4oz and adds $1.50 to the cost. I'm not at all surprised that hasn't been a huge success!

Weird. This archive link should work. There's some kind of lawsuit involved. They took city grant money but haven't delivered project updates.

Yeah, that added cost is unacceptable. Back when I first heard about it, the design was far less involved than Chill Can's. The can interior had a chamber with a small aluminum pipe through the top, smaller than a straw. Snap off the top bit of "straw", wait for the CO2 to outgas, then pop the usual tab to drink your cold beverage. It was estimated to add only $0.05-$0.10 to the cost at the time.

Yeah, that level of extra cost would probably be acceptable, at least as a variant!

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Interesting Links for 18-05-2022

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