So I’ve had this thought for 20+ years but can’t seem to get it to work. Maybe someone smarter than me can make it work.

The Curie point of Gadolinium is around room temperature. If you put a high powered magnet on one end and then generate some external heat and an include a spring (or crank arm) on the magnetic end, you could produce a piston, similar to a sterling engine.

Now, if you add this cooling material as a heat sink, you could likely rapidly cool the gadolinium material back below the Curie point, making a more efficient engine, perhaps even producing something that could do a bit of work.

I made some prototypes back in the day, but the ferromagnetic material would always eventually get locked with the magnets. My rudimentary engineering skills could never get the external heat source quite right. Perhaps someone with a bit more ingenuity will take this and run with it.

Also, old broken microwaves are a great way to salvage some pretty strong magnets.

And be careful when handling gadolinium, it’s known to cause kidney and nerve damage.

Pork BBQ and Collards. Finish it down with some Cheerwine.

Left to my own devices, I am a messy person. My wife is very tidy. A clean sanctuary is respite for her.

I don’t know how we ended up staying together after those first few dates, but I do know our twice a month housekeeper is acting as our marriage counselor.

They’ve made their decision, now let’s see them enforce it.

Utilitarian - Row houses and small single family starter homes.

Detached single family housing is suffocating this country and the environment. I’d rather leave the woods to nature and nature walks, not streets and houses.

In addition to that, utopian architecture, like arcologies.

I’m much more a fan of the PBS/NPR underwriting model. Tell me who deliberately funds the show or video.

When the advertisement is so divorced from the show, is not relevant to the conversation or is not relevant to me, then the andvertisers are wasting their money.

If you show me the same ad over and over again, I am actually more likely to NOT buy that branded product or service because I’ve become so annoyed and numb from the ad taking what little time I have on this planet that I will actively boycott it.

However, I do have a nice space mug from PBS, a plot of land on Mars, the moon and Scotland, and a t-shirt for the Truth podcast to prove that I will spend money when the advertising is relevant to the content I’m consuming. So if you want the ad to work, invest your dollars directly into the content and providers I care about.

But for the love of everything, do not think for a moment that your contribution gives you license to control their messaging or content.

• Energy demand to power heavy industry that we all use (steel, aluminum, chemicals, fertilizers)
• • I don’t see these going away, so it’d be best to make their processes greener by repurposing the carbon into ag products, then institute a viable carbon tax and offset the rest of their footprint
• Use of concrete in construction
• • some promising technologies coming that crystallize the carbon and use it to self heal the concrete, carbon tax and offset the rest
• Shipping
• • bring manufacturing closer to consumers, global environmental manufacturing and shipping standards, improve right to repair laws
• Transportation
• • upgrade public transportation options where it makes economic sense to do so, make our cities and towns more people friendly instead of car friendly, raise the gas tax to fund these efforts. Reduce the amount of detached single family housing stock and encourage multi-family stock, particularly in cities.
• Heating and cooling
• • incentivize heat pumps, add taxes to heating fuels and fossil energy plants to fund it. Start a major campaign to educate people to keep temperatures around 68 (winter) to 76 degrees (summer). And encourage use of ceiling fans.

Mostly vendors. Often on-prem versions customized for their sensitive work and the versions are 30+ years now.

They very much go by the mantra “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If you’re lucky enough to get one of those contracts, you’re on a gravy train, but brace yourself because you can expect to get a lot of complaints about how outdated and crap your system is. That and a whole lot of time dedicated to training and documentation.

You’ll also get the occasional person’s personal monument to themselves. “Joe’s been doing that GIS stuff for 30 years.” Whew those can doozies.

I wish people would spend 10% of the time that they doomscroll towards activism. 15-30 minutes a day in real life. Join groups that align with your worldviews. Meet face to face, donate, call representatives, volunteer.

If we all did that across the country, our numbers would be so overwhelming that the people pulling this shit would be put back in whatever hole they crawled out of.

But instead, we all sit here, reading this, wringing our hands, doing nothing but worrying, and they pick us off one by one, among the nearly silent tap tap taps of our fingers on our phones.

I am not an AI hater, it helps me automate many of the more mundane tasks of my job or the things I don’t ever have time for.

I also feel that change management is a big factor with any paradigm shifting technology, as is with LLMs. I recall when some people said that both the PC and the internet were going to be just a fad.

Nonetheless, all the reasons you’ve mentioned are the same ones that give me concern about AI.

Never really understood that saying. Cheese is proof that the gods love us and want us to be happy.

When they make up tomorrow, they’ll both be a few billion dollars richer.

Perhaps be more descriptive and abstract?

“The clouds cry tears unto the land.”

Yup, this is going to end well.

This seems like a tragedy of the commons line of thinking, with a dash of whataboutism.

I’m reminded of the quote “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

If you wish to reduce plastic consumption, perhaps the single step along that journey begins with you.

And if that journey includes sacrifices that you are not willing to make, then it’s good to be cognizant of that, so that you understand your impact on the world and the consequences your decisions have upon your future self.

Distilling this to an example you mentioned above, if you are unwilling to use bar soap, then perhaps look for bath products where some of the company profits go towards environmental restoration. Depending on the company, it may not mitigate your full impact, but reduce is one of the 3 tenets of sustainability.

I think it’s important that consider that, for now, we only have this one spaceship.

Americans being Americans aside, there is an abundance of beautiful abandoned villas and fincas in Spain. Personally, I would love a chance to immigrate there.

Oh look, 8.4 billion in more made up money.

In other news, I think I just learned why Elon got more weird all of a sudden about 6 years ago. P. Thiel funding his brain chips? New conspiracy theory just dropped.

• Hans Zimmer
• Johann Sebastian Bach
• Pyotr Tchaikovsky
• John Williams

Going with the OG - Super Mario Kart. 64 is close though.

Monster Party - if you haven’t played it, it’s a trip.

S tier

• Lufia
• Dragon Warrior 3
• Final Fantasy 3 & 7
• Sonic Adventure
• The Guardian Legend
• Ecco the Dolphin
• Silent Hill
• Mario Kart
• Dark Cloud 2
• Chronotrigger
• Zelda: A link to the past
• Submachine (flash)

A tier

• Oddworld, Abe’s Odyssey
• Resident Evil: codename Veronica
• Banjo Kazooie
• Mario RPG
• Donkey Kong Country
• Earthworm Jim
• Battletoads
• Wizards and Warriors 2
• Megaman 2
• Populous
• One Chance (flash)
• Daymare Town (flash)
• Abadox - hardest game I ever beat

B tier

• The Lion King
• Overlord
• Oregon Trail
• Dinopark Tycoon
• Snowboard Kids
• South Park
• Kid Icarus
• Sweet Home
• Monster Party
• Dr Mario
• Abobo’s Big Adventure (flash)
• Alice is Dead Ep 1 (flash)
• Starfox
• Shadowgate