LaLuzDelSol @ LaLuzDelSol @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

So, those sort of programs are confusing and often pretty misleading. First off, you can't choose which electrons go to your house of course; all you can do is draw power from the grid. That's fine, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, but more importantly most of those programs work by purchasing "renewable energy credits", or RECs, from wind and solar farms across the country. So what does that REC mean? Well nothing really, it just means you "claim" credit for that kWh of renewable energy. If you want you could buy them directly from some random wind farm in Kansas in theory. Or buy for twice as many kWh as you actually use- now you're 200% renewable and you're sucking carbon out of the air! Oh wait.

At the end of the day, RECs are a good idea because they provide an additional revenue source for renewable energy producers, but it isn't all that much. Last I checked they sell at like 3% of what the energy actually sells for on the grid. So for example if a wind company sells electricity for 20 cents a kWh to the grid operator, they could separately sell the RECs for that power on the open market for something like 0.6 cents per kWh, if the grid operator doesn't want the RECs for themselves as part of the power purchase agreement.

I myself subscribe to Arcadia, which is one of those companies that promises to make your power 100% green via purchase of RECs. I consider that to be false advertising. But, I still do it because it does help drive the market for RECs which is good because the ability to sell RECs makes producing green energy a bit more viable, which in turn hopefully spurs growth in the industry.

So in conclusion, it's a good thing to do, but not as good as you might think based on how it's presented. Sorry for the wall of text.

All the other points are fair but I'd guess you're using more power to encode and transmit bluetoorh than to power a headphone jack. It's like 50mw at full volume out of the jack and a small fraction of that at, say, 25% volume.

So you would be cool with ISIS rolling out a social media app? All profits go directly to making explosives. All user data, including biometrics is logged to help ISIS plan future terrorist attacks on American soil.

Edit: sorry I misread what you are saying. But still, idk how you prevent China from using our data when that's the whole point of China owning TikTok in the first place. A forced sale or ban is the only option.

That's an extreme example of course but I don't think you can just ignore who makes products and where your money (and data in this case) is going. And yes, I don't like American social media companies either. But you will remember that Facebook got into a ton of trouble for selling data to the Russians via Cambridge Analytica. At least we can try to prevent American companies from leaking data to hostile parties. Meanwhile we KNOW that TikTok is giving our data to the Chinese government and forcing a sale of the American branch of TikTok is the only thing we can do about it.

Right but if everyone sends 16 petabtyes a month the internet would collapse. Data caps do absolutely work to reduce bandwidth on a network scale. Bandwidth is measured in mbps. Limit the Mb and you reduce the necessary bandwidth.

Nah that's not true. Neither part is true. Go out and give blood!

The answer of course is that the IRS doesn't know how much you owe, and it isn't feasible for them for figure out exact numbers for everyone with the tax code as complicated as it is. So, they audit a fraction of Americans every year to keep everyone honest. It's a bad system that taxes are so complicated but it's not a conspiracy.

Look, I agree that Isreal needs to do more to protect Gazan citizens. And to deal with the present situation you need to ignore about 2000 years of history. With that said, when your neighbor is a terrorist group with the EXPLICIT AIM of eradicating the state of Israel, and they launch indiscriminate terrorist attacks on you, and deliberately hide among civilian populations to maximize casualties, what are your options except a land invasion to remove them from power, even though you know there will be civilian deaths?

Not sure what song that is off the top of my head, but I didn't mean "true" in the literal sense. More like, people feel like the songs give them a glimpse of the real Taylor swift. That's particularly true of her more recent albums I feel like. For example, "Folklore" is told largely through stories about other (fictional) people, but it feels like a reflection of emotions and experiences she really has been through. It's all very parasocial and I'm not sure how much of it is genuine, but my point is it FEELS genuine.

Nah its just a leftist echo chamber. They have sympathy for the working class, but are very prejudiced against the wealthy. Personally, I would guess Charles is a decent human being, like most people. Im sure hes done some shitty things over the course of a long and extremely public life, but pretty much everyone has. I disagree with the concept of royalty but that doesn't mean I want all monarchs to drop dead. Not a lot of nuance on Lemmy.

By early in her career do you mean when she was like 18? I'm not saying she hasn't had a lot of help. But I disagree with the idea that she's just a figurehead. She is listed as a writer for pretty much all her songs, and you can usually tell a Taylor Swift song just by the sound/lyrics, which isnt something i can say for a lot of pop artists. If it was Antonoff the whole time then Bleachers would be more popular (relative to Swift).

-Very skilled songwriter. I don't necessarily like all her stuff but I legitimately think she's the best songwriter (meaning, composing music and writing lyrics) of her generation. Probably since Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel.

-Very attractive and a good performer

-Well connected in the music industry let her get an early start/inside track

-obsessed with being popular. I don't mean that in a negative way, but her primary objective with her music is to please as many people as possible. I think the documentary "Miss Americana" on Netflix explains that very well-at one point she straight up says "I just want people to like me" or something like that. That means her music/career has always focused on mass appeal as opposed to making more... limited-appeal music like most artists do at some point in their career

-she's kept a remarkably clean image even through being famous for close to two decades. It's very telling that the worst thing her haters can say about her is "but her plane uses a lot of carbon!" This means parents let kids listen to her, brands love her as a sponsor, nobody boycotts her, etc.

-one last thing, I think people love her songs because they feel like they're true. Her songs have a very intimate, almost confessional quality that a lot of artists strive for buy often comes off as fake.

The enslavement of the Uighur people? I work for an American renewable energy company and a lot of contracts were disrupted by the US' Forced Labor Prevention Act. I suspect that the sudden jump in domestic Chinese installation is partially caused by Chinese exports being restricted by western nations.

Yeah I get what you're saying. Here's the thing though, scalping only exists in scenarios where there is a large difference between MSRP and true market value. That doesn't usually happen, and when it does, it's usually for a good reason. Like take concert tickets- most artists don't WANT to sell to the highest bidder, they want all (or at least more) of their fans to have a chance. So, assuming there's a reason for the price gap beyond the manufacturer being dumb, I think it's a scummy thing to do.

I think a less heavy-handed way of doing that is, every person can have 1 (one) permanent residence, and all other property you own incurs a much higher property tax. If you're filthy rich and want a couple of houses, fine, but you're gonna get taxed for it. But that will stop speculative house buying, more or less. Of course, this will never happen because states race to the bottom to offer low taxes to attract rich people. Another issue is, what if someone wants to live in a house but can't afford to own it? Renting is the best option for a lot of people. I think that is solvable, but my idea would inevitably take a lot of property off the rental market.

I think, if you went back in time and started, for example, trying to get rich playing the stock market, you would be surprised by how much things change with your interference. Like, Bitcoin still goes up, but peaks at a different price. The same team wins the super bowl but by a different score. The longer things go on the weirder it would get.

Reminds me of the plot to Shrek 4, where he has to find Fiona and get her to fall in love all over again.

I enjoyed playing the game on Xbox and I am happy to claim it for PC, but I kid you not the Ubisoft Connect client hangs when I try to open the Ubisoft store. As others have said, there's really no need for them to have their own client. Just use Steam!

Mozilla Corporation is technically for-profit, but they are committed to investing all of their profits back into Mozilla Foundation. They have no shareholders. It exists so that Mozilla can make money off of their products and reinvest it, not to make money for its executives.

Is a species being poached to extinction? If so, it's probably because there's some sort of fertility/virility "medicine" derived from it that Asian men will pay insane money for. -tiger -rhino -civet -pangolon -shark

I've heard that gangsters holding their guns horizontally comes from a movie. I don't remember which one. Life imitates art.