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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Steel decays via rusting as its outer coating is sacrificed to corrosion. Civil features decay as erosion degrades it over time. Wooden power poles decay as their treatment degrades and fungi/insects attack them. Outdoor wiring decays if in direct sunlight due to any sunlight resistive coating degrading over time to UV radiation. Oil used as lubricant in motor vehicles and as insulating fluid in electrical equipment degrades over time due to thermal cycling, oxidation, and moisture.

    The point I’m making is that things degrade naturally. Plastic is no exception, although engineers have been able to make certain decisions with it such that constructions can last for decades.

    If we can make plastic by default biodegrade naturally, and at a much faster time scale than today’s oxo-degradable and biodegradable alternatives, then it still allows for scientists and engineers to select for plastics that have been specifically engineered for the application via coatings and whatnot, comparable to steel and wood.

    It’s possible to do so. We just need to flip the script and make biodegradation the norm and not the exception


  • Plastics are also used extensively in the electricity sector as insulation for conductors, support structures, etc.

    We need our vendors of these products to start addressing this issue, and unfortunately I don’t think this is going to come from the consumer end. Maybe for alternative insulating liquids for transformers and whatnot like with Cargill FR3 or Shell MIDEL products, but clearly more needs to be done. Schneider Electric is a good example of a company leading the way


  • I guess it comes down to whether we want to primarily communicate battery size in terms of charge (Coulombs = Amps * Time) or energy (Joules = Watts * Time).

    The first metric you multiply by your operating voltage to get the second metric, whereas the second metric you have to divide by your voltage to get the first. Depends on what comes easier to most people.











  • There are other ways in which we sell our bodies in exchange for resources. A lot of people point to soldiers, but for those of us in knowledge work, we sell our brains in exchange for stress and depression if things aren’t in balance. Think about construction workers who break their wrists drilling down floorboards, or caregivers that expose their immune systems to a high quantity of kids who are likely to spread any bugs they pick up because they don’t know better.

    Sex work just involves people selling entertainment or enjoyment in a more intimate setting. The fact that it is intimate doesn’t change that it’s work, and that resources can be exchanged for service.

    I think this all comes down to stereotypes specific to a certain culture. Hoping I see my culture in America make it more legal so we don’t have some of the issues that come from this market not being legal


  • Hey nice to have ya!

    Friendly reminder that the Fediverse is awesome, and you have the power to control the content in your feed not only by which subs you subscribe to or instances you make an account on, but also which you can block - including specific users if it comes to that. Of course, instance admins can do the same, and if that happens to content you want to see, you can always make a new account on a different instance and see everything.

    It takes a little to understand the Fediverse structure, but imo it’s one of the best ways social media can be structured.




  • Michael Thackeray filed a patent under Argonne National Laboratory for the leading EV battery chemistry worldwide today, Lithium Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt Oxide (NMC), sometime around 2007-2008.

    The first cars with that specific technology started coming out in the US market in 2013/2014 IIRC, with EVs coming out before then basing their battery chemistry on NCA (Tesla) or LMO (Nissan Leaf & Chevy Volt).

    That’s a 5-7 year timeframe from laboratory to mass production.

    If you consider new technologies today like Samsung’s battery in this article, and make the not so unrealistic leap that we’re better at battery production today than in 2013/2014, it’s very possible that we see this technology hit the market in 5 years or less.

    Technology always improves. It’s CAPEX that hinders it, and I’m willing to bet that there are financial interests out there to keep the main battery chemistry NMC and secure steady profits.