Ken Fabian

We should be using PPE for every kind of timber and it seems like a case of some being worse than others but no wood dust being benign, even without timber preservatives or sealers. Around here the much prized but now rare Australian Red Cedar is known as a particularly bad one to breathe, as is Camphor Laurel (that smells nice), which was introduced here and in some areas has become a seriously invasive pest. There are others of concern. Use of silica coatings does seem to present heightened health risks and even use of air filtration for the workspace won't eliminate all dusts.

The Common Law system seems somewhat similar - not a written out set of laws (although Common Law rulings often lead to legislated laws) but legal precedents from past cases (initially cases without precedents) that can be revised case by case in the face of changing arguments and new evidence.

Whilst some jazz has made it into my listening it hasn't been the largest part so I still get some surprises encountering Jazz greats I wasn't aware of. I acquired a copy of a Monty Alexander album "Threesome" and was blown away especially by the bassist. Long time jazz fans most likely all know of (the late) Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen but he was a surprise to me. This guy just playing normally comes off as showing off, an Art Tatum of the double bass. Not necessarily my first choice for easy listening for enjoyment but well worth it for the jawdropping virtuosity... (couldn't find vids of him with Monty Alexander, did find astonishing classical bass solo but have included a jazz one with Oscar Peterson) -

An exception to my mostly live music videos has been viewing animations of biochemistry processes, eg this one for mitosis and the kinetichore -

I don't watch many internet videos - don't watch much TV or movies, I prefer reading or messing about with a guitar or wasting time on internet forums in free time - but occasionally will watch some music videos, usually of the live performances sort. Links to which may better belong in a 'what are you listening to?' thread. Most recently some Oliver Mtukudzi (a Zimbabwe muso I heard by accident and found I liked) and some Yes, that I've had a renewed enthusiasm for lately -

A brain having some ECG measurable activity and being conscious seem very different to me. How much of a brain's function is devoted to consciousness? Which may depend on how we define it.

Where I am when both (all?) participants are near in age and both 'underage' that is treated differently to someone adult/older and someone who is underage. 16 years is considered 'able to consent' and above 18 is legally adult - enough of a difference to make 'near in age' an uncertain defense where one is legally adult. Which is not to say boys of similar age can't be using coercion; I've encountered claims that the greatest risk of sexual assaults are from others who are also underage, which seems likely to be true. I think the ability of some older men (mostly men but not exclusively) to lure and persuade the young and inexperienced should not be underestimated. The extent to which their mixed feelings, including sexual curiosity can be manipulated and appearance of consent contrived should not be underestimated. As an aside I made the mistake of reading some of Marquis de Sade's writings - causing abandonment of any absolute 'burning books is wrong' principles, that was a book deserving of banning and burning imo; I could not read more than a couple of chapters - truly sickening - but amongst what I did skim over was a character renowned for his ability to turn innocent underage virgins into 'willing' sex slaves. I suspect it was a book that inspired some accomplished abusers.

@sethoflagos My mistake, although they do share some characteristics. The larger Syncons are very massive, nearly as massive as dedicated flywheels, but yes, flywheels will do a different task and can be run down; Syncons look intended to maintain their rotation rate with enough inertia to limit the rate of loss or gain in speed from grid variability. Presumably they will consume power to keep that rotation rate close to steady? Until confidence in synthetic inertia is established a hybrid of Syncons with batteries might be better than including flywheels.

I've only just read this. Would it be a silly idea to run a couple of vast flywheels, just to add "ballast" to the system? One could even simply retain a couple of these big turbo-alternator sets, unpowered, and spun up and maintained to 50Hz off the grid. That sounds like a long established technology called Synchronous Condensers and Australia is currently adding them to cover the withdrawal of thermal (spinning) power plants. SynCons are expensive with a long lead time for manufacture and unlike batteries have limited ways to make revenue other than as system inertia and frequency control so there is incentive to perfect inverter controlled virtual inertia - which appears to primarily involve updated inverter software or possibly upgrading the inverters. Trust in virtual inertia is not all the way there; it is being used but it seems to still be on trial, to see how well they perform in the real world. We did discuss virtual inertia on another thread. It is also possible to retrofit gas power plants (any thermal generator? Seimens do them I think) with clutches, to allow the generator to disconnect from the 'engine' (gas turbines usually) and remain online, providing spinning inertia like when in full operation, as the equivalent of a SynCon.

@KJW I see no great fears of rechargeable batteries in homes - no more than flammable Ford Pintos stopped car sales. I think the heightened fire risk is more from the proliferation, from the numbers of chargers and devices themselves as much as the batteries. Shavers, toothbrushes, phones, headphones, laptops, phones, vacuums, power tools, bikes, scooters, toys and many more. And the greater risk is from low budget makers, sometimes with counterfeit components, including batteries (which are inclined to have overstated capacity as well). The most common sort of fires may be from improper disposal of small batteries - landfill sites and garbage trucks. Setting and enforcing standards is the solution and recalls can work as reassuring evidence that they are enforced as much as create fears of batteries in general. I do think the doubt, deny, delay opponents of decarbonising are inclined to manufacture and exaggerate alarmist fears out of battery fires - and pay little attention to the many other sources of fire risks. I do recall solar battery recalls - not a proliferation of battery recalls, just very specific ones and not recently. People with other brands of batteries found that reassuring. Solar batteries are being installed at prodigious rates on Australian home and LFP types, with lower fire risk than previous types, have emerged as dominant. But I admit I am somewhat cynical about policy that makes decarbonising with RE a "you care, you do it, at your own expense" with "Don't care? Don't have to" kind of policy; it seems like it is an alternative to requiring it of companies participating in electricity markets so that everyone's electricity is decarbonised, like decarbonising should be a 'free' choice by consumers but not a requirement for energy producers. Yet individual systems on rooftops is cost effective at the household scale, which makes me think it must be more cost effective at large scale; rather than fire fears holding them back some of the reluctance may be from the rate of improvement, where delaying a bit can wring some more profit out of existing generation and maybe get the same things or better cheaper. But there is no doubt things have changed at the grid level. No-one is investing in coal plants, there is very little investment in gas plants and the market advantage of gas 'filling the unfilled demand' and setting power prices by it is rapidly diminishing. I know that what we have on our home works and continues to work well and is paying for itself in power cost savings and can be installed a lot cheaper now than what it cost us. I also note that Australia's home PV, with or without batteries gets installed at a fraction of what US users pay; according to Saul Griffiths in an interview with David Roberts (Volts substack) installing 15 KW PV in Australia at the same time as 15 KW in San Francisco, around 5 to 6 times more expensive in the latter. (may vary widely depending where?). Australia's permitting is simple and quick too. Not so quick for the big grid batteries - and yes, the objections often focus of fire risks. But a lot of the objectors are opposing them out of deep rooted partisan climate science denial that has morphed into renewable energy denial.

I suspect that most places there was lack of confidence that the RE buildout would happen any time soon, even as recently as a decade ago and that flowed through as reluctance to pre-invest in the transmission and storage (pumped hydro probably looked best, with hydrogen hype in there too), that have lead-in times as long as that. There have also been persistent spoiling efforts from the doubt, deny, delay side of politics including supporting 'local' politically partisan opposition to building the infrastructure a high RE grid requires )to be sure their claims it can't work turn out true?) - denial has been well supported and the surprise is that RE has forged ahead despite it. And few 'serious, credible' pundits predicted the rise of batteries. Only 8 years ago Australia got a 'big Tesla battery' to widespread derision at around the same time as a commitment to a large pumped hydro project. Seems like the global consensus was batteries would never get cheap enough or scale large enough to be significant. The pumped hydro (Snowy 2.0) is delayed, hugely over budget and still in construction but batteries, big and small, are proliferating across Australia and the world - mega battery factories that make more storage than that pumped hydro project each year have been built from ground up, are in production and their products in service since then. Batteries may not ever achieve the per MWh costs of pumped hydro but their versatility and stackability and the other (voltage and frequency regulation) services are unrivalled. Short build times make them an interim 'quick fix' that is turning into a more permanent fix. Can provide system strength too, as 'grid forming' inverters capable of spinning inertia emulation become the norm. China, as a developing nation with large population still in poverty, had until 2060 before international agreements required declining emissions. Whether that was a wise agreement is a real question - I suspect for 'leaders' around the world there wasn't much real expectation built in and agreements for doing the least were considered a win and more aggressive targets a lose. In Australia the potential for China remaining a long term FF buyer probably played a part in willingness to agree. But they do appear to be exceeding their targets as well as indirectly helping a lot of other nations reach theirs. I note that here in Australia RE has been above 50% of electricity over the past quarter year, with lower wholesale prices and fewer outages during heatwaves - like another tipping point has been crossed. I know our household PV and (recently upsized) batteries run our A/C into the evening without drawing on the grid at all; that experience is becoming commonplace. What works at smaller scales will work even better at larger scales.

To me these kinds of conspiracy theories are more in the disturbing (that people promote them and believe them) but kinda amusing category. End of the world from Earth going out of orbit, contrails are a delivery system for mind control substances, arrival of aliens, presence of secret aliens etc. It is when conspiracy theories have strong media and political support that they are problematic, eg that global warming science is something made up by enemies of freedom and national sovereignty and legitimate businesses or vaccines are dangerous, should not be mandated and their use discouraged. Those kill people and, distressingly, can and will do so in large numbers.

It is all deeply alarming - properly terrifying even - and the 'need' looks entirely fabricated in this case. If bases for defending North America from Russia or China were needed - which seems very doubtful - all that was needed was to ask nicely, via NATO or through Denmark; via NATO the costs of Greenland defenses would be spread around. If US mining companies want to mine minerals there they would almost certainly be permitted. They would (horrifying!) have to pay local taxes - not sure to what extent those would go to Greenland vs to Denmark. Anything worth the mining will make profits after taxes. And if successfully 'conquered' and that is allowed by the EU that would be deeply alarming for Canada, Mexico, Cuba (and other Caribbean nations). Alarming for everyone. As an Australian should we be worried that our resources could be enticing to a USA that has abandoned any pretense promoting international cooperation? Coal and gas and iron ore and uranium - rare Earth's too - as well as all our wheat and beef and etc... A bit ironically I have less fear of China doing that to Australia than the USA. I note that so far Australia's government is mostly keeping heads down and mouths closed, apart from assuring everyone treaty agreements with the USA remain strongly supported and we are still 'buying' those nuclear submarines at inflated prices. Personally I'd like something that would reassure the rest of the world that Australia's government thinks what the US is doing is deeply objectionable as well as dangerous.

Someone at NASA thought they had to say something about it, like they should take it seriously? Especially with a nonsense 'prediction' that will come around soon and be demonstrated as nonsense all by itself. 'Gravity doesn't work like that' would have been a more than adequate response if responding at all was necessary. I'd be tempted to derision or parody or mockery which wouldn't help either. The urge to inform and educate is a good one but even granting this a response gives the claim a level of credulousness it does not rightfully deserve.

Needs much more precise alignments and timing than that to suggest 'deliberate' or 'artificial' to me. A couple of days before the Summer Solstice (Southern Hemisphere here) is not the same day ie not precise, and the closest it gets is nearly 2x the distance of Earth to the Sun (and never got closer to the sun than Earth) ie not close at all. Passing 'close' to the ecliptic is a consequence of the direction it came from, but again it is not that precise and that direction seems as likely as any other, ie coincidence. This object may have been traveling for billions of years, potentially for longer than Earth has existed as a planet; it would take extraordinary (prophetic) foresight and precision to aim such an object and time it's passage to coincide with this planet's solstice. As only the 3rd interstellar object detected any 'uniqueness' looks a consequence of small sample size. Very worthy of study but not so worthy of unfounded but imaginative speculations, no matter how much fun speculation can be.