benjhm

@[email protected]
  • New here on lemmy, will add more info later …
  • Also on mdon: @benjhm
  • Try my interactive climate / futures model: SWIM

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Give Russia’s Frozen Assets to Ukraine Now (www.theatlantic.com)

A majority of Americans and a majority of Congress want to help Ukraine win the war against Russia, and to stop the spread of autocracy into Europe. A majority of people in the European Union and a majority of EU leaders want the same. But small minorities of lawmakers—some inspired by Russian President Vladimir Putin or his...

benjhm,

What are we waiting for ?

I guess - coordination among the western governments - as if only some participate, those that don’t might gain from future investments from bullying autocracies. Also, there may be reciprocal losses whose impacts would be unbalanced.
But it seems to me the risks of setting such precedent are far outweighed by the risk of increasing irrelevance for our democratic values in a world of increasing autocracy, if we let p***n and team get away without paying for such destruction.
Maybe there is some way to do this incrementally, to provide more motivation to depose the tsar, stop, and quit, sooner rather than later?

benjhm,

Maybe so. But can anybody tell us, what fraction of this big sum is private wealth, rather than government assets ? If it includes items like mansions in london and french riviera the value could be much less in a fire-sale - only so many sheikhs to take over, and they might get worried too. So the “local rich” might hope to pick up bargains.

benjhm,

Levelized using which interest / discount rate ? As I understand, wind-power has recently been hit by high interest rates (which is relatively worse for renewables with high capital outlay yet low running costs).

benjhm,

Should be so, hope you are right (didn’t find rates in the pdf). However, these are all temporary, can change a lot on the timescale of such investment. I recall Brazil had a development bank with special rates to get around this problem, but that way is potential source of corruption. Chinese economy is also unstable. Need a risk model. Although not perfect foresight - that’s only a concept of IAMs - real investment made by people acting on promising trends then retiring.

benjhm,

Chongqing looks fun. Not only modern cities multi-level - Edinburgh old town also fun, old stone castle-like buildings, ±12 floors one side for 4 on the other, as it straddles an old volcano (does lack north-south transit).

benjhm,

Others summarised below, I just add that in chinese it’s 一带一路, terms broader than “belt” or “road” - 路 translates better as way as it can also cover sea-ways, railways etc. , 带 can also mean carry or zone, etc… So, it implies cooperation on infrastructure projects, but was not a great choice of name for global translation.
I support developing overland transport rather than flying, for climate reasons, however it’s obviously also about geopolitical deals - otherwise why would Italy be on the way from China to anywhere?

benjhm,

spraying silver fog from planes to seed clouds comes to mind… (checkout geo-engineering)

benjhm,

EU needs to abandon unanimity in decision making - it’s not even the veto of one “country”, but of one party in one country. Same for UN. Pure consensus is not working.

benjhm,

Within EU there are proposals to move to QMV for most topics (spanish presidency still pushing this), problem is vetos block such reform. EU doesn’t have any power to invade (yet?). Regarding UN, most processes, like UNFCCC and even IPCC, operate by consensus - this dilutes many outcomes, it’s a pity. As for UN-SC, its record of helping is not great, just legitimizes old power, maybe should be abolished. I’d rather see a weighted GA vote (maybe excluding parties to a conflict).

benjhm,

Sure need to consider that - but what bad policy could they get through QMV (>> simple majority but << consensus), that a lone more progressive m-state might otherwise block ?

benjhm,

It’s only 5th December, seems unusually early for -58º. From Wikipedia - Yakutsk, maybe daily min should be about -37º now. I recall crossing Siberia by train in early December, rain in west, fresh snow in east, lakes still water, yet coming back in April you could still walk on Baikal. Seems odd, but they get extra problem of fires in winter, as fire hoses freeze, can’t extinguish them. Anyway polar vortex went wobbly recently, so we get alternating cold and warm waves - always look for both sides of regional anomalies.

benjhm,

Public services are important but only part of the story. Another part is the cost of housing - related to investment, economic policies, and demographics. Regarding the latter, european populations are not changing much (increase a little in west, decline a little in east), however households get smaller - especially there are more old people retaining large houses, which reduces space for the young. Unfortunately it’s much easier to blame this on migration, regardless of reality, that won’t fix anything but does help the far-right who first pushed that agenda.

benjhm,

Hmm, fun idea, but imagine if it became preferred lifestyle for 10 billion people, air-traffic control could be interesting… Solar Impulse got around the world, but it did land plenty of times. By the way to fly quietly and freely just try paragliding, with evening lift very peaceful.

benjhm,

This idea makes me think, that if those 10 billion were spread more evenly including deserts and wet-deserts (much of tropical ocean lacking nutrients), maybe there would be space, but then fundamentally the challenge is not flying machines but self-sufficient biospheres. If that size bubble really worked, same could float or crawl on the surface. Except that somebody controls the surface, however even your dream machine leaves a shadow there. But I’m sceptical about “claustrospheres” (did you read “This Other Eden”?).

benjhm,

Good. But priority for EU is integrate the West Balkans (waiting too long), Ukraine + Moldova.
In parallel reform processes:

  • abolish national vetos (aka consensus) so no Orban-types can take the ship hostage.
  • strengthen the EU parliament, over the council and commission
  • accept concept of multi-tier participation (it’s reality anyway)

We need more debating each issue on each merits, rather than horse-trade mega-packages of transactional deals. In that respect, if Britain rejoins one component at a time, it’s better for everybody’s understanding of benefits and challenges.

benjhm, (edited )

There are still enthusiasts of alt/inter-langs, more modern than Esperanto, which only has european roots - I prefer those that also blend in words from Chinese, Hindi, Arabic etc.

See also this community .

However modern technology - such as instant translation built into phones (very useful for Ukrainian-French here last year) - changes the situation, maybe diminishes the motivation to learn such languages, although potentially facilitating their use.

benjhm,

A global statistic blends greening slowly in some areas, browning faster in others. A fire can in a few hours devastate a forest in an area that became too arid, while it may take a century for a forest to grow in an area where climate improved. So while climate warming accelerates this’ll get worse, but if the same climate stabilised the global vegetation cover at equilibrium might be not so bad (even if very bad in some regions). Regarding air moisture, both H2O and and CO2 pass through the same stomata in leaves, so there was some hope that plants could open these less at higher CO2 and thus resist drought, but as with all such effects the benefit tapers off.
Anyway all policy scenarios with any hope of staying below 2ºC, let alone 1.5ºC, include a lot of net reforestation. So we’ll have to turn this around, somewhere.

benjhm,

I develop an interactive climate / future scenario model, now in scala, earlier in java, almost no dependencies. No visualisation frameworks - the diverse plots hand coded in scala (transpiles using scala.js, makes SVGs on demand). The science code from demography through economy emissions, bioegeochemistry, to climate - just scala, no interface to other languages / models, no “solver” tool. Data input just text files -easy to check. Some modules over 20 years old (except converted java -> scala), still work reliably. It’s efficient as all client-side, no IO/net between adjustments and results. Seems no big institute would employ me for such model dev because my experience doesn’t tick the boxes of all the current fashionable frameworks. But at least I can share a way to explore the future for ourselves … and yes it’s bleak but not so dire as many people here seem to assume, we still have choices.

benjhm,

Ah, that time of year again, seems a pity to waste them, but very hard and sour, and I’m told we shouldn’t eat any pips. Polish friends slice them thin, put in a pan alternating with layers of sugar, leave some days to suck out the juice (osmosis), drain and mix with vodka for a tasty aperitif, thick and cloudy due to the pectin (?). I’ve not heard of fermenting them directly, but would be glad to know if anybody has a good method.

Wiki for scientifically backed environment/climate friendly everyday life?

Hi, I’m currently at an eco-village, and had a discussion about washing dishes per hand vs using a dishwasher. I was not completely sure, but have read somewhere, that a dishwasher is more efficient (in terms of energy and water usage). I just fact-checked that and indeed, when not being super careful by handwashing (no...

benjhm,

Can you elaborate, how that would work ?
Indeed could be good to keep longer-term ideas, rather than just reaction to news.

benjhm,

Could be good, might need also a talk page, ‘rules’ (effort for mods) …? I suppose not too much demand on servers if just plain text, but how does this federate? For example, if I read a slrpnk wiki from sopuli, does sopuli have to pick up every edit, or only if I visit a page, or do i need an account on slrpnk to use it ?

benjhm,

The site wybory.gov.pl shows maps, if you click on a party name, which illustrate a clear NW / SE divide, as well as the urban / rural divide that’s common everywhere. Any explanations, why NW is so different from SE, and how to reduce such polarisation?

Planning the post-invasion: Returning Ukrainians alone "not sufficient to meet labour market needs of the country for reconstruction and the economic recovery," expert says (news.un.org)

Given the demographic situation in Ukraine even before the full-scale invasion, the country will need an additional 4.5 million workers in the next 10 years to meet labour market needs and economic objectives., says Michael Newson, Senior Programme Coordinator for Migration and Sustainable Development at the International...

benjhm,

It makes sense - a country with plenty of space and natural resources, a mild climate (relatively, looking forwards), innovative engineering skills, new potential from connections to europe, should be encouraging immigration, but 4.5m implies a lot more than just return of refugees, and east europe had westwards emigration in recent decades, so from where are these new arrivals going to come - turkey, africa, south asia ? Archaeologists suggest that ancestors of many eurasians spread out from the pontic steppe - time to come back ?

benjhm,

Thanks for this link - plots fit my expectations, very useful to quantify such correlation factors. However the examples are only for ‘developed’ countries - would be interesting to see similar for rest of the world. How are the trends in African cities, for example ? Maybe indoor living space (for kids to play) is more important in cold climates (or when there are too many cars on streets! ) ?

benjhm, (edited )

Thanks for posting this, many of us appreciate active communities on slrpnk.net, without seeing where it originated. Noting the “hopeful vs panic” issue, we shouldn’t waste our energy disputing “optimistic” or “pessimistic” visions - both are useful to help people to think, what’s important is to reject “fatalistic” thought.

About the art we see on slrpnk.net, it seems to me most of the buildings tend large, and like those of an architect selling grand projects, rather than buildings crafted by individuals on a smaller scale - is that intentional ?

Regarding the global warming goals, indeed 2.3 - while not good enough to avoid many critical impacts - is still better than 3 or 4, so we have made progress bending the projection curves since these began in 1990s. Having a long experience of such scenarios I’m trying to make an interactive tool to help illustrate such changes.

benjhm,

Thanks for this link. It explains well, for example how they mixed state propaganda into practical local info relating to schools housing shopping etc., including targeted advertising on social media especially Telegram, and shifting from covid to constitution to fake news about Ukraine. Of course, such methods work around the world. What’s the antidote?

Russia is Preparing the Next Generation to Die for Their Country (www.themoscowtimes.com)

Putin’s vision has been formalized in the “New Philosophy of Formation” developed by the Russian Children’s Centre in conjunction with Znaniye, a Soviet-era organisation relaunched in 2015 to provide state-approved educational guidance and resources to the public. The new philosophy aims to unify approaches to moral and...

benjhm,

How can russian teachers coordinate quietly, to discuss responses to this? And the older students too? Could the fediverse play a role, as it’s hard for the state to shut it down? I’m recalling how, in the 1980s, samizdat (self-printing of books) and later magnetizdat (self-copying of music), as well as anekdoti (complex jokes…), helped to crumble the general trust in the state propaganda (especially after chernobyl).

benjhm,

The key question is how many of the younger women will return home - they, and their children, are key to demographic future of Ukraine, but they can also more easily find jobs in the west. The older women are more likely to miss their roots and depend on host country financial support, so are more likely to return.

benjhm,

Could add a small personal observation from three who came to our village: The oldest - retired - saves money (that she receives from govt here) to invest in a new appartment in the corner of ukraine as far as possible from russia (although she was a russian speaker, from the opposite corner). The middle one stayed here for a complete school year for her kids, then returned to join her husband and help reconstruct their region, left broken as the invaders retreated. The youngest works in tech sector and brought a baby and a man with another nationality (so, free to leave), they seemed more optimistic about the opportunities from this situation - maybe will stay west.

benjhm,

I’m here only a week or so, subscribed to about 100 communities that look interesting, but most have enough good posts yet very little discussion. Yet the top ‘world news’ and foss/fedi/prog topics get all the attention, it’s not balanced. I hope the new ‘scaled/best’ ranking algorithm will help, if I understand correctly this is ready but not yet released? People should make more effort to find, upvote, comment on smaller communities (note- to find communities I recommend search-lemmy.com - you find more than from own instance).

Regarding Mastodon - as there are many more users there, it could be a gateway to Lemmy (that’s how I got here). Now Mastodon 4.2 has better search, if you follow a lemmy community or account from mastodon, it may show up in such search. However Mastodon new search is opt-in for non-hashtag text, so I suppose Lemmy has to specify whether our posts / replies are searchable - anybody know how this works ?

benjhm,

So, can Mastodon 4.2 full-text search now see Lemmy posts and replies, even without hashtags? You can follow Lemmy communities and accounts from a Mdon account, that way the info is in the Mdon instance databases, but as the new search is “opt-in” only, do Lemmy communities or users have to set some flag to agree that our posts and replies are searchable ? This might help discoverability of Lemmy.

benjhm,

Some people hardly ever used big-tech social media (preferred web1.0, making own sites), now start in the fediverse as it gains critical mass. A few specific transition issues: Appreciated complex boolean search in tweetdeck (abandoned since payable), look forward to similar functionality in Mastodon 4.2beta. Dropped FB after CA-brexit scandal, but now live in francophone community where FB still dominates interactions. Our schools mandate kids to use google’s networks. Kids seeking better options for music videos.
Wider question - most people on fediverse in europe or north america - how do we reach rest of the world ?

benjhm,

Already this year, as it seems to me. Then next year, suddenly lots of ‘buffer/unknown’ - so where’s that?

benjhm,

The inconsistent solidarity during wartime sends a strange message. Beyond that, european politicians claim to be concerned about inflation and cost of living, yet they block a cheap source of grain, as well as spending millions to destroy french wine, and subsidise exporting chicken to africa - it doesn’t make sense to me. Is this really an efficient way to buy a few votes ? I suppose it may be partly brinkmanship regarding who should pay to develop infrastructure to facilitate transit - for example extending the Ukrainian-gauge railway beyond Katowice, make another to the port of Gdansk, and later make standard gauge railways into central Ukraine. It could be done, build rather than ban.

benjhm,

Plenty of beavers here by the river Meuse in Belgium (Namur-Dinant), they found their own way recently. They are fun, emerge mainly at night when few people are looking. But they do fell big trees on the riverbank - I read that lets them eat the bark in the winter.

benjhm,

Nice maps and interactive tool. However it seems to me, this definition doesn’t sufficiently account for mountains, which have quite different ecosystems from their neighbouring plains. Also, will you recalculate this to show how these regions move over time, with climate change ?

benjhm,

Thanks for link (end with /intro to make it work). I’m contemplating such maps for the purpose of defining a ±1000 region set for an interactive integrated assessment type model running timescale ±1750-2250 - so it needs to span multiple dimensions - political, demographic, climatic, landuse/ecosystems, for multiple end-purposes - for example exploring climate -migration - socio feedbacks, including being able to represent both historical and future changes, (although not such long timescale as PAGES).

benjhm,

Isn’t it rather, that our most popular variety could disappear, but there are others to develop? Seems my son survives on bananas …

'The Google Earth', that was before Google Earth (www.youtube.com)

For those of you don’t know, there is a Netflix Mini-series about Terravision (called The Billion Dollar Code), the first 3D mapping software developed in 1993 by the German company ART+COM in Berlin as a “networked virtual representation of the earth based on satellite images, aerial shots, altitude data and architectural...

benjhm,

Highly recommend to watch this - very well made, also as a personal drama, how dreams are made and broken.

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