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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Unfortunately, bodycam videos often contain private info (nudity, PII, graphic scenes, etc), and need to be put through a censor before being made available to the public. So someone like a police chief has the power to cover something up pretty easily. An agency is only as honest as the ones with the power to control which videos make it out to the public.

    Nonetheless, I support putting those features on all officers too. Even if it’s not perfect, it does improve things, and put a feeling of surveillance on the officers.


  • They know.

    Capacitive touch sensors are WAY cheaper than physical buttons, and aren’t nearly as prone to mechanical flaws. Plus they can market them as “newer”!

    Car companies only care about your safety as much as it affects their bottom line. It’s unfortunately commonplace for there to be known fatal flaws which occur infrequently enough that it’s cheaper to just pay out the injured/killed victims than to issue a recall. Driving is inherently dangerous - any car companies that tried to fix everything would go bankrupt, or at least be squeezed out by those that don’t.

    Now, if only there were a way to build the places we live so that we didn’t need to take on the risk of driving so frequently…



  • My guess is that in a climate like Germany’s, solar isn’t consistent enough to provide the steady baseline power that coal plants can.

    One of the complexities of power infrastructure is that demand must be met instantaneously and exactly. Coal and solar typically occupy different roles in a grid’s power sources. Coal plants are slow to start, but very consistent, so they provide baseline power. Solar is virtually instantaneous, but inconsistent, so it’s better suited to handle the daily fluctuations.

    So, in a place like Germany, even in abundance, solar can’t realistically replace coal until we have a good way of storing power to act as a buffer. Of course, nuclear is a fantastic replacement for coal, but we all know how Germany’s politicians feel about it…





  • Depending on their impact, it is often worthwhile to seek alternatives that are less effective or convenient, but also less dangerous. We’ve had materials in the past which were also deemed “essential”, and yet we moved away from them.

    A lot of miracle substances tend to be extremely dangerous. There’s nothing quite like asbestos when it comes to fire and heat resistance, but we can still make firefighters’ clothes, or fireproof buildings, or brakes, even if it means they’re heavier or harder to manufacture. R134 and especially R12 make fantastic refrigerants for car AC systems, but we phased those out in favor of substances that are more complex and costly to implement because of the calamitous effect they had on the ozone layer. Carbon tet is an incredible solvent and great at extinguishing fires too. But we don’t use that anymore either.

    You could be right, maybe there is truly no way around PFOAs, but I’m just calling out a pattern here. And maybe there’s no workaround right now that doesn’t cause more harm, but with enough research and investment, we can get there in the future.


  • First of all, rooting for decentralized net 100%. Watching Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, etc. all get screwed over from the top down sucks. I really appreciate the strong community here - having it smaller and more engaging encourages participation and makes it feel a little more human.

    However, I’m considering leaving Lemmy just because somehow it’s even more cynical than reddit, and I’m losing interest in opening the app if it’s just 99% downers. I mean almost every article is just crushingly bad news. The world is in a rough state for sure, and staying informed is really important! But trying to live on and find the good is near impossible here.

    (Yes, I’m subbed to upliftingnews. That’s the 1%.)

    Is this a demographics thing, or am I just subbed in all the wrong places? Maybe a bit of both?