The chair is doing great so far Jason, you could even take a sabbatical.
chess is a game, right? Here is a “best-of” video, which I edited for a german chessgrandmaster, Huschenbeth. Beware, it is in German, however the GM is a pretty cool guy, with lots of energy.
Tried with the new settings and seems like Warframe looks a bit better now.
Using Obs 25.0.8
yeah, it does. Looks like less feathering effect during fast movement
Yea, that thing always annoyed me when I streamed especially warframe and lotro, not so much Destiny for some reason. I am still not 100% happy with it, but not sure what I can do to make it even less distorted.
Investing In Climate Change
Investing in Climate Change
A meaningful effort to fight climate change due to human industrial activities will require sweeping social and technological revolutions. Our entire mode of operating must be redefined on a global scale. New paradigms will emerge; profit motive will be replaced with what creates the greatest good for the greatest number of people, with a keen eye toward environmental impact.
The problem of human caused climate change is not that the science is poorly understood, but rather that our present capitalist system is blind to environmental incentives, unless they impact corporations’ bottom line. Nonetheless, the potential climate catastrophe facing humankind within the next hundred years could completely change the rules of the game such that current operating paradigms become meaningless.
The surface of Venus has an average temperature of 462 Celsius [1], whereas its insolation (the amount of solar energy reaching the planet’s surface) is 2,620 W/m2 [2]. Compare this with Earth’s insolation of 1,361 W/m2 [3] and average surface temperature of 15 Celsius[4]. More than anything, this is a reminder that the atmosphere has a warming effect on the surface of the Earth, and the fraction of Carbon Dioxide within the atmosphere increases this effect[5] (the atmospheres of Venus and Earth are very different; the surface of Venus has an atmospheric pressure of 92 bars compared with Earth’s 1 bar at sea level).
Evidence for Earth’s ancient climate may be found in the geomorphology of formations such as the Barberton terrane in South Africa. Oxygen isotope ratios in these rocks provide information on the temperature of oceans at the time. Evidence suggests the oceans were much warmer in Earth’s distant past; mathematical models based on isotopic ratios place ocean temperature at 70 degrees Celsius on average, more than four times today’s oceans, yet karstic formations and scoring on quartz grains due to rapid dissolution of silica are not found within the Barberton terrane suggesting temperatures may have been less than 70 degrees C. The time these rocks formed was the Archean Eon, more than three billion years ago. Oxygen producing cyanobacteria may have helped stabilize the Earth’s climate prior to the Cambrian explosion, replacing much of the greenhouse gases CH4 and CO2 with O2 and helping glaciers to form [6]. It is notable that much of the world we see today was shaped by climate change brought about by biologic activity.
Regulations create industries within which private corporations may compete. Firms such as Golder Associates operate based on regulations coded by governing bodies such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency[7]. If there were no regulations, there would be no demand for environmental assessments unless the human impact were enormous. The forms these regulations take depends on global judicial systems, nonetheless there is the advantage of international consensus among the scientific community; objectives such as the Kyoto Protocol[8] will emerge and provide frameworks with which to guide international effort. The danger is that individual countries may choose to opt out of such agreements for the sake of self interest[9]. At some point, the economic value of entering into such global agreements will vastly outweigh national self interest, and such international agreements will become normal and ubiquitous[10]. These agreements will help to shape judicial attitudes on a national level, which then translate into regulations which must be adhered to on a local level.
Humans are social creatures; we have the capacity to organize, and to determine what is desirable on a society-wide level. The fact that climate change has the clear capacity to have drastic humanitarian effects on a global scale and that the drivers of these effects are well understood would indicate we now have the opportunity for collective action to mitigate and avoid these effects. Indeed, such collective action is coming. How then would a conscientious investor best position themselves to promote positive change with an eye toward tackling the problem of climate change?
Consider the following three sectors: Humanitarian, Energy, and Space.
The humanitarian effects of climate change will be immense. For most of Earth’s history, there have not been glaciers. Indeed, considering an Archean ocean temperature of up to 70 degrees Celsius it is easy to see why an Earth covered in ice caps is a rather exceptional situation. If the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps melted (in addition to all glaciers of the world), sea level would rise by 70 meters[11]. All cities, urban areas, etc. currently less than 230 feet in elevation would be below sea level. As this would not happen overnight, there will be major societal pressures away from coastal and low lying areas. Further, as the average global temperature increases, there will be social pressures away from the equator and toward the Earth’s poles. Such mass displacement of peoples will cause significant humanitarian challenges. Where will such people live? How will they live?
Care will need to be taken in educating people so as to avoid situations where refugees are detained en masse[12]. The more we are able to function as a global society the more effectively we will be able to address the changing needs of populations. Climate and sea level change will exert pressures which drive populations away from the coast and low-lying areas, and northward and southward away from the equator. Companies such as Habitat for Humanity forgo profit motive in the interest of “a world where everyone has a place to live”. Their mission statement runs “Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope”[13]. Case in point: not all companies are driven purely by a desire to be as profitable as possible. Religion can be a significant tool to allow people to cooperate on an altruistic basis for the sake of mutual, long-term survival, and a great majority of the world hold some religious beliefs.
There is a further opportunity to dovetail new construction with an eye toward displaced communities with carbon sequestration. Mass timber has the potential to sequester atmospheric carbon in new construction[14]. Future cities may be designed as more tightly interconnected networks resembling arcologies with the goal of minimizing the impact on the surrounding environment [15].
In the energy sector we have the opportunity to bring the power of AI to bear on smart grids [16]. As metrics improve, society will move toward energy goals aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change. Not just the way we harness power, but what that power is used for will be impacted.
Dual-use cases such as solar panel paved roads will increase the amount of power available without additional urban sprawl; energy can be generated as a part of existing infrastructure [17]. Other green energy resources which see amplification may include tide turbines [18], wind generators, and solar-heat farms with salt as energy storage [19].
Space exploration will provide a further avenue for humankind to expand and eventually live in, and also shift our very epistemology with respect to our relationship with Earth. A spaceborne society may look to asteroids as resources[20]. This sounds like science fiction, but consider that we have continuously inhabited space for the past 19 years [21]. The day that space becomes yet another frontier into which humankind experiences exponential growth may come sooner than expected, much like the internet connected us in ways that would have been very hard to predict at the dawn of ARPANET in 1969 [22].
Earth may eventually be seen as a sort of womb; the birthplace of humanity, but not our final home. Imagine how drastically this would change psychology that drives much of today’s capitalism. Why fight over the Earth when space is, for all intents and purposes, limitless and infinite? Nonetheless, Earth would undoubtedly be respected as a kind of sacred natural monument. The Gaia hypothesis put forward by James Lovelock would seem to indicate that if the Earth eventually produces a spacefaring civilization, it may do so again at some point in the future. It has a biological propensity to do so [23]. Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” would be the opening quote on a book waiting to be written of our new relationship with Earth.
References
[1] Redd, N. (November 17, 2012) How Hot Is Venus? Space.com https://www.space.com/18526-venus-temperature.html
[2] (April 20, 2018) SOIR-Venus-Temperature and greenhouse effect. Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy. http://venus.aeronomie.be/en/venus/temperaturegreenhouseeffect.htm
[3] Coddington, L., Lean, L. J., Pilewski, P., Snow, M., Lindholm, D., (2016) A Solar Irradiance Climate Data Record. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 97(7). https://journals.ametsoc.org/bams/article/97/7/1265/69909/A-Solar-Irradiance-Climate-Data-Record
[4] Lang, K. (2010) Global Warming. NASA’s Cosmos. https://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_chapter.asp?id=21&page=1
[5] Lambert, J. (December 2, 2019) Energy: The Driver of Climate. Climate Science Investigations. http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/module-2/how-greenhouse-effect-works.php
[6] Hessler, A. (2011) Earth’s Earliest Climate. Nature Education. https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/earth-s-earliest-climate-24206248/
[7] Golder Associates. (2020) Environmental Solutions for Global Stewardship. Golder.com https://www.golder.com/expertise/environmental/
[8] Kyoto Protocol To The United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change (1998) Retrieved from http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf
[9] (June 7, 2017) Five Reasons Why the US Withdrawing From the Paris Agreement Isn’t Another Kyoto Protocol Moment. The Climate Reality Project. https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/five-reasons-withdrawing-paris-agreement-not-another-kyoto-protocol
[10] Carroll, S. (September 16, 2019) Ramez Naam on Renewable Energy and an Optimistic Future. Sean Carroll’s Mindscape. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/09/16/64-ramez-naam-on-renewable-energy-and-an-optimistic-future/
[11] Mathez, E. (n.d.) Will the world ever be all underwater? American Museum of Natural History. https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/earth/ask-a-scientist-about-our-environment/will-the-world-ever-be-all-under-water
[12] Luxen, M., Lussenhop, J., Vaidyanathan, R., (July 11, 2019) Is there a crisis on the US-Mexico border? BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44319094
[13] Habitat for Humanity. (2020) Our mission, vision and principles. Habitat.org https://www.habitat.org/about/mission-and-vision
[14] Robins, J. (April 9, 2019) As Mass Timber Takes Off, How Green Is This New Building Material? https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-mass-timber-takes-off-how-green-is-this-new-building-material
[15] Kohlstedt, K. (January 8, 2018) Self-Contained Cities: Hyperdense Arcologies of Urban Fantasy & Utopian Fiction. 99% Invisible. https://99percentinvisible.org/article/self-contained-cities-hyperdense-arcologies-urban-fiction-utopian-fantasy/
[16] McKay, R. (April 17, 2018) What is a smart grid? IBM.com https://www.ibm.com/blogs/industries/what-is-the-smart-grid/
[17] Bradsher, K. (June 11, 2018) Free Power From Freeways? China Is Testing Roads Paved With Solar Panels. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/business/energy-environment/china-solar-roads-renewables.html
[18] (September 23, 2019) Hydropower explained. U.S. Energy Information Administration. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydropower/tidal-power.php
[19] Dieterich, R. (January 16, 2018) 24-Hour Solar Energy: Molten Salt Makes It Possible, and Prices Are Falling Fast. Inside Climate News. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012018/csp-concentrated-solar-molten-salt-storage-24-hour-renewable-energy-crescent-dunes-nevada
[20] Glester, A. (June 11, 2018) The asteroid trillionaires. Physics World. https://physicsworld.com/a/the-asteroid-trillionaires/
[21] Patel, N. (November 2, 2015) Humans Have Lived in Space Continuously for 15 Years. Inverse. https://www.inverse.com/article/7662-humans-have-lived-in-space-continuously-for-15-years
[22] Zimmerman, K., Emspak, J. (June 27, 2017) Internet History Timeline: ARPANET to the World Wide Web. Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/20727-internet-history.html
[23] Wikipedia Contributors (n.d.) Gaia hypothesis. Retrieved August 1, 2020, from https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS281r/Sources/Gaia/Gaia-hypothesis-wikipedia.pdf
I am no on some Horizon Zero Dawn DLC!!@#!
I have just posted my most extensive (and most expensive) review ever. This time I got to dig deep on the new @FocalOfficial Chora 5.1.2 speaker system for @HTForum
French made, upscale Home Theater speakers with built in Atmos Bounce!
Hey folks, during tonight’s stream, I’m going to give away a copy of Marvel’s Avengers. I’ll post here when I go live.
Noice!
Latest HTF podcast is up.
I was always disappointed that VIDEOBALL didn’t take over the world, as I feel like it’s a truly great game. Bad online pretty much killed the game on day 1…Well, nowadays we have parsec and steam remote play, and our discord is running matches on tuesdays…I made a crappy match commentary video and learned editing at the same time, drop by if you’re interested :)
Hey fellow podcasters, feel like adding shots of your setups? Or is maybe there a better thread in the hardware or everything else forums for this?
Updated mine to a Basement studio “lounge” for podcasting and 3D printing. I got a butcher block pre-sealed at Home Depot and put it on sit/stand legs and moved my H5 and mics down to it.
Right now my cohost and I record ou sides on opposite ends of the country so right now I only “need” one mic input but ideally I’d like to have local guests and record phone convos. So right now I have a nice AKG mic for me and two less expensive mics for guests, but the base H5 only has XLR inputs. Gonna have to add the adapter to get 3rd and 4th XLR mics live tho or move to the PodTrak. Decisions decision! Also will need some better lights down there too :)
Thanks! Hoping others will post theirs. Truth be told I am a studio desk/rack junkie despit having very limited skills in this area. I love seeing big mixers and sound stages, now that is coming through for home studios and podcast rigs.
I just started a general interest podcast with a group of other first year law students: Law Review Squared
We recorded 4 episodes before populating the RSS, and waited a week for the directories to propogate before talking about it on social media. We released episode 5 this morning.
@Kadath, we’re just recording our discussions on zoom, which has some issues for sure. And for our panels everyone just uses whatever headset they’re using for class. But it’s easy.
I have a post on linkedin explaining what the object of the project was: https://bit.ly/33VoO4F
I am playing Baldur’s Gate III as Tom Chick, Cleric of Bhaal. Join me, won’t you?
That’s interesting, hope it takes off!
And here I thought Tom Chick was a Cleric of Palin!