Wow, that’s a nice one. :)

Also, both of your links to solar-powered tool projects were educational. I knew this could be done, but I had never read about peope doing that. :)

There’s a pretty high chance that when it does come together, it will be presented somehow on c/offgrid on this very server. :)

Well, there’s a DIY electric car which needs both axles to be re-designed. They didn’t pass driving tests in the field. Design is complete but welding cannot start before weather turns nicer.

Also, my house needs a battery shed on wheels - wheels to keep away construction bureaucrats, shed because it’s uncomfortable to sleep under the same roof with a very considerable amount of lithium cells. I’d like to keep some distance from them so that if something goes wrong, it’s would be just the cells. :) The bottom platform with wheels is complete, walls and roof and everything such - nope, not a trace, not even a good drawing. :)

I agree that Hamas is a response to conditions. I do recall that a long while ago, Israel did fund Hamas, in hope of counterbalancing Fatah.

But, just like many other movements, Hamas seems to perpetuate the conditions which created it. Their rule is Gaza hasn’t only brought a war with Israel, but also a suppression of democracy and repression of people from competing Palestinian movements (mainly Fatah).

Israeli forces do often act like they’re a recruitment branch of Hamas, stirring up anger. I don’t doubt it the slightest that Hamas has received many recruits because the IDF again killed someone who randomly got in their way (or again made the calculation that for a junior Hamas official, 15 civilian lives are OK to take).

But, despite knowing the above-mentioned - I don’t see a way out of the long-term conflict without both sides changing.

As long as Israel behaves like it wants to destroy (or drive away) all Palestinians - there will be Palestinian politicians who call for the destruction of Israel and support terrorist tactics, with considerable support among the population, even if their rule is not democratic (the rule of Hamas in Gaza only started democratically). Meanwhile, fear of revenge and terror, fear of appearing weak and another Arab-Israeli war - this ensures that politicians in Israel who promise to deal harshly with Palestinians get votes and frequently attain power.

Since the conflict is now quite old (at least 70 years) and the fighting parties have lost a viable framework for solving it, they need either massive luck or considerable foreign assistance / advise / pressure to find a stable solution.

Re: one state solution: did you mean two state solution? Because I think - but I could be wrong - that Israel must somehow come to the point of understanding that a Palestinian state with a reasonably defined territory (not a patchwork-of-enclaves territory) can be their neighbour, but the current situation is unstable.

Though the projection is about solarpunk, a side note about the situation in Gaza…

…recently, the UN demining agency (I’ve forgotten their acronym) published an estimate of war damage in Gaza. They assessed that there was “more rubble in Gaza than Ukraine”. Since that seemed unbelievable, I consulted various sources, among them a review by the Lund University Center for Middle-Eastern Studies named Monitoring Israel’s Destruction of Gaza from Space.

What I found out:

• the UN measures war damage in kilograms of rubble per square meter
• Gaza is tiny and densely populated
• thus despite a hundred times less (approximation) munitions getting fired than in Ukraine, Gaza has massive damage to infrastructure
• the rubble density is currently 300 kg / m2
• the most damaged settlement is Gaza City (75% of buildings damaged or destroyed)
• the least damaged settlement is Rafah (31% of buildings)
• on average, 57% of houses are damaged or destroyed
• war was waged in an un-evacuated city: this typically produces high civilian losses
• the current estimate is 30 000, so Israel’s response has caused 30 x more losses than the initial attack by Hamas
• night time satellite photos suggest that electricity is missing in most of the strip
• crop monitoring photos indicate that agriculture has mostly stopped (and irrigation is likely broken)

For me, journalistic photos from Gaza most remind of what happened in Grozny, the capital of Chechnia during the First Chechen War (disproportionate amounts of Russian firepower reduced it to a trash heap).

Since both sides are responsible for war crimes (Hamas at first and now Israel) and the military response has overshot any goal associated with justice, I support any action that makes the conflict stop. Hamas started this war, but Israel has gone far beyond sanity while responding. Later on, I think the leaders of both sides ought be brought before the International Criminal Court and answer charges of war crimes (which could take decades).

How to ensure another war won’t happen… much harder without structural change in both societies. Considering the way Israel currently functions and how the Palestinian Authority functioned in Gaza (Hamas militants took it over, things seem better on the West Bank), there’s a high chance that someone from either side could ignite a new conflict in future.

I think most people already have this firewall installed, and it’s working too well - they’re absorbing minimal information that contradicts their self-image or world view. :) Scammers just know how to bypass the firewall. :)

The article is fine, and I second the recommendation to read it, but from the article to the slogan you present, things do not follow a logical path. Yes, war is both an incredibly expensive activity (diverting money that could be used) and a resource-intensive activity (the money goes into actual materials that almost surely destroy something or get destroyed) and an incredibly stupid activity (and it can snowball)…

…but the problem is that successful unilateral disarmament during a war tends to result in a situation called “defeat”. If the defeat is not an attack being defeated, but defense being defeated, that is called a “conquest”. Now, letting a conquest succeed has a historical tendency of the conqueror having more experience at conquest, and more resources to conquer with… which has, several times in history, lead to another conquest or a whole series of conquests. A regional war in Ukraine resulting in Ukraine being taken over by Russia has a high probability of producing:

1. a bigger regional war later, in which Russia, using its own resources and those of Ukraine, proceeds to another country, gets into a direct conflict with NATO and then indeed there is a risk of a global war

2. an encouraging effect after which China, noting that international cooperation against the agressor was ultimately insufficient, and deeming itself better prepared than Russia, decides that it can take Taiwan with military force

However, a war ending with inability to show victory tends to produce a revolution in the invading country. For example, World War I produced a revolution in Russia and subsequently a revolution in Germany, with several smaller revolutions in between, empires collapsing and a brief bloom of democracy in Europe, before the Great Depression and the rise of fascism ate all the fruits. The Falklands War produced a revolution in Argentina. The Russo-Japanese war produced the 1905 near-revolution in Russia.

It is better for Ukraine to not get conquered. It is better for Russia to be unable to conquer Ukraine. That result is also better for everyone around them. It’s even better globally because it sets a precedent of large-scale cooperation defeating an agressive superpower, discouraging agressive superpowers from undertaking similar wars until memory starts fading again.

Unfortunately, until we see indications that Russian society is getting ready to stop the war (this could involve starting negotiations on terms palatable to Ukraine, a change of leadership, a withdrawal, a revolution, etc)… the path to achieving that outcome remains wearing out the agressor: producing enough weapons and delivering them to Ukraine.

Ultimately, both sides in a war wear each other down. The soldiers most eager to fight are killed soonest. The people most unwilling to get mobilized or recruited, and soldiers most unwilling to fight - they remain alive. If they are pressed forever, some day they will make the calculation: there are less troops blocking the way home than in the trenches of the opposing side. After that realization, they eventually tend to mutiny. Invading troops tend to do that a bit easier than defending troops, because they sense less purpose in their activity. In the long run, if nothing else happens, that will happen. There is just (probably, regrettably) no particularly quick shortcut to getting there.

Strongly disagree.

Disarmament is feasible (and very smart, because war is a terrible waste) if the other side is understanding and willing. In the 1980-ties, the USSR under Gorbachev was willing to mutually reduce nuclear weapons. Gorbachev also ended the attempt to make Afghanistan into a Soviet satellite state and loosened the rules in the Soviet bloc enough for most of Eastern Europe to leave the bloc. Russia under Putin has not shown any willingness to widthdraw or disarm. In fact, it is making desperate attempts to restart all the Soviet military industries, double down and overwhelm Ukraine.

(for those unaware: the war is Gaza is statistically a gang shootout compared to the war in Ukraine, the intensity differs so much that I’m not even addressing it - it’s practically over, Hamas attacked and lost)

NATO countries are of course increasing military production - ironically at such a leisurely pace that EU has been able to supply some 0.3 million of the 1 million shells promised to Ukraine, while North Korea has been able to hand 2 million shells to Russia. I don’t see a case for claiming that NATO is arming too fast. I see a case for claiming that NATO is arming ridiculously slow, at a pace which might allow Russia to force an unfavourable deal on Ukraine.

I would predict: if Putin wins in Ukraine, or gets considerable parts of Ukraine as war spoils, in a decade’s time, the next war will be Russia vs. Eastern Europe. Most of the warring parties will be NATO members then. And indeed, those countries (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria) - they have all rapidly raised their military production and purchases.

About escalation: so far, all the long-range offensive weapons supplied by NATO have come with the strict condition that they may not be fired at Russian territory, and Ukraine has respected that - firing them only at occupied Ukrainian territory. Not a single ATACMS or Storm Shadow has landed in a Russian nuclear bunker, not to mention a seat of government. Ukraine is using Western missiles to shoot at its own (occupied) territory, hardly an escalation.

(a side note: Ukrainian-made drones do land in Russia regularly, mostly destroying aircraft that would bomb Ukraine - and World War 3 has not broken out because of that)

To finish up, I’d like to point out that the US is not even scheduled to give airplanes to Ukraine. The F-16 planes are being given by Denmark and the Netherlands.

P.S.

What’s the rationale for calling Biden “Genocide Joe”? If that’s an appropriate nickname, what do we call heads of state who start an actual war? :o

P.P.S.

Problems have differing levels of urgency. Wars tend to have the highest. Several EU countries have indeed been forced to scale back their climate plans because they don’t have enough money to make the green transition and help Ukraine defend against Russia at the same time. The rise in interest rates has also contributed - it’s harder to finance projects with a loan. However, they have also made incredibly fast pace at curbing their use of Russian oil and gas. Ironically, by proving what a fine seller Russia is (“run for the hills” grade of fine), Putin has contributed greatly to the transition off fossil fuels. Once he’s deposed, tried and jailed, he should get a medal for that. :)

It might not be relevant to the conditions at your place, but in the city nearest to where I live (Tallinn, capital of Estonia), there is a library that lends out tools. It’s the Pelguranna library, a branch of the Tallinn Central Library, and the only English description I could dredge up is this one:

https://keskraamatukogu.ee/en/kojulaenutus-2-2/toolbox/

If Chat gave me a broken answer, I would appreciate if someone said “hey, look - it’s broken here”.

The solution is obvious: wind energy can be collected outside a building, on an empty field, or at sea for maximum emptiness. Which is what people already do.

instead of having me listen to your gripes

Not my preferred way of dealing with criticism. You wrote a proposal (well, you let Chat write a proposal and presented it). I read it through, and considered if it was OK. I found parts that weren’t and said so. If you don’t want to listen to that, why did you post?

I am splitting a hair, but the goal is pointing out - Chat is nice at producing text and searching for information, but unreliable at actually evaluating if something would work. Unless you’re extremely good at asking, it will spew proposals that won’t work.

P.S.

As for non-rotating wind generators, yep, I’ve read about them. They aren’t efficient. In the equations determining performance, there is a term named “swept area”. For a non-rotating generator, swept area is the surface of its profile viewed from upwind/downwind. For a rotor, swept area is the surface of the circle reached by blades. The difference is huge.

…and that is why Chat cannot be trusted to build houses. It hallucinates:

Exhibit A:

At its core, this building incorporates an innovative vertical farming system. Towering gardens thrive within its walls,

Exhibit B:

The building’s walls are constructed using rammed earth or compressed earth blocks, utilizing the surrounding soil and natural resources abundantly available in the area.

One can go vertical, or one can go rammed earth. One does not go vertical with rammed earth. :) And wind turbines attached to building structure are a nuisance. An efficient turbine needs to be clear of obstacles.

Beyond that, it has done a good job. The write-up was streamlined with my cultural sensibilities, before it collided head on with my sense of engineering. :)

I tried, and that GitLab page requires logging in. I don’t have an account, so I can’t comment more.

To address both of your points.

To my understanding, Veilid is a piece of network infrastructure. It is not a singular end-user app, but an app for other apps to communicate over. Just like TOR, just like I2P, just like (RIP) Entropy and (maybe it still has a pulse) Freenet.

How to make a convenient environment for users, is not within the task scope of network infrastructure.

However, I can tell about a decentralized messaging app (probably RIP) that exists / existed on I2P. It was named Syndie, and it was a very ambitious goal (which failed). It had 3 levels of access controls: a node operator could refuse to serve certain (cryptographically identified) channels from their node. A channel creator could protect their channels from reading and posting in various ways (pre-shared key, passphrase-derived key, a key encrypted to a user identity, maybe more). Finally, a user could block any other (cryptographically identified) user from interacting with them. Identity was cheap, but since there were many countermeasures, environment was manageable.

Example actions might be:

• being the node operator, I designate that channel AAA won’t be served from here
• being the channel operator of channel AAA, I designate that users A, B, C and D get keys to read and post
• being the user A, I block user D from my view

More information can be found here: https://veilid.com/framework

I read it, haven’t tested it - commentary below.

Before I go into commentary, I will summarize: my background is from I2P - I helped build bits and pieces of that network a decade ago. As far as I can tell, Veilid deals in concepts that are considerably similar to I2P. If the makers have implemented things well, it could be a capable tool for many occasions. :) My own interest in recent years has shifted towards things like Briar. With that project, there is less common ground. Veilid is when you use public infrastructure to communicate securely, with anonymity. Briar is when you bring your own infrastructure.

• Networking

Looks like I2P, but I2P is coded in Java only. Veilid seems to have newer and more diverse languages (more capability, but likely more maintenance needs in future). I2P has a lot of legacy attached by now, and is not known for achieving great performance. A superficial reading of the network protocol doesn’t enable me to tell if Veilid will do better - I can only tell that they have thought of the same problems and found their own solutions. I would hope that when measured in a realistic situation, Veilid would exceed the performance of I2P. How to find out? By trying, in masses and droves…

• Cryptography

Impressive list of ciphers. Times have changed, I’m not qualified to say anything about any of them. It leaves the appearance that these people know what they are doing, and are familiar with recent developments in cryptography. They also seem to know that times will change (“Veilid has ensured that upgrading to newer cryptosystems is streamlined and minimally invasive to app developers, and handled transparently at the node level.”), which is good. Keeping local storage encrypted is an improvement over I2P - last time I worked with I2P, an I2P router required external protection (e.g. Linux disk encryption) against seizing the hardware. With mobile devices ever-present everywhere, storage encryption is a reasonable addition. I notice that the BlockStore functionality is not implemented yet. If they intend to get it working, storage encryption is a must, of course.

• RPC (remote procedure calls)

Their choice of a procedure call system is unfamiliar to me, but I read about it. I didn’t find anything to complain about.

• DHT (distributed hash table)

Looks somewhat like I2P.

• Private routing

Looks very much like I2P.

I see it differently.

I don’t assign human reasoning to orcas. They have a culture but it’s comparable to the culture in a pack of wolves. An exceptionally smart wolf may intuitively guess that cars are created by humans, but most wolves probably don’t, and if you showed them welding a car together, they wouln’t become any wiser from it.

The average orca is likely incapable of understanding that a boat is a human creation, that humans use boats to travel and tranport goods, or that humans are an incredibly invasive species (which I agree we are), or that humans are threatened by leaks in their boat.

From their viewpoint, a human on board is more likely part of the boat, and a human in water would be considered a freak type of seal. Only upon interaction with humans (e.g. “there is some creature on the pier that made a motion and I got a fish - I will study it more closely because it could have more tasty fish”) would they learn to reason about humans as creatures.

What I see, are not orcas working together to stop an invasive species, but one species of whale, often found hunting other whales, trying to hunt a plastic sailboat in great confusion. It’s not good to them, it’s not good for sailors, if they try with a fishing trawler they’ll get wounded by a propeller…

…it’s like 5-ton dogs chasing a 15-ton car. One can hope it stops, or not hope and think how to make it stop.

It was basically questioning whether the rising ocean temps were linked to these attacks. People tend to exhibit more violent behavior than usual during heat waves.

More likely indirectly. If the population of fish drops and whales go hungry, they get more inquisitive and try to find other sources of food. Some of them have experience with hunting other whales, and know that biting off fins brings results.

A rudder looks like a fin, so they try to bite it off. They aren’t entirely wrong either, a rudder is necessary for a boat. Probably tastes like plastic, but maybe they aren’t wired in a way to tell the difference.

Sailors tell that stopping seems to work sometimes. If the prey stops, it must either be dead or not afraid of the hunter. If a boat stops and there is no chase, they tend to lose interest and go away.

And they don’t care about big boats, only small ones, so it’s clearly a hunting behaviour.

People downvote when they feel someone is wrong, but cannot put it into words. It’s common on Reddit and since many people here come from Reddit, it’s likely common here too.

As for me, I was not being facetious, I was stating what will obviously happen if the “fad” doesn’t disappear. I don’t care about votes and don’t care about groupthink, honesty is preferable every time.

People who downvoted were obviously in “whales are sacred” mode and couldn’t bring themselves to think that some whales are predators who kill to eat and compete when needed, and can be dangerous to humans if they program themselves a bit wrong.

P.S.

I knew of the Iberian orca situation for a year or something, it’s not news to me.

A “war” would be if some sailors took along a gun and simply killed the whales (escalating from a risk of losing life to certain loss of life) - which is very easy technically, but both very unreasonable and prohibited. Or if someone lowered dynamite into water instead of a speaker or annoying chemical.

Since there clearly is a problem - three boats have been damaged to the point of sinking, and more have received lighter damage - I don’t think people will consider whether to take action, but what kind of action is appropriate.

It would be nice if it would be effective and not leave permanent damage.

Whales deserve respect and are protected for a variety of reasons. But if they develop a habit of attacking vessels, they deserve quick education before loss of life occurs. Since people cannot talk to them, they can only inform whales in other ways that “attacking a vessel is not smart”.

Animals usually learn that attacking a type of prey is not worthwhile when it defends itself, causing either discomfort, pain or outright injury. If a young orca sees a stingray and thinks “food”, how do they learn that a stingray isn’t food? They try eating it, but the stingray has a poison sting. It may not survive teaching a whale about food, but the whale will survive and learn.

If they consider boats prey or competitors, sailors must demonstrate to them that boats aren’t worthwhile to mess with.

Also worth knowing about: bear spray. A bear is a predator like an orca, and a human may seem like prey like a boat. However, bears are few and humans many, so humans cannot afford to defend with full force. So, to resolve less dangerous ecounters to a mutually acceptable conclusion, people doing jobs with a bear risk, often carry bear spray.

The instincts of a predator may also tell “stop” when the “prey” stops. A dog who risks their life chasing cars, never attacks a stopped car. Sometimes this also works with orcas. So, in addition to using deterrents, boring them may also work.