size and weight of a car

blocks of ice measuring 4 ft × 4 ft × 2 ft.

This you?

Because 32 cubic ft is about the volume of most residential AC units.

Is it?

92kWh/m^3 of energy is a lot of cooling. It’d be hard to not be effective.

I think youre misunderstanding one thing, which is that the ice is a replacement for batteries. While the system had a small battery for running a small pump and fan, its a small cheap one that doesn’t store much and the water has substantially more energy, equivalent to something like a large lithium battery.

The thermal battery is also far smaller, cheaper, and more robust than a lithium battery and it won’t deteriorate with repeated cycling. The obvious trade off is that in this case it can only be used for refrigeration and only down to 0C. So while its very niche, it is quite effective for home air conditioning.

I actually find the fact that becoming a more militarized wartime state has induced similar instances of violence in Russia to be really interesting. Up until this point, most other countries assumed there was something unique about US culture that resulted in school shootings, but showing some sort of hypothetical link between wartime mobilization and mass violence is interesting and the US interventionism has only been increasing along with their mass shootings.

I’ll just remove the post. Everyone has to wade through slop now adays and everyone is gonna fall for it at some point.

I just pulled the title from the headline, but I’ve made the change because you’re right. It shouldn’t be normalized.

Nearly three-quarters of expected flood damage to American homes is currently uninsured, according to new data released by the Federal Reserve — and Republicans and those who don’t believe they’re personally threatened by climate change are more likely to be among those underinsured.

In a new Federal Reserve working paper, researchers estimate that there will be $24.4 billion in future annual financial losses as a result of flood damage to single-family homes — and more than $17 billion of that potential damage is currently uninsured. What’s more, 80 percent of households at risk of flood damage do not have adequate coverage, with the average home needing roughly $7,000 more in insurance to cover potential damage.

In areas known to face the most acute threat of flooding, such as those affected by hurricanes and other areas prone to flooding, more than half of the expected damage to homes remains uninsured. The study also found that more than 90 percent of those in the lowest income brackets lack adequate flood insurance — a problem that will likely become more acute as flood insurance premium rates continue to increase.

Taken together, the findings suggest that without emergency government bailouts, many Americans could face the prospect of enormous out-of-pocket costs, bankruptcy, or homelessness in the wake of expected floods.

“Understanding the magnitude of this insurance crisis is necessary to identify potential solutions for the mitigation of financial losses from physical climate risks,” the authors wrote.

The report also examined the role of people’s beliefs in their insurance decisions. In their study of millions of single-family households, researchers found that “a 10 percent higher share of survey respondents perceiving personal harm from global warming is associated with 26.7 percent lower underinsurance.” They also found that “a 10 percent higher share of Republican voters is associated with 14 percent higher underinsurance.”

According to the study’s authors, “our results suggest that household beliefs regarding future climate risks may be a larger determinant of underinsurance” than “policies that change the price of flood insurance.”

The findings suggest more research is needed to parse how partisan political battles over climate change could be impacting environmental action. A recent New York University study of 60,000 people in 60 countries, including the United States, found that despite different opinions, liberals and conservatives worldwide take action to address climate change at roughly the same levels, such as supporting the construction of EV charging stations and raising carbon taxes.

The new warnings from the Federal Reserve also come at a time when 33 out of the poorest 50 counties nationwide are in states governed by Republicans. This includes counties in hurricane-affected areas such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina.

Flood insurance premiums are rising, with almost a quarter of people surveyed in 2022 by the mortgage financing company Fannie Mae saying that flood insurance is not affordable. ZIP codes in Louisiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas — states at a particularly high risk of flooding — will see significant premium spikes in the years to come, according to data collected by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps Americans prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.

As climate change wreaks havoc on the country’s insurance safety net, the repercussions could set the stage for the next financial disaster. A new report from the Senate Budget Committee that extensively references The Lever’s reporting warns that “we must speed the transition to clean energy and eliminate carbon pollution” to avoid triggering “a full-scale financial crisis similar to what occurred in 2008.”

Antibiotics might be overused in humans, but as the article states, the amount used in animal agricultural is astronomically higher.

Animals are kept in appalling conditions to lower the cost of meat and this causes rampant infections, so antibiotics are used prophylactically leading to increasingly resistant bacteria.

A better solution than limiting human usage is to ban their use in agriculture.

I started a Bochet Cyser this month; really looking forward to seeing how it tastes. Its my first bochet and first cyser, so really exploring new territory.

I’ve got my Tang ferment that I mentioned in my other post and some Fireweed wine, which is basically a sugar wine, but its bright fuchsia.

Currently mulling over ideas for what to do with all the blueberries I’ve harvested. I’ll probably just be boring and make a wine but if anyone has any dumb ideas I’d love to try them.

I’m currently brewing up a batch of Tang! We’ll know in a week or so if it was a success.

I’m hoping the synthetic chemicals that give it a citrus flavor are anathema to my yeast so I’ll have something refreshing in a month or so.

Autobrewery syndrome is rare and probably has more to do with your diet and antibiotic use than consuming a few actively fermenting drinks.

Some drinks like pulque are traditionally drunk that way and that’s why they can’t be shipped long distances. So if its been done by other cultures for thousands if years, I’m not a doctor, but I’m gonna wager its fairly safe.

It was only a gallon. The disappointment is mostly that I won’t have a really weird drink this year.

I’ve heard cider can be made with unripe apples. Might be worth a shot.

I’ve got my continuous brew of kombucha going for my daily consumption.

On the more interesting side, I’ve got some spruce tip mead going which I’m hoping turns out well. There was a little bit of a scare where I was concerned it could be infected, but it seems fine.

Sadly, I was doing an experiment with sea lovage spiced mead which succumbed to mold and needed to be dumped. Something to retry next year.

This year’s berry harvest is basically FUBAR. Global warming did a number on it so now there’s near zero salmonberries and the ones which did appear are partially desiccated or only half ripe. So no salmonberry wine this year, probably even not enough for jam :(

Blueberries are way too early, but they’re tasting fine at least. I’ll probably try a blueberry wine or mead. Encountered a few hiccups last year because of their acidity, but I’m better equipped this year so hopefully that turns out well and I can bottle some stuff for the winter.

Where are you getting free VM hosting?

The comment was in reference to VPN services. Sadly, given theres no right to privacy, you must pay to not be tracked.

i feel like most of your argument is rendered moot with encrypted dns solutions like DoH.

You misunderstand. Large ISPs run their own DNS servers which are preconfigured into the devices they sell. They are the intended recipient and you’d just be encrypting it in transit to their servers.

Another reason to use a VPN is that ISPs have every motive to sell your browsing data and they do. Unlike many other groups tracking you, your ISP inherently has your meatspace name, address, and payment information making their data easily collatable and very valuable.

If you use the default DNS on their provided router they can even tell if someone purchased an XBox, Playstation, or any other smart device just from update and telemetry lookups.

As the article says, by using a VPN youre using someone else’s ISP making that info worthless.

If your threat model includes preventing ad networks from gathering data, a VPN absolutely is a tool to prevent that. Do you have to pay for a service? Probably not if you’re technical enough; a VM in a data center is probably sufficient.

This is the best part of our culture and I won’t hear otherwise.

Mozilla is a non profit. The most “capitalist” they get is the Mozilla Corp a company owned by the foundation which is basically just for tax purposes. Having a big player in the fediverse helps.