giardia's comments

giardia | 3 years ago | on: Sauce that survived Italy’s war on pasta

> pasta sauces made with canned tomato base taste so much better than pasta sauce from scratch

That's a matter of taste, to say the least. You could probably come up with all sorts of metrics that show that canned tomatoes have more of this or that, but pasta sauce made with fresh tomatoes taste like tomatoes, canned tomatoes taste like imitation tomatoes or almost like ketchup in comparison. It sounds like you might've not reduced the fresh tomato sauce enough or something.

I won't deny that I use canned 99.99% of the time though. They win on every metric except taste.

giardia | 3 years ago | on: Why EVs Aren't a Climate Change Panacea

The Economist wrote a few months back that an EV in Japan actually produces more carbon per mile than an ICE because almost all of their energy comes from coal plants. I'm not sure if America has a radically different coal plant design which produces less carbon somehow, but ~60% of electricity in America comes from coal. [edit: 60% is fossil fuel generated, ~20% is coal]

Additionally, it's going to be a massive effort to upgrade our grid (not just generation) to handle all these EVs, and America is not well situated for public transport since we built out instead of up.

I don't want anyone to get the impression that EVs are bad, but people act like they're saving the world by buying a Tesla. It's not that simple. This is a very, very difficult problem and every solution has trade-offs.

giardia | 3 years ago | on: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

People have been having a lot less sex for a while now. I think technology is largely to blame, too. We're so accustomed to things being served up for us that the ability to function outside that specific setting has atrophied.

We've become more connected than ever, but we're more singular and selfish than ever. This is worse with generations that have had an internet-connected computer in from of them their whole life, especially in the social media era (studies show). I expect people to be getting more and more neurotic and weird.

I think also that the effects of internet porn really can't be underestimated. There's something emasculating about one of humanity's ultimate drives being sated with a couple of mouse clicks. Then look at what is delivered: it's not sex, it's not even a depiction of sex, it's a depiction of a simulacra of sex. Generally speaking, porn divorces us from our own sexuality. Instead of exploring and developing our own sexuality with others, we're served the depiction of others performing for the camera and we get that in our heads. If you think that doesn't impact your sex life or sexuality I don't know what to say.

giardia | 3 years ago | on: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

I've always done 20% because it's easy to do in my head. Nowadays it's a low tip for those tip prompts and I punch it in manually if I tip at all.

When I delivered food my tip spread was funny. Many people wouldn't tip at all, many would just let you keep the change or give you a token amount (~5-10%), and a few people would give you over 50% tips. Not many gave me 15-25%.

giardia | 3 years ago | on: Antique Roman Dishes – Collection (1993)

Too bad I can't pick up any silphium or liquamen at the grocery store. Silphium is thought to be extinct and the exact taste and method for producing liquamen is still debated -- though we know it was some sort of fish sauce.

giardia | 3 years ago | on: ECC RAM should be a human right

Oh god this gives me flashbacks. I never knew how bad corruption was on home computers until I started using git annex on a multi-terabyte file collection. No matter which computer or disk I used, it would inevitably happen. Then I started to wonder how much corruption had crept in before I was using git annex and never noticed it.

I've basically given up on maintaining large digital media collections for long term purposes. It puts my OCD in overdrive.

giardia | 3 years ago | on: Hyprland: A dynamic tiling Wayland compositor

I'm not a fan of animations myself, though I think it could be somewhat useful with a tiling WM to help maintain (for lack if a better word) your orientation. Sometimes a new window will open and move the other windows around and get resized unexpectedly, or you'll move a window and lose track for a split second. Animation would show you where everything gets put so you don't have to reorient yourself. Not a very common issue, but I could see animation helping there.

giardia | 3 years ago | on: EPA proposes to strengthen air quality standards

There are quite a few places in densely forested areas. But it's not just a matter of uptime (which is an issue), but of capacity. If you live 50-100 miles out of town in a small community, the community can't afford to upgrade those lines. The county won't pay for it, and neither will the state or feds. That kind of range also means you need to charge fairly often.

giardia | 3 years ago | on: EPA proposes to strengthen air quality standards

A blind tax on ICE would be regressive as hell.

You'll be punishing people who can't afford an electric or hybrid which would in turn reduce their employment opportunities, either by taxing the fuel at a higher rate or by making their vehicle more expensive upfront (so they either don't want to put miles on it or they're forced to get a cheaper vehicle which is more prone to issues) -- and let's be honest, public transport outside the major city centers is a joke in America and probably always will be because of how spread out we are.

Rural residents (frequently low income) often don't have a stable enough grid to charge electric vehicles reliably either.

Don't get me wrong, I think we need to make the shift but there are still a lot of unresolved practical issues. I expect there's a lot more room for technological improvements in the next 5-10 years which will drive the cost so low that people won't even want an ICE unless it's really necessary for something. Honestly, there's bigger fish to fry with carbon emissions anyway.

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