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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • My favourite example of not having basic understanding is the Lia radiological incident.

    Three men from Lia (later designated as patients 1-DN, 2-MG, and 3-MB by the IAEA) had driven 45–50 km (28–31 mi) to a forest overlooking the Enguri Dam reservoir to gather firewood. They drove up a nearly impassable road in snowy winter weather, and discovered two canisters at around 6 pm. Around the canisters there was no snow for about a 1 m (3.3 ft) radius, and the ground was steaming. Patient 3-MB picked up one of the canisters and immediately dropped it, as it was very hot. Deciding that it was too late to drive back, and realizing the apparent utility of the devices as heat sources, the men decided to move the sources a short distance and make camp around them. Patient 3-MB used a stout wire to pick up one source and carried it to a rocky outcrop that would provide shelter. The other patients lit a fire, and then patients 3-MB and 2-MG worked together to move the other source under the outcrop. They ate dinner and had a small amount of vodka, while remaining close to the sources. Despite the small amount of alcohol, they all vomited soon after consuming it, the first sign of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), about three hours after first exposure. Vomiting was severe and lasted through the night, leading to little sleep. The men used the sources to keep them warm through the night, positioning them against their backs, and as close as 10 cm (3.9 in). The next day, the sources may have been hung from the backs of Patient 1-DN and 2-MG as they loaded wood onto their truck. They felt very exhausted in the morning and only loaded half the wood they intended. They returned home that evening.

    If you find a strange grey canister in the middle of the woods that has somehow melted the snow around it and is steaming hot for no reason, don’t fucking touch it.

    …but we all know in our hearts that if we didn’t have prior understanding of these thing, all of us would totally go touch the mystical heat canister.


  • There’s one exception - when they are self-sufficient, or even net positive, with renewables.
    One example is the Google datacenter in Hamina, Finland. They build it in an old unused paper mill, built their own renewables (3/4ths of their required at this point), and they use the cooling loop for district heating for the city. That extra heat provides around 75% of the required heating, meaning the city could stop relying on their old natural gas heaters so now the district heating runs on renewables as well.

    It’s easy to be an energy neutral datacenter, simply pour enough money to building new renewables that wouldn’t have been built without your contributions, and you don’t tax the power grid.







  • No real drama (for Alex at least).

    They wanted to make a car channel but LTT couldn’t finance it due to the recent allegations/drama and resulting revenue loss, were allowed to try it themselves but due to an employee no-compete clause it caused issues and they were given the option of either stopping or getting fired with a huge severance package and stuff. It was essentially a silly legalese way for LTT to pay them to go be solo youtubers chasing their dreams.

    As they say themselves, getting fired was a positive thing.