Viewing profile — holowoodman

Toyota builds cars that a private person might want to buy. Their market is real people who want to keep the car for longer, pay for their own maintenance and maybe even do their o…

German culture is imho stuck in a permanent subsidy slop problem. Basically every German film is written to appeal to the subsidy committee, not any greater audience. And it shows.…

In the last 25 years, German companies got into "reliability engineering". Which is the art of adjusting your drawings in such a way that every component lasts exactly as long as i…

> I'd like better understand the German engineering culture. Why was it special in the past? What about today? German engineering culture is to think things through. To take everyt…

Yes, I'm also guessing it is a big-city vs. small-town thing. When the next bus is in 2h, then the driver feels your pain and maybe lets you in anyways...

>> except in some special circumstances (e.g. childrens' toys) > Don't nearly all electronics fall under it too, this is the second item after children toys in the link you posted.…

No, you actually don't have to do the testing, except in some special circumstances (e.g. childrens' toys). Generally, the "CE" mark is a self-certification done by the manufacture…

Melting glaciers and ice caps is another such thing. As soon as the polar albedo changes because there is no more snow and ice, temperatures will stay elevated for a far longer tim…

Carbon sequestration through plant-life seems to increase more than expected with rising atmospheric CO_2 levels. We are currently seeing increased global plant mass.

We did try planet-scale geo engineering. It has worked so far, predictions were met. Heating through CO_2 and other heavy molecules works as predicted. Cooling through Sulfur compo…

It is also probably BS to assume a periodical die-off for humans in the near future. At the moment, humans are not showing any signs of a die-off, they are just not multiplying any…

It is also a construction thing. Air ducting is very rare in German homes. AC is also rare because frowned upon. And heating is usually provided by warm-water radiators or in-floor…

You can get an appliance that can do both, well and efficiently. Every modern AC has a reverting valve that changes the flow direction of liquid and gas, such that the liquifier an…

We do have quite a similar discussion here in Germany. Back in the day, everyone used fossil fuels to heat their homes. Back in those days, AC was frowned upon as inefficient, wast…

-3.5 sigma in the middle of the year in the only graph the article has.

The article is crap as well as the graph. And the author made the planet simmer even more to produce this crap.

Thanks. Those are much better than the graph trash in the original article.

This graph shouldn't be front-page news. Why? Because it is a crappy graph that says nothing. That there are deviations from the median is a normal statistical thing. Even deviatio…

The common thing is that there were no desired results because the west decided to do some half-assed thing and just go with the minimum amount of force and troops. Also, some part…

Old lines were never gone. All the talk about Europeans finally doing a common thing always carry some footnotes like "the Republic of France reserves the right to deviate in matte…

No, it isn't imho. After the cold war has ended, the western nations focused on not giving a fuck about military strength, allies or facing opponents the size of Russia or China. I…

Requiring login after getting user input is a dark pattern. This bad implementation of it makes it even worse. I hate it with a passion and I will boycott services that do those in…

> tactical nukes have never been used. Two tactical nukes have been used, albeit against strategic (civilian, industrial, logistical) targets.

That's because phone browsers have the insane braindead default of scaling everything into tiny unreadableness. You have to explicitly say "stupid browser, nobody ever wanted this …