Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Gave Up Alternating Current

robrhinehart.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 140 posts

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#131

Post by pbreit »

Jeema101 wrote: post #66
fezz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the shifting the consumption down the line. However, the primary energy advantage of Uber-like car services is that it reduces the high cost of energy to produce a car by reducing the pool of cars through optimizing their use (meaning, instead of a majority of cars sitting around doing nothing, using a pool of cars working most of the time would mean fewer cars needed overall). If all cars end up being full…

I don't know that it's even clear that using Uber-like services reduces carbon footprint. I mean wouldn't a car wear out a lot faster if 20 people were using it as opposed to 1? Sure, some components in a car are mileage independent, but generally not the most critical ones like the engine and transmission...

For one thing, there's one less car being manufactured. How fast (in time) it wears out is irrelevant.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#132

Post by pbreit »

mxxx wrote: post #129
Jeema101 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that it's even clear that using Uber-like services reduces carbon footprint. I mean wouldn't a car wear out a lot faster if 20 people were using it as opposed to 1? Sure, some components in a car are mileage independent, but generally not the most critical ones like the engine and transmission...

Yeah the idea that taking a taxi is a way to reduce your energy consumption footprint is absurd. Get on a bike or catch public transport you nimrod.

One less car is manufactured. He said he does take public transportation. Down vote.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#133

Post by pbreit »

The guy is basically right about both Soylent and this energy thing and yet elicits so many haters. What gives?

Sure, you don't have to live like he does. But I find it pretty interesting and actually sort of wish I was in a position to try it out (sans family).

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#134

Post by tedks »

jmduke wrote: post #122
tedks wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, this isn't satirical. If you're not meditating, I really encourage you to take it up -- you feel really refreshed and rededicated afterwards in a way that makes development much more of a focused, mindful process and enables you to hack your metrics for more of a lean, competitive edge. It's much like static typing.

You're either trolling or have quite rapidly changed your position on meditation from two weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9903525 >- to meditate ....oh. I guess it's just a new age/woowoo thing. Time to move on I guess. That's really disappointing. --- Really hope you remove meditation; hokey religions have no place in the modern nudge-engineered world.

I quite rapidly change every position in my life. I don't even sit in my chair the same way for long. If I don't find a good fit right away, I immediately pivot to something that delivers more value.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#135

Post by enkiv2 »

justinph wrote: post #4

Interesting, but it seems like a lot of the lifestyle choices are just pushing the carbon/climate impact to someone else where the author doesn't have to think about it. Getting custom clothes made in china and shipped frequently is certainly far less environmentally friendly than simply re-using the clothes you already have. Taking an uber still burns gasoline. A bike would be better.

I don't see why he doesn't just stop bathing and stop changing his clothes altogether, if this is his goal. (After all, this is the same guy who drank a potent antibiotic to keep himself from defecating in order to save water; that wouldn't be the craziest thing he's done, and it would make more sense than buying new clothes every day.)

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#136

Post by hexagonc »

bradleyland wrote: post #100
shawabawa3 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then presumably add it to the land fill. He said he donates it, so presumably some charity ends up footing the bill for his laundry

The land fill presumption is still the safest bet. The author said that he doesn't wash his clothes. By this we can infer that he brings his dirty laundry — for who knows how long — to a donation facility. I've volunteered at enough non-profit donation facilities to know that they don't launder intake. The expense is too high, and amazingly, most people don't bring in dirty clothes. If something is clearly not clean,…

Even if it doesn't go the landfill immediately, you're still talking about a lot more clothes that will eventually have to be disposed of. Unless you assume that all the extra dozens of shirts and pants (shorts?) and underwear that he buys would have been manufactured and eventually disposed of anyway. Hard to see that being true.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#138

Post by jefurii »

icebraining wrote: post #40
wklauss wrote: post #30

I have long wanted to fully switch to DC in my life and would love to see common appliances designed for a DC world. It's a shame that the opportunity to discuss this is lost in this post because of the pedantic tone of the author. Phrases like "I think it was a bit presumptuous for the architect to assume I wanted a kitchen with my apartment and make me pay for it" or "I don’t want to live with red hot heating eleme…

Joey Hess seems to live a much saner life, while also living on battery (and solar, I assume): https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/notes_for_a_caretaker/

joeyh++ And with a much better attitude too. Living off the grid certainly helped him come up with some innovative ways to use Git (e.g. git-annex).

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#140

Post by tormeh »

tedks wrote: post #134
jmduke wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're either trolling or have quite rapidly changed your position on meditation from two weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9903525 >- to meditate ....oh. I guess it's just a new age/woowoo thing. Time to move on I guess. That's really disappointing. --- Really hope you remove meditation; hokey religions have no place in the modern nudge-engineered world.

I quite rapidly change every position in my life. I don't even sit in my chair the same way for long. If I don't find a good fit right away, I immediately pivot to something that delivers more value.

This is the funniest I've read in a long while.
Post reply on HN