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Producing fuels from 1,500 degrees of solar heat: world’s first plant opens in Germany
  • Super cool. Chemical fuels (hydrocarbons or even plant oils) have ridiculous energy density, which is nice for e.g. cars but absolutely crucial for fast, long-range air travel. I don't think we'll be saying goodbye to jet engines for a long time, and it's awesome that we have ways of making fuel in a somewhat sustainable fashion.

    The US Navy has experimented with this, but I think the idea is to use nuclear power instead of solar energy. Makes sense for an aircraft carrier with a big reactor and thirsty jets.

  • Tube Tester at Convenience Store!
  • I have an old (probably '60s) hifi amp. It's awesome. Replaced the selenium rectifier with silicon, replaced a few caps, and put fresh tubes in it.

    It sounds...basically the same as modern solid state stuff to my untrained ear. It's pretty cool that in a sense we "solved" the problem of amplification back then. Most of the speakers of the day were probably complete crap by today's standards (unless you had something upscale like a pair of AR-3s), but a well designed amplifier from the era holds up well.

  • Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.
  • France made a big mistake to go all in.

    Not only does Germany import electricity from France (which comes from...?), but Germany has (according to this) a substantially higher carbon footprint per capita.

    If the only issue is cost and projects taking longer than expected, isn't that a good tradeoff for carbon neutral power?

    And yes, of course, I would prefer renewables, you would prefer renewables, we all would. But it's somewhat disingenuous to decry the use of nuclear, advocate for renewables, and at the same time, rely heavily on coal, as Germany does (or at the very least, did recently.

  • Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.
  • AFAIK in the USA, nuclear energy is the safest per unit energy generated. Solar is more "dangerous" simply because you can fall off a roof.

    Nuclear energy has huge risks and potential for safety issues, yes. But sticking to the numbers, it is extremely safe.

  • Meta is connecting Threads more deeply with the fediverse
  • Completely agree.

    The Wikipedia article itself has this to say:

    Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors who are unable to support the new extensions.

    By that logic Lemmy/Mastodon/fediverse are already extinguished. Those of us in the fediverse are already "marginalized" wrt Twitter/Threads/Facebook/whatever.

    There are very good reasons to hate Meta, but personally, I think EEE isn't the biggest issue.

  • Meta is connecting Threads more deeply with the fediverse
  • Completely agree.

    The Wikipedia article itself has this to say:

    Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors who are unable to support the new extensions.

    By that logic Lemmy/Mastodon/fediverse are already extinguished. Those of us in the fediverse are already "marginalized" wrt Twitter/Threads/Facebook/whatever.

    There are very good reasons to hate Meta, but personally, I think EEE isn't the biggest issue.

  • San Francisco @lemmy.world qjkxbmwvz @startrek.website
    Sutro Tower lights changed color?

    Noticed a few days ago that Sutro Tower's red blinking lights are now white. Just asked them on their website form, but wondered if anyone else knows the story with this.

    Personally, I miss the red ones!

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    Recommendations for first HF rig?

    Howdy!

    I got my Technician in early 2000s, and last year finally upgraded to Extra. Looking to set up a very basic shack.

    I'm looking for an HF setup, with most of my use probably using digital modes, but would like the ability to use voice.

    Current transceiver is on loan from girlfriend's dad, a Ten-Tec Scout 555 --- 50W HF unit with separate modules for each band. One limitation of this is that the modules set the mode, so it's LSB on 40m, making e.g. FT8 not possible (without some hacking of code or perhaps hacking the module).

    Antenna is end-fed with an off-the-shelf 49:1. Currently only have 20m half-wave, but have just enough room for a 40m half-wave in the attic, which is the ultimate goal.

    For digital modes, it looks like there are sort of 3 classes of radio:

    • "full digital" where the radio has e.g. a USB port and handles audio, transmit, and frequency set.
    • Some computer-control with RS232, but uses computer audio+adapter to transmit.
    • No digital, use adapter to transmit. This is what the current setup uses (and it works great!)

    I'm leaning towards a conventional transceiver, e.g., something from ICOM, Kenwood, Yaesu, (or others) rather than an SDR unit. I'd like the ability to go up to 50-100W if possible.

    I don't have a hard-and-fast budget; would like to keep it <$1000 if possible; mostly just looking at used transceivers. Something like a Kenwood TS-590 looks pretty amazing and very "plug-and-play" (but pushing up against price). Something like a Yaesu FT-920 looks pretty feature-rich too; and even something more affordable like an ICOM 706 or even a 725 is probably more radio than I need. Or just grab a new 7300 and call it a day!

    Anyway...clearly, I don't know exactly what I want, but figured I'd ask folks with more experience if they have any wisdom. Thanks!

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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)QJ
    qjkxbmwvz @startrek.website
    Posts 2
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