A huge share of the gypsum used in drywall is *synthetic gypsum* — a byproduct of flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) at coal-fired power plants. When SO₂ is scrubbed from exhaust using limestone, the reaction produces calcium sulfate dihydrate, chemically identical to mined gypsum. In the US, FGD gypsum has accounted for roughly half of all gypsum consumed by the wallboard industry at its peak.
The "cheap, uniform, and free of defects" story is partly a story about coal. The drywall industry scaled on the back of an abundant, nearly free waste stream from the energy sector. It's a classic example of industrial symbiosis — one industry's pollution abatement becomes another's feedstock.
And it cuts the other way now: as coal plants shut down across Europe and North America, synthetic gypsum supply is shrinking. The drywall industry is facing a real raw material squeeze, with manufacturers having to shift back toward mined gypsum or find alternative sources. There's ongoing work on using phosphogypsum (from fertilizer production) but that comes with its own radioactivity concerns.
For someone in your position this is particularly relevant — the "wonder" of drywall is entangled with the fossil fuel economy in a way that makes earth-based construction methods look increasingly attractive as that supply chain unwinds.
This reminds me a bit of Hank Green's recent video on why we don't recycle plastic. The answer is we frack a lot of methane for electricity and ethane is a byporoduct of that. You can flare it off or use it as a negative cost ingredient for polyethane / many other plastics. As long as we're using lots of fossil fuels the byproducts will be cheap. Anyone who has played gregtech or factorio or similar already has an intuition for this. The answer then becomes simple: if you want less plastic you must use less fossil fuel. They are one and the same.
This is different—the cost of plastic goes up if fossil fuel consumption goes down because currently it uses a waste stream. Not sure if it’s true, but it’s different than my prior intuition about fossil fuel and plastic.
Exactly - a common understanding of fossil fuels is that we could just "use them for planes and plastics" but there would be an unexpected cost there - because the plastics are basically "free" waste products of processing for other needs.
It's similar to how car heaters work on waste heat from ICE and have to be accounted for in electric cars.
I used to work for a drywall manufacturer who still owned their own mines despite efforts to divest from them by some. They always viewed it as a structural advantage to still own them and not be wholly dependent on the coal plants (which effectively have conveyor belts going from the coal plants to the wallboard plants). I imagine as time goes on it'll become even more of an advantage for them to still own those mines as their competitors are forced to buy at highly inflated prices (or even from them) as coal shuts down.
Coal is expensive, but it's still cheaper than nuke and peaker thermal. If you want power fast and your state and federal government aren't worried about a few pesky environmental regulations you might see coal come back. Part of coals attraction is that it takes a lot of people to run a coal plant, and people need jobs. Those people vote and politicians like votes.
Then you would plunk down a gas turbine like everyone else. It's so much cheaper than coal to operate and uses mostly the same high capex / long-lead machinery. I could see the jobs program angle, but these are shitty jobs. It's not like working in an air conditioned mcdonald's. Workers die in mines a lot and when they don't they live shorter, less comfortable lives with disease.
I'm fine with arguing against coal for environmental reasons, but that won't convince anyone who isn't already convinced. It's always worth pointing out that gas turbines put out a lot less pollutants than coal.
Modern coal mining isn't that bad of a gig, especially surface mining (which a lot of coal is). I would certainly rather make a decent middle class wage hauling coal and support my family than work in an 'Air conditioned mcdonalds' and barely subsist in poverty.
You can make all the technical and environmental point you want. They are valid and they are largely irrelevant, at least for the purpose of achieving your stated outcome.
People want to be able to live a life with some amount of dignity and we've been so diligently eroding their ability to do so for the last 50 years that it's becoming an existential issue.
Jobs matter. If you want social progress, environmental progress, any kind of progress people need to be able to build a life where their children are better off than they were. Full stop.
Gas turbines require infrastructure the may not exist in the area yet, and significant capital outlays.
Like coal mining jobs or the like, if you’re stuck in Appalachia with 5 kids and it’s the only thing keeping you afloat, you’ll get pretty worked up if someone tells you ‘just don’t do that, duh’.
Solar is cheap and abundant during daytime. It has zero power at night. Coal/gas/nukes are more expensive, but runs 24/7. Batteries are getting cheaper, but are still not that cheap.
In areas where there are gas transmission lines, sure. Large portions of the country don’t have that infrastructure built out yet, but do have rail lines which provide coal.
It’s also a timing/capital issue.
It will change eventually, but in the meantime people need their kWh.
I’ve never seem any analysis of feasibility for LNG (probably what you’re referring too) vs pipeline NG for things like power plants. Do we even have sufficient liquifaction facilities for that type of volume? When I hear of that kind of thing, it’s almost always liquifying for export to places like Europe.
Batteries make that less true today than in the past. Solar/wind + batteries are becoming cost-competitive with coal for energy on most days (24x7).
24x7 every day of the year is much harder, though. Solar/wind + batteries are nowhere near cost competitive for reliability, though. You'd have to build a ridiculous (read: very uneconomical) multiple of typical battery capacity to make it through the long, cloudy, low-wind periods in the winter.
On the bright side, enhanced geothermal is starting to look like it may be economically competitive in the near future. If it pans out, it could repurpose a lot of the technology and labor force from the oil and gas industry to instead produce clean power. And who knows—maybe the current nuclear push will pan out and we'll have another option for reliable base load.
> the "wonder" of drywall is entangled with the fossil fuel economy in a way that makes earth-based construction methods look increasingly attractive as that supply chain unwinds.
I keep thinking of that scene in Brazil where the hero, Harry Tuttle, opens a modular wall panel in Sam's apartment.
We standardized on 16 inch stud spacing here in the US a long time ago when we likely still used cement with a plaster skim coat on wood lath. Cutting up a board of nearly the same stuff feels primitive. You have to break open the wall to fix things.
To me the next logical step is a standard for modular walls that are laid out on a grid structure. I get that no one wants exposed screw holes but I can think of ways to hide them or make them part of a decorative pattern to blend them in. The coverings would be made to be cut to size as well. Wall panels would have to be environmentally friendly so wood is a first choice in natural and/or composite forms.
If you think this will look boxy then look up the passive house and notes on home building. Homes with a winding structure are difficult to seal reliably and roof so a boxy home is actually more economically friendly in terms of insulation to reduce HVAC energy consumption.
We have exactly what you want - it's called shiplap or car siding.
It's wood that is nailed up in such a way that you can pretty easily remove and repair something and replace it.
However, inside wall things get done so rarely that the cost savings by using drywall more than covers paying someone to patch the drywall after a repair.
A middle ground is to run all utilities at the bottom or top of the wall, and use large baseboards/crown molding to cover it up.
The best is to build in such a way as to not have to fix them in the first place. European standards mandate passing all wiring through corrugated tubes. Builders add spare empty ones for future expansion, which makes it unnecessary to open the walls in most cases.
Having owned a couple European houses they’re horrible to alter and mediocre on energy. I miss nice adaptable wood structures. Bizarrely Europeans seem to think their cinderblock homes are nicer…
I've never wanted to adapt a house that significantly. But yeah, I much prefer the cinderblock homes and miss them. Something about the wood and drywall houses just feels incredibly cheap, and I don't like the aesthetic (de gustibus et coloribus..)
Houses change over time. A house could have been build in 1920 without a toilet or central heating. Then over time it got a fireplace on the second floor, an indoor toilet, indoor bathroom, then central heating with gas, extra insulation, a couple decades later double paned windows, hybrid heating with a heat pump, then full electric heating, underfloor heating, solar panels, home battery.
Houses change a lot over time, it is nice to be adaptable and not need to carve out stone and concrete every time you add a feature to a home.
The most beautiful homes I have been inside in Europe were wooden cabins in Sweden. The exposed wood ceiling beams, the unpainted wooden panels everywhere, the little details. I never had that with stone or brick buildings. Mainly because they got plastered and painted over, you almost never see the raw materials on the inside.
It's not the unavailability of trees. European countries have wisely decides that cities built of wooden houses are prone to massive fires. USians haven't learned that lesson and the Los Angeles fire isn't going to be the last one.
A yes, the wise Europeans like the Dutch who have homes in Amsterdam that are sinking into the ground due to rotting wooden beams sinking in swamp ground and homes in Groningen with cracks all over due to the earthquakes that came with pumping gas out of the ground.
Or the dozens of structures in Italy that came crashing down, like the various bridges over the past twenty years (250 bridge collapse events in Italy between January 2000 and July 2025).
Yes us Europeans are indeed superior and we never pick the wrong building material ever.
> To each their own I guess. I’ll happily move walls, add or remove a bathroom, add windows, etc.
A sign of the restlesness. Once you find a house to settle in, why would you need to change it ? European houses are typically versatile, US houses aren't due to having closets (which make a room's layout very inflexible) as well as electrical outlets being mandated exactly in the middle of the wall precisely where one would like to place furniture. US building codes are beyond stupid.
> Terrible carbon footprint for concrete too.
Carbon footprint is not that important. I want comfort. More specifically: if you are somewhat wealthy (in the top 10% of incomes, like most of the people here), in the continental Europe you can nowadays easily buy an apartment in a Passivhaus (or almost if renovated) building, with underfloor heating throughout the place, supplied by a geothermal heat pump, with triple-glazed windows and external covers that give you the utmost quietness even when there's traffic just outside. You can't get that in the US because even if you were willing to pay, there exist only a handful of construction companies that know how to build that, and they're all booked for years.
> I know modern structures are better but I also don’t entirely trust block in an earthquake. Obviously less of a concern in most (not all!) of Europe.
You can take a look at Japan. Modern buildings can withstand earthquakes. The issue in the US is that developers are allowed to just build without a civil engineer or architect designing the building. I wouldn't trust that either.
There are residential jurisdictions within USA that require metal conduit between jboxes (e.g. Chicagoland) — initially more expensive, but much easier to modify/update. Flexible plastic conduit doesn't seem to offer barely any more protection than a standard US NM sheathed cable.
As an electrician of two decades, my commonest USA gripes are these:
•) grounding wires should always have insulation, too (instead of just bare)
•) modern NM isn't protected enough (neither physically nor chemically)
•) jboxes should have better wire anchoring inside, and bigger in general
•) oldwork cut-in jboxes aren't substantial enough even perfectly installed for long-term use (if you screw them to an adjacent stud they're great, but this is against code for grounding reasons).
That means everything in your house is literally set in stone. Sometimes people want to redecorate, have plumbing in a different location or a TV on a different wall.
My father grew up in a home without central heating or an indoor toilet. Last time that home was listed on the market it had underfloor heating, two bathrooms, triple paned glass, an extension on the roof and various other modern amenities. Times change, houses should too. We are not longer pooping in an outhouse anymore.
I guess at one point people would wonder why you would want to poop inside the home, and call it "sometimes people want stupid things".
Eh, people have a terrible time renovating or adding anything in housing in Europe. A lot of construction doesn’t have those tubes.
It’s hard to articulate how wildly different habits are in Europe vs US around things like ‘what electrical appliances I have’ partially because of this.
Housing tends to be a lot smaller too, largely due to population density differences, but also overall differences in economic earning power and ease of buying things.
It's not any different from having to renovate a 40's house in the US. You'll have to redo all the plumbing and electrical system to current code. Corrugated tubes have been common since the 90s and mandatory shortly thereafter.
Most European housing is made of concrete, stone, or brick.
It absolutely is different from typical US housing, because unless you want to run surface mount everything (which most people don’t in residential), it’s an insane amount of work to run new anything.
‘40’s homes in the US, you typically just tear down to the studs, re-run new stuff, and throw up new drywall. Boom, done.
Unless you’re in a place that did block/brick etc like some of the big cities, then yeah it’s a nightmare there too.
I love exposed everything in construction. Every plumbing and electrical problem that required me to call someone involved the thing being hidden for aesthetic reasons.
I'm currently in an old house in Vietnam and I had to add exposed PVC piping to route around a leak inside a wall that was also feeding mold.
Half of the work involved each time I call someone is understanding the hidden stuff + getting stuff out of the way to see the hidden stuff.
"Engineering types" have built much of the world most of us actually live in. Yet a core piece of engineering——maintainability——is pathologically persistent.
My dad, who has been a carpenter for over 50 years used to rail against boxing in pipes.
"Once upon a time people were just glad to have running water, now it has to arrive by magic"
In his house there is a duct behind the skirting boards upstairs. You can fish a wire to most places from there.
His other pet hate was glued down cupboard flooring. Squeaky floors were a common complaint in new houses. It was normally caused by not levelling the first floor joists properly (levelling the tops is the correct way), and just dropping them on the walls. The solution industry came up with was to glue the tounges and grooves together, and later to glue the boards to the joists as well. This is a big problem if you need to take up the floor for a leaking pipe. Whereas before you just cut the tongue of a board with a circular saw, pulled it up, and put a noggin under the joint, now you have to destroy a board, and try and buy a similar one
Interesting comment with worthwhile content, but the writing style strongly smells of ChatGPT, and the phrase "For someone in your position" is incongruous (who is being addressed?). Did you use it, and if so, would you mind sharing the prompt?
They're a founder of a startup doing this kind of thing, realistically they probably copied blurb per-prepared marketing blurb or something they sent to someone else.
yeah, so the turn in EU towards renewable energy is driving fwd the business of earthen construction. our core (validated) product is printing earthen acoustic barriers at ~4-5m3/hr. panels from loam are a great alternative to gypsum; due to the hygrothermic characteristics of earth the moisture content is stabilised (constant in a ~50-55% bandwidth) which is a massive advantage in view of traditional materials. and fully circular. I'm a developer of pythonocc and tesseract-nanobind, and take pleasure in augmenting my thinking with a dash of ai.
There are 4 paragraphs and three of them have emdashes. You may use emdashes, but you use them orders of magnitude less frequently than current AI models.
I don’t know about other countries, but in New Zealand there’s already recycling of leftover bits of drywall (we call it ‘gib board’ after a brand name). All the big building companies will accept leftover bits of gib board, but small bits can be thrown directly in your garden beds to help break up clay.
I think LaTeX set out to be a decent typesetter (in the sense if the profession) for books.
With human typesetting already becoming a rare profession LaTeX turned out to be the better typesetter for almost everyone in the 90s. Also InDesign came along and fulfilled that promise well for the other half of the market that had money but no inclination to work the WYSIWYM way. This lead to LaTeX' big success in the academic world.
I think typst can't hold a candle to any of the two when it comes to the previous flagship
discipline of setting narrow columns of fully justified and hyphenated[1] text utilizing microtypography to equalize the grey value.
I do not know what the plans for typst are, but I think it will
have a niche even if it will
never come to par with LaTeX and InDesign.
Their capabilities are a thing for old style physical books and not even for what we call books now.
Full justification is as dead as narrow columns and hyphenation. 30 years of web changed our reading habits. What we think of books now is mostly meant to be readable on a screen.
I also think scientific papers should adapt to that fact. Of course without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Being able to share papers as self-contained files is a big plus and high quality math typesetting is a must.
Columnar and fully justified serif text on the other hand is just baggage.
If typst can be the accessible tool for scientific publication that'd be fantastic. If it gains enough legacy features to
replace LaTeX completely even better.
[1] Especially when it comes to languages with long words and complicated hyphenation rules like German.
P.S. Unironically always enjoyed TeX and LaTeX. Enjoy typst too, just not as a full (La)TeX replacement (yet).
Do you think it is sufficiently respectful of TeX/LaTeX?
As far as proponents go, I will echo the sentiments of many people who have actually used both TeX and Typst: I have been able to accomplish many things in Typst within an hour or two by writing my own Typst code, that in LaTeX I could only accomplish after several days by cargo-culting indecipherable gibberish from years-old forum posts. I freely admit Typst can't (yet) match LaTeX's long-tail package ecosystem, but it is much more pleasant to use and easier to reason about.
I posted that link here earlier last month[0] and even I think the comment was off putting because it's off topic and just a way to put something down. "The link you posted is becoming increasingly irrelevant" doesn't seem to add much to the conversation. To the extent that it does add something (ie. comparison of typst and Tex/LaTex) it could be phrased very differently. The way it is written now also invites similarly phrased criticism the other way as seen in other replies. I agree typst is much more pleasant to write. Also yes I doubt the typst developers would call LaTex irrelevant. In fact the author specifically points out ways the Tex currently outperforms typst. (Not to imply you stated otherwise.)
>in LaTeX I could only accomplish after several days by cargo-culting indecipherable gibberish from years-old forum posts
To learn basic use of LaTeX, takes an afternoon. To understand the language fully takes "effortful learning" like any other programming language.
I believe the difference is that Typst is effectively a scripting language, not much different than many popular ones like Javascript and Python. If you already known the basics of some programming languages this allows you transfer them very easily and start writing your own scripts very quickly. You also don't need to fully understand the language to do this, the basics will mostly be enough.
In comparison Latex has a very particular way of doing computations that you will have to learn from scratch, and even then it won't be as easy or intuitive. The fact that Latex relies so much on packages for many things also means that you will have to learn their details and intricacies when trying to do interoperate with them, which makes this even more complex.
I'm ignorant of Typst. But you're missing an important problem with Latex. Packages are really fragile. The most important property of a programming language is compositionality, and Latex has so little of that that I'm generally afraid of picking up packages because I've wasted so many hours trying to get them to play nice.
I still use Latex because of the output quality and the sunk cost..but we can clearly do better
You're right, people submitting for academic publications will still need to use LaTeX until those institutions change their practices.
If that group comprises the vast majority of people who might have a use for a programmatic typesetting environment, and if the use of LaTeX by academic institutions represents current, expert insight about LaTeX's continued superiority and not simply organizational inertia, then Typst is irrelevant and pointless.
Long term user of LaTeX. I did try Typst and it has is advantages main one it compiles faster. I am sticking with LaTeX and I don't find it difficult to use, write packages and classes, as I did invest the time to understand it and learn the language. Academic institutions, understand its superiority and also want to protect their archives. Maths has a long shelf-life. LaTeX also has a very good civilized community. LaTeX as it stands now has no comparative competitor.
What about my of decades worth of snippets, custom commands, templates for all the journals, my bib files, and of course my published works that I borrow pieces from? I should replace that with something nonfree that I have to learn from scratch? Howabout you do you?
Does typst support the standard Tex math notation? I understand that a lot of effort went into doing math different - and probably better - than Tex, but I'm just very used to the Tex notation.
It doesn't, which IMO was a stupid decision. TeX math notation isn't even that bad, and making Typst compatible with it would've gone a long way towards adoption. It's currently unusable for me because in order to actually use it for something I need to first find time to re-learn everything.
Strict to the extent that they actually expect latex, not just something that looks like latex. So unless typst is willing to output latex, which they are not, it will never work.
no the depth of graphics API's in latex is really something, and an area that is underdeveloped in typst. it'll take a considerable time for typst to be on par.
The compiler is FOSS under a permissive license Apache 2.0). Only the online editor, similar to Overleaf, is not Open Source. Please check the facts before hitting reply.
yes, it does and its realtime.
personally, I use typst locally, but
the online editor utilises WASM, so if I'm not mistaken, the rendering is real-time and handled by the front-end.
no, I pointed towards the joy of writing in a proper IDE.
but to your point: overleaf is a key enabler of latex and its cool to see typst offers a similar route
It's not like NATO did any major nation building in Afghanistan or Iraq, at least nowhere near close to post-WW2 Germany... so in that point he did keep his promise. The entire world lost out as a result of that - there is a direct link from the failures in Afghanistan and Iraq to the Russian invasion into Ukraine.
There's a whole lot more direct link between the appeasement of Russia at the 2008 NATO summit to the invasions of Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014), but I suppose Iraq and Afghanistan are distantly relevant.
I'd argue for the following chain: the failure of NATO in Afghanistan and US+allies in Iraq to (re)build a democratic nation led to a rise of radical Islamism. That in turn led to the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war, causing not just a truckload of effort for Europe to deal with the refugees on top of those we already had from Afghanistan, but especially Assad was left free to ignore any and all "red lines", especially the 2012 warning of Obama against chemical weapons usage [1], and Russia itself was allowed to act with impunity as well.
Then came the 2014 invasion of Russia in Crimea - IMHO a direct "test bed" to see if the Western nations were willing to step up this time, and they didn't despite Russia literally shooting a passenger plane out of the sky. Syria completely exploded, and Russia slowly kept increasing the pressure on Ukraine. Had covid not happened, Russia would have invaded some time in 2020 to take over Ukraine, but the pandemic derailed their plans.
Russia, sometime in or before 2008: “by infiltration or by force, we are going to force Georgia and then Ukraine to submit. But there is talk of NATO admitting them, starting with MAPs potentially as early as the 2008 summit, so step one is get NATO not do that.”
Russia (to NATO, in advance of 2008 summit): “Don't offer Georgia and Ukraine MAPs, it would, um, destabilize the region and, uh, make it more likely that we'd feel it necessary to invade.”
NATO: “Seems a little paranoid, but, sure, we like stability. Georgia and Ukraine, we really like the idea of you guys joining some day, but no membership action plan or security commitments for now.”
Russia: (invades Georgia almost immediately).
Russia: (Gets friendly leadership in Ukraine in 2010)
Russia: (loses friendly leadership in Ukraine 2014)
Russia: (invades Ukraine immediately)
> Then came the 2014 invasion of Russia in Crimea - IMHO a direct "test bed" to see if the Western nations were willing to step up this time, and they didn't despite Russia literally shooting a passenger plane out of the sky.
I mean, they actually did, which is a big reasons why Ukrainr's forces were in a better condition when Russia launched the wider invasion in 2022 than they had been in 2014 (Ukraine made a lot of its own investment, but they also got a lot of Western aid, both material and training, throughout the war starting not long after the 2014 invasion, though not much lethal aid was sent before 2021.)
I agree my explanation is more expansive and complex than yours - but that doesn't make either of our theories less valid IMHO. You're focused on the direct links with Russia, while I focus more on the interconnectedness of geopolitics - there would have been ample cheap opportunities in the past to prevent expensive and deadly disasters in the future.
> NATO: “Seems a little paranoid, but, sure, we like stability. Georgia and Ukraine, we really like the idea of you guys joining some day, but no membership action plan or security commitments for now.”
I think you missed in your summary that NATO promised to review their decision in December 2008 [1]. Summit was in April 2008, Russia invaded in August 2008.
The "appeasement" of Russia is just following international norms, set in the 2000s when the world adopted a policy of acceptance towards the US's rampages through the middle east. The US is hip deep in a swamp of hypocrisy on this topic.
It'd be better if we had a consistent "no invasions" policy around the globe; but that would involve leading global powers holding themselves to that standard.
The did an enormous amount of nation-building. Billions and billions and billions of dollars over multiple decades. It was just a complete and utter failire.
The book “The Afghanistan Papers” covers the US’s misguided efforts there well.
When second- and third-world countries invade and enrich their military sectors: corrupt government enriching their oligarch class. When the US does it: aww shucks, tried our best but failed to build a democracy again.
> It's not like NATO did any major nation building in Afghanistan or Iraq, at least nowhere near close to post-WW2 Germany... so in that point he did keep his promise.
What? So he carried out nation building in 2 countries rather than 1 and that means he kept his 'no nation building' promise? What kind of logic is that?
> The entire world lost out as a result of that - there is a direct link from the failures in Afghanistan and Iraq to the Russian invasion into Ukraine.
I don't think most of the world cares one bit if europe burns or not. Heck if we had a vote, most of the world would vote for europe buring given europe's monstrous treatment of 'most of the world'.
> What? So he carried out nation building in 2 countries rather than 1 and that means he kept his 'no nation building' promise?
He didn't carry out "nation building". Blasted both countries to pieces and left them mostly alone with reconstruction, didn't install any oversight mechanism against corruption or other issues (such as the "military" serially raping young local boys in Afghanistan) by the local sham governments, and instead funneled insane amounts of money into military "contractors". Zero perspective for the people to make a living, zero incentive to not just go to the Taliban or whatever other warlord.
I don't even have anything against the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq per se, freeing people from dictatorships is a worthy goal in itself, but come on, if you want something sustainable you have to invest into more than guns, ammo and fortress walled gardens for Western embassies and army outposts.
Want to see what "nation building" looks like, look at post-WW2 Germany. A decades long occupation, with serious oversight to make sure that what caused the war never appears again.
> I don't think most of the world cares one bit if europe burns or not.
Skyrocketing prices for food and fuel affect everyone.
> The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality
This is not true. The 'neutrals' were not even granted the honor of a place in one of the circles of hell.
'These souls are forever unclassified; they are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron. Naked and futile, they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner (symbolic of their pursuit of ever-shifting self-interest) while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets, who continually sting them'
And they certainly weren't anywhere near the hottest places in hell. If we are to assume the lowest circles to be the hottest then it would be the lowest part of the 8th circle which housed the falsiers and counterfeiters. The 9th circle, which housed satan, was actually a frozen lake. While we think satan is burning in hell, he's actually freezing in hell according to dante.
> 'The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality"
I think with a hindsight of history, my view is different:
'The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who push people into active enmity claiming a moral crisis'
The Thirty Years War was a result of this and never needed to have happened.
More recently, and dealing with Kennedy, the Vietnam War was result of this kind of thinking. (Domino theory and that unless we opposed every single advance of communism the entire world would fall and be plunged into darkness).
The Cultural Revolution was another manifestation of this kind of thinking.
Someone, much wiser than both Dante and Kennedy once said: "Blessed are the peacemakers".
EDIT:
And even prior to Dante's time, there were the Crusades, where in the name of a "moral crisis", people were mobilized, and great atrocities were committed and much death and destruction resulted.
The sheer irony of you citing the vietnam war, which for the americans, was literally defending a nation against an unprovoked invasion, hurts my brain.
The Vietnam war, or at least the fighting that us Americans refer to by that name, was started by the sovereign state of North Vietnam invading the sovereign state of South Vietnam and ended when America (and allies) stopped defending the state of South Vietnam and North Vietnam conquered it.
You can make all sorts of arguments as to whether or not it was moral to partition the original state of Vietnam into two separate states or whether it was moral for America to be involved at any point, but I'd make the general argument that the state starting a war with a literal invasion is rarely the moral party in such situations.
The vietnamese won their war of independence against france ( aka first indochina war). Then the US stepped in to protect 'european colonial interests' gave the southern half of vietnam to france with the promise that the vietnamese people will have a vote. When polls showed southern vietnamese were overwhelming for reunification with the north, we renegged on our promise and did not allow a vote. And hence the 2nd indochina war happened.
> The Vietnam war, or at least the fighting that us Americans refer to by that name, was started by the sovereign state of North Vietnam invading the sovereign state of South Vietnam
The vietnam war was the US fighting the Viet Cong. Do you know who the viet cong was? They were SOUTH vietnamese. The vietnam war wasn't the US fighting north vietnam. It was the US fighting south vietnamese freedom fighters.
The Vietnam War was definitely involving the North Vietnamese military, PAVN, what? Just because the Viet Cong in the South was involved doesn't mean the North Vietnamese were twiddling their thumbs.
> When polls showed southern vietnamese were overwhelming for reunification with the north, we renegged on our promise and did not allow a vote. And hence the 2nd indochina war happened.
Which is why the south fielded close to a million man army and the north had to murder several hundred thousand south Vietnamese when they won the war? They just wanted to reunify peacefully so badly?
> Which is why the south fielded close to a million man army
What does this have to do with the fact that most south vietnamese wanted reunification? You mean governments are able to pay poor men to sign up for wars? Shocking.
So we are agreed that the south vietnamese wanted to vote for reunification and the US renegged on that vote. Nothing else matters. That's the crux of the problem.
> and the north had to murder several hundred thousand south Vietnamese when they won the war?
But most of the south vietnamese military supported the north. Especially towards the end of the war. If your assertion was true, then how evil must the US truly be to allow hundred of thousands of soldiers to be murdered? Oh wait, you are just making shit up. And if the north was murdering hundreds of thousands of south vietnamese soldiers, there would have been an uprising. Oh wait, there was no uprising. Stop making things up.
> They just wanted to reunify peacefully so badly?
Yes. It's why the vietnamese agreed to the partition. They foolishly expected that the US ( the self-proclaimed defender of democracy and freedom ) was negotiating in good faith. Hopefully the vietnamese learned their lesson.
You are outright lying about basic historical facts. Not sure why you expected to get away with it. Especially here.
>The Viet Cong were able to pay those poor men too, but the vast majority of them chose to fight for and to be paid by the south.
If this is true why couldn't the South beat the North, or at least defend itself on its own? After the US left the South Vietnamese folded pretty quickly.
> So we are agreed that the south vietnamese wanted to vote for reunification and the US renegged on that vote. Nothing else matters. That's the crux of the problem
Just to be clear, my argument is that launching an invasion of the south was an immoral act.
It doesn't necessarily justify any immoral actions by america (or anyone else) but vice versa it's extremely hard to justify launching an invasion.
One side can honestly claim that because they other side said they would replace the entire government with stooges who could be "informed" what the constitution means by a man who doesn't even read briefs whose stooges would refuse to accept any vote that didn't affirm his parties control.
It also doesn't hurt that he said he would send red state militias into blue states to collect millions of migrants to be herded into concentration camps.
They have been running on destroying America while calling it saving it for 8 years. Meanwhile in their I know you are but what am I press strategy they are claiming that the other side is somehow destroying America despite all evidence to the contrary despite the only existential threat presented by business as usual being the widening gulf between their deranged super fans and the normals.
I think on one extreme you have the failures of neutrality that contributed to WW2, and on the other you have trumped up "moral crises" that characterized much of the Cold War.
Arguably, the reason the Nazis came to power was that a great many right-leaning German voters looked at their options and thought "this Hitler guy seems pretty crazy, but that'll probably cook off, so long as he helps us beat the communists", which is a special kind of neutrality that people can never seem to shake free of.
I get what Kennedy was responding to, his sin was in failing to understand (just like the German right) that "leftist" != Stalinist/Maoist, and that a communist takeover need not look like the October Revolution, and the regime need not look like Russia ca. 1935, nor China ca. 1960.
> I think on one extreme you have the failures of neutrality that contributed to WW2, and on the other you have trumped up "moral crises" that characterized much of the Cold War.
I don't know that I would characterize giving pieces of another country to the Germans as "neutrality".
As much heat as Neville gets for his policy of appeasement (deserved or otherwise), I'm not sure Britain was in a position to stop Germany by force anyway. American neutrality is certainly open to criticism, and I think America's performative neutrality is why American companies like IBM ended up in such pivotal roles during the Holocaust.
That said, I am referring specifically to the "this Hitler guy probably isn't so bad" phenomenon that happened inside Germany and Austria. It was a dramatic failure to take a stand against Nazism, by middle class people whose neutrality on the persecution of untermenschen was motivated by a fear of losing their economic position (and the perceived economic opportunity of seizing the persecuted's assets. That is where the "socialism" in national socialism comes from, by the way), which overrode their ability to see all the violence and hatred that the Nazis wore on their sleeves. Its very similar to the neutrality of the Swiss during the same period of time.
> I think on one extreme you have the failures of neutrality that contributed to WW2, and on the other you have trumped up "moral crises" that characterized much of the Cold War.
I would guess for every moral WWII, there are 10 (if not 100) other wars that use the language of WWII and result in a complete waste of lives and money and cause far more problems than they solve.
WW2 wasn’t a war about morals/a moral war, it was a war of hunger and greed vs self preservation. Just like most.
If it wasn’t that way, Dresden and Tokyo would never have been firebombed. No one thought those missions were moral or good. they were in the service of annihilating the enemy for survival.
That isn't how that sort of thinking is ever used in politics. If politicians start using language of "you've got to pick a side on this one!" it usually hints they're about to do something stupid. Occasionally evil.
The world is just too large and complicated for anything to ever boil down to just two sides. We can pretend it does for rhetorical purposes because otherwise political conversation gets hard; but it is important to leave space for the large group of neutrals who in all honesty probably have accurate interpretations of any given issue.
The truth is often close to one side or the other. Believing that is never the case is radical centrism, and leads to the absurdity where one can't decide between siding with the Jews or with the Nazis. I'd hope everyone sides with the Jews in that particular conflict, which isn't the same as saying they have to agree with every single thing every Jewish person ever does.
> The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who push people into active enmity claiming a moral crisis
This statement usually implies that people who act according to a moral framework that isn’t “Live with the minimum amount of intrusion to other people’s lives” are doing wrong. I personally don’t buy that.
When they are told, “Do not spread corruption in the land,” they reply, “We are only peace-makers!”
Indeed, it is they who are the corruptors, but they fail to perceive it.
I think there is some moral clarity in the Ukraine situation. There was simply no good reason to attack Ukraine. I understand that the Russians may be worried about the NATO expansion but that doesn’t justify to lead such a war.
This is just a lie. They funded and armed separatists in this area which predictably led to armed conflict. When the conflict they started shed blood they had pretense to intervene. There was NEVER a genocide against ethnic Russians just a fight they started.
It appears that only Russia could prevent or end the conflict. On the territory that Russia controls they have build concentration camps to torture and murder the insufficiently loyal as they set about grinding their cities to dust their people to gore and erasing a culture and a people.
It seems like ceding any territory now would lead to further conflict soon both in Ukraine and elsewhere based on both recent history and Russias statements.
Furthermore it would abandon those in these territories to privation and mass murder same as the soviets perpetrated against them in the past.
You forgot the best part. Satan has 3 faces and each face has a mouth. One mouth is continuously chewing judas, another mouth is chewing brutus and the third is chewing cassius. For eternity.
It's a great book, but it really shows how christianity ( or religion in general ) is glorified fan fiction.
I don't think Dante's inferno is actually part of anyone's religious beliefs. Everyone does and always has regarded it as a work of fiction. It's not a reflection on Christianity.
Robotic wire cutting for architectural purposes has been a relevant innovation.
That process is an order of magnitude more effective: you're cutting with a wire rather then a chipping a way with a milling bit. With a wire you're cutting 2 faces at a time, which is an important advantage over milling.
These diamond wires are also used for quarrying the stone.
The BRG Group at ETH Zürich has delivered some stunning project exploring a modern take on stereotomic / stone construction, both in terms of fabrication and engineering
Insulation is about retaining heat.
In the netherlands there's been too much emphasis on heat retention in houses built over the last ~15 yrs or so -- these houses are uncomfortable during the summer, since retaining too much heat. Another interesting take is that "passive" houses require heaps of mechanical ventilation, and these systems wear out in ~15-20 yrs.
So over the course of the lifespan of a house, that adds up significantly.
Stone actually can work well with the proper detailing (dealing with cold bridging, styrofoam is a good way to break the cold bridging ):
Heat Storage: Stone, being a dense and heavy material, has a high thermal mass capacity. It can absorb and store a significant amount of heat during the day when exposed to sunlight or internal heat sources like heating systems. This stored heat is gradually released back into the indoor space during cooler periods, such as evenings or nights, helping to stabilize indoor temperatures and reduce heating or cooling requirements.
Temperature Regulation: The thermal mass of stone can act as a natural temperature regulator, slowing down temperature fluctuations within a building. During hot summer days, stone absorbs excess heat, keeping indoor spaces cooler. In colder weather, it releases stored heat, helping to maintain a more comfortable and consistent temperature.
Energy Efficiency: By using stone as a thermal mass material, buildings can reduce their reliance on mechanical heating and cooling systems. This, in turn, can lead to significant energy savings and lower utility bills, as the building naturally regulates its temperature with less energy input.
Passive Solar Design: Stone can be strategically placed in a building's design to maximize its exposure to sunlight during the day. This allows for efficient passive solar heating, where the stone absorbs solar energy and releases it slowly, reducing the need for active heating systems.
The issue here is that all the nice heat storage effects you're talking about assume that the heating is radiant based. Most new heating systems are moving to forced air thermal pumps.
It seems a bizarre statement to state that OpenCASCADE isn't fully capable. Its the only OS licensed kernel that'll read a STEP file. Also "modern foundation" is a misleading statement, any CAD kernel bearing any kind of relevance seems implying a codebase that's been around for a quarter century. Like it or not OpenCASCADE is the hand that was dealt. I've worked with the technology [1] extensively and it provided the underpinnings for a startup I've founded [2]. pythonocc is the bees knees, it allows you to develop a proper CAD app.
I'd consider CGAL a modern kernel, but it doesn't cover CAD since there is no BRep support [4]
Don't take my word for it, but see also the many publications that have built on the tech [3]
Wondering why no BRep support means it is not a CAD. It seems that OpenVSP doesn't use BRep but uses parametric surface [1]. I wonder if mesh-based modeling + some constraints solving will get you a CAD, or are there other requirements that I don't know? I only work on mesh processing library on my free-time and I don't know much about BRep.
To be clear - I do think OpenCascade is impressive. Incredibly so, once one becomes aware of the magnitude of the problem it is trying to solve. I will also admit I haven't used it in the past couple of years, but when I did it's limitations in filleting and chamfering alone were enough to make it a non-starter for industry use.
My broader point was that there is a need to start from a new paradigm that leverages the possibilities of modern, highly parallel computing hardware. The hardware requirements for performant and reliable CAD software are incredibly high, and their reliance on high clock speed single core processors is quickly being left behind by modern processing hardware.
It does seem a bit of a throwaway statement regarding OCCT - I also work with it every day and, for the most part, it has all the same eccentricities and limitations of any large heritage-listed C++ library. There's a lot it can do!
its actually a hard problem: the massive boom that's required to provide reach is inherently quite unstable, not in the mm or cm but we're talking decimeters here. some of the core tech of FBR dating back ~15 yrs addresses this kind of dynamic stabilization. FBR is impressive and they've built decent an IP.
The "cheap, uniform, and free of defects" story is partly a story about coal. The drywall industry scaled on the back of an abundant, nearly free waste stream from the energy sector. It's a classic example of industrial symbiosis — one industry's pollution abatement becomes another's feedstock.
And it cuts the other way now: as coal plants shut down across Europe and North America, synthetic gypsum supply is shrinking. The drywall industry is facing a real raw material squeeze, with manufacturers having to shift back toward mined gypsum or find alternative sources. There's ongoing work on using phosphogypsum (from fertilizer production) but that comes with its own radioactivity concerns.
For someone in your position this is particularly relevant — the "wonder" of drywall is entangled with the fossil fuel economy in a way that makes earth-based construction methods look increasingly attractive as that supply chain unwinds.
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