One question I have about the recycling aspect you brought up:
Do you think this way of recycling is actually more efficient than on a larger scale?
E.g. would it be more efficient to gather worn kimono from more people and make cleaning cloths from it?
Or did I understand you wrong?
From what I understood, you are saying that the old way of doing it was better, but I cannot help but feel, that some things are better on a larger scale.
For me the problem with modern recycling is more the frequency and the percentage that is actually recycled, not the scale it is done at.
Maybe the scale contributes to the percentage problem, but I cannot imagine the frequency being caused by it.
The frequency to me seems to be caused by the marketing and the general mindset to always have the newest, shiniest toys, or to stay on clothing: fashion trends.
To your first point, I agree that some people seem to be dismissing an entire comment based on one small remark.
Do you think the system being a feudal one contributes to the way recycling and consumption was done?
To me it has more to do with the poverty and making due, what you have.
This cycles back to reusing things you already used beyond their lifespan.
I cannot imagine an interaction that is born solely of the governmental system, but please share your viewpoint.
Also: I don't think your viewpoint is too extreme. We should learn from our history and maybe we could even derive ways to move forward.
I'll answer you last question first because I think it's the source of confusion. My intent was to say that despite the Edo period of Japan being feudal, Europeans documenting the period were surprised to find that people were surprisingly happy in their poverty. I wasn't intending to say that feudalism contributed positively. I suppose it's an interesting question now that I think about it, but I don't really know the answer.
I think you are right that many of the things that are admired about the Edo period has to do with what's called "mottainai" in Japanese. In English you might say "Waste not want not". However there is more to it than that.
One of the things you might consider is that it is more efficient to use new cloth than old cloth -- because the industry is geared towards it. As you say, you can scale the industry towards making lots of new clothes cheaply. If you make clothes from old clothes, then it is not cheap. You need someone to do it. Similarly, if you recycle old cotton for new futons, it's a labour intensive process.
Maybe one day we'll have robots to do all of those things, but the attractive part of the idea is that it is a craft. It is precisely because it is not efficient that it is desirable. It provides a job. And it is more expensive. And people have less money and so there is less growth. But people have meaningful jobs doing crafts that they care about. So, is it actually less growth? It really depends on how we measure growth.
My cupboards are currently full of dishes I hate. I mean, it's really true. I bought them at the 100 yen store when I moved back to Japan most recently because they were place holders for when I had time to buy something I liked. But, actually, I think this was a mistake. I should have bought things I liked and done without if I couldn't find something. A bowl will last a lifetime. It will last several lifetimes. Why are we making bowls over and over and over again? Why are we not making bowls to make up for the extra population and then basically having people trade up to nicer bowls. Nobody I know has nice bowls. And yet if I go to the "recycle" shops (used goods which are mostly filled with stuff that they picked up from estate sales), I can get truly wonderful pieces for nearly the same price as the junk I got at the 100 yen store. How is that possible? Because we're optimising our processes for the wrong kind of growth (IMHO).
I often buy canned coffee (because I'm a lazy sod). I can't help but think what the process is. I want coffee. What's the first thing I need? Aluminium. Because I'm going to smelt me a can. And the can costs about 10 cents of the $1.20 that the coffee costs me (my friend actually engineers the machines that make the cans -- I asked him). So it costs "nothing". But isn't that kind of crazy? Why am I creating a can for such a transitory experience? And don't get me wrong -- the can is a thing of beauty. In the Edo period, I bet you could trade one for a house! But... I don't really need it. And this can, that is a problem for me when I can't throw it out accounts for just under 10% of the economic growth that happens when I drink the coffee. But I don't need it. I'm just lazy.
> Do Chromebooks actively block you from installing another browser?
I don't have one. If it's sufficiently harder, like it was in the Microsoft IE antitrust case, there may be an argument there. IANAL but I think an antitrust lawsuit would have to show they have majority marketshare too.
> Or would Google have to provide a "supported" way to install other browsers?
I don't how ChromeOS works. Is Chrome the OS? If so they might have more of an argument than, say, Microsoft, since Windows existed before IE and it was clear IE was not integral to the base system.
Still, now we have pretty easy to install flavors of Linux, which is another difference between now and 2001 when Microsoft settled their case.
> I don't how ChromeOS works. Is Chrome the OS? If so they might have more of an argument than, say, Microsoft, since Windows existed before IE and it was clear IE was not integral to the base system.
It is essentially a really light Linux Distribution with Chrome running on top of it. But I have no clue, how hard or easy it would be for Google to allow a package manager or something to work.
As I said, they do not actively block you from installing crouton, which allows you to use any browser, but I don't know, if that would help with an antitrust lawsuit.
With the ~3 times of thrust from the Raptor engines, do you think they will move to a "Falcon-3" design with 3 Raptor engines?
Because that would decrease the redundancy, right?
With Falcon-9 you would lose 2/9 of thrust if you turn off the mirrored engine in the best case.
In a Falcon-3 scenario, you would lose at least 1/3 for middle engine failure or 2/3 for a side engine failure.
Interesting question. I really don't know what their plan would be, but it's worth noting that even with the Merlins, they land with only one of nine Merlins at its lowest thrust. And even then, it delivers more thrust than its weight, meaning it can't hover. That's why landings are so difficult for them. They have to fire the engine at the exact right time, or else they'll just blast off again (or land too hard).
The numbers I could find said minimum thrust of Merlin is 360 kN. The stat sheet for Raptor showed minimum thrust of 20%, which works out to 610 kN. So with a single engine at minimum thrust, they'd need to either come in even harder than the Falcon 9 currently does, or find a new method of propulsive landing.
More relevant to your question, a 3 engine configuration doesn't allow firing a single engine because there'd be no middle engine like the Falcon 9 has. You'd need at least 4 to have symmetry and a centre engine.
Oh, he clearly stated that lives would be at risk for the first flights. I can only imagine the contracts you have to sign, when signing up. If those people do not read them, you cannot blame Musk.
Yes! Just started full time work and I have little enough free time as it is. But I've been very stressed the past couple of months so maybe it will be alright to unwind for a couple weeks or so after work. I might download it during the weekend, heard too many good things about Witcher 3.
The filter hqdn3d is what you want. Note that the defaults are for noisy video, so unless you have a really noisy source you'll want to use lower settings. I've seen hqdn3d=4:4:3:3 as a good place to start, and you can tune the numbers (lower is more noise, less blur, higher is less noise, more blur). In addition, the default values for each parameter is scaled based upon the previous value(s), so you can be lazy and just pass one or two values to get a coarse idea of the strength you want.
If the videos are to be played back on a player that supports video filters, you can add some noise back in on decode, which is particularly useful for non-HD sources as your eyes will often interpret noise as detail. Back in the h.263 days I used to do this as 1) h.263 was much worse than 264 or 265 and handling noise and 2) disk space was more expensive, so I couldn't just up the bitrate. I still have some vlc settings that can do that for playing old DVD rips. Today, unless you plan on streaming the video, I would recommend just upping the bitrate and using conservative enough denoise settings to not need it.
From what I understood, you are saying that the old way of doing it was better, but I cannot help but feel, that some things are better on a larger scale.
For me the problem with modern recycling is more the frequency and the percentage that is actually recycled, not the scale it is done at. Maybe the scale contributes to the percentage problem, but I cannot imagine the frequency being caused by it.
The frequency to me seems to be caused by the marketing and the general mindset to always have the newest, shiniest toys, or to stay on clothing: fashion trends.
To your first point, I agree that some people seem to be dismissing an entire comment based on one small remark. Do you think the system being a feudal one contributes to the way recycling and consumption was done? To me it has more to do with the poverty and making due, what you have. This cycles back to reusing things you already used beyond their lifespan. I cannot imagine an interaction that is born solely of the governmental system, but please share your viewpoint.
Also: I don't think your viewpoint is too extreme. We should learn from our history and maybe we could even derive ways to move forward.