Wants to be on a boat

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • I would argue the difference between modern bikes and old bikes for short to medium commutes (<1 hr) is immaterial. I have commuted on a carbon racing bike, an aluminum gravel bike (~£500) and a ~40 year old steel road bike I got for £20. Of course the carbon bike is very light and fast, but it has a massively greater ecological and financial cost. The aluminium gravel bike is pretty nice to ride, but not significantly different to the steel bike, which I actually find more comfortable on the road. The rotors on the gravel bike will soon need to be replaced, and that will probably be £100. I would agree with you that some modern components are better, notably corrosion resistant chains and puncture-resistant tyres. I would disagree on repair costs, in my experience, a repair at a shop in my city will cost at least £30 for something very simple like a new chain (which I can fit myself for less), and a while ago I had to pay £60 to replace a Di2 cable that got severed. (It went through the BB and I don’t have the tools to take out and refit a BB).


  • I’m not arguing against a strawman, I’m arguing against an extreme case. In the city where I live, people buying loads of fancy new expensive bikes to seem “eco-friendly” is large. The number of high-end bike shops is large. Repair costs are extreme; £60 for a medium job. This is of course, a predominantly white, affluent city. I regularly see new gravel and commuter bikes (the latest trend) manufactured by the likes of Specialized, Trek, Canyon. These cost in the region of £1000 ± 200. I agree that there is not mass migration away from standard parts yet, but I am worried that that is the direction the cycling industry wants to take. There is already an explosion of different cassette standards, meaning you need unique tools to change many of the new cassettes. Disk brakes add complexity and expense, and your average commuter bike arguably does not need disk brakes, they are just a shiny addition to make it more marketable. My argument is against the increase of these expensive bikes, fancy parts and brands that produce them, as it just pushes people away from cycling and the ecological and health benefits it can bring.






  • China is already working on the software part of chip design, and they have domestic capability to produce 14nm chips (SMIC) that is using ASML machines though. (But the US cannot take them away, only stop them buying more). I’m sure they are considering building their own fabrication machines. I fully believe China is capable of domesticating the whole fabrication process given some time. China was able to design and build their own domestic computer in the cold war, a few years after the US, but taking less total time than the US did. China is the world’s leading productive superpower, and what I think is most important, is they have a culture of teamwork, rather than competition, to drive innovation.


  • I don’t think one can really compare an iphone + iOS to an “Android” phone. Iphone is a specific matching of hardware and software in one neat package. Android on the other hand is a baseline OS that most phone manufacturers modify a great deal. To me it makes more sense then to compare an iphone to your Samsung with OneUI, or a Xiaomi with MiUi, or a pixel with googles pixel os. There is almost as much difference (on the user side) between those android-based devices as there is between any of them and an iphone. It doesn’t really make sense to me as a comparison. Regarding your qualm about animations, I recently had to use an iphone for a few minutes and I was appalled at how slow the animations are. It felt like it took nearly a whole second to switch tabs on safari or open the settings drawer. On my pixel with graphene os, I have changed the animation speed to be much faster, and it takes maybe a quarter of a second to do those same actions. Ofc I didn’t time anything but the iOS animations felt like slow motion compared to my phone. I don’t know much about iOS, but I assume it isn’t possible to change those animation speeds.



  • I agree that this is very bad on google’s part of course, however I don’t think the schools should just lie down and take it. As others have said, installing their own OS should be the way to go. It doesn’t need to be 1 person manually installing the OS on each laptop, there are Infrastructure automation tool like Ansible that can, once set up, manage installation and configuration of an arbitrary number of devices. All the device needs to do is launch a web browser from what I understand, and pretty much every linux distro should be able to do that. If they choose one with a friendly DE, then it makes it easier to use for the kids. The devices will most likely run much better on an OS without bloatware too.


  • I have used a few second hand phones and they’ve pretty much always been fine fortunately. I see it could be a bit of a risk, but if the initial cost is so much lower, does that factor in to lowering the risk too? If I get a second hand phone and it lasts me 3 years instead of 4, but costs 250 instead of 600, I’d say it’s worth it. I’ve also used an ex-corporate second hand laptop made in 2014 for 4 years from 2018 to 2022, and only after that did it start to die. It was a Thinkpad, which may have helped it’s longevity. This is circumstantial evidence I understand, but in my opinion the lower cost and less environmental damage weighs better for me than maybe having to clean/replace the keyboard or battery. Buying second hand products originally known for their high quality construction or longevity probably helps too.

    Whilst looking recently for second hand pixel 6 phones, I noticed a lot of them were hardly used, some even brand new and unopened, but still being sold at 200-280 gbp instead of new price 400+ for new.



  • Re ethical consumption, my opinion is, if you don’t absolutely need a new phone (broken beyond use) don’t get a new one. And then when you do get a “new” phone, get a second hand one. Fairphone may be “ethical” but it’s still marketing to get you to spend money on a new device. Reusing one will always be more ethical.