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Nick

@ Nick @mander.xyz

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45
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Durable water bottle

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  • I've been using a Klean Kanteen for a decade now, and I have nothing but positive things to say about them. The straw lids come apart very easily for cleaning, and each of the parts is separably replaceable. When my partner needed to replace the silicone mouthpiece but couldn't find it on the website, we just emailed their support and they were more than happy to send us a replacement free of charge.

  • [Video] Democrat presidential candidate favorite Gavin Newsom says Israel did not commit genocide in Gaza

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  • It's insane that his team had complete control over this footage and still thought it was a good idea to air. I'm thankful that they didn't have the better judgment to prevent this episode from seeing the light of day. Maybe the pod should have some actual leftists on so Newsom can stumble and equivocate his way into a good take for once.

  • China's BYD set to overtake Tesla as world's top EV seller

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  • You said that we aren't using hydrogen as a fuel source, which is patently false. You must think we're burning those hydrogenless hydrocarbons that so famously exist. It's not in the form that you like, but we're literally using copious amounts of hydrogen as a fuel source and have been for decades. It isn't suddenly not hydrogen because it's attached to carbon when we choose to burn it. Plain elemental hydrogen doesn't exist in abundance in any capacity that we're capable of harnessing, which is why you have to bring up methods to create it even when it's the most abundant element in the universe. You're the one who chose to respond to me, in my comment about its use in cars, in response to someone else's comment about hydrogen in cars, in a thread about cars and somehow I'm the one who's changing the topic?

  • China's BYD set to overtake Tesla as world's top EV seller

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  • How are we sustainably converting elemental hydrogen into a state where it's readily storable and transportable for use in vehicles? I'm not pushing against it as a viable energy source generally speaking, but it really doesn't need to be in a car, where it's used to power an electric motor in the exact same way as a battery is, except the battery can recapture energy through regenerative breaking. I was pushing back against the implication that humanity is stupid for not using hydrogen in general, because we use a lot of it.

    For the record, your all-powerful and flawless elemental hydrogen can power the grid just as readily as it could power a car. It'd be great if it were a larger share of our energy generation, for the record.

  • China's BYD set to overtake Tesla as world's top EV seller

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  • I'm definitely open to being wrong about the world's impression of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, but I'm not sure it's borne out in the data. Europe doesn't seem to be adapting it anywhere near the rate at which they've adopted BEVs (I couldn't find a 2025 report in my cursory search, but would love to see one if anyone else finds it), nor does China, which is all in on BEVs. In fact, it seems like California may have more hydrogen fuel cell vehicles alone than all of Europe combined. That's two of the major markets accounted for, but it might be possible to convince the US to adopt hydrogen when they decide they no longer want to be left in the past.

    I'm not sure the infrastructure build out for hydrogen is directly comparable to the charging infrastructure for BEVs. At least some segment of the population has access to charging infrastructure just by virtue of having access to an outlet at their homes, which allows for trickle charging, as well as the option to install a dedicated charger at home that allows for much cheaper charging that's also fast enough to charge from 0-100 overnight, so no need to stop at a fuel station at all. This meant that there were people who were willing to adopt the technology through the growing pains. With hydrogen, you run into a bit of a chicken and the egg problem where companies aren't encouraged to expand infrastructure without adoption rates being high enough and consumers aren't itching to purchase a vehicle where fuel is more expensive and less convenient to access. The refuel card incentives were supposed to get consumers over that hump, but it doesn't seem like it was anywhere near enough. I think the conditions were ripe for an emergent technology to eventually replace ICE vehicles, but hydrogen fueled vehicles were on the back foot to begin with.

  • China's BYD set to overtake Tesla as world's top EV seller

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  • Hydrogen is a major fuel source, just not in the form that's necessary to power hydrogen fuel cell cars. Regular gas vehicles are powered by hydrogen, since they're a component of gasoline. Any energy generated by liquified natural gas (though I hate the term) is using hydrogen as a fuel source. It's not exactly easy to create, liquify, store, and transport pure elemental hydrogen for use in hydrogen fuel cell cars, let alone the cost to develop all the infrastructure to do so. I don't think it's a collective action problem, and if we were going to rally around a singular transportation issue, I think it'd be far more valuable to demand robust public transit options.

  • China's BYD set to overtake Tesla as world's top EV seller

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  • In the US at least, I really don't see hydrogen ever taking off. Even in California, there's so few stations that you can't really travel from the top of the state to the bottom without going out of your way. The hydrogen fuel stations that are in place are even more expensive than they were a few years ago, if they're still functioning at all. We're talking like $180 USD for the equivalent of a tank of gas, at stations that aren't as convenient as a gas station or an outlet at home. It's even the subject of a lawsuit, which may or may not be successful.

    It seems like hydrogen has already lost the race for the rest of the world, with BEV adoption growing substantially in Europe and China. Personally I wouldn't want my market to rely on solely Japan and a US headed by someone blatantly antagonistic to alternative fuels.

  • New York City Housing Authority to Replace Gas Stoves With Battery-Backed Induction Stoves in 100 Apartments Under Energy-Efficiency Pilot Program

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  • If you want to completely mitigate the risk, then yeah it's ideal to start on low and progressively ratchet the heat up. Personally, I've just left it at medium and then cranked it up two notches on the dial after a few minutes. I've really never used the maximum heat for anything other than boiling water on my range, since just over medium is more than hot enough for a lovely sear. If the coil is significantly smaller than the bottom of the pan, I'd be much more careful and start on low no matter what pan I'm using just to reduce the risk of warping.

  • New York City Housing Authority to Replace Gas Stoves With Battery-Backed Induction Stoves in 100 Apartments Under Energy-Efficiency Pilot Program

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  • Cast iron would work, though you shouldn't blast the heat on it immediately because of how brittle they are and how unevenly they heat. You can find plenty of pictures online of people just chucking a room temp cast iron on at max heat and splitting them right down the middle. They get plenty hot when preheated at around the medium setting on most ranges, and if you need more you can blast it after it's warmed up in like 2-3 minutes.

  • New York City Housing Authority to Replace Gas Stoves With Battery-Backed Induction Stoves in 100 Apartments Under Energy-Efficiency Pilot Program

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  • This isn't just about saving the environment, but sure. There's also the public health element of removing a major source of indoor air pollution that's detrimental to the residents of these units. These units aren't equipped with range hoods that can adequately ventilate the space, even if they're being used every time someone cooks.

    I had no problem buying a portable induction wok "burner" outside of China; they were literally $50 USD at our local Costco a few weeks ago and that was including the kinda-cheap-but-more-than-adequate stamped carbon steel wok. I didn't even go looking for it and it found me. I've also had no problems charring peppers, onions, or ginger by just placing a pan over the stove element and sticking them on the pan when it's hot.

  • Chocolate and fruit do NOT go together

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  • When I'm sitting down with a nice single origin chocolate, it's nice to have some fruit to compare the acidity to. Priming the taste buds really does bring different dimensions of the chocolate to the forefront. It's not something I indulge in often, but if I'm going to be paying for it, I'm going to also go through the trouble of trying it with as many suitable seeming pairs as possible.

  • Democrat wins Iowa state Senate race, blocking GOP from regaining supermajority

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  • It feels even better when you look at the turnout and the margin. About a third of vote totals from last year's general election, and this was on the day before New Year's Eve, when you'd expect a lot of people to be traveling or hanging out with family. That's a shocking amount of people who turned up for a late special election just to give a fat middle finger to Republicans.

  • Two More Heritage Foundation Trustees Resign Over Support for Tucker Carlson

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  • "I never thought that the queerphobic ethnonationalists I encouraged would turn their sights on the minority that I like!"

  • I was recently reminded how much I fucking hate Plato's Republic

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  • Loled at the last one, but also I think it's wrong to conflate any specific argument that Socrates makes with Plato's argument in any of the dialogues. The dialogues are presented as dialogues for a reason. If an interlocutor fails to push back adequately, it doesn't mean that the argument is beyond reproach. It might just be revealing a contemporarily widely understood value, or it's inviting the reader to engage with the dialogue. The reader is then challenging Socrates' notion that knowledge is hierarchical by taking on a presumed intellectual authority in Socrates. Given Plato's body of work, I think the fallibility of arguments in the dialogues are oriented towards the idea that we have imperfect knowledge and imperfect arguments, and sometimes people fail to catch and respond to these in elenchus. Plato could just be getting us to engage in the act of philosophy.

  • I was recently reminded how much I fucking hate Plato's Republic

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  • I mean tedious, sure in the same way that all philosophy is, but I'd be interested to know why you find it dubious. In a relatively surface-level reading, it has a very perfectionist texture to it, but I don't think there's anything overtly controversial about the notion that we should valorize knowledge and strive to deepen our understanding of everything. There's a good reason why it's pretty much the seminal work of the western political philosophical tradition.

    I think it's a very well-refined work, it just doesn't seek to provide any particular answer. It's presented as a Socratic dialogue precisely because it's meant to be challenged and debated. Again, if you take issue with the idea of philosopher-kings being presented as a moral or political authority, I urge you to check out Poetic Justice, or at least a review or paper that cites it.

  • I was recently reminded how much I fucking hate Plato's Republic

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  • There's interpretations of Republic that don't involve taking Plato's Socrates literally when he's describing his ideal polis. I quite liked Jill Frank's interpretation in Poetic Justice, to give an example.

  • Democrats hope for off-year House upset in Tennessee MAGA stronghold

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  • Unfortunately, it looks like she's not going to pull this one out, so we're going with the tried and true "If only we ran a moderate who stands for nothing, surely we would have won!" The margin is impressive though, and I hope she in public service because she's a voice that'll be necessary to chip away at these red strongholds.

  • Democrats hope for off-year House upset in Tennessee MAGA stronghold

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  • Establishment dems should be terrified of what it means if a progressive woman wins in a deep red district. One more nail in the coffin for status quo bullshit centrism.

  • Choose wisely: Chocolate that taste like shit or Shit that taste like chocolate

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  • They were considered premium, but the way they're produced is horribly unethical, even by coffee sourcing standards. The novelty was the fermentation that the beans would undergo after being eaten, and producers are now doing far more controlled fermentations on beans to get some insane flavors. They're still a premium, but if you're ever in the mood for something a little funky, you should look for an anaerobic fermentation or a co-ferment from a local roaster.