I read not so long ago that someone tried to leverage human walking / steps. Now raindrops. I love it :)

With 2 electric cars… Belgium here so it’s not the tundra either but the house is sizeable and doesn’t share walls. Hot water alone was 150/200 kWh a month. It all adds…

Using rain for electricity sounds like too fun to be efficient enough xD I’m gonna look into that :)

I feel you… I got a nice 3k€ to pay for electricity just for winter months and that’s with a quite performant heat pump. But at least zero emissions here…

Yeah but that would not account for the electricity need: in winter we need between 1000/1300 kWh mainly for heating / domestic hot water. Other months under 250 even if we use air conditioning. So if you cover the 7 nice months you still get absolutely wrecked by the dreaded 4 in the winter cost wise…

Also if one chose to have some tree for natural shading it kind of forbids to have verticals. Shade was more appropriate in our case so there’s a very limited direct sun exposure.

I would have loved that but having a wind turbine is… not easy. Permits, psychotic attitude from neighbours… but that have been my go-to given we don’t have a stream to go hydro. I’m still happy with covering 8 ou of 12 months with our setup but it’s still unnerving to swallow the costs of the setup + utilities for winter months…

Yeah I saw that… Though I’m 3 years into solar and my measurements aren’t so positive. I am definitely not covering 62% of our needs yearly. The 4 less sunny months are killers when you need heating.

I you live where sun is abundant all year round… In which case (Las Vegas?) I would question the choice of having humans living in a fucking desert in the first place. But man I wish I could cover my needs between October and March here in Europe but no battery will help me store so much for so long :-/

You’ve seen a lot of oldies that are in working order after 60+? 70+? They are exceptions, not the norm. Longer isn’t healthier. Not on a functional level. Especially for those not in an office which is I think the majority.

Well some are doing it a bit more in the open than others though… USA really has no shame anymore.

Haaaa noyb… never a dull moment with them.

I wonder how recently « the rest of us » built that opinion because from my 43 years as a European I certainly saw a lot of adulation of USA for as long as I remember. Even the healthcare pov is rather recent… For a long ass time they were certainly seen as our betters.

Ho come on it’s not that simple. Add to that the language barrier. And in general precise language and accuracy are not making knowledge more available to laymen. Laymen don’t have to vocabulary to start with, that’s pretty much the definition of being a layman.

There is definitely value in dumbing down knowledge, that’s the point of education.

Now using AI or pushing guidelines for editors to do it that’s entirely different discussion…

Well considering that North Korea and Russia exist it’s not soooo far fetched. The real surprise is how it has been considered until recently as THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. We were so blind…

One point for ChatGPT it is then… it might be a bit on the posh / haughty side but that’s better than the reddit cesspool in my book.

Yeah I’ll need the detailed judgment of this one before considering it a massive win. Consent has always been something that needs to be done willingly and freely. The issue is forcing the whole industry to give a shit about the principle. Maybe IAB will have to shift its practices but I haven’t had any panicked calls yet so I assume this isn’t systemic.

In Europe that would not be permanently stored but is would be for a while indeed. A few years after the subscription’s validity at least.

Mhhh si more plants it is. I’ll look into which of those are indigenous to Belgium and give it a go :)

Well I do… we need insects for a lot of reasons… but I fail to see what I can do for them. I’ve added a small water area, I don’t mow aggressively and let a portion of my garden absolutely wild… still I’m obviously having an abysmal and unnoticeable effect on the problem. So what now?