That’s the trade off for a larynx capable of speech

Close enough for the girls I go out with

As Yoda says, “start or start not, there is no try 14 times and then the problems randomly fixes its self just as the killer breaks the windows or whatever”

But also worth remembering that kid who made a nuclear reactor in his shed. Ai wasn’t around back then, but if it had been then, maybe, juuuust maybe….

I’d think that the smart ones will desert as soon as they can

Aha, I lose. I was literally about to comment “urge? He’s the damn president, he should be doing more than urging them to look at it!” until you made me realise it wasn’t the Georgia that has to listen to him

As does having a livable planet for the rest of us, and being able to exist as anything other than a rich white straight-in-public guy in the US. How so much has ended up in the hands of an orange nazi dementia patient in a first world country is pretty astounding

Might as well accept it, as however you cut it you’ll eventually come to realise that there are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

Not sure if it’s exactly what you mean, but the YouTube channel Project Kamp is a bunch of folks who’ve bought some land in Portugal to experiment with sustainable living.

They have a website, in which they house “research modules” which are basically open forums for ideas about what to do and how to do it. https://projectkamp.com/

I saw an article about Chinese EVs being equipped with overly-powerful LiDAR for self driving or something, which meant that in essence, they drive about the places burning out camera sensors. This got me thinking - The human eye takes a lot more energy to damage it than the average ccd chip, and a small cheap laser pointer is way more than enough to wreck one. Would it be possible to get a LiDAR unit and pop it on a remote control car or a drone or something?

There’s a group in London that call themselves the Bladerunners who go around wrecking the ULEZ cameras, they use a few interesting methods, but they’re all a bit too direct, such as sawzalling camera poles down. The LiDAR looks like a better option.

WHERE’S MY GOD-DAMN HOVERBOARD?!

I always do this. My gym has push-button showers, and I always do it there too. However, yesterday, my stupid brain thought “but what if you elbowed the button while towelling off?” Never done that before, but somehow did it almost immediately after I thought that, soaked my towel. Cheers brain.

Only just though

Man put his money where is mouth is

Coffee

Disappointed not to find a guillotine emoji in my phone for this

And add absolutely to the front of almost anything to describe how pissed you were. I was absolutely trousered/shedded/etc

Brother, I think you’ve read more into what I wrote than I intended. We’re on the same page, I drive an EV and work in solar… I’m not in any way saying that I think drones are a worse option overall, when I said I’d like to see a better comparison, I mean exactly that. I’d like to see it, because I’d find it interesting. I never see well-thought-out comparisons of this kind of thing. While clearly better by many metrics (and arguably the more important ones - water and air pollution, plastic particles, etc), I’d still like to see a comparison of total embodied energy, and whole-life environmental impact. I’m sure it would still come out in the drones’ favour, but just assuming that is no good reason not to actually see the data.

I think I’m a little jaded where it comes to battery-powered stuff on a small scale. I see so, so many bits of battery-powered crap going to waste because it’s cheaply made and essentially unrepairable - from vapes to scooters to toy drones, even little speakers and vacuums. I see a lot of stuff touted as “eco” that actually ends up being one use, or close to it, so I assumed (probably wrongly) that these drones would end up being used a handful of times before being junk.

EVs are a different kettle of fish, even though they are pretty complex and full of electronics, there’s still a decent financial impetus to recycle them properly, and the batteries and components can be reused - my home is powered by second-hand EV batteries and solar.

In essence, I’d like to see more comparative analysis of anything like this. The earlier we do it, the better we can choose which technologies to use going forward. A really good example of what I mean is plastic bags - this video highlights why it’s so hard to work out what the best option is. Not because I’m looking for a way to keep using a harmful technology, just because the answers are complex, and without a clear “best option”.

https://youtu.be/JvzvM9tf5s0

I’d like to see a better analysis, that’s all. I don’t know either way, and I’d bet that the co2 of the drone show is orders of magnitude lower than fireworks, for example. But as with lots of emerging technologies, it’s hard to make direct comparisons - is the lithium going to be recycled at end of life, did it come from “good” mines, how much of the plastic will end up in landfill and how much is pla/plant-based, and how does all this compare to the cardboard and explosive in the fireworks. Also, do the electronics contain conflict minerals, and are they recyclable, and what’s the expected life of the drones? How do the chemicals for colour in the fireworks affect their pollution, and how are they produced? Having recently seen an fairly damming look at Formula E (run on generators that are flown from England to wherever the races are, that kind of thing), I’m just intrigued to know more about how the sausage is made, if you see what I mean. It’s in our interest to ask this kind of thing, in the same way that it would have paid to ask more questions about how single-use plastics would be disposed of, rather than just trusting that them using less trees in their construction was worth it. These things never have a simple answer, and I’d like to know as much as possible

I think that with everything like this, it’s very hard to quantify the effects - drones are predominantly plastic that won’t be recycled, lithium batteries from “low cost” sources, and complex electronics. Small drones are by nature expendable, so I think it’s pretty hard to quantify which of these the entertainment forms is “best” for the environment - they’re both kind of excessive. I wouldn’t want to be without either, they both have their place and bring a sense of wonder and awe (great video by the way!), I just think it’s an interesting discussion to have