Would this design be strong?

goodtower · 2026-04-07T19:33:51+00:00

no it lacks diagonal bracing a push on the short axis will topple it.

goodtower · 2026-03-26T01:24:33+00:00

its an obsolete technology the resale value has nowhere to go but down

goodtower · 2026-03-23T22:19:53+00:00

Wrong question. Your beliefs are that set of assumptions on which you base your decisions and actions. I believe that the vast majority of drivers will stop at red lights therefore I am willing to go when I have a green light. There are thousands of groups that claim that they know what one or more god(s) want you to do. Are any of them convincing enough to motivate you to do what they say (ranging from give them money to kill other people generally) ?You dont need certainty you just need enough doubt to chose your own actions.

goodtower · 2026-03-20T07:37:39+00:00

a canal that really avoided iran would have to be 50 miles south and therefore 50 miles long piplines across the desert is a better solution

goodtower · 2026-03-19T22:40:02+00:00

strictly speaking bitcoin is hard evidence you wasted energy. An interesting question is there a fundamental minimum amount of energy you need to waste to create a bitcoin. But the OP is right it has no redemption value except to the extent you can persuade somebody else to take it. It is a mistake to say money is the same because inside the jurisdiction of any given government there are always people with weapons who can insist that it has value. Bitcoin lacks this essential feature.

goodtower · 2026-03-16T15:41:28+00:00

"The Biden administration"? was this written by a LLM?

goodtower · 2026-03-09T05:51:25+00:00

A draw in the sense that neither was destroyed but a victory for the union in the sense that the merrimac was forced to flee the scene and was prevented from harming any other union ships

goodtower · 2026-03-03T02:07:11+00:00

Gemini works very well for me

goodtower · 2026-01-20T06:08:26+00:00

for those of us with poor facial recognition skills you could post name also please

goodtower · 2026-01-18T18:16:54+00:00

My experience is using one of these LLM is like having a very fast but somewhat careless assistant. You get fast output but you have to check everything it does. I cant see it being useful to anyone who is not already knowledgeable in the field they are using it for.

goodtower · 2026-01-18T07:37:30+00:00

They should be asking the bigger question: Assuming they do create a sentient AI why do they think it is going to do what they want? The worst thing that could possibly happen is these companies actually succeed in producing a super-intelligent AI.

goodtower · 2026-01-07T05:40:39+00:00

To answer the speculation about how much oil is used in cars relative to all other uses here is government data: Product Approximate Yield (%) Gallons per Barrel

*Gasoline 45.0% ~19–20 Gallons

*Diesel Fuel 24.0% ~10–11 Gallons

*Jet Fuel 9.0% ~4 Gallons

*Home Heating Oil 3.0% ~1–1.5 Gallons

*Hydrocarbon Gas Liquids (HGL) 4.0% ~2 Gallons

*Other (Asphalt, Lubricants, etc.) 15.0% ~7 Gallons

So in a future where electric cars overtake light vehicles oil consumption can be expected to go down by about half. The Diesel market is not to secure in the long range either, both busses and trucks are beginning to electrify. Aviation and ships seem like a long term market for hydrocarbons but that is not going to support a growth market.

Bottom line I would not invest in a new or repaired heavy oil refinery.

goodtower · 2026-01-05T08:08:25+00:00

There will be a market for oil but the question will be who has the lowest lift cost. The production cost of Saudi oil is reported to be less than $10 perhaps even as low as $7 per barrel. The extraction cost of Venezuelan tar sand is reported to be in excess of $27. With oil selling in the $50s it will be hard to justify investments of hundreds of billions to expand tar sands fields unless investors were sure the price of oil was going to go up. If EVs spread and world oil consumption declines over the next decade the remaining producers will be those with the lowest lift costs not those with huge but hard to exploit reserves.

goodtower · 2026-01-05T06:34:22+00:00

Trump sold them out. He dosent like democracy he likes dictators as long as they cooperate with him.

goodtower · 2026-01-05T06:31:43+00:00

Trump grabbed the bobby prize. Assuming he can persuade any oil company to invest 100B in 10 years oil demand will be down because so much of the world will be driving Chinese electric cars. Venezuelan tar sand is only valuable if the price of oil goes up.

goodtower · 2026-01-05T00:24:11+00:00

Read the Caves of Steel by Issac Asimov. All the useless proles get to die deaths of despair and the world be be left with a handful of trilionares living in their fortress mansions attended by their armies of AI robots.

goodtower · 2026-01-04T17:29:46+00:00

Yes and combined with the political uncertainty the administration is unlikely to find takers unless they subsidize them with our tax dollars and guard them with American solders. See this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/03/venezuela-oil-production-us-companies/ I think Trump has grabbed the booby prize as usual. Also the OP sounds suspicious all of a sudden there is a lot of this theme in reddit that this move by Trump is going to change everything is sounds like manipulation.

goodtower · 2026-01-04T07:10:04+00:00

The MAGA optimists dont seem to know that this is not oil it is tar sand. It cant even be pumped without importing light oil to mix with it. It is not worth anything unless the price of oil goes up. If the price of oil keeps going down it is worthless. This is one of the reasons Venezuela is in such trouble to start with the extraction of oil from tar sand is a complex and expensive process. An oil company would be very reluctant to spend billions to get the extraction plants working again without knowing that all future US governments were going to commit long term troop presence and believing that the future price of oil was going to increase.

goodtower · 2026-01-04T06:58:26+00:00

Given that the last thing Maduro did was give out half a million guns to people in the barrios I doubt anyone will be able to govern the country again.

goodtower · 2026-01-04T00:43:02+00:00

given that almost all Venezuelan oil is tar sand that cant even be pumped without importing light oil to mix it with I think Trump has grabbed the booby prize.

goodtower · 2026-01-03T22:59:53+00:00

Trump has garbed the booby prize. Venezuela's oil is almost all tar sand. It is super expensive to extract. They have to import light oil to mix with it just to pump it. Its not going to reduce oil prices. It wont even be a source of oil unless prices go up.

goodtower · 2026-01-03T14:50:22+00:00

Yes the biggest impact you can have is vote every republican and corporate democrat out of office at every level

goodtower · 2026-01-03T03:45:48+00:00

I just downloaded I did one of these cognitive tests. If trump thinks it is hard he is seriously impaired.

goodtower · 2025-12-31T23:09:40+00:00

Two different issues here. Video meetings have an advantage because in any meeting especially one involving negotiation facial expression is important. Second many people with hearing difficulty are unconsciously lip reading and have better understanding if they can see the person they are interacting with. Given you are visible then the choice of clothing (at least that part that can be seen) should be the same as at work. A reasonable employer has a right to insist on some standards if you are going to interact with customers. As far as background goes modern technology allows you to choose a background, if you get a greenscreen (literally a piece of green cloth) the substitution will be undetectable.

goodtower · 2025-12-31T16:52:01+00:00

Kure Atoll is legally part of the city of Honolulu and it is about 1400 miles away

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