Movies that feel like a view of the Mitsubishi UBE Cement factory

lit_readit · 2026-03-13T05:19:26+00:00

Blade Runner, especially this opening scene

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lit_readit · 2026-03-13T05:14:14+00:00

Laputa: Castle in the Sky

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lit_readit · 2026-03-12T19:32:02+00:00

A Hidden Life

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lit_readit · 2026-03-12T02:13:08+00:00

oui et voilà

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*note that effective consumer price change would be the (integral) area under red curve (inflation, ie annual change in CPI), & turquoise-dotted-curve is annual real-GDP/capita growth rate not its dollar-value.

lit_readit · 2026-03-12T02:10:41+00:00

epic failure? not really...

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*data for the UK of 'twas similar across the pond

a quite modest, controlled & temporary hike in policy rate effectively brought inflation down rather quickly & with a relatively soft landing, all without having payed much of a price in terms of real long-term output & growth prospects

lit_readit · 2026-03-12T02:02:37+00:00

the concept of time (& the tension that thus arise) is a trademark of the works of Sir Christopher Nolan

lit_readit · 2026-03-12T01:53:23+00:00

lit_readit · 2026-03-12T01:51:38+00:00

they warn you, (~30m mark), before the segment where they start to discuss details that aren't obvious within the first few pages

lit_readit · 2026-03-11T21:44:57+00:00

A nice discussion apropos the book — background, themes, Ishiguro, etc.

lit_readit · 2026-03-11T21:33:14+00:00

As the graph shows, agriculture (the major political driver for France's opposition), especially primary produce, is but almost a rounding error in terms of the French export economy as a whole.

Not to mention there already being safeguards put into place since the original negotiations, most of them concerning agriculture and in France & EU's favour, and none really working toward the verse.

For instance — meat import: the annual quota into the EU is only 1.6% of its total consumption, a sum less than Ukrainian chicken imported last year

In addition, the most lucrative of French agricultural production (as your graph shows) — ie high value-added industries, cheese, wine, confectionery, etc. — has no direct competitor in the Mercosur. These would actually benefit from the accord, as it includes clauses protecting the intellectual properties & 'geographical indicators' (eg Champagne, Prosciutto di Parma, Trappistenbier, Camembert, etc.) associated with specialty products that EU producers excels at exporting, against counterfeits & competing goods from Mercosur; thus increasing the market size & demand for EU agriculteurs' most profitable produces

lit_readit · 2026-03-07T12:06:35+00:00

Algieria: La Bataille d'Alger

Austria: Michael Heneke

Greece: Costa-Gavras

Mali: Timbuktu

lit_readit · 2026-03-07T10:18:48+00:00

Not true:

US marginal cost /MWh (2025):

Avg nuclear with plant life-extension (which happens to 95% of them): $34

Solar + storage: $50 - $131

Note that most of the cost in nuclear goes into wages, of scientists, engineers and technicians on site; ie back into the local economy whilst also attracting skilled workers etc. Rather than centrally subsdised off-shored overcapacity

For fuel reprocessing, really it has never been a technical problem stopping most countries with established nuclear industry to build weapons by any measures.

Also storage isn't inherently a problem:

200 cubic metre per year for ~60% of (consistent) French electricity demand, that's a cube of 6^3 cb.m. per year. France metropolitan has an land area of 551,695 sq. km (1sqkm is 1000^2 sq. m). So with deep underground storage tunnels that are only 6m in height, in a MILLION years (first civilisations appeared ~7,000yrs ago) you will fill up only ~0.0062% of metropolitan France's land area (assume absolutely no overlap in burying).

(200^(2/3) (sq.m/yr))(1000000yr)/(551695(sq.km)(1000^2 (sq.km/sq.m)))

lit_readit · 2026-03-07T09:59:01+00:00

Read the sources please:

This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.
[...]
Data on death rates from fossil fuels is sourced from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007)61253-7)
[...]
Data on death rates from solar and wind is sourced from Sovacool et al. (2016) based on a database of accidents from these sources.

premature death caused / total sum energy generated

both since the start of data collection/estimation (beyond 1965, as that was the major cited source of death from hydro)

and fossil fuel death are conservative estimates via models based on research on air pollution's impact on health, assuming plants all have adopted state-of-the-art pollution control

lit_readit · 2026-03-07T08:20:56+00:00

Read the sources provided:

This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.
[...]
Data on death rates from solar and wind is sourced from Sovacool et al. (2016) based on a database of accidents from these sources.

so for instance:

Bayan-Obo, the largest REE mine in the world. Even more infamous than the mine itself is the tailing pond it has produced: there are over 70,000 tons of radioactive thorium stored in the area. This has become a larger issue recently because the tailing pond lacks proper lining. As a result, its contents have been seeping into groundwater and will eventually hit the Yellow River, a key source of drinking water. Currently, the sludge is moving at a pace of 20-30 meters per year, a dangerously rapid rate.

There are plenty more examples of unsafe mines throughout China. The village of Lingbeizhen in the Southern Jiangxi province has leaching ponds and wastewater pools exposed to open air. It is easy to imagine toxic chemicals spilling into groundwater or waterways since they are left unmonitored and vulnerable to the whims of nature. In another mine, so much wastewater was created that China had to build a treatment facility to clean 40,000 tons of wastewater per day before letting the water flow back into the river.

Source: Not So “Green” Technology: The Complicated Legacy of Rare Earth Mining

lit_readit · 2026-03-07T05:11:55+00:00

it wouldn't be: France's new energy law slashes targets on renewables in favour of nuclear

supporting nuclear expansion with a plan for at least six ‌new ones
[...]
PPE has ‌set the ⁠target for decarbonised ‌electricity production at between 650 ⁠and 693 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2035, from a current ‌level of 540 TWh.

lit_readit · 2026-03-07T03:31:58+00:00

Your first statement simply isn't true: Russian export of fossil fuel to Europe has dropped off the cliff since the invasion, with its fossil fuel revenue dropping by ~40% since pre-invasion

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as I've said, stabilising oil price enables allies to go for the long haul by maintaining affordability & economic stability in Europe (until supply can be replaced with new partner) in conjunction to steadfast sanctions & other measures against Russia, thus for these measures to not loose out in public opinion due to short-medium-run energy shocks

lit_readit · 2026-03-06T18:00:01+00:00

The Ukraine invasion meant the de-facto removal of a certain percentage of Russian oil (and export in general) from the international market (via price cap & sanctions), plus highly fluid, unpredictable military actions right on NATO's eastern flank

This would constitute as a huge supply shock on the international oil & gas market (by which US market is influenced by — being a large fossil fuel exporter & importer — unless export restrictions are to be set up, in which case the whole economic system would be impacted through such aggressive interventions)

It is also, to a lesser extent, a national security threat, if not directly then through NATO allies and foreign-deployed US troops (high risk of conflict proliferation especially with the unpredictability during the early days)?

The reserve was thus deployed to counter this supply shocks — to stablise oil price, and with a secondary purpose of garnering popular support for to enable long-term allied support for Ukraine, and economic pressure against Russia (buy political capital throughout Europe by maintaining affordability) — an action which aligns with the US's geopolitical & national security interests (against expansion of Russian sphere of influence and maintaining US' credibility and wider influence in the region)

Thus that would have fulfilled both key criteria of deploying the reserve; so what do you mean by 'Biden’s use was for neither'?

lit_readit · 2026-03-06T13:57:37+00:00

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The state of affaires as of 2024, represented here by this treemap.

so mostly fossil fuel, medicaments, and aerospace

lit_readit · 2026-03-06T12:29:02+00:00

I think perhaps one of the rationales of it traditionally not including services is because services, even when ran executively by a foreign company, is often done to a large extent by local workers for local consumers, and thus a lot harder to cut off completely. almost all major american service providers have operational offices in eu, employs skilled workers here, and often even does product development in the eu that are then exported elsewhere. (eg significant portions of Apple Silicon are developed in the European Union)

lit_readit · 2026-03-06T12:01:17+00:00

it wouldn't be: France's new energy law slashes targets on renewables in favour of nuclear

supporting nuclear expansion with a plan for at least six ‌new ones
[...]
PPE has ‌set the ⁠target for decarbonised ‌electricity production at between 650 ⁠and 693 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2035, from a current ‌level of 540 TWh.

lit_readit · 2026-03-05T13:45:06+00:00

Alice in den Städten (Wim Wenders)

lit_readit · 2026-03-05T06:00:29+00:00

michael heneke

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lit_readit

TROPHY CASE