I wondered why the Artemis crew module weighs twice as much as the Apollo module after 60 years of scientific progress and developments in materials science and aerospace engineering, now I am starting to understand. Plastic bags "worked", not great but they are super light, essentially you are not going to get much lighter than a plastic bag for containing and disposing of waste. On the other hand, that toilet looks insanely overbuilt, how strong do you need the seat to be??

Maybe they can position the astronauts behind it for use as a last-ditch heat shield.

This story reminds be of the tale where during the space race the Americans created a super space pen that works in zero degrees kelvin and vacuum, and the Russians used a pencil.

USA had its own legislative assemblies too before the declaration of Independence, look what happened.

Once you are in power and you have things arranged the way you want, you claim that violence is not the answer.

Otherwise, practically speaking might makes right.

So for Greenlanders and those opposed to the US imperialism, it makes sense to say that the rule of existing law must prevail, regardless of the fact that there is no traditional military willing and able to back this up.

However, if you are American and you stand to benefit, what you want to happen is backed up by the most powerful military the world has ever seen.

And I bet a good chunk of people in Greenland know that with no roads and no infrastructure, they can go toe to toe with the US military inland, that is until they stop getting shipments of grain. But can even the vaunted US military blockade this continent sized island, especially with zero allies in tow?

So morally speaking, both parties are in the right. But you can predict what the outcome would eventually be, it is very much David vs Goliath, barring Greenlandic alignment with another foreign power in a proxy war.

Ethically speaking, the chronic under development and under investment in the global North is not beneficial to humanity. Viewed from afar, it does seem that Denmark has not been handling this colonial remnant particularly well.

If the guided missile cruiser is now the biggest meanest surface unit, I'm fine with calling it a battleship.

Also, if gun caliber and armor plate thickness and speed, etc are less than the Iowa class battleship, the above still stands. It just means that the state of the art in what the biggest baddest ship is has moved on.

The aircraft carrier in many ways already became the new battleship in 1942, and existing battleships became effectively second rate in the sense that a fleet aircraft carrier smokes a battleship, it still does.

Another way to think about it is that guided missile cruisers are kind of another evolution of the aircraft carrier, they launch large numbers of missiles at much less cost.

Of course, the reality is much more complicated. It's unclear how useful guided missile classes and nuclear powered aircraft carriers will be in a standup full blown major power fight, aircraft carriers have sure been nice for asymmetric warfare in relative peacetime.

Watt hours is saying, how long will my personal battery pack last me that powers my 60 W laptop? Which is also fine in that context.

This can be seen as the knock on effects from the downfall of the Persian and Ottoman empires, and to a greater extent the destruction of the Persian civilization as the leader in the Middle East, replaced by the British and later American empires.

Water depletion and failure is but one small symptom of their civilizational decline. These issues wouldn't have been circumvented by better planning, it was to some extent written in the sky that this would come to pass. How can they support the needed infrastructure spending and policy goals, not being a leading global power? For example, not being able to control inflows from neighboring countries, or have the USD or trading partners available to pay to import food.

If you believe in God of a certain kind, you don't think that being judged for your sins is unacceptable or even good or bad in itself, you consider it inevitable. We have already talked it over for 2000 years, people like the idea.

There seems to be a whole series of issues in considering system boundaries and where they can and should be drawn when considering the best course of action.

EVs are a classic case, you draw the system boundary around the vehicle and get a MPG figure, and externalize the remaining costs. Might as well claim infinite MPG. Bill Gates proves himself as a process oriented guy here.

Carbon capture is another funny one. You report that you sequester this amount of carbon, but on the other hand deplete the soil. The amount of carbon in healthy soil is staggering, activities leading to soil erosion and depletion of soil nutrients have to be very carefully considered. How do you draw a system boundary around a volume of soil with biological activity extending down 500 feet and predict the carbon balance over the next 500 years? It's introducing predators into Australia all over again, people thinking they are smart and going for the course of action that is politically favorable in the very short term but ultimately ill considered.

For regulation, this is pretty much why can't we just have regulations that benefit me right now? For people with deep pockets, they ignore the regulations and pay the fines. Problem with these guys is their entire business model revolves around making money off of externalizing costs onto the rest of the economy, via environmental regulatory burden. What is unsaid in the article is the sentiment that regulators should more heavily support the EV business, the carbon capture business, etc, in general which makes sense to those invested, but not to everyone else.

Generations of young people have embraced this by joining em, not beating them, but this is becoming more and more difficult. It's unclear what prevents any one municipality from going vertical with young people buying, rezoning and building, I think it's related to the lack of income opportunities in some areas, as well as the built in and entrenched voter base. But as soon as any group gets in, they are pulling up the ladder, that's always going to be the case.

Insurance providers insuring ships in US waters should also be required to permanently deny insurance coverage to vessels found to be out of compliance, though I doubt the insurance companies would want to play ball.

I wonder if there is oil and gas at the bottom of any of these deep lakes? /s

It would be interesting to know the gas balances for these lakes, in particular how reduced mixing affects methanotrophy and methanogenesis. If its talking about climate change, this article really should discuss methane, I think that's a bigger deal.

I used to live in a place where water was infinite. Fast forward 20 years, now it's not anymore, the fish bearing watersheds ultimately bear the price, but everyone is still unmetered and there isn't low flow anything. If you piss away precious resources for no good reason and claim it's not wasteful, shame on you.

We live in an area surrounded by grass fed cows, so what does it matter if we throw away 3/4 of our steak?

Without regard to how plentiful resources are in our particular area, being needlessly wasteful is in bad taste more than anything. It's a lack of appreciation of the value of what we have.

For water specifically - it is generally speaking the most valuable resource available, we just don't appreciate it because we happen to have a lot of it.

It's a controversial story, generates buzz. But as usual, the human cost seems to fall by the wayside along the way. You need brainpower to process email, right? Can people really drive properly while trying to focus on something else? Seems like the answer is instantly no, and they are still in YC. Makes me a little sick.