• 4 Posts
  • 52 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • That would be fine, I can live with choosing two of those for any given account.

    What I hate is when the company offering the service forces its choice on me. I may be reliant on logging into some specific account without access to my phone, but then along comes company X and says “NOPE! Your account security is more important than you being able to access your own stuff. We’re completely on board with locking you out of your own accounts in the name of security.”

    To be clear, I’m talking about personal accounts. Those on a network where I’m responsible for preventing a breach are another matter of course.


  • I’m surprised you’re getting downvoted so heavily: Is it really that controversial of an opinion that I want to be able to make the choice between reliable accessibility, efficiency, and hardened security for my personal stuff?

    Of course: On a corporate network I have a responsibility to have a very secure account so that I’m not a weak point, I’m not talking about scenarios where my account being breached exposes others that I’m responsible for.

    I’m talking about my personal accounts. I may want to choose to have a password and no 2FA, for the simple reason that I may want to be able to access my account from a library computer or internet cafe without having access to any of my devices. That reliable access may be more important to me than having heavier security, and nobody has any business asking me why, because it’s my data that I’m choosing how to protect. However, that’s become pretty much an impossibility by now, with everyone shoving 2FA and whatnot down my throat, regardless of what I want.

    If I happen to lose/break my laptop and phone simultaneously, which is not unthinkable given that I carry both on me pretty much every day, I’m pretty much locked out of everything.




  • I love how the mathematician ends the interview by saying

    [this] may help us uncover something beautiful, or maybe even useful.

    It’s great seeing how these people work with science for the sake of science itself, because it’s beautiful, not because they suspect that they’ll find something that immediately changes the world. It makes me think that they see themselves more as artists than as engineers, and I think that if you have a career in science it’s a healthy approach to have. Most scientists never have an “Einstein-like” breakthrough, but contribute pieces to the puzzle that may lead to breakthroughs long after they’re gone. Being satisfied with that is probably key to having peace of mind as a scientist.



  • To clarify a bit: what I mentioned above is the legal minimum an employer can give me regarding sick days. They are of course free to do more, and I my personal case, I’ll usually just work reduced from home (answer mails and do lightweight administrative stuff) if I’m starting to get a cold or something, get better in a day or two, and come back full time, without logging any sick days, because my employer prefers that I’m available for small stuff and get well fast rather than that I take “full” sick leave if I’m just mildly sick.


  • Holy shit… if I get sick during my vacation, I’ll get those vacation days refunded so I can use them later, when I’m not sick anymore. I can call in sick for up to three consecutive days, 25 days total per year without a doctors note. You only need a doctors note if you exceed those limits, and with a doctors note you have paid sick leave until the doctor says you are fit to work (although the government covers your salary, or part of it, not entirely sure about the details, after the first two weeks or something).






  • If we’re able to make hydrocarbon-synthesis from CO2 efficient… we’re still going to need to source the hydrogen somewhere.

    But if we do that using electrolysis (with renewables), and are able to create more energy efficient CO2 capturing processes, I could see synthetic hydrocarbons as a viable fuel option in the future. The thing is: They’re stupidly good at being stable, energy dense, energy carriers. We also have a lot of infrastructure in place to handle hydrocarbons already.

    In principle, synthetic hydrocarbons could be part of a zero-emission cycle, where we capture CO2 and electrolyse hydrogen with renewable energy, and use the hydrocarbons as an energy carrier. But if we go that way, we’re definitely going to have to research efficient hydrogen production, and probably storage as well.


  • One of the advantages of hydrogen is that tanks and fuel cells can withstand a large number of “charging cycles” much better than batteries. Additionally, for ships, the amount of energy needed to move is so enormous that I fear we’ll have a hard time creating batteries that are feasible for long-distance shipping.

    For short distance ferrying (including large, car carrying ferries) on the other hand, Norway has already implemented quite a few electric stretches. The major issue there is building the infrastructure to charge the ferries.