You cannot just say this is a ROCK! What type of rock, is it igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic rock, then what rock is it, is it granite or norite. And what is the damn mineralogy, are there any feldspars or over identifiers

Funny enough, I do believe our BEE laws in South Africa should be scrapped. According to our news he offered to pay 26% in royalties, like Google does for example in South Africa, but did not agree to give away equity. The BEE laws are basically a way for politically connected ANC members to get a slice of the pie, does not one bit help the majority of people here.

Look Elon is a shit, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. There also needs to be empowerment laws, I say to poor citizens not based on any race laws, even though the majority of extremely poor people are black, coloured indian, mixed…, but not ones that mostly filter to the politically connected like the current BEE laws favour.

Yeah, it is insane once you have family members who have started to sip from the kool-aid. I feel like it is a lost cause, even when you have objective proof, they say their feelings still triumph your evidence

Something like this is an excellent idea. I understand for the proper functioning of a democracy is to have its citizens fully informed, but the rest of the world is not a citizen of the USA. Yes I still want to know the important stuff since our world is a connected world, but do I really have to see how the POTUS is holding a water bottle weirdly, or that they like Dijon mustard on their hot dog or tripped on a stair and now their age is in question.

My country has significantly more problems that are more relevant to myself, just like every other person from another country, and being bombarded by USA politics is exhausting and quite frankly a waste of my time and mental health.

Ok first of $50 billion! Second… Fuck what else is there except to see a YouTube of someone super glue their asshole with this new stuff and why he, because it will be a dumb guy unfortunately, needs us to donate to his gofundme for an asshole transplant

I think the church would spread it all over the world, into every little nook and cranny

Yeah South African here, it’s a Christian book shop franchise here, not sure if they have spread to other countries yet. Primary school the store name was the butt of the joke for a short while

Oh no I disagree, I would rather be the richest person in a poor country than be the poorest person in a rich country. But I grew up in a low-ish, not nearly the lowest, income country so maybe I am just used to it.

Yes it does, the anode is usually dissolved/corroded away after almost a year. I also replace them when they are really rough. But some of the users suggested I use a water softening system so I think I am going that route. Thank you for your help

Sorry we have weird names here in South Africa, a traffic light we call a robot, a fuel station a garage and in my example a water heater a geyser. I apologise I did not know no one calls the water heater a geyser apart from us.

I will look into the softener idea a bit, but yeah my anode is usually replaced on a nine month to yearly basis as well. But yeah the anode is usually almost completely dissolved or corroded away by then.

Sorry we have weird names here in South Africa, a traffic light we call a robot, a fuel station a garage and in my example a water heater a geyser. I apologise I did not know no one calls the water heater a geyser apart from us.

Yeah I feel like an outlier in this post. I was engaged and dreamt big, like 2-5 kids, 2-4 dogs. So I bought a big house, which I am very fortunate to afford because I live in a rural mining area. So sitting with a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom, 2 living area, outside area by the pool, we call it a lapa, large kitchen with two separate washing areas, triple garage + area for additional 4 vehicles. The problem was she got knocked up by someone else unfortunately 6 months later, so I have a big ass house now. So I basically opened it up for people in need, this week I will have 4-5 people living with me, an abused mother with her mother to support her during the trail, hectic what some men are capable of, next week it will be about two, basically a long-term room mate, she started out as a temp but really helps in the household looking after my dogs, so it is a win win for me, and another guy that got fired and just needs a couch for a couple of days.

Also 4 dogs, 3 adopted and one was my own.

But god I miss my small 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom flat. Sounds weird but that is all I needed except a garage which it did not have, I love working and maintaining my vehicles myself.

But I am keeping my house since property prices went crazy this last year-ish, it is now cheaper paying my bond than renting a 1 bedroom flat plus nowhere for my furry dogs. Plus if I do get my family one day, they will have an awesome house

My opinion is, not based on Mexico, that the public is uninformed in the majority of decisions. Basically delegating power to the common person, especially technical decisions to the public will mean the most popular choice will win mostly, not the best choice. That is basically populism in a nutshell. Imagine you had to choose in this example a food policymaker, the one is the charismatic Willy Wonka that will say he wants everyone to eat sweets all the time, he wants you to eat whatever you want to eat, give you choices by subsidising all the sweets, worse he will attack Dr. Grouch, because he wants to tell you what to eat, force additional taxes on sweets to try and guide people to eat more gross vegetables, in fact basically force you, the poorest to have no choice but to eat these “healthy” foods. And unfortunately Dr. Grouch will agree, he wants you to eat "healthy food because in a couple of years you and your children will reap the benefits.

I think it is the crash of Tesla, its evaluation is based on being a silicon tech startup, not as an automobile company. So when the shares finally fall in line with other car manufacturers valuation, shit is going to hit the fan. And I think he knows he needs a government bailout and sanctions on foreign EVs specifically to price the competition out of the market. His entire empire is basically being propped up by the Tesla share price. He needs to go all in, it is survival mode for him right now

Well America and the EU are probably Ukraine’s biggest backers, economically and military aid wise. Thus we have a proxy war again and it is East vs West.

If you want to look at a country that solved their power problem with solar, I heard that is exactly what Vietnam did by incentivising the private generation of power, basically buying extra power from people’s solar. But do your own research, not entirely sure of the whole story

Bullshit, South African here. Yes solar has helped, mostly the affluent who can afford to install their own private home/business solar power.

But The huge problem what caused it was the ANC, which in May lost its majority in the elections for the first time since 1994.

The state run power company, Eskom, had been run into the ground by the ANC due to corruption and incompetence. In 1997 a white paper showed there would not be enough power by 2007. The only two power stations they build, the two largest in the world if I am not incorrect has been the subject of the state capture commission due to corruption.

In 2024 when it became clear they might lose majority, they exempted themselves from a government policy, which affects all medium to large businesses, which mandated they had to procure anything like maintenance or supplies through a BEE (black economic empowerment) partner. The idea is good but has been abused as rent seeking by the politically connected. So now they are exempt and the OEMs can directly work to fix and maintain the power stations.

Funny due to the loadshedding, or rolling blackouts, we did not have enough power stations working, and as far as I know we were one, if not the only country reaching our Paris accords targets.

But solar power is here to stay, heck even I want it on my own place, due to the cost of electricity becoming unaffordable, if you take a 10 year loan on a solar system, the cost savings will pay of the system itself. This has led to the affluent that can afford high tariffs prices from Eskom switch to Solar, saving them money, but they were used to subsidise electricity prices for the poor. So now the poor must pay more for electricity.

The government did finally approve the independent power producers bill, finally allowing people other than government to produce electricity, and solar looks like a solid option, since we have lots of Sun and the falling prices. So government is loosing grip on the generation market, allowing the free market to make changes.

But I will say it has been so nice to have had uninterrupted power when I come home, not needing to throw out my freezer food, having a hot shower, being able to prepare food on a hot stove under lights instead of a braai/BBQ.

Also Ai is your friend in interpreting and summarising the paper, but be careful it isn’t perfect

I would add to this libmaps, great resource to put the title of your document and it maps the paper, from where it is cited to whom cites the paper that has more up to date research. Then if the paper isn’t available use my friend above’s method to access the papers

I loved Talos principal, can’t believe after all these years we are getting a second one