bens_dad: (Default)
2025-07-22 02:24 pm

Am I missing something or is this something between misleading and a scam ?

Headline: This cargo ship is turning its CO2 emissions into green cement
Sub-head: The first commercial carbon capture system for boats has set sail
https://thenextweb.com/news/cargo-ship-turning-co2-into-cement

Seabound’s carbon capture equipment traps the exhaust gas produced by the vessel’s huge diesel engines and funnels it into a big, high-pressure chamber filled with calcium hydroxide pebbles. The CO2 in the exhaust gas reacts with the pebbles and transforms into calcium carbonate — also known as limestone, the key ingredient in cement.

Whilst that is true, the next bit
That limestone is stored onboard and will be offloaded in Norway, where it will be delivered to Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Brevik. There, it will be used to produce greener concrete on an industrial scale

is highly misleading. Cement manufacture starts by using vast amounts of energy to turn calcium carbonate into calcium hydroxide. Thus this cleaning up of the exhaust gases is of no benefit to the cement industry.

They could use clean energy to turn the carbonate back into hydroxide, making the ship carbon neutral, but why not use use the clean energy on the ship in the first place ?
I suppose that the pebbles/cement and diesel might be lighter and smaller than a sufficiently powerful solar/wind system and safer than storing green hydrogen ... It might also be a useful stopgap until shipping is electrified.

It wont even stop us from ripping up mountains for the limestone to make the cement.

Am I missing something or is this really something between misleading and a scam ?
bens_dad: (Default)
2025-07-15 10:07 pm

Microsoft Defender for Linux !

Microsoft Defender is available (free) for Ubuntu !
# apt show mdatp
Package: mdatp
Version: 101.25042.0003
Priority: optional
Section: devel
Maintainer: Microsoft Defender Group <mdatplinuxpackages@microsoft.com>
Installed-Size: 530 MB
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.23)
Download-Size: 157 MB
APT-Sources: https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/25.04/prod plucky/main amd64 Packages
Description: Microsoft Defender (Production)
Microsoft Defender is a complete endpoint
security solution. It delivers preventative protection, post-breach
detection, automated investigation, and response.

It takes about half a gig of disk (roughly the same as ClamAV IIRC):
Download size: 157 MB
Space needed: 530 MB
bens_dad: (Default)
2025-07-04 12:09 pm

No more “green” lies! Don’t let the EU kill the anti-greenwashing law.


Petition

Protect the environment and stop corporate greenwashing! Don’t scrap the EU Green Claims Directive. Pass the law to:


Independently verify the environmental claims that companies make
Set clear rules to ensure companies make accurate claims
Prevent misleading product claims of climate neutrality and carbon offsetting – that companies make to avoid reducing their emissions
Include strict sanctions for non-compliance.

https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-07-antigreenwashing-directive-petition-EN?akid=s6344879..HTW89K
bens_dad: (Default)
2025-05-29 05:05 pm

Don’t let Europe bring back landmines

Please sign https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-05-landmine-ban-petition-EN?action=sign&t=10&akid=10880%2E1749198%2EFivuNc

Antipersonnel landmines are banned by 165 countries—including all EU member states . These hidden killers cannot tell the difference between the footsteps of a soldier or a child. . They remain active for decades, buried in farmland, beneath roads, and around homes—killing long after the war is over.

Every year, more than 5000 people are killed or injured by landmines and unexploded war remnants. 85% are civilians. More than one-third are children. [1]

The Mine Ban Convention (the 1997 Landmine Convention) ban is one of the greatest humanitarian achievements of our time. Yet now, this legacy is under threat.

Poland, Finland, and Estonia are now discussing quitting the global landmine ban. Latvia and Lithuania have already voted to leave but could still reconsider their decision. If we stay silent, more may follow—and Europe could unravel 25 years of progress in protecting civilian life. More lives and limbs will be lost.

This June, world leaders meet in Geneva to discuss the future of the Mine Ban Convention. We still have time to stand up for the Convention and the lives and limbs at stake—if we act NOW.

EU countries must stand firm behind the landmine ban. If a handful are allowed to defect without consequences, the entire ban could start to crumble – not just in Europe but globally, endangering more innocent lives.

Add your name today - call on EU governments to say NO to landmines.

Please sign https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-05-landmine-ban-petition-EN?action=sign&t=10&akid=10880%2E1749198%2EFivuNc

References:

[1] https://www.the-monitor.org/reports/landmine-monitor-2024

[2] https://icblcmc.org/our-impact/nobel-peace-laureate-condemns-lithuanias-second-withdrawal-from-a-humanitarian-disarmament-treaty
bens_dad: (Default)
2025-05-03 02:16 pm

Beaming energy down from space: can it be cheaper to collect than sunlight, yet safer ?

From time to time I read about putting solar panels in space, where they will collect more energy, not use up the limited surface area of our planet, and (thanks to orbital geometry) power our lives at night as well as day.
[ If we had a fat enough wire going around the world, we could use terrestrial solar to power the night-time hemisphere too. ]

Sunlight on Earth is safeish.
In the UK six people a day die from skin cancer; as far as I can determine most of these are caused by exposure to sunlight.
If I went to the tropics and exposed my whole body to the sun I would get sunburnt and regret it within a day.

If an energy beam is weaker than sunlight, isn't it going to need as much receiving equipment as terrestrial solar ?
Put another way, if the beam is twice as energy-dense as the sun we are only going to halve the ground area we need to devote to solar panels or radio meshes or whatever.

So we can beam energy down from space without frying everything in its path, but we are working in the safety margin; if something goes wrong, a member of the public could be inconvenienced unless they were already avoiding legitimate activities.

Maybe some other sort of beam is safer than sunlight ?
If so we can have a more concentrated energy beam that people can more safely walk through.
Microwaves cook my tea, so I doubt that a megajoule of microwaves will do an order of magnitude less damage to my body than a megajoule of sunlight.

It seems to me that a focused beam is too big a risk.
While a diffuse beam could be technically safe, a system that was socially acceptable is unlikely to be a financial improvement on solar panels - even if the energy put into the beam cost nothing.

Clouds block sunlight and u/v; what sorts of radiation do they allow through ? Do we have better protection against this and does a constant supply give a greater energy yield ?

What have I missed ?
bens_dad: (Default)
2025-04-17 10:12 pm

Illogical supreme court ruling

BBC Radio 4 news today described the Supreme Court decision as "trans people cannot use single-sex spaces". No mention of the wider points of the judgement.

They went on to report that the British Transport Police have announced that transwomen will be searched by men. Why would a search happen in a single-sex space ? Surely it needs to happen in a private space which has no need to be gendered ?

*My words aren't quite right, they didn't mean that they cannot use spaces reserved for their birth sex.

------------------

As to prisons (which I read wont be much affected by this ruling, because of the way they have implemented existing policies) I would have thought that the starting point was the prisoner's expressed (or perhaps physical) gender *at the time of the offence*. Thus a rapist who then claims to be trans has to lump it in a male prison, but a transwoman who had SRS 30 years ago goes to a women's prison if she is convicted of opposing the new protest laws.
I'm open to consider subtleties I have missed.

-------------------

I am becoming convinced that Director of Public Prosecutions is not good experience for a future Prime Minister.
bens_dad: (Default)
2025-04-09 10:30 pm

How would you feel about Musk's Mars colonisers having a dummy run Antarctica ?

How would you feel about Musk's Mars colonisers having a dummy run Antarctica ?

There is a common feeling that Antarctica should be "preserved" and saved from being spoiled by man.

On the other hand, if Musk's people can't survive in Antarctica they don't stand a chance on Mars (though it does have areas without half-years of light and dark).
bens_dad: (Default)
2025-03-23 02:18 pm

(no subject)

https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-02-save-green-deal-petition-EN

The European Green Deal is the most significant environmental and climate protection programme the European Union has ever launched. It is a real milestone for nature conservation, climate protection and the circular economy. In the last five years, 38 EU laws have been adopted to make Europe more climate-friendly and economically sustainable. Their implementation will take Europe a considerable step forward in climate protection and transitioning to a sustainable economy.

However, the ambitious roadmap to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 is under threat from the Europe-wide shift to the right.

An alliance of right-wingers and conservatives in the EU Parliament and EU member states is putting pressure on Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission President intends to present proposals that will significantly undermine the Green Deal in the coming weeks. And this is just the beginning. More is to follow! The so-called ‘omnibus’ proposals are a veritable festival for the polluters’ lobby. Under the guise of reducing bureaucracy, the EU Commission wants to gut the Green Deal systematically. The end of new climate-damaging combustion engine cars is just as much at risk as protecting fundamental human rights through the European Supply Chain Act. The EU Commission does not even want to enforce existing legislation for the expansion of renewable energies.

This attack on the Green Deal not only jeopardises the basis of our survival but also the future of a prosperous European economy.
bens_dad: (Default)
2024-12-24 12:16 pm
Entry tags:

Sloping Gutters

I noticed that this building with a blocked circular window under the eves
A stone building with sloping gutters
has gutters that slope towards the middle. This might just be age and poor repair, but this is Kendal, a town known for rain.

If you look closely at this google street maps picture of the other side of the building, you can just see a typical Kendalian feature: the slates at the bottom of the roof are larger than the ones at the top - fewer gaps where there is most running water which might leak through.

I suspect that the gutters slope to speed the water into the downpipes.
bens_dad: (Default)
2024-12-18 09:48 am

Post Office != Royal Mail

I still think of Royal Mail as synonymous with the post office, so this sight Two posters on a wall inside a Post Office. One advertises Amazon, the other DPD and Evri brought me up short.

Scroll down https://www.postoffice.co.uk/ a page or two and you will see Our online carriers followed by equal-sized logos for Royal Mail, EVRi and DPD.

The £1 minimum charge for non-Royal Mail carriers is no longer a barrier.
bens_dad: (Default)
2024-11-21 08:17 am

Guess the capital city

I've been playing https://globle-capitals.com/game where you guess a capital city and it tells you how far away you are.

My latest guess is 0km from the right answer. Can you tell me the two capitals ?
bens_dad: (Default)
2024-10-19 07:33 pm

Amusing comparison

I’d advise you to avoid that at all costs. She’s Scottish, not Irish.”

“I’m not sure I understand the difference.”

“Briefly, Irishmen, drink whiskey and sing ballads. Scottish men wear
skirts, and play darts with telephone poles. They aren’t the same.”

Darts is scored for accuracy, the Caber Toss is scored for style, but they are both measured on a clock-like face.
bens_dad: (Default)
2024-10-12 06:14 pm

Interview: Hilary Cass 6 months on

Six months after her report into gender care for children, BBC Women's Hour interviewed Hilary Cass
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023q2z
What I hear in this interview is not what I expected after reading much of what I read about the report.

She appears to believe that gender questioning children should get care for all their needs, including puberty blockers where appropriate. One of her reasons for saying that they may not be appropriate is that currently the average age to *start* them is fifteen, which is too late for these to be useful to many of them. She says it might be better for people that age to go straight to gendered hormones !
bens_dad: (Default)
2024-09-28 05:15 pm

Stop *this* government spying on our banks accounts

The Conservative government wanted to spy on all of our bank accounts on the premise of dealing with welfare fraud and error. We objected and they were defeated.

Now Starmer wants to bring this back:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-government-from-spying-on-all-of-our-bank-accounts

They already have the power to check suspicious bank accounts for benefit fraud.
They do not need the banks to snoop when there is no suspicion.

I hoped that a change of government would get rid the the authoritarians.*

* Yes, I did think it was unlikely, but I did hope so.
bens_dad: (Default)
2024-09-01 06:05 pm

I saw a lady in a burka yesterday.

I saw a lady in a burka (or a niqab) yesterday.
She was walking down the street hand-in-hand with a man.

I told my wife I'd never seen a woman in a burka with a man before.
She pointed out that it was unlikely that I'd seen a woman in a burka without a man !

I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen a woman in a burka in real life *and* the first time I'd seen a woman in a burka with a man, even including in pictures or on TV etc.
bens_dad: (Default)
2024-09-01 12:36 pm

Is Charles older than Elizabeth ?

I had a couple of letters to post this week:



Two letters; the stamps showing an old King Charles and a young Queen Elizabeth.