Solarpunk technology

Currently, talking to a face is the ultimate guarantee that you are communicating with a human (and on a subconscious level makes you try to relate, empathise, etc.). If humanoid robot technology eventually surpasses the Uncanny Valley, discovering that I'm talking to a humanoid with an LLM and that my intuitions had been betrayed would undermine the instinctive trust I give to the other party when I see a human face. This would degrade my social interactions across the board, because I'd live in constant suspicion that the humans I was talking to weren't actually human.

It is for this reason I think it should be the law that humanoid robots must be clearly differentiated from humans. Or at least that people should have the right to opt out from encountering realistic-looking humanoids.

The design on this seems less than ideal, as I imagine the clear plastic door reduces the efficiency somewhat, and it's much more complicated and costly to make compared to a traditional Pot-in-pot design, which uses the same principle.

A more advanced version of this concept that could work in any humidity (the clay designs only function in dry, non-humid regions) was seemingly in development by a company called Coolar, but haven't updated anything since they released this presentation. But that design certainly wouldn't be within the grasp of the people who most need it, compared to the clay designs.

EDIT: After a bit more investigation, the upright fridge design by Mitt is indeed pretty lame. It can cool interior temperatures down by 8 degrees C compared to ambient, which is about 14 degrees Fahrenheit lower.

In comparison, the pot-in-pot 'Zeer' design can reduce internal temperatures by up to 22 Celsius, or 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So... I'm starting to think this upright 'fridge' is more of a novelty than it is practical.

So if you're curious about these, live in a climate where it is usable, and want to try building one, here's some instructions on building the Zeer design instead.

Healthcare is solarpunk.

Hi all!

I’m new here. I represent a little movement out of Africa, but I am myself Scandinavian.

Currently I’m working on a video exploring the role of technology in shaping a radically different society aligned much more broadly with solarpunk ideas. I’m specifically interested in how blockchain, DAOs and AI could potentially revolutionize the future of consensus making, but I’m also acutely aware that this is a polarizing issue. What are your views on this?

Due to a quirk of geology, the purest quartz in all the world comes from the picturesque town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The mineral, created deep within the earth when silicon-rich magmas cooled and crystallized some 370 million years ago, is essential to the production of computer chips and solar panels.

China, India, and Russia provide high purity quartz as well, but what’s mined there does not match the quality or quantity of what lies beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains. With Spruce Pine among the scores of Appalachian communities reeling from Hurricane Helene, the sudden closure of quartz mines that have supplied chip manufacturers for decades has rattled the global tech industry. But this quartz is vital to the solar industry too. And while industry experts expect companies to withstand the temporary closure of the town’s two mines, it highlights the precarity of a clean energy economy that relies on materials produced at a single location — especially in a world of increasingly ferocious natural disasters.

Helene’s impact on Spruce Pine “absolutely lays bare the danger of having a monopoly in any part of the supply chain,” said Debra DeShong, head of corporate communications at solar manufacturer QCells North America. QCells, which manufactures photovoltaic panels in Georgia and is building an additional facility that will manufacture the components needed to assemble them, is evaluating whether the Spruce Pine mine closures will impact it.

Just to be clear, the noise and air pollution that a switch to drone shows away from fireworks shows would save, would be incredibly significant. I don't think the cost makes it viable yet, but it's something to aim for.

cross-posted from: https://futurology.today/post/2274888

Tricks from the oil industry have produced a hot-rocks breakthrough

I've read following article on lowtechmagazine.com a while ago: Mist Showers: Sustainable Decadence?

I'm someone who showers quite a lot (sometimes up to twice daily), especially in humid summer weather. Usually, it's one warm one with a bit of soap, to get rid of dust, smells/ sweat, chemicals and dirt, and to sleep better, and then sometimes a quick cold shower in the morning without any surfactants, especially when I've sweat a lot in the night.

According to the article, showering often takes up to a few hundred liters of warm water in some cases, which is super inefficient to heat up. Reducing the water usage would also extremely reduce energy consumption A LOT.

In my case, I don't shower long, don't have the lever opened completely, and don't like (too) warm showers anyway. Still, I found the concept of spray showers very interesting, and I'm thinking about building one for myself. Someone has to do the first steps, right?

Does anybody here already have one, and wants to show their experience with it?

I also have a few questions:

• Was it hard to build?
• Do I have to consider anything, especially regarding safety and leaks (high pressure), clogged nozzles, and cleaning?
• How does the experience of showering with them feel like? Do you still get as clean as with a regular shower head, even without soap?
• How do guests react to it? Do they like it?

Thanks a lot! :)

Canonical YouTube link

A rehost of Linus' video YT

Piped

Welcome to the world of data colonialism, where the continuous extraction of data from our lives generates massive wealth for the few and suffering for the many on a global scale.

Andrewism at it again 🔥

Hi, I've had some good discussions here in the past, so I thought I'd reach out with an idea for a resource I'd like to try to put together for solarpunk writers and artists.

I was talking with A.E. Marling about a story he's working on, and one of the things he was looking for was uses for old cars.

I think the obvious answer you'll get from solarpunks (aside for limited use where it makes sense) is to melt them down for your society's steel manufacturing needs - electric arc furnace smelters running off a green grid, recycling, are about as close to zero emission steel as you're likely to get, and the metal is already refined so I think you could get pretty tight control over the quality on the output.

But I think reuse offers some much more interesting opportunities. I'm only just starting to learn about fixing cars, but I've already been struck by the fact that at least some parts in cars can go into other things. For example, it looks like certain old alternators can be used to generate a wide range of amperage and voltage, suitable for different needs, including welding: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/diy-low-cost-generator-from-vehicle-alternator-alternating-generator.1843/ so perhaps one could be hooked by belts (adjusting speed) to a waterwheel or something?

I feel like a solarpunk society with a really strong library economy might start cataloguing parts of more complicated machines (even salvaged from machines like cars).

And looking for parts commonalities and alternative uses strikes me as a really cool step towards building an open-source manufacturing sphere. Perhaps starting with a database of hardware/parts so they could be identified and repurposed, and alternatives identified.

So the actual proposal:

I'd like to try and put together a list of common car parts which can be reasonably used in other (more solarpunk) contexts. This doesn't have to be specific down to the model number or include a how-to guide, (though I recognize that some reuses might only be possible with a specific model) just something solarpunk writers could casually drop into a description of a room or workshop, or an artist could put in the background of a scene. Something that shows that this isn't a scratch-built future, but that they're repurposing stuff where they can. Think of all the weird ways postapoclyptic movies dress the sets with misused items from the present - we could offer something like that to solarpunk, but grounded in at least some practicality. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!

edit: I've built out a list and it's located over here: https://slrpnk.net/post/13032570