So, in short: Google and other companies shamelessly polluted the web with ads and personalized ad driven content, and since regular folks use ad blockers, and ad manipulating people abuse the very system those companies fostered, there is now a supposed need to get the house in order... ...by force feeding us ads and trackers, bypassing whatever still allows people to browse sanely.
PFAS are harmful, both to the environment and humans, so the transition to safer alternatives is commendable.
The fact that this ban seems to fit the specific blend of a particular company, however, casts some doubts on how this process was conducted. Specially in a time when demand is projected to increase considerably.
I have to say this article was published in December 2019, and since then some projects for new green ammonia plants have been planned (although I must update this information).
Synthetic fertilizers are not just about ammonia: urea is needed too, and the existing infrastructure accounts for both, produced in close proximity. And using natural gas, the big problem.
Also, another thing: urea production needs carbon, currently provided by methane. If the source is the atmosphere, then producing green fertilizer would not only be carbon neutral, it could become negative. But again, if, if, if...
Where renewable energy is cheap and not easily exportable (e.g. Greenland, that recycles energy-intensive aluminum), this could be a way of exporting it indirectly and of diversifying the economy. Either that or hydrogen exports.
There is also the geopolitical perspective, since the world trade of fertilizers depend too much on states that tend to regard international law as optional: Russia, Belarus and Morocco (for urea and potassium, potassium, and phosphorus, respectively).
> states that tend to regard international law as optional
I know HN isn't supposed to be about politics, and not wishing to get into specifics and thus provoke an detailed argument, but many of us know of plenty of other "friendly" states that are happy to ignore international law whenever and wherever it suits them.
I am an olive oil producer, in Portugal, and we're harvesting as I type.
I have made some remarks about olive oil production on HN in the past, but here are some remarks about olive oil quality, grading, and production:
Olive oils do degrade with time, which means triglycerols break into free fatty acids and glycerol (E → F + _ ). Of course aroma also changes with time, but this is more subjective, and decided by actually tasting samples.
So olive oil freshness comes in three gradings, defined by free fatty acid content: extra virgin (<0,5%), virgin (<2%), and lampante (>2%). These grades will generally decide the market value, but differentiation can change this (special varieties and a good aroma allow for a better price). Extra-virgin can, in principle, be sold as virgin (e.g. if aroma is not good enough for some reason) but not the other way around.
All my production is extra virgin. That is 100.00% extra virgin. I have never, nor my family has ever, produced anything but extra virgin olive oil. The worst I have seen around me was a producer getting 0,4% free acidity, which is still extra virgin.
Today, olive oil is industrially extracted by crushing the olives and separating water and fatty phases in a centrifuge, at cold temperatures.
Olives have around 20% w/w directly extractable oil, but the fatty content of the pomace contains around 40% fat. This oil can be further extracted in centrifuges, up to a point were some temperature will be needed. This fat won't be completely extracted, and that is up to the plant processing it, that usually keeps the pomace for itself. Heating does lower the quality of olive oil, and as such its price, but some data is good to put things into perspective.
Around 95% of Portugal's production was virgin/extra virgin, followed by the US (~90%), Greece (~75%), and Italy and Spain (both ~65%) the latter being the largest producer (~35% of world total). Portugal now ranks 7th in production volume, and is the first to put olive oil in the market, although the market is controlled by Spain. Future markets usually keep prices down for the starting weeks, and I hope this will change in the following years as Portuguese production increases.
Having this objective measure in mind, and without disregard for other characteristics that can improve olive oil general quality, one can say that Portuguese olive oil is the best, modesty aside.
But it does seem the US know what they're doing, although in smaller quantities!
Italy is one of the largest importers of Portuguese olive oil. I have no idea what they do with it.
> Italy is one of the largest importers of Portuguese olive oil. I have no idea what they do with it.
Spanish neighbor here; as far as I know they resell it as Italian olive oil, as it is better known around the world and can command higher prices.
That is changing though; I live in a small city in Japan, and even here, the local supermarkets are bringing more and more Spanish and Portuguese olive oil.
Yes, many people do say that about Italian olive oil, but I have no first hand confirmation. I have also heard some professional testimonies that suggest mediocre practices at several points of the value chain that simply are not compatible with the final perceived quality. Which is weird, to say the least.
It's really nice that our olive oil is reaching small cities in Japan! And it shows that Spanish and Portuguese producers are making an effort to build brands abroad and to get known.
Today I was thinking of some sort of NN trained for colorizing photos, and then I get here and there's an AI right there...
This tool works really well. The text prompt helps, too. The suggested colors leak to surrounding objects (I forced a red skirt on a traditional costume I knew was probably red), but it looks really good.
Did you decolorize pictures originally in color in order to train the model?
Correct. But it seems anyone with excess visceral fat alone could benefit from TRE, even if not suffering from MS, which is having 3 out of 5 symptoms:
- Abdominal obesity
- High blood pressure
- High blood sugar
- High serum triglycerides
- Low serum HLDL
I propose a "this doomsday does not exist" corollary to this project:
- this dark age does not exist (viz. the fall of the Roman empire)
- this ice age does not exist (viz. the host of ice age scares from the late 60's to 80's)
- this apocalypse does not exist (viz. Mayan end of ages, comet scares, ...)
- this world famine does not exist (viz. Paul Ehrlich's entire oeuvre/eschatology)
- this nuclear holocaust does not exist (...yet?)
- this Siberian climate does not exist (viz. the UK going polar around 2020)
- this snow-free UK does not exist (viz. the opposite prediction of the one above, the inspiration for e.g. Marillion's "Seasons End" [1])
- these dead lakes do not exist (viz. the 'acid rain' scare in the 80's-90's)
- this end-of-oil does not exist (viz. "Peak Oil" in 2000, then 2020, then 2010)
- this technological eschaton does not exist (viz. the Y2K scare)
- this rapture does not exist (viz. the countless prophecies of rapture)
- this hockey stick does not exist (viz. most of Al Gore's infamous "An Inconvenient Truth")
In a few years time we'll be able to add 'this climate catastrophe does not exist' to this list while we'll be bombarded with dire predictions on whatever new apocalypse is awaiting us. Which, same as before, will be added to this list while an even newer scare awaits. That is, unless that nuclear holocaust prediction ends up becoming reality of course - time will tell.
Some people confabulate, memory is not perfect, people with severe brain injuries visibly confabulate, so all explanatory power is meaningless and we should never trust it.
Never mind that some specific lesions to the brain actually provide explanations for how we create narratives and confabulate. Those explanations are equally illusory...
