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Comment I'm of two minds (Score 2) 91

On the one hand, this isn't in the job description, so...no.

On the other hand, I actually think it's useful for people that are programming systems that other people use to actually use the systems themselves in a production environment to see how they function. If you're a programmer writing software that people at the warehouse have to use, it SHOULD be part of your description to do that job for a few days a year to understand what the biggest problems are.

And also: no volunteering. If you spend any time doing this, they pay you whatever your hourly wage is + overtime. If you're a high-paid programmer and you do this, they pay you your programmer wage and compensate you for your time. It's such a drop in the bucket for them, there's literally no reason but greed not to.

Lastly: fuck Amazon and their shitty labour practices and horrendous (reportedly) work environment. I wouldn't work there on a bet.

Comment History forgotten [Re:Already done!] (Score 1) 115

Solar panels are cheap because of China, not because of "development effort" of the "decades-long research" done by rich nations.

It may look like that from this side of the millennium, but no, the history is simply in the process of being forgotten. This was a big effort.

Pretty much ALL of the present solar technology we see in megawatt production today is an outgrowth of the old Large Silicon Solar Array ("LSSA") program of the late 70s/early 80s (although the University of New South Wales group led by Martin Green needs to get some credit, too).

The program was originally part of RANN ("Research Applied to National Needs") and transitioned to ERDA (the Energy Research and Development agency) which then became part of the Department of Energy. LSSA became LSA, and then got renamed FPSA ("Flat Plate Solar Array"-- distinguishing it from concentrator solar arrays). So it had a lot of names.

You are taking like that research was given for free

Of course not. It was paid for by taxpayers (from the rich nations.)

I was there. You weren't.

If you want more details, dig up any of the old IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists' Conference ("PVSC") proceedings from the 70s and 80s and look at the program summary papers, typically the plenary talks toward the beginning.

... China makes solar cheaper. Not the west.

China makes solar cheaper because they invested in scaling up technologies developed by the west.

Comment FluffGPT (Score 1, Troll) 57

Example of a suspicious passage:

"This is the best scientific paper ever, believe me! It proves beyond a galactic doubt that climate change is a tremendous hoax perpetrated by deep communist woke liberals so that they had an excuse to regulate my grand and beautiful hotels and resorts, which score the highest ratings in the history of ratings, by the way, going all the way back to Ebbuh K. Neezer, loved the guy, taught me all about gold toilets, Making Shitting Great Again!"

Comment Re:well... (Score 1) 41

Tech companies in general...need to get over this precious-snowflake conceit that their aesthetic choices are sacred and not to be tampered with.

I still curse the small, low-contrast font craze from a few years back. Leftovers are still around. Was it a plot to keep us geezers off the WebTubes?

Comment Re:But China is the world leader here (Score 1) 15

China has built phenomenal amounts of renewal power and their emissions peaked this year, with a modest (1%) decline. Here's a good source from the World Economic Forum. It notes the complexities and fragility of the decrease, but also shows the underlying path which lead to it.

Sounds interesting. You forgot to paste the link, could you post it?

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