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Comment Re:Use two emails: private & public (Score 1) 182

This is a good idea but, frustratingly, a lot of registration forms reject the "+" as an invalid character in an email address despite its being part of the spec. However, if one controlled one's own mail server it would be trivial to combine the grandparent poster's scheme and your own by adding '.' as an extension-delimiting character, with the added benefit that it would be more difficult for spammers to detect.

I've been doing just that with postfix for a number of years with great success.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 1070

Fertilizer is only one element of the green revolution. Figuring out which specific varieties of which crops to grow where made a huge difference (plus new types were bred), as did irrigation and pesticides. Some of the crop changes meant a fivefold increase in yield even without fertilizer (tenfold with).

Fertilizer, irrigation and pesticides all depend heavily on fossil fuels.

And then there's this, from the wikipedia entry (yeah, yeah):

HYVs significantly outperform traditional varieties in the presence of adequate irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers. In the absence of these inputs, traditional varieties may outperform HYVs. Therefore, several authors have challenged the apparent superiority of HYVs not only compared to the traditional varieties alone, but by contrasting the monocultural system associated with HYVs with the polycultural system associated with traditional ones.

Back to your post:

Part of that is because oil is just the cheapest source, currently. The thing is - it'll still be the cheapest source even if the price of crude goes up a lot more, and it's not the only possible source.

You've struck upon the crux of the issue: there isn't another possible source that's even nearly as energy-dense as petroleum, and that's a problem. Also, the current agricultural system is deeply entrenched in its oil-based infrastructure. Transitioning to another - albeit much less energy-dense - source will take incredible amounts of time and energy itself, and will have marked effects on food yield when it does happen. And by the way, people are already rioting over the current food prices.

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