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Comment Re:El niño (Score 1) 68

If you are working with an operating system that isn't painfully behind for this kind of thing: option+n, n.

If you are:
(Windows) Hold Alt and type 164 for lowercase ñ, or 165 for uppercase Ñ (or use 0241 for ñ and 0209 for Ñ)
(Linux) Press Ctrl + Shift + U at the same time, release, then type 00f1 (for ñ) or 00d1 (for Ñ) and press Enter or Space.

Comment Re:No hurricanes (Score 1) 68

Yes, let's distill what's happening down in a massively lossy algorithm where you completely ignore all of the following:

1. more rain in southern California means more soil erosion in southern California.
2. more rain in southern California means less snow in the Cascades, which means worse fire seasons in the Pacific Northwest next year.
3. less snow in the Cascades means less water in the hydroelectric reservoirs on the Columbia River, which means more natgas burning for the same energy output. This means more expensive energy up and down the entire west coast.

Try to think a little more.

Comment Re:4C (Score 2) 68

Just... absolutely staggering energy numbers.!

If you are interested in staggering some more: go check out how much power is channeled via the Gulf Stream, both in terms of heat transport and in shear kinetic energy. It's tens-to-hundreds of terawatts.

(It's tough to tease the Gulf Stream on its own from the larger AMOC, which is on the order of one petawatt.)

Comment Re:How about fruit (Score 1) 115

plants mostly grow straight out of the air by breaking carbon dioxide down for its carbon and releasing oxygen as a byproduct.

So you are a fertilizer-denier? You don't seem to see the value that soil plays. Here's a hint: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium uptake happens in the roots.

Comment Re:How about fruit (Score 1) 115

Stop buying your fruit from mega-chains. They ship it unripe, and then use "ripening rooms" locally. Nutrient uptake isn't even a thing when they're sitting on racks in ethylene-enriched air.

We get fruit from local farms by way of a farmers market, and there is a night / day difference.

Comment Effects (Score 2) 68

Because the summary couldn't be bothered, here are some anticipated effects of a strong El Niño:

California (Central & Southern): High Flood and Storm Risk

        The intensified subtropical jet steers frequent, moisture-rich atmospheric rivers directly into Central and Southern California.
        Winter (December through March) will likely bring elevated risks of flash flooding, debris flows, and intense coastal storm surge/erosion driven by persistent southerly gale tracks.

Sierra Nevada: High Elevation Snow, Lower Elevation Rain

        Precipitation volume is historically above average, but El Niño systems run warm. Expect heavy snowpack at the highest passes (above 7,500–8,000 ft), while mid-to-lower elevations face more rain-on-snow events and early runoff rather than a deep seasonal base.

Southwest Interior:

        Nevada, Arizona, and Utah will see higher frequencies of winter storm systems, leading to above-average desert rainfall and cooler-than-normal daytime winter temperatures under cloud cover.

For Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, an event of this magnitude typically yields conditions that are noticeably warmer, drier, and more snow-starved than average.
1. Temperatures: Distinctly Above Normal

        The deepened Aleutian Low pumps persistent mild, subtropical Pacific air into the Pacific Northwest, blocking the typical Arctic air intrusions from Canada.
        Hard freezes, prolonged valley ice storms, and extended sub-freezing spells become substantially less probable.

2. Precipitation: Below Average to Near Average

        Because the storm track is pinned farther south, the frequent parade of broad frontal systems often skirts under Oregon, tracking into California.
        While individual atmospheric river events can still hit the PNW in early winter (late October through December), the total accumulated seasonal precipitation over the winter months (Dec–Feb) leans distinctly below normal.

3. Cascade Snowpack Deficit ("Snow Drought")

        The combination of above-average temperatures and reduced mid-winter storm passes poses a severe threat to Cascade mountain snowpack.
        Snow levels will consistently hover higher than usual (often above 5,000–6,000 ft). Storms that would normally build the base at pass levels (Snoqualmie, Stevens, Mt. Hood/Government Camp) will frequently manifest as rain or wet, slushy precipitation.

        Peak seasonal snow-water equivalent (SWE) typically suffers a 20% to 50% deficit during strong El Niño years.

4. Spring and Summer Runoff Pressures

        A thin Cascade snowpack coupled with early winter melt leads directly to lower late-spring and summer streamflows.
        Regional impacts to anticipate later in 2027 include earlier summer irrigation drawdowns, stressed hydroelectric capacity in the Columbia River Basin, and an elevated baseline for the 2027 summer wildfire season.

Submission + - Regulating AI Like Aviation or Nuclear Weapons (yoshuabengio.org)

puzzled writes: Yoshua Bengio, the founder of LawZero, "a nonprofit startup developing technical solutions for highly-capable, safe-by-design AI systems", recently addressed the U.N. Security Council. The AI companies themselves are positioning their work as a potential existential threat, and Bengio argues that they should be subject to a similarly strict level of regulation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would not even issue General Electric a permit to build a breeder reactor in 21st century America, but Anthropic and OpenAI's creations are running wild.

We had the wisdom to stop atmospheric nuclear testing after the 1954 Castle Bravo incident, but that took until 1963, and we have incrementally reduced total nuclear weapons since 1991 via the START treaty and its successors. AI is moving at internet speed; we need results here in months or quarters, not years to decades.

Comment Re:Yes they do (Score 1) 160

Yes, Grok absolutely operates under "strict neutrality rules" because the owner would NEVER manipulate anything to his own ideology ... ...

Do you actually believe his horseshit? Are you really that daft?

Do you believe this horseshit equally about Meta?

Do you suffer from extreme myopic vision of easily observed reality?

Comment Re:"reached orbit" is a misnomer (Score 1) 70

The two development models are as different as night and day.

SpaceX indexed on rapid iteration and tolerating catastrophic failure to learn from it.

Remember, NASA didn't exactly have a flawless execution record either - they blew up a LOT of early rockets that just didn't have people on them. They also launched Saturn III rockets unmanned to test systems before putting people on the scaled up Saturn V - in fact, the Apollo 7 mission was not launched on a Saturn V because it was only going to orbit. And they still killed a few people on the pad (Apollo 1 incident).

By the way, in case you think I'm some Musk fanboy, I hope he gets antibiotic-resistant chlamydia so he can have burning urination for the rest of his days.

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