When I was in Belgium a couple of years ago, I visited a farm where they're still pulling WW1 iron out of the ground on a daily basis. "The Iron Harvest" it's called. Finding WW1 shells is so common that farmers in the area just collect them and put them at the end of their roads for the disposal guys to pick up.

The truly scary part is that somewhere in Belgium, there's about 87,000 kilos of high explosives, which was supposed to be used to blow an enormous hole in the German trenches became lost when the Brits had to fall back. To this day, no one knows where the explosives are. In 1955, lightning hit a similar "lost mine" and pretty much leveled an otherwise dull field of vegetables.

Article about these lost mines here: https://simonjoneshistorian.com/2017/05/01/lost-mines-of-messines/

Reality is scarier than any book, TV, or movie.

And no one stands up or does anything about it!
All due respect, but the US has become the biggest cesspool of abuse and slavery in the world. The Government uses the people and controls them. The leaders treat everyone as tools to suck wealth out of and then dispose of them when they see fit.

I'm saddened by this incredible system of control, human right's abuses, and degradation of an entire society, for the profits of the 1% -- and no one in the US will stand up for themselves - in fact, people are so brain washed, that they stand up and defend the systems of abuse that keep them confines and abused.

TL:DW....I think bottled water has always been a scam.

I can count the number of disposable water bottles I've purchased in my lifetime on one hand. I don't understand why people buy them regularly.
Get a good filter and stainless steel bottle and stop tossing out plastic.

*doublepromote *quality info, even if it barely scratches the surface of this food web destroyer.
This seems like our backup Armageddon. If the effects of climate change don't wipe us out, the survivors get to die slowly of petroleum poisoning.
I hope those disposable forks were worth it.

I was surprised he didn't mention all the plastics we eat intentionally, like any toothpaste with sparkles for instance....that's just bits of plastic we are fed on purpose.

They are extremely easy to repair and costs fuck all for parts. Apple jacks the cost of parts and is doing their best to force you to Apple Authorized repair locations that have to charge a pre-determined cost.

They want their equipment to be disposable, not repairable. They were doing it for years when I worked there and it's only gotten worse.

I think there are 3 real issues with 3D printed guns that are genuinely new dangers worth being concerned about.

1. They completely avoid background checks.

2. They're untraceable to a gun seller.

3. They could lead to relatively inexpensive and unregistered fully automatic weapons.

It does seem that plastic guns are not worth worrying about because they're so terrible. But, metal shaping CNC Mills aren't that expensive and can do a decent job of printing guns at home.

I can't really buy the argument that no one will be interested in printing out machine guns because of the existing criminal penalties. If someone is planning a murder or bank robbery or terrorist attack, they're already expecting a life sentence if they're caught. And, even if they plan to get away with it, a gun that can do the job really well, has no history to trace, and can be destroyed or disposed of right after could just make the crime easier to get away with.

This is Playa Montesinos in downtown Santo Domingo. On Google Earth there is a cruise ship docked less than a kilometer from this beach. Apparently this happens after heavy rains which ties in with studies that show that 90-95% of all the plastic in the oceans comes from 10 rivers, 2 in Africa and 8 in Asia with China being the worst offender. It seems that as third world economies improve, their taste for western throwaway culture increases without a corresponding increase in disposal and recycling infrastructure. I've read somewhere that even where they have landfills they're often located near rivers where rains and floods flush the landfill and allow it to accept more trash.

Actually he's just a bicycle riding Seattle leftist trying to dispose of his protest sign in an environmentally friendly way

I'm glad they went this route.

There's a certain attitude that says that only cute, indie games about children with big heads lost in a scary world can be art (shamelessly stole that from Zero Punctuation), but big-budget action games are disposable nonsense.

And there certainly ARE plenty of good, clever, indie games and insanely dumb, tone-deaf, "press f to pay respects" AAA games.

But you can have violence be a part of your story and still be a good story. Hell, your story can be about violence and what it does to you. Spec Ops: The Line is a great example of this.

It's disingenuous to say that video games are nothing but sadistic murder simulators, but it would be equally disingenuous to pretend they're all sweetness and light.

The first God of War is as brutal and sadistic as they come and it's a great game. "Hatred" sets out to be the most brutal and sadistic game ever but it's terrible.

as·sault ri·fle. : noun-a rapid-fire, magazine-fed automatic rifle designed for infantry use.
Obviously it's not any gun used to fight. You act on one hand like you're a near expert, and on the other like you know nothing about the subject. Why must you feign being so obtuse and naive as a pretext to sesquipedalian and pedantic argument of your own creation?

Shotguns aren't rifles, and pump action isn't semi auto. No need for semi auto to hunt ducks.

Indiscriminately pumping animals, even nuisance animals full of lead isn't acceptable, even when you're just eradicating them and intentionally wasting the meat. That's why professionals trap them for humane disposal. You get more that way too. If you can't hunt humanely, leave it to those who can, please.

Home defense, I think short barrel pump action shotguns are the best choice...easier to wield in close quarters, and much easier to hit your target with. Also, the unmistakable sound of chambering a round is usually all it takes.

From 1 jan 2016 the Dutch government has obliged shops and restaurants to charge 10 cents for any plastic bag they give out.

https://www.government.nl/topics/environment/ban-on-free-plastic-bags

This means plastic bag use in supermarkets, shops and restaurants has fallen by 70%. It has also triggered shops and restaurants to be more aware. Disposable napkins, cutlery etc are only given when asked. Part of this was that it is a cost to the companies and the government made it socially acceptable, even hip, to take these out.

Organo -mercury compounds are extremely dangerous even at quite low levels because they do bio-accumulate in the natural environment. Read up on Minamata Disease - caused by industrial disposal of organo-mercury compounds into surface waters that ended up in Minamata Bay in Japan. The mercury bioaccumulated into the fish and shellfish - not only neurological effects but also severe birth defects for the population that consumed the fish.

I still use one of those double edged razors, works soooooo much better than the new ones.

EDIT: If you are wondering, the new razor containers have a slot in the back to slide the used ones in. They also last for a lot longer than one shave, usually about 2 weeks if I shave every day. You can tell when they start slightly tugging at the hairs prior to cutting them. They are a lot cheaper than normal disposable razors as well.

No Netflix for me, and no luck on a quick search of torrents, but I'll keep my eye out for that show/series.

Many metrics to compare. Ecologically, that system sounds great for static locations with enough of an elevation gradient and reservoir areas to make it work. On the other hand it seems like the ecological damage done by constructing batteries, factories, and disposing of them is likely quite small compared to many other alternatives, particularly fossil fuels (which also have long-term scarcity concerns on top of plenty of other issues).

A major advantage of battery tech over hydro storage would be mobility. If the thing consuming energy doesn't sit in one place, hydro storage won't work. Another somewhat less significant advantage is the ability to install anywhere -- a battery farm recharged by mains and/or a solar/wind farm could be installed in places where hydro storage couldn't. And for one more item in favor of batteries, I'd wager that the land area footprint required for batteries is much smaller per kWH stored, although that might be wrong for extremely large reservoirs (ie. a hydroelectric dam, pretty much). But by the time you're getting to that large scale, the location requirements and ecological disruption are also much more extreme.

Anyway, I don't mean to pooh-pooh the idea of hydro storage -- it really does seem like a very good and ingenious idea where it would be applicable. But there's certainly room for improved battery tech, too. I don't think that we're going to get fully or even significantly weaned off of fossil fuels quite as fast as the video would have us hope for, either. Fossil fuels were the primary tool in our toolbox for a LONG time. And as the saying goes, since all we've had is that "hammer", we've started to think of everything as a nail.

There was a show, islands of the future, on Netflix now, that had a large scale demonstration and explanation of it, used to store wind energy and power an island.
Unfortunately, I don't know of a comparison with batteries with concrete numbers.
I think you hit the nail on the head with what you said about efficiency, but for large scale storage, it has to be better when you factor in the energy costs of making, replacing, and disposing batteries, even including the cost of replacing the turbines.
...and all that ignores the ecological issues, where ponds beat battery factories hands down.