Sorry for a stupid joke, but I misread 'lava' as Java and immediately thought of all those Hadoop clusters big enterprises put into cold countries to save on cooling costs.
Well, IIRC that was one of the reasons for Facebook building a datacenter in Luleå. If you're building a DC in the area anyway then you might as well build it in the colder area.
In the good old days you just wouldn't make the joke. Or you'd get downvoted into oblivion even if you apologised. It was a much better site back then.
I sometimes wonder if we've already become Reddit, or at least are moving to that direction. The remarks and comments sometimes just aren't appreciated; if only there were more strict moderation.
We have. We became reddit about two years ago, just after dang took over. I blame the rule against complaining that HN is turning into reddit, but also dang's niceness initiatives, the interventionist moderation (particularly "detaching" negative posts from threads) and the way your own posts don't grey out any more when downvoted.
Oh I am sorry for finding the joke funny oh oh and now being downvoted oh oh oh cause of course freedom of speech is a luxury in the HN world. You guys remember me why I've quit contributing to stackoverflow.
A bit off topic, but Iceland is the most beautiful place that I have ever visited. It's geographical diversity is astounding. Taking a trip around the island felt like taking a tour of the Middle-Earth version of it's a small world. Every few miles, the landscape drastically changes.
We picked up our rental car in to a desolate area near a volcano where the ground was a reddish-brown clay. If felt like being on Mars: http://imgur.com/Z2oS0HS
After about an hour or two of traveling, the scenery shifted to a Shire like area with lush green rolling hills: http://imgur.com/BCQECak, homes built into the ground like hobbit holes: http://imgur.com/xf9Dmsg, trolls that were turned to stone after being exposed to sunlight: http://imgur.com/MM146hm a pristine river snaking through that eventually morphed into rapids: http://imgur.com/M0yIPkH.
The waterfalls were breathtaking. They were festooned with hexagonal column sections formed from dark lava: http://imgur.com/IJXgMWL.
Surprisingly, I learned that the first European visitor to the Americas, Leifur Erickson, hailed from Iceland: http://imgur.com/PBWkafA
I'm leaving out so much more, like the naturally heated outdoor geothermal pools of the Blue Lagoon spa.
The people were delightful, well educated, very technically literate and luckily spoke fantastic English. As a country of just over 300,000 people, they are the per capita winners of the world:
Lowest murder rate
Most peaceful country
highest energy usage
Happiest population
Best gender equality
Highest literacy rate, most books read, most authors
I've toyed with the idea of taking a 3 month sabbatical there to work on my game. (The only person I know there works for CCP, makes of Eve Online). It looked like it would be one of the most romantic places in the world to spend your honeymoon at.
Late reply, but that's exactly how I picture New Zealand! I described Iceland as the It's a Small World version of Middle Earth. As LotR was filmed in NZ, I expect it to be much the same, except that a trip around the whole island is more than 18hrs drive time :)
NZ is definitely on my list of travel destinations in 2017. Anything in particular I should see?
Highlights - single government greenhouse, “Banana plants can only bear fruit once, and it takes a year and half for them to reach maturity,” " - 600 Trees produce about 3 pounds of bananas each. (1 ton)
Also people like to ignore that the body will keep the amount of potassium in it constant. So you have always the same amount of potassium radionuclides in you.
This leads to some people underestimating the effects of radionuclide intake.
The 'common' banana available in Thailand is neither Gros Michel nor Cavendish. It's a tiny little thing that (going by a photo on Wikipedia it's something similar to a Latundan I believe) IMO is only useful for blending (i.e. for a smoothy) because it's too 'moist' to eat as-is. Thai's seem to mostly grill or fry them, rather than eating them fresh.
We recently (this year) have been able to grow the less common (and more expensive to buy locally) 'big' bananas, which I've confirmed today are in fact cavendish.
I'll ask my in-laws (who had already grown Cavendish) if they know anything about where to buy/find either Gros Michel fruit, or plants.
This whole thing gets quite confusing (for me at least) as I don't read (and speak very little) Thai, and software translators convert the Thai for "Banana", "Cavendish Banana" and "Gros Michel Banana" all into "Banana" in English.
In Kerala (state in South India), you get this variety called Nendran. It is larger than the common variety you get in India, (not sure if the common ones in India are Cavendish or not), and damned tasty. I specifically say tasty, not sweet, because a) it has a unique and good flavor, and b) it is not too sweet. People often boil it and eat it, which is not done with the common variety. I just googled a bit for it but cannot find its English or Latin name, but did find this:
which has Nendran as a cultivar under the Plantains category. But the Wikipedia link for it redirects to the main link for Banana. But that link does have a photo of it:
Anyone visiting Kerala, consider asking for it and trying it out.
Edit: The cultivars list above has Nendran under the AAB Group - Triploid cultivars of Musa × paradisiaca and within that, under the plantain subgroup.
So that may be the Latin or scientific name, and I guess it is a plantain.
I've been curious to try a Gros Michel too. I read somewhere that they taste much more like artificial banana flavor than the Cavendish do, which dampens my enthusiasm.
Enjoy the Cavendish while you can, a new blight has evolved that is destroying them and spreading worldwide.
We do, and some folks even think it is economical to lay a sea bed power cable to the UK to sell some of it off. Most of the electricity is exported already in the form of aluminum.
Whether or not to keep building hydro power plants is one of the most controversial political topics in Iceland, and a strong differentiator between the agendas of different parties.
> If they have such cheap power (nearly free minus maintenance and capital) from hydrothermal - why can't they convert it to electricity to power lamps?
And here is me trying to kill the bananas that randomly grow in the garden. I hack them down then 2 weeks later there is another 1m tall one popping out the hedge. I don't know if anyone else classes them as a pest, but my neighbours and I do. When I first moved in I stopped counting after the first 100 3m+ ones cut down.
No - New Zealand. Supposedly they don't grow well here although I think that must relate to fruit ripening as the palms grow very fast.
I've seen people put big bags over the actual bananas to get them to ripen which presumably helps.
I am yet to see a banana plant with edible bananas in New Zealand.
Fun fact, we're the second largest per capita importer of bananas in the world, just behind Iceland, and bananas are the most common item in shopping baskets.
I remember seeing (and walking around) what looked like a tomato farm nearby Gamla Laugin (the Secret Lagoon) [0]. I was really surprised by the completely stocked supermarkets everywhere with good looking vegetables and fruits. I felt pretty ignorant by this even though I prepared my two weeks driving around Iceland for months. Most incredible thing I've ever seen, obviously.
By the way, if anyone's in for a cheaper alternative around Europe, try visiting the Azores Islands. I used to think of it as unbelievably beautiful but then Iceland happened.
Norway is already ~100% renewable and can produce much more via wind farms. It's likely that soil-less greenhouses in containers could work to provide cheap food for small villages. The systems already exist in Alaska, but Norway should be able to generate even cheaper energy. [1]
~100% renewable is a dangerous half-truth, just 9% of the energy Norwegian consumers use is in reality renewable.
It's true that Norway produces more renewable energy than it uses energy, but since it sells its green power to other countries who pays more for "green power", Norwegian customers actually buy most of the power they consume from non-renewable sources elsewhere.
However, since Norwegian consumers "know" how green Norwegian power production is they don't care/know about paying extra for the EU goo (Guarantee of origin).
It's a dumb situation where two groups of customers (the ones who pay extra for green Norwegian GoOs and the Norwegians who rationally presume that the power they buy is "local" Norwegian green power) both believe they're buying the same green energy.
This is a political thing. Norway produces and consumes near 100% renewable energies. They only sell other people certificates so that they can feel better. Many trains in Germany run on "renewable" energy, and nearly every utility company offers cheap renewable tariffs. In reality it's just certificates they bought from Norway.
That doesn't change anything for Norway though, it only shows that the current European energy policy can easily be abused. The case remains that Norway can easily add more renewable production and use that to grow vegetables in containers (ideally adapted so that they can cope with fluctuating supply). Norway has so much potential that they can still export more energy towards Europe, but as Denmark has the same plans, running significantly more wires towards southern Germany is the main problem here, not some certificates.
Isn't this a virtual thing? I don't know anything about this but I'd say most energy in Norway's houses is indeed produced via renewables (I mean the actual energy, say, the electrons being transported) and then a virtual transaction is handled by interested parties (say other countries' governments). For example, Germany could pay Norway x for an exchange of a percentage of renewables and nuclear, for stats and regulatory purposes, but the actual energy being consumed by Germans would still be produced by nuclear. Is this correct in any way?
Knowing which specific plant powers your home has little meaning in a comoditized business.
The important notion here is that a subset of consumers support the economic cost of running renewable energy plants, while the other subset of consumers are led to believe they do because of geographic proximity, when in fact they don't.
soil-less hydroponics produce awfully tasting crap that does slightly resemble original fruit/vegetable only in appearance, only being paler. better than nothing, but far from added value and quality of original
In remote regions, fresh vegetables are either very expensive or have been on the road for a long time. Even though you don't get the best taste, it will likely not be worse that the alternatives for people in small remote villages.
One of the things that surprises immigrants, including myself, is the produce. A lot of it is shipped in. Bell, broccoli, and many other fresh goods are sold wrapped in plastic because of imports. Some say the vegetables look fake. Things like bell peppers aren't nearly as tasty as the ones I would buy back in the states. Not only that, but the food tends to spoil more quickly, and I'm guessing this is in part to the shipping.
The most notable exception is goods that can be grown in Norway. They are more likely to be loosely packed and actually look better. Granted, not a lot can be grown here as less than 5% of the land is arable.
With soil-less growing, you get over some of these issues, hopefully with the addition of produce (and other goods) being cheaper.
Is this true? Could you provide citations? In all the time i've looked into hydro- and aero- ponics system, i've never heard this claim. would be interesting to learn about it.
