Roger Sowell

My paper presented at AIChE from 2020, free-access, with NOAA’s own data for temperatures in 82 remote, tiny towns in CONUS, from 1900. Zero warming was found. A 60-year cycle is clearly evident. …onwithachemicalengineer.wordpress.com/2022/12/28/no-…

@jonburkeUK @JoshYoung Nuclear is high CO2. Count the fuel cycle mining, processing, plant construction, decommissioning, the eternal toxic waste guarding.

‘Solar is not clean or green’ claims fossil fuel investor @JoshYoung. Let’s compare: ❌ Coal full life cycle emissions: 800-1,700g CO2e/kWh ❌ Gas full life cycle emissions: 290-930g CO2e/kWh ✅ Solar full life cycle emissions: 40-50g CO2e/kWh ✅ Solar panels 95% recyclable.

@Milajoy I’d go with Clinton. The former Arkansas governor. He promoted bad loans to people who could not repay. He also admitted the mortgage meltdown of 2008 was all his doing. Been downhill ever since he was elected.

When was the exact moment in America when everything started going downhill? I say when Barack “Barry” Obama was elected.

@duncancampbell Mr. Campbell, exactly right. Best regards from Texas.

For this to be persuasive you need to: 1) Demonstrate the expensive countries were cheap before solar and wind started being deployed. 2) Not ignore Texas.

@JunkScience Pure nuclear BS. If nuclear is so great, why then did NOBODY follow France in going nuclear? Answer: France was beyond desperate. Then had to nationalize the electric sector to keep prices reasonable.

Dumbest quote of the day: "“We knew regulatory capture led directly to Fukushima and to Chernobyl,” said Kathryn Huff, who was assistant secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy during the Biden administration." "Regulatory capture" is when a special interest essentially dominates regulators. But: 1. Chernobyl occurred in the Soviet Union when the Communist Party ran everything on the cheap. 2. Fukushima occurred because few thought likely a tsunami as big as the one that had last occurred in the 9th century (869 AD) was going to happen. That is just error, not regulatory capture. Keep in mind that: 1. France is 70% nuclear and no accidents. 2. US Navy ships have been safely using nuclear power for 72 years without accident. propublica.org/article/trump-… @AASchapiro

@BjornLomborg More BS. Visit Texas to see how it is done. High solar, high wind, low prices.

There are no high solar & wind, low cost nations You are told that solar and wind are cheap But cramming in more solar and wind just makes electricity more and more costly because solar and wind are worthless when not sunny and windy iea.org/data-and-stati… You can see all the references in my Twitter thread: x.com/BjornLomborg/s…

@SpamRanger @cb_doge @GregAbbott_TX @elonmusk Austin has very little sediment/soil. Thick limestone is the usual.

@cb_doge @GregAbbott_TX How is the geology at that Austin site? Is bedrock shallow or will there be foundation construction complications from thick layers of sediment? @elonmusk

ELON MUSK: "We're starting off with an advanced technology fab here in Austin, and I'd like to thank @GregAbbott_TX and the state of Texas for the support. So in the advanced technology fab, we will have all of the equipment necessary to make a chip of any kind logical memory, and we will also have all of the equipment necessary to make the masks. So in a single building, we can create a mask, make the chip, test the chip, make another mask, and have an incredibly fast recursive loop for improving the chip design. To the best of my knowledge, this doesn't exist anywhere in the world. We're really going to push the limit of physics in compute, and we're going to try a bunch of wild and crazy things, which you can do if you've got that fast iteration loop that I can't emphasize enough the importance of being able to make it, to test it and and then make and then change the design, do another one, and have that in a single building."

@radioactivered No. There is zero chance of designing (and building) a system that is safe for even 2,000 years.

The safety of nuclear waste doesn’t depend on future humans correctly interpreting a message. It depends on engineered containment that works whether anyone is around to read a warning or not. The whole “10,000 years” narrative is exaggerated here….Yes, some nuclear waste stays radioactive for a very long time but it doesn’t stay equally dangerous that whole time. The highest risk is in the first few hundred years and after that the radioactivity drops off pretty significantly. So acting like it’s this constant extreme danger for “10,000 years” just isn’t accurate. Also, the idea that we need to somehow warn people thousands of years in the future kind of misses the point. The safety of nuclear waste isn’t based on future humans understanding a message. The whole point is that even if nobody can read a warning or even knows it’s there, it’s still physically out of reach. So this argument OP is trying to make isn’t fair, they’re assuming we’re relying on communication to keep people safe, when really the system is designed so we don’t have to. ☢️💗

52 websites worth more than most college degrees: 1. Coursera. org – University courses completely free to audit 2. Brilliant. org – Interactive math and science learning 3. Wolfram Alpha – Answers any mathematical or factual question 4. GitHub. com – Learn coding from real world projects 5. Investopedia. com – Finance and investing explained simply 6. Archive. org – Access millions of free books and old websites 7. Project Gutenberg – 70000 free classic books 8. Duolingo. com – Learn any language for free 9. Notion. so – Organise your entire life and learning 10. Our World in Data – Every global statistic visualised 11. Statista. com – Data and statistics on everything 12. OpenLibrary. org – Borrow millions of books online free 13. Hemingwayapp. com – Write clearer and simpler instantly 14. NASA. gov – Space science and research for free 15. PubMed. gov – Access real scientific research papers 16. Edx. org – Free courses from Harvard MIT and more 17. TED. com – Best ideas from the world's best thinkers 18. Anki – The most powerful memory tool ever built 19. Canva. com – Design anything without being a designer 20. Skillshare. com – Creative and practical skill learning 21. Readwise. io – Remember everything you ever read 22. Google Scholar – Search real academic papers 23. Codecademy. com – Learn to code completely free 24. ChatGPT – AI tutor available 24 hours a day 25. Figma. com – Learn professional design for free 26. Replit. com – Code anything from your browser 27. Huberman Lab Podcast – Science based health education 28. Mindmeister. com – Mind mapping for better thinking 29. NerdWallet. com – Personal finance made simple 30. Quizlet. com – Study smarter with flashcards 31. Gapminder. org – See the real state of the world 32. PhET Simulations – Interactive science experiments online 33. Numbeo. com – Cost of living data for every city on earth 34. 23andMe. com – Understand your own genetics 35. Zapier. com – Automate your work without coding 36. Lesswrong. com – Deep rational thinking and decision making 37. Documentaryheaven. com – Thousands of free documentaries 38. Trading Economics – Economic data for every country 39. Perplexity. ai – AI powered research tool 40. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Every philosophical idea explained 41. Librivox. org – Free audiobooks of classic literature 42. Zooniverse. org – Participate in real scientific research 43. Futurelearn. com – Free short courses from top universities 44. Typing. com – Learn to type properly and fast 45. Drawabox. com – Learn to draw from absolute scratch 46. Grammarly. com – Write better in every situation 47. Khanacademy. org – Free world class education for everyone 48. Desmos. com – The most powerful free graphing calculator 49. Stellarium. org – Explore the night sky from your screen 50. Psychologytoday. com – Mental health and psychology explained 51. Worldometers. info – Real time global statistics on everything 52. Notion. so/ templates – Free templates to organise your entire life

@JordanEVGuy Lubricants and asphalt also are made from oil; these are not going away. Ever.

In the future, oil will be used only as a chemical, not a source of making wheels go round and round inefficiently.

@soulwhisper85 They didn’t. Time was standardized centuries later.

???

@razib_ul47671 AI

Everyone’s hyped about Claude… but very few people know how to actually use it to replace real work. I’ve compiled 700+ powerful prompts that turn Claude into a serious productivity machine—for writing, research, business, marketing, coding, and more. If you want them all: 1. Like this post 2. Comment “AI” I’ll DM you the full prompt library. 🚀

From State Bar of California re AI use. “March 19, 2026 COPRAC Advisory Regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hallucinations   Due to the increased usage of artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal profession, the Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct (COPRAC) continues to provide guidance on relevant ethical and practical considerations that arise from the use of these technologies.   Generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT and Perplexity) are computer applications that can create text, images, or other content in response to user prompts. In the legal context, they may be used for tasks such as brainstorming, research, drafting, or summarizing information.   While these tools can be helpful in streamlining some aspects of legal work, attorneys must use them in a manner consistent with their duty of competence (rule 1.1), diligence (rule 1.3), and responsibilities as managerial and supervisory lawyers (rule 5.1). Competent use of such technology requires understanding its limitations, including the risk of fake or “hallucinated” content, outdated or incomplete legal authorities, and the inadvertent disclosure of confidential client information through prompts.   Courts have sanctioned attorneys for submitting AI-generated filings containing false or fabricated authorities, and an attorney’s lack of awareness of the risk of “hallucinated” content does not relieve the attorney of responsibility for ensuring the accuracy and integrity of any work product submitted. Attorneys must independently verify any AI-assisted work product before relying on it in any context. Diligent representation requires that attorneys not delegate their professional judgment to AI, but instead review, edit, and take responsibility for the substance and timing of all filings, communications, and advice.   Attorneys with managerial or supervisory authority must also implement reasonable policies, training, and oversight to ensure that any use of generative AI by attorneys does not compromise client confidentiality or replace appropriate legal analysis, supervision, or quality control. Ultimately, licensees should evaluate these tools thoughtfully, balancing their potential benefits while understanding the potential pitfalls.   COPRAC is actively working on revisions and updates to its practical guidance regarding AI. The updated practical guidance will be presented at the May 14–15, 2026, Board of Trustees meeting for approval. In addition, proposed amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct are currently out for public comment. Licensees and members of the public are encouraged to submit written comments on the proposed amendments.”

Serve them (CA legislators) right! There is precedent: Decent people left Europe to escape a$$holes (see colonization of North America, around 1700). Many of us wish we could divide the US into two countries: Conservatives, and Others. Then see exactly which one prospers. Here’s our chance, having Others living in and running California. I’m going to need more popcorn. (Btw… I left CA in December, 2017. It has gotten far, far worse since then).

“California has 40 million people in it… if you take away 200 guys, the billionaires, if you take them out of the equation, we lose 47 % of our revenue. Many of those billionaires have moved already or are in the process of moving. 47% of California tax revenue… gone.

🚨 Anthropic dropped a FREE 33-page playbook revealing Claude's very own cheat code: The 'Skills' folder. Spend 30 minutes building it, and you’ll never have to explain your process again. Top-tier users don't just type commands, they build systems. Grab your free copy of Anthropic's official guide to building Claude skills right here: resources.anthropic.com/hubfs/The-Comp…

@jimiuorio Wrong? Try overwhelmed hospital ERs and morgues. Give it a rest, people!!! Better yet, next pandemic, YOU carry on and ignore public health orders. Prove Darwin was right: The dumbest die first.

Does anyone dispute these facts…in March of 2020 there was a nationwide panic that was based on an imperial college study that suggested that covid had a 3-4% fatality rate. Policy was crafted based on that study. By May everyone knew that those estimates were over stated by about 500x. The new information would have never caused a panic…but the ball was already rolling…what did I get wrong?

@StephenMoore Give it a few more years. Meanwhile, just compare the growth rates of hydro to wind. Or to Solar. Money talks.

Most renewable energy in the world is not solar or wind, but hydropower.  It is reliable, cheap, and emits no greenhouse gases. Yet environmental groups often oppose dams.  If they truly cared about climate change, they would celebrate hydropower, not block it.

@aakashgupta Yes. We have known for decades that hand-written notes promote better learning. Just as repeating / reading the notes out loud promotes learning. Four parts of the brain are engaged: hearing, writing, reading, and speaking. Known. For. Decades.

This is a 12-year-old study that has failed replication three times. And the underlying claim is still probably right. The paper is Mueller and Oppenheimer, 2014. 67 students at Princeton. Longhand note-takers scored higher on conceptual questions. Became the most cited paper in every “ban laptops” argument on Earth. Then three separate labs tried to reproduce the result. Urry et al. at Tufts in 2021, 145 students. No effect. Morehead et al. in 2019, two experiments. No effect. A meta-analysis pooling eight similar studies. No effect. So why am I saying it’s still right? Because a 2023 Norwegian EEG study with 256 channels found something the behavioral research couldn’t measure. Handwriting produces theta and alpha connectivity patterns between parietal and central brain regions that typing does not produce. Those specific frequencies are the ones your hippocampus relies on for memory formation. Your brain treats handwriting as a motor-spatial problem. Five brain regions fire in coordination: premotor cortex, parietal cortex, cerebellum, fusiform gyrus, sensorimotor cortex. Typing activates a fraction of that network. The original study measured the right outcome with the wrong methodology. The real finding lives at the neural level: handwriting rewires the encoding process itself.

Before Python, Java, or even C++, there was Fortran—the first major programming language. In 1957, John Backus and his team at IBM developed Fortran, making coding much easier than low-level machine code. Before Fortran, programmers had to write instructions in binary or assembly—slow and complicated. Fortran changed everything. It allowed programmers to use simple, math-like commands, making it especially useful for scientists and engineers. NASA even used Fortran to help land humans on the Moon. Fortran set the stage for modern coding languages, and it’s still used today in scientific computing.

@Holler_Praetor @naiivememe Tell that to East Texas…

@naiivememe Worst forest ever. Add diversity of trees and plants or its just as bad as grass.

The older I get, the more I understand this man

@MattLoszak We shall see. Economy of Scale laws have never been beaten. The smart money is betting on these Laws. Just one common example: why are city buses sized for 40-ish passengers? If smaller is cheaper, why not have 20 tiny vehicles at 2 passengers each? Think it through…

While small reactors have been tried before, mass-manufactured small reactors have not. Small is more expensive than large, if you only make one reactor. But if you make 1000s per year, small could be cheaper than large. This is what Aalo is setting out to prove.