Positive News Thread

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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby FieldMarshalFry » Mon Aug 03, 2015 2:45 am

Jeremy Corbyn is going from strength to strength, he has stirred on odd feeling in myself and a lot of the country, hope, he started out offering to just broaden the Labour leadership debate and now the general public seem to have latched into the idea that he could make the British Isles a better place, and the political right are collectively loosing their shit at the prospect of him becoming leader

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33745731
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby ironskoblin » Mon Aug 03, 2015 3:06 am

The Nigerian Army has rescued 178 people from Boko Haram, 101 of whom were children. Furthermore, several Boko Haram camps were destroyed and one of their commanders was captured.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby Learned Nand » Mon Aug 03, 2015 3:43 am

FieldMarshalFry wrote:Jeremy Corbyn is going from strength to strength, he has stirred on odd feeling in myself and a lot of the country, hope, he started out offering to just broaden the Labour leadership debate and now the general public seem to have latched into the idea that he could make the British Isles a better place, and the political right are collectively loosing their shit at the prospect of him becoming leader

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33745731


Without going into detail, given that it's very much in dispute whether this is positive news, it probably doesn't belong in this thread.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby Tesseracts » Mon Aug 03, 2015 4:00 am

Yeah, I was going to say that. Please keep politically charged positive news out of the thread. I know it's a bit subjective what stuff is politically charged, because there might be a political party that's pro-drowning or something, but use common sense. If half the population doesn't think it's good news that your favorite candidate was elected, it's not good news.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby EstebanColberto » Mon Aug 03, 2015 4:21 am

According to an Economist article from 2 years ago, the world poverty rate has been halved in 20 years. Most of the the reduction has happened in China and India. Mostly as a result of economic growth (I'm not sure what else could've possibly caused a reduction in poverty in dirt poor regions other than economic growth. Happy thoughts? Magic? Worship of the one true God, Yog-Soggoth?)

Oftentimes, a country gains in wealth only by the exploitation of it's people. This certainly does happen in both India and China, but it's nice to know those people are at least better off now than they were 20 years ago.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby DomaDoma » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:14 pm

Scientists have succeeded in synthesizing oil from the atmosphere. Using up carbon dioxide to do so, no less. Still more expensive than well-based oil at the moment, but I'd be willing to pay a good bit extra just because it has nothing to do with Saudi Arabia.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby Learned Nand » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:23 pm

The problem with that process is the first law of thermodynamics; no matter how much energy you put in, at best with 100% efficiency, you're only going to get that much out. So either you need even more oil to create that oil, or you need another form of energy, in which case why not just use that in the first place?
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby DomaDoma » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:31 pm

aviel wrote:The problem with that process is the first law of thermodynamics; no matter how much energy you put in, at best with 100% efficiency, you're only going to get that much out. So either you need even more oil to create that oil, or you need another form of energy, in which case why not just use that in the first place?


...I have no idea how that didn't occur to me. It's much more portable as an energy source than natural gas, most renewables or even nuclear, though, so it's much more limited than I thought, but it has its upsides, particularly transportation-wise.

Do you happen to know the latest on solar roadways, by the way? I've grown accustomed to such breakthroughs being a matter of Scientific American article today, forgotten tomorrow, but dangit, for that one I'm still holding out hope.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby Tesseracts » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:33 pm

Solar freaking roadways are bullshit and I'm glad I eventually stopped seeing people posting that all over FB. The worst place to put solar panels is on a surface that is constantly being driven over. Solar panels are best in the sun, and best when they aren't being broken by trucks all the time.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby Learned Nand » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:46 pm

DomaDoma wrote:Do you happen to know the latest on solar roadways, by the way?

Latest I heard was from a footnote in an XKCD Whatif that basically said that, aside from just the fact that roads are being driven over, the surface area of roads simply isn't enough. Solar and wind look like they'd be better for microgeneration. For large cities, I still think the best option by far is nuclear power, though preferably via thorium reactor.

Actually, reading that article gave me some positive news for this thread:

India has projected meeting as much as 30% of its electrical demands through thorium by 2050.

...

India's government is also developing up to 62, mostly thorium reactors, which it expects to be operational by 2025.
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby PSTN » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:15 pm

Being Canadian, my first thought when I heard about solar roadways was "What about the eight months of the year that the roads are covered in snow?"

Also, I think we should be moving towards nuclear power, but in a way that ensures that the waste is more dangerous than any other power generation method. So we're left with no option but to dump billions into space programs just to get it off this planet, with the incidental benefit of having a robust platform from which to explore the solar system.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby Windy » Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:31 am

There is no positive news. Everything is bad. So sad :'(
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby sunglasses » Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:57 am

Windy wrote:There is no positive news. Everything is bad. So sad :'(


I too shed a tear when I heard that porn has been banned in India, Windy.

But then I heard that they've turned drug dens into gardens in South Africa so...that's pretty darn good.

A rare picture of a harpy eagle chick has been obtained as well.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby EstebanColberto » Tue Aug 04, 2015 4:26 am

DomaDoma wrote:
aviel wrote:The problem with that process is the first law of thermodynamics; no matter how much energy you put in, at best with 100% efficiency, you're only going to get that much out. So either you need even more oil to create that oil, or you need another form of energy, in which case why not just use that in the first place?


...I have no idea how that didn't occur to me. It's much more portable as an energy source than natural gas, most renewables or even nuclear, though, so it's much more limited than I thought, but it has its upsides, particularly transportation-wise.

Do you happen to know the latest on solar roadways, by the way? I've grown accustomed to such breakthroughs being a matter of Scientific American article today, forgotten tomorrow, but dangit, for that one I'm still holding out hope.


Energy production of the future is probably something that needs it's own thread. Those thorium reactors mentioned earlier will probably be available pretty soon. As far as the pie in the sky ideas that will probably happen, just not very soon, I'm partial to space-based solar. Lots of potential energy, but incredibly expensive for now since it's all prototypes, but, hey, so was nuclear power. We're probably going to synthesize oil from natural gas eventually since clathrate hydrates are really abundant. We just don't have a means of extracting them yet.
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Re: Positive News Thread

Postby Crimson847 » Tue Aug 04, 2015 5:57 am

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