Software is a tool. I develop stuff that i know is of interest to companies working with everything from nuclear energy to hydrogen electrolysis and CO2 storage. I honestly believe I can make a positive contribution to the world by releasing that software under a permissive licence such that companies can freely integrate it into their proprietary production code.

I’m also very aware that the exact same software is of interest to the petroleum industry and weapons manufacturers, and that I enable them by releasing it under a permissive licence.

The way I see it, withholding a tool that can help do a lot of good because it can also be used for bad things just doesn’t make much sense. If everybody thinks that way, how can we have positive progress? I don’t think I can think of any more or less fundamental technology that can’t be used for both. The same chemical process that has saved millions from starvation by introducing synthetic fertiliser has taken millions of lives by creating more and better explosives. If you ask those that were bombed, they would probably say they wish it was never invented, while if you ask those that were saved from the brink of starvation they likely praise the heavens for the technology. Today, that same chemical process is a promising candidate for developing zero-emission shipping.

I guess my point is this: For any sufficiently fundamental technology, it is impossible to foresee the uses it may have in the future. Withholding it because it may cause bad stuff is just holding technological development back, lively preventing just as much good as bad. I choose to focus on the positive impact my work can have.

You are almost on point here, but seem to be missing the primary point of my work. I work as a researcher at a university, doing more-or-less fundamental research on topics that are relevant to industry.

As I wrote: We develop our libraries for in-house use, and release the to the public because we know that they are valuable to the industry. If what I do is to be considered “industry subsidies”, then all of higher education is industry subsidies. (You could make the argument that spending taxpayer money to educate skilled workers is effectively subsidising industry).

We respond to issues that are related either to bugs that we need to fix for our own use, or features that we ourselves want. We don’t spend time implementing features others want unless they give us funding for some project that we need to implement it for.

In short: I don’t work for industry, I work in research and education, and the libraries my group develops happen to be of interest to the industry. Most of my co-workers do not publish their code anywhere, because they aren’t interested in spending the time required to turn hacky academic code into a usable library. I do, because I’ve noticed how much time it saves me and my team in the long run to have production-quality libraries that we can build on.

You’re not seeing the whole picture: I’m paid by the government to do research, and in doing that research my group develops several libraries that can benefit not only other research groups, but also industry. We license these libraries under MIT, because otherwise industry would be far more hesitant to integrate our libraries with their proprietary production code.

I’m also an idealist of sorts. The way I see it, I’m developing publicly funded code that can be used by anyone, no strings attached, to boost productivity and make the world a better place. The fact that this gives us publicity and incentivises the industry to collaborate with us is just a plus. Calling it a self-imposed unpaid internship, when I’m literally hired full time to develop this and just happen to have the freedom to be able to give it out for free, is missing the mark.

Also, we develop these libraries primarily for our own in-house use, and see the adoption of the libraries by others as a great way to uncover flaws and improve robustness. Others creating closed-source derivatives does not harm us or anyone else in any way as far as I can see.

I do exactly this: Write code/frameworks that are used in academic research, which is useful to industry. Once we publish an article, we publish our models open-source under the MIT license. That is because companies that want to use it can then embed our models into their proprietary software, with essentially no strings attached. This gives them an incentive to support our research in terms of collaborative projects, because they see that our research results in stuff they can use.

If we had used the GPL, our main collaborators would probably not have been interested.

This is starting to be some years back, but I was exclusively using apt when I was using Ubuntu, have they gone away from that?

I’ve only ever tried one distro. Please enlighten me on what’s wrong with Ubuntu.

Please tell me how, getting up at 5 (and going to bed at 21) is going to give me more time than getting up at 7-8 and going to bed at 23-00.

Also, I would like to know why “society” thinks you are “better” if you exercise at 6-7 before work, rather than 20-21 after work.

Did you read the text on that graphic?

… land conversion for grazing and feed …

I’m not talking about meat production in general (which I think should be minimised), I’m specifically talking about meat production from land that is not viable for other uses.

This was exactly my point: I’m legitimately interested in how that graphic looks if you consider meat produced on land that cannot be used for other types of agriculture, and which is local so that transportation is a negligible cost, and feed production is close to non-existent, because the livestock primarily lives off the land.

It seems like you’ve misunderstood what I’m trying to say. I’m saying that

A) There are legitimate reasons for a country to want to have some degree of self-sufficiency.

B) The environmental impact of producing meat is hugely different depending on how the livestock gets its food, and the environmental impact of transporting goods cannot be neglected.

C) There are countries with terrain suitable for livestock that cannot be used for farming.

Of course: Almost no countries are, or need to be, 100% self-sufficient, because we have trade, but there is a huge difference between 10% and 50% self-sufficiency. If we are to cut out meat entirely, many places would be incapable of maintaining any notable degree of self-sufficiency.

With you third paragraph, it seems like you actually agree with me. I don’t know how you got from me saying “there are legitimate reasons to produce meat”, to me saying this is a black and white issue. I’m explicitly trying to say that it’s not black and white, both because of self-sufficiency arguments, and because of the environmental cost of transportation. Thus, we need a nuanced approach. This means that we should minimise (or eliminate) the use of farmland for livestock production, without condemning livestock production as a whole, because there are legitimate reasons to have livestock, as argued above.

The basis of this thread was that livestock can be raised on land that is not viable for farming. Re-do the calculation when taking into account that the livestock wander freely ten months a year, and that feed is grown on land too harsh for all or most crops, and let me know how it turns out.

Take a look at a map of Norway. If you find a way of growing crops on rocks that are dozens of kilometres from the nearest road, and covered in snow 8/12 months a year, please let me know.

I’m not bringing up the state of access to agricultural land as some historical trivia. It’s just as true today as ever before.

The point is that plenty of countries/regions cannot be self-sufficient regarding food production without resorting to livestock. There are several reasons to be, at least in part, self-sufficient. From environmental considerations arising from the transport of food from other places, to food security in the case that conflict or crisis strikes the region supplying you with food, a region which you don’t control.

Stop acting like this is black and white, and that there’s absolutely no reason a country would want the capability of providing for its own people, as if that’s a thing of the past.

Which is why I said “in general, you’re right”. However, that doesn’t take away the fact that most livestock from some countries is primarily raised on land that can’t be farmed.

Speaking of supply chains: We could do the math on whether shipping a vegetable-based calorie from Brazil to Norway is more or less of an environmental burden than a meat-based calorie produced in Norway.

I’m just assuming that you are, in fact, aware that the likely primary advantage of inventing cooking was that the food is partially broken down before we consume it, meaning we need much less time and energy digesting it, which leaves us with more time to do other things, which is a huge evolutionary advantage. Right? Of course, every child knows that most animals spend a significant amount of time just digesting food, far more than humans.

Well, since you’re clearly a well educated person that knows these things, I can’t find any other reasoning behind what you posted here than that you’re arguing in bad faith, or trolling. Please either read a book or stop trolling. In any case, don’t post about shit you know nothing about.

While in general you’re right, you’re neglecting the fact that theres plenty of land that is suitable for raising animals which isn’t suitable for farming. Specifically: The Norwegian population would have been incapable of surviving historically without a bunch livestock living in the un-farmable mountains most of the year.

I’ve never thought of myself as a conspiracy theorist, but if jar-jar being planned to be the actual phantom menace, but later being taken out of the role because fans hated him counts as a conspiracy theory: Count me in! I think the arguments are compelling to say the least.

I definitely roll with “badass tiny mf”, “chill little dude”, “tiny gangsta bro” or any other title making fun of my stature. Call me anything involving “king” and I’ll be inclined to convince you that, even though I’m short, you’ll be shorter once you’re confined to a wheelchair

But it might be beer!

If you have a fume hood that’s good of course, but since the question was about advising amateurs on safety, my advice is restrictive, because gases can be very dangerous in subtle ways.

As an amateur: Do you know how to properly work in a fume hood so that it protects you? Do you know its capacity, and what to do if something unexpected leads to gas development over that capacity? Have you had training in using this stuff, so that you can react properly and quickly if something goes wrong, rather than freezing up?

In short: Because the potential dangers when working with a lot of gases are harder to detect, and harder to mitigate, than when working with other stuff, I’m taking a restrictive approach in my advice.

For you question on pyrophoric gases: They can remain in contact with air for a while (several minutes, depending on concentration) before igniting. Worst case, the room around you can fill with gas from a leak before causing a gas explosion. In principle you can also inhale gas from this leak, such the the explosion also takes place inside you :)

Anther chemist stepping in here: Anything that produces an off-gas of any kind that does anything other than smell bad should be considered potentially lethal. People have died from working with liquid nitrogen or dry ice without proper ventilation. In addition, a gas explosion can be far worse than any other explosion you are likely to pull off by accident, and if you have a leak somewhere you may have no clue how much explosive gas is in the room with you. Some gases will react and form acid when it gets into your airways, essentially acting as an invisible acid that can jump from the table into your face.

In short: Stay away from dangerous gases and stuff that makes them, and consider pretty much all gases as dangerous unless you know for a fact that they aren’t. Other than that, the potential dangers of backyard chemistry can largely be mitigated by using common sense and working with small amounts of chemicals, good luck :)