Ha, I was also going to write “whinging” but I didn’t want to do any “cultural appropriation “. I never heard that word until I started working with some Brits but it’s an excellent one we should all adopt

That was one of my objections to replacing kitchen appliances for all too long. I’m not even going to consider all the same brand. But they’ve added enough “styling elements” that it’s tougher to fill a kitchen with similar appliances from different manufacturers

The problem is it’s not really people’s choice. Companies have gotten very good at disguising quality tradoffs and marketing has got very good at muddying the waters.

Since this is about tools, I’ll bring up Craftsman as an example. For many years, it was a quality brand accessible to homeowners. But as they changed to be cheaper they still marketed themselves as a quality brand and they seemed like the same price. It was only after the brand value was destroyed, that it became clear how “cheap” the tools had become and people were able to make a legitimate decision to move on

No kidding. All too often even clear looking articles seem to have important details missing

The key words I pick out are “in violation of lawful procedure”. I don’t like this choice either, but it looks like the city took a shortcut

Anyone can file suit. A judge needs to pass judgement. Hopefully the judge based it on something more legitimate than whining.

He was murdered and the criminal who made that decision admitted to the crime publicly (after cowardly trying to blame those he commanded)

The problem is it’s very expensive. Solar installers charge tens of thousands of dollars and has a long history of scams. They take the place of the old trope about scammy used car salesmen. They’ve created leases and PPAs in an attempt to make the initial cost easier but only succeeded in being scammy

It doesn’t help that we have tariffs and other barriers to low cost solar panel imports, yet insufficient support for domestic manufacturing to be competitive.

The math is hard. Everyone wants to know the payback threshold from the huge install cost up front but it’s not straightforward.

When I looked into solar I found

• lots of scammers, poor service
• I calculated a payback of 12 years from install cost given free energy, which is longer than I’m likely to own this house. But they claim 7?
• I only have sufficient unshaded roof for half my usage
• is it poor service or scamminess that it’s so difficult to get them to explain that?

A big part of it is being realistic about how often that would come up.

Especially for those with their own house, charging overnight at home (like you do with your phone) is more convenient. It is so nice never having to go to a local gas station!

Forget looking for discounts like Costco, charging from home is half (for me) the cost of gasoline. Everyone likes saving money

The only time this doesn’t work is road trips, where I need to stop for 20 minutes every 4-5 hours of driving. If I’m eating a meal, it’s going to take longer than that anyway.

So

• 90+% of the time an EV is more convenient and much cheaper
• on road trips where I would have stopped to eat, it’s equally convenient
• on road trips where I’m stopping more than I would otherwise and for slightly longer ……. That’s actually very rare

Edit: looking at my charging stats, it’s only been twice in the last year. One of those was a 1,200 mile road trip that did wonders to overcome my range anxiety

most Americans don’t want an EV with batteries at their current state.

That’s a risky assumption given how driven by propaganda this is. The reality is current state of batteries is perfectly fine for most Americans. What if they realize that? It does partly depend on charger availability, which is being rapidly built out despite the efforts of the current administration to block that. What happens as Americans realize how many new chargers are near them?

Like disneys monorail

Speaking of my town just outside Boston ……

The food is just like the British: we have great Indian food

“War” usually implies a cause and an opponent. This is just chaotic, and against everyone

Plus methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, even with the shorter lifetime. We seem entirely unable to reduce methane leaks or even measure them against natural gas usage.

But from a consumer perspective.

• where I live, electricity is much more expensive than natural gas, maybe double the cost per unit of energy
• and I pay even more for 75% renewables
• I just got a heat pump installed for my addition. So far temps have gotten just a bit under freezing and it has no problems keeping up

But that adds up to a reality where the cost threshold is mid-40°F’s. While it may be an argument in favor of solar, I don’t have enough unshaded roof to generate more than half my usage

Signing (intermediate) certs have been compromised before. That means a bad actor can issue fake certs that are validated up to your root ca certs

While you can invalidate that signing cert, without useful and ubiquitous revocation lists, there’s nothing you can do to propagate that.

A compromised signing certs, effectively means invalidating the ca cert, to limit the damage

We do have a lot of park and ride situations in the us as well, although struggle to make the transit part compelling in most places.

I assume nyc has them as well but it has several extensive rail networks so you’re likely to park in your own town to ride in. For example I parked in Massachusetts, LoL

Me too. I just went there this past weekend: hopped on Acela near my house, got off at Penn Station, walked to my hotel. No driving anywhere near Manhattan.

I am somewhat disappointed that everything was walkable this time, and I had no use for the subway. It may be loud, dirty and chaotic, but it’s functionally outstanding

In addition to the lack of siren and lights meaning they don’t get priority in this case, the important point is they can’t. The other cars have nowhere to go, no way to clear the path. I mean eventually they will, but an ambulance in this situation is delayed regardless of anyone’s best effort

Boston. Also pretty good transit, but nothing in the us compares to Manhattan for walkability and transit

Plastics