Thevenin @ Thevenin @beehaw.org

Posts

1

Comments

119

Joined

2 yr. ago

(The interview is about whistleblowers and McCarthyism, so this is all a bit tangential.)

If a million people vote for Law A, but someone holds a gun to the representative's head demanding Law B, how exactly has the will of the people been respected? The whole point of democracy is that all authority is derived from the consent of the governed, not from the barrel of a gun. Violence is not the realization of democracy. It is a rejection of it. It cannot be protected by law the way free speech is. But political violence as the sole means to its own end is worse than a crime -- it is a mistake. When a large group of people use violence in this manner, nations call them terrorists, responding with force instead of hearing demands. (See also: outcomes of the Malheur Refuge Standoff.)

Use of direct action must be strategic, and it cannot be the only piece of the strategy.

There are three types of protest: the carrot, the stick, and the ultimatum. The carrot is meant to evangelize and raise awareness for a cause (MLK). The stick is direct intervention, sometimes violent (Malcolm X). The ultimatum is a demonstration of solidarity and conviction, an implicit show of how many people are willing to move from carrot to stick if they aren't heard (the March on Washington).

A successful protest movement needs all three. Leave one out, or overemphasize another, and the movement is worthless.

Toyota's been promising that solid state batteries are just around the corner for about 13 years now. They keep bumping the goalposts back every few years.

Mass transit is the only way that is sustainable

EVs cut lifecycle emissions to about 45%. [UCS][ANL][MIT][IEA]

Public transit cuts lifecycle emissions to... about 45%. [IEA][AFDC][USDOT]

Neither is a magic bullet. Both get their asses kicked by bicyles. Both get better with increased passengers per vehicle. Both can be fueled with renewable energy for additional reduction. Both can be manufactured with renewable energy for additional reduction. Both take surprisingly equivalent amounts of steel, aluminum, and glass.

Public transit offers unique advantages from an urbanist perspective and the liveability of cities, but that's objectively different from sustainability.

Exactly. Hertz vocally blames higher repair costs and long repair times for the Teslas that make up the bulk of their EV fleet. Other EV manufacturers don't share those problems.

I always like to say everyone should have a zombie survival plan. Is there any possibility of zombies? No. But there's a lot of overlap between prepping for the exciting, fictional disaster and boring, real-world natural disasters.

• Having a fireaxe in your trunk might not let you chop off zombie heads, but it'll sure be useful for clearing road debris after a hurricane.
• Having a bug-out-bag with important documents and bottled water is also great for wildfire preparedness, even if that bag also has a spiky leather jacket in it.

I encourage people to have a civil war plan. Do I expect we'll have one? Not really, it wouldn't be a two-sided conflict. But we can expect to see domestic terrorism (see also: insurrection) and potentially police riots (the police enacting organized violence as they did in 2020). If you're ready for a civil war, you're ready for the more mundane breakdowns we're more likely to see.

• Knowing first aid and how to treat a gunshot wound might not find use on a battlefield, but it could easily save someone's life in a mass shooting or isolated hate crime.
• Having ad-hoc or peer-to-peer communications is useful during riots and power outages.
• If you can move ordinance discreetly across state lines, you'll probably find the skillset applies to moving red state refugees as well.
• Building a network of people you trust to band together when SHTF? Brother, you just invented a mutual aid network.

So yeah, if you feel anxious about the possibility of a civil war (or zombies), channel that energy into prepping for it, and you'll find that even if your predictions were wrong, your effort will not go to waste.

I also call the 2010s the era of "fluid internet," but that's because back then, it was delivered by a series of tubes.

So let me get this straight. VW's US sales (EVs in particular) have failed to meet expectations because people don't like their overdependence on buggy, outsourced software.

...and VW's response is to outsource even more software while incorporating a technology base known for being unreliable.

I'm trying out some FOSS games.

Mindustry. I expected Mindustry to be a Factorio clone, but it's uniquely fast-paced and messy. I find it difficult to tell the buildings apart, though, so I may have to hunt down a graphics mod.

Beyond All Reason. I really enjoyed Planetary Annihilation, so this seems like a natural pick. I've barely sunk my teeth into it, but I'm impressed so far.

Huh. I had to google it, but you're right -- body wash isn't technically soap, it's detergent. So it's less likely to leave a film, particularly in hard water.

You learn something new every day.

Fashion accessories. For most fashion (not workwear), the expensive stuff is made from the same material and in the same factories as the cheap stuff, they just market it harder.

Body wash. It's watered-down soap. Just buy a bar of soap.

Amazon Prime. Amazon used to be space-age Sears. Now it's just Aliexpress. Fake reviews and bribery are rampant, dangerously nonfunctional products get top recommendations, used and broken products get resold as new while untouched returns get thrown into landfills, Amazon Basics violates IP, and they're putting ads in Prime Video now.

Microwaves and space heaters. The boxes may try to convince you otherwise, but the amount of heat these devices can deliver is bottlenecked by the power outlet. Every 1100W microwave is just as effective as the others. If you're paying more, it's for looks and for features you'll never use like popcorn mode.

Electronics, for most people. Most people won't get more use out of a new $1500 phone than a last-gen model from the same manufacturer for $500. Do you really want a $200 smart coffee maker, or a $20 dumb coffee maker with a $10 plug-in timer?

Software. Obligatory FOSS plug. I don't blame people for sticking to what's familiar, but if you have the time and energy to spare tinkering, most software out there has a good free or open-source equivalent these days. At least for personal use. In my use case, LibreOffice beats Microsoft Word, Photopea beats Photoshop, and Google Sheets beats Excel.

Mercedes is an outlier. Try comparing Toyota with Lexus, Nissan with Infiniti, Chevy with Cadillac, or Ford with Lincoln. In all of these instances, the luxury marques have equivalent or better reliability than their economy counterparts.

Of course, whether or not the reliability and features are worth the cost is a different question entirely. (I generally lean towards no.)

We simply don’t have the time left anymore for any one solution to be expanded to the point it can solve the problem on its own, if that was ever possible to begin with.

This is such an important point. We are too late in the game to have the luxury of choosing a single sector or a single solution to pursue before the others. We need to hit all sectors with a diverse barrage of solutions, and we need to do it yesterday.

To quote UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, "In short, our world needs climate action on all fronts -- everything, everywhere, all at once."

we don’t have the grid capacity

For those not in the industry, "grid capacity" here doesn't refer to power generation, but power distribution. With renewables, generation is comparatively easy (storage notwithstanding). But getting the power where it needs to go is not. Right now, thanks to a grain-oriented steel squeeze, the lead time on transformers is longer than the commissioning time for an entire solar farm. Switchgear is also hard to get your hands on, especially with SF6 being phased out.

The good news is that these long lead times are caused by demand. Right now, utilities are racing to expand and reinforce the grid in preparation for the next 30 year's worth of EV demand, renewable storage/transmission, and distributed generation. Utilities are risk-averse by nature, and do not move without conviction, so it's rare and noteworthy to see this kind of industrial momentum.

Source: I design MV distribution equipment in the US.

Only public transit cuts emissions massively.

EVs cut lifecycle emissions to about 45%. [UCS][ANL][MIT][IEA]

Public transit cuts lifecycle emissions to... about 45%. [IEA][AFDC][USDOT]

Neither is a magic bullet. Both get their asses kicked by bicyles. Both get better with increased passengers per vehicle. Both can be fueled with renewable energy for additional reduction. Both can be manufactured with renewable energy for additional reduction. Both take surprisingly equivalent amounts of steel, aluminum, and glass.

Public transit offers unique advantages from an urbanist perspective and the liveability of cities, but that's objectively different from emissions reduction.

Short version: yes.

Long version: No lithium, no cobalt, usually no nickel, usually no manganese, and no graphite. I'm not sure what electrolytes will prove best, but multiple metal-oxide cathodes are viable (in addition to prussian-blue analogues), and the anode is just hard carbon (basically charcoal). The raw components are plentiful on every continent. Depending on chemistry, some of the steps are potentially toxic if mishandled (chromium oxide), but no one to my knowledge has raised any major red flags.

The batteries for the cars in this article are made by Farasis Energy, which is an American company. Northvolt also has their sodium program, and Natron Energy is already making stationary backup batteries. China will not have a monopoly on this tech.

In addition, while some companies try to blame workwrs for recordable incidents, safety is always ultimately management's responsibility. Safety controls or procedures missing? That's management's fault. Workers disabling safety controls out of malice or hubris? Managment is at fault for hiring them. Workers so overworked and tired they don't notice mistakes while operating lethal equipment? Management. Workers having to choose between having a job and doing it safely? Management. Lack of safety culture? Management.

With power comes responsibility, and in modern corporations, management has all the power.

I'm an engineer who works in an industrial environment, and I regularly have to repair or reprogram hazardous equipment. Here are a few takeaways I got from the descriptions of the Tesla incident:

• Lockout/tagout was not being respected. If you don't have a lock, yank the fuse and stick it in your pocket. But whatever you do, when working on a machine, you must maintain exclusive control so nobody activates it while you're inside the approach boundary.
• Why was the engineer in the approach boundary for a "software update?" I feel like I'm missing some important context there.
• Where were the hazard indicators? A hazardous device needs sound or light indicators, so nobody forgets they left it plugged in.
• Where was the machine guarding? If it can kill you, entering the hazardous area should shut the machine off with or without LOTO. I'm partial to interlocked gates, but cordons and light curtains are popular for a reason.
• If the machine guarding was disabled, where were the observers? The last time I activated a machine with the light curtains overriden, I had three other engineers on standby, one at the E-Stop, one with a rescue hook, and one just to watch.

There's progress being made on that front. According to the internet, there are already a lot of cougars in my area.

Not sure I believe that. It takes less energy to keep a vehicle moving than it does to accelerate it. That’s not going to change whether it’s gas or electric.

Merry Christmas, it's physics time. When a vehicle is in motion, the forces the motors must fight are governed by the following equations: F_total= F_drag + F_rolling= 0.5ρv²C_DA + Nμ_R , where:

• ρ = air density (kg/m^3)
• v = velocity (m/s)
• C_D = coefficient of drag, defined by the shape of the car.
• A = cross-sectional front-facing area of the car (m²)
• μ_R = rolling resistance coefficient, which is calculated separately and depends mostly on tire pressure and surface quality. It changes a tiny bit with speed. In the example below, it's 0.011.
• N = Normal force, or weight of the car (N)

If we take F_total and multiply it by the speed of the vehicle, we find the energy wasted per second, or the power needed to maintain that speed. Filling in the blanks for a Tesla Model 3 (because it's easy to find the numbers) at 120kph (and ideal circumstances!), we find that F_total = 347.4 N + 196.4 N, and so P_wasted = 18.13 kJ/s or 18.13 kW. For a battery with 74 kWh usable, this translates to 489.8 km. Inside EVs tested their Model 3 at 112.6 kph and got 498.9 km, so this seems about right.

Now let's slow things down to 70 kph. F_total = 118.2 N + 196.4 N, and our range jumps to 846.7 km. That's a lot, but hypermilers have gotten more in this particular vehicle. Now, I never said the 70kph example would have stops and starts, but since you brought them up, let's see if we can recalculate with those in mind.

The energy needed to bring a vehicle up to 70 kph is the kinetic energy adjusted up for a motor's electrical efficiency, E = (1/.96)(1/2)mv² = 358.4 kJ or 0.0996 kWh. The energy recuperated when using regen braking is the same, but adjusted down for the regen's electrical efficiency, E = (0.7)(1/2)mv² = 240.8 kJ or 0.0669 kWh. So a single stop-start cycle uses a net 0.0327 kWh. I'll add one such 10-second start-stop cycle every 2 minutes (just spitballing), and recalculate for drag at the new speeds. We end up with an estimate of 733 km. This matches EV-database's city range estimates in mild weather.

Now, this may seem a bit startling, but the fact that EVs are more efficient in traffic than on the highway has been empirically measured. Personally, I can confirm that my range in my Clarity PHEV is about 50% longer at 45 mph than it is at 75 mph.