jmp242 @ jmp242 @sopuli.xyz

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20

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537

Joined

2 yr. ago

I actually always thought there was a possibility that what happened to AOL might happen to Google / Facebook / etc. I.e. people inherently don't like extreme walled gardens, and will splinter off into more open, more random, more innovative spaces. I think the pendulum had swung back over to an early AOL like very limited set of 5 or so big "platforms", and the issues with that were seen again, just like in the late 90s when people were ditching AOL for "the real Internet" en masse.

One thing I wish there was were more plugins (and maybe I just don't know of them) for like Kagi's assistant, or other vendors than just OpenAI for something like CoPilot.

What you're not addressing is that current EV drivers change how they drive, i.e. don't go on the same sort of trips the same way (if the various articles on that site are to be believed). This isn't addressing range anxiety, it's saying plan your trips around charging your car so we work around the problem. And the problem isn't "range" now - it's where are the fast chargers? It's getting better, but it's still hard enough to pull off that there are regular youtube and news articles about the hassles and issues doing a road trip in an EV. No one does the same sort of reporting on ICE because you can find gas stations just about everywhere every 5-10 miles just about anywhere you go, and where it isn't there is some reporting of the signs saying "last gas for 100 miles" or whatever. People know they can find a gas station, even if they're going into a rural area.

The curse and trap of being poor - or Vimes law of boots. If you only have $5,000 to get a vehicle, doesn't matter if your ROI is bad over time, your choice is bad ROI and a vehicle, or no vehicle. I really hope used EVs start to get parity with used ICEs, but I bet that's at least a decade if not two away.

You’re not going to get any ev that’s good at towing, so get that off your list right now. The problem is - like in my super long comment down below - It's hard to sell people on go from 1 vehicle that does 100% of my use cases now to 1 vehicle that does 95% of my use cases. This is just inherently a hard sell.

What I do is I have an extra truck for towing, which I rarely need to use - but it's not cheap to do this, and many people can't or won't. But even then, having a "good for commuting only" vehicle is an even harder sell. I know people who do this, but that can be hard to hit IMHO. While all you need and all you miss with towing is... towing, a "good commuter car" might well be something that is small, 2WD, and doesn't really have cargo space or back seats. Many people however have young kids (need pretty large car seats), or want to take 3-4 people on trips, or want to go shopping for stuff and minimize the needed delivery fees, or have bad weather and want AWD/4WD. It's easy to get a truck or SUV that does all of that AND towing, but it's hard to get an economical EV that does all of that minus towing.

I read the article and clicked through their own reporting on range anxiety: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/16/is-range-anxiety-really-worth-all-the-angst/

According to data from the US Department of Transportation, 95.1% of trips taken in personal vehicles are less than 31 miles; almost 60% of all trips are less than 6 miles. In total, the average US driver only covers about 37 miles per day.

it seems to me that this screams out for better shared transportation - If I'm going less than 6 miles, I'd much prefer an Uber or easy subway ride or the like to owning a car at all. However, that's something government would actually have to fund and do something rather than just passing rules on to other people to make happen.

That minor rant aside - I still maintain that the 37 miles per day is a commute and going out to lunch. If we actually wanted to have people change habits in a really useful way - it'd be to start incentivising / mandating telework where possible - stop all the unnecessary car traffic of any kind. You know what's more environmentally friendly than ZEV vehicles? No vehicle (use).

That all said - most people I know buy vehicles to solve as close to 100% of their needs, not 95.1% - because vehicles are so expensive. The range anxiety haven't been about the daily commute for like a decade - even the 87 mile leaf did that fine and most anyone I've ever talked to was perfectly OK if they had the leaf JUST to drive to work and back in the summer / nice weather. Very few people buy a car like that though, because they need to get through bad weather or carry more stuff or people or tow or ...

And then there's the all american road trip. Roughly once a month I go 180 miles one way on a quick trip to see family. They don't have a car charger setup anywhere. I'm not at all sure if they can run an extension cord out, but then I'm on slow charging, and I also drive around while I'm there (unless I asked to use their car for all trips). I'm usually there for a couple days and come back. I have to get gas on each trip. This is not in reality if I had a leaf. If I had a more expensive car it's do-able, but I still would be anxious till there's more "top up" points. I go by probably 20 gas stations I notice on the trip, and there's probably 100+ more within 2-3 miles from the route I take. I know of one charging station.

They have an answer in the article

Plan your route: PlugShare and other apps allow you to determine where chargers are located along your intended route as well as details like the hours they’re open, the cost to charge, whether it’s a public or private facility, and user reviews. It reminds me of childhood trips we took when my parents used Trip Ticks from AAA to determine best roads and attractions. Being organized makes any trip more pleasant, and being aware of possible charging stops ahead creates a sense of calm in you and your passengers.

Yes - plan you trip around your car. I mean, sure, but harkening back to needing Trip Ticks like in the early 1990s isn't exactly a "towards the future" sort of vibe. And they're right - a lot of it is vibe.

Limit your use of air conditioning or heat when possible: So be uncomfortable... I never think about turning on aircon or heat in my ICE car. This is a stupid "fix a perceived problem" statement.

Plan errands to intersect with available chargers Again, live your life around your car - this just is absurd. If I'm planning errands around my transportation, I ought to be able to use public transport and get better returns for the hassle - but I can't because our public transport is shit, and also it's probably not feasible in the vast rural areas of the US.

Stay calm, breathe deeply: According to research in the Journal of Advanced Transportation, range voltage depends on a variety of factors, including emotional type, age, and driving experience, and these factors may influence how susceptible you are to range anxiety.

Yes, get some therapy and Xanax and you too can love the EV.

Ok, but ranting about the sheer stupidity and patronizing nature of the article around range anxiety over - back to the road trip. Many people like to drive to their vacations to save money, especially if they have 3+ people going and would have to also rent a car at the other end of a flight. My next trip is a 900 mile trip over 2 days. With ICE I literally just put it in my GPS and go - no issues because I can stop and get gas ANYWHERE. We're just NOT THERE yet with chargers, and even with superchargers, we're talking going from a 10 minute break to get gas, grab a snack and use the restroom to more like 30 minutes waiting for the car. I don't have issues with planning lunch or dinner around that, IF I could be sure there was a super charger where it makes sense to break.

The thing that's stupid is it's not "range anxiety" really, I have to worry about getting gas and finding a gas station. We just have gas stations already built out and getting gas is a 5 minute process to get another 360+ miles of range. If the charging was close to that to add 360+ miles of range, no one would blink an eye, but instead, it's 30 minutes to add maybe 100 miles of range - which leads to making trips take much longer in many cases. The other anxiety inducing thing is if you run out of gas, AAA can bring you 2 gallons to get you to a station. I haven't heard about the equivalent for EVs yet.

The important thing is - talking down to people isn't going to get them to listen to you. Telling people they shouldn't worry about their yearly or more often road trips because normally they're driving to work and back isn't a great sales pitch really. If I have to rent an ICE car 2 times a year for a road trip, that's at least $1,000 each time, which itself pays for a lot of gas, or 3 new car payments (for most people). It doesn't make people think EVs are cheaper.

Me feeling this way is a problem, because I do think EVs are a good thing, and I really want one, but not for massively more than a direct replacement of my existing ICE car, and not if I have to also maintain an ICE car for trips. One car is cheaper than two to keep going no matter how frugal the second car is.

I feel like some context in time spent refining new styles of airframes historically might be relevant. Then again, if the issue is actually the design, it seems like 30 years ought to be enough to refine that or give up with current tech. I just wonder if it's actually a design flaw - we don't really get media reports about other crashes like this - I guess the closest was the Boeing 737 MAX? I think part of the issue is the numbers of dead are "inflated" relative to say the F35 because of the number of people who would be on the vehicle.

I don't know the answers to all these, it's certainly possible that any expert in military aircraft would be saying these are stupid to keep flying. I just feel like the first helicopters probably had similar times of occasional deadly crashes for instance, and yet no one is saying we should stop flying helicopters.

I don't think race or gender swapping existing characters is that shocking to anyone anymore. So what fuss would there be lol? It's no longer edgy at all.

This might be the first time that a computer game (well "sort of single player") actually can come close to a pen and paper RPG experience.

I have to say, I think I was very lucky because College prepared me for most aspects of my job.I really can't think of one that it could have prepared me for that it didn't - like it didn't teach me the specific bureaucratic processes for purchasing or getting approval from management etc, but how could it? I'm also lucky to be working in my field many years on.

Ehhh, I'd say that expecting results really varies by the job. Or at least the results are usually KPI that are easily gameable if you don't care about trying for a random bonus. I kept a job and got pay raises by basically doing the minimum and slacking off pretty hard for a while. I worked another job where they mostly wanted someone to be a warm body ready to talk to a customer, but otherwise didn't really know if / what you did.

Oh, college prepared me for that with unrelated classes that were requirements. And random other bullshit.

Well, the first "glitch" is how bluetooth works in any Subaru too - and it is kind of annoying that there's no easy way to tell it to just connect in pause mode and I'll hit play when I want to hear my podcast or music. I kind of assumed it's how Bluetooth worked in cars. I guess I'm saying this isn't EV specific - I've rarely seen a good review of car infotainment in the last 10 years, and TBH the only things I thought anyone liked was the carplay or android auto (not that I want either, I do just want charging and bluetooth but would love those to be less stupid).

The rest though just confirms my belief that GM makes pretty shoddy vehicles and I would never buy a new one again. My family got burned by GM products for decades before moving to Subaru in the aughts and haven't looked back till Subaru's lack of real EV options.

That said, it's not like Subaru's don't have faults - they do and they take forever to fix known manufacturing issues. It's just that so far they've never stranded any of us anywhere. We've always been able to get home or to a shop, whereas like in this article we're all to familiar with GM vehicles needing a tow randomly.

I had hoped (and been told) that GM improved their cars in the early 2010s but clearly not for EVs, and really - I already know where to get reliable ICE cars and that wasn't ever GM really either.

Honestly, I think it would be better if we had actual trained councilors / therapists to take some tickets, maybe as a different department that was trained on taking or working with the same ticketing system but also handling confidentiality correctly. The people who contact IT just to talk or to bitch about the current state of the world as seen through a technology lens, or those who are overstressed about tech... I'm not really a people person, I'm a tech person, hence why I didn't go into social services or the like.

The military history wasn’t so useful but there’s way more history made without guns than with them.

I'd argue that a lot of people have found Sun Tzu useful way outside of a military context, but also it's useful IMO to see where force fails or succeeds, and not just militarily. I might argue (as just an armchair person) that hostile takeovers etc might have some analogs. Stuff like comparing how various empires handled integrating conquests might sort of apply to mergers (though maybe that's not exactly military)... Even just the importance and limitations of morale in sprints etc.

"Pro Tip" I learned looking up camera insurance - don't get specific item insurance, if for whatever reason you're not doing a home insurance rider contact an insurance agent to get you a Inland Marine policy (I have no idea about the naming). I got like $11,000 in coverage for ~ $150 a year, with a $100 deductible. Covers theft and me breaking it accidentally.

EDIT: And how this relates is it seems like you can schedule just about anything with a serial # and declared value via the agent on the policy.

My only interaction with Substack is that one podcast moved there for premium content. I thought it was mostly for written newsletters, which I always wondered how much of a market there actually is for paying for one newsletter, but then again I guess it's just the written version of podcasts so I guess there is a market. Though promoting Nazi content gives me a lot of pause.

Well, this is horrible. And all the Windows 11 requirements are just arbitrary from what I can tell.

There's actually a service called jolly rodger that you can forward calls to that uses AI and such to try and do this. It's pretty cheap, under $20 a year (and also does voicemail and transcribes the calls to a text). I think it does cut down on junk calls, they tend to just hangup.

Honestly I never had a problem with MicroUSB and haven't really seen a benefit to USB-C for basic charging of devices. I guess some might charge faster, but USB-C is so screwed up that you need a magic mix of cable, charger and device to get more than baseline anyway, it works the same as MicroUSB for me.