AND inflation is easing. We’re still way above pre-COViD but prices are not shooting up any more, and many of them have started coming down

I’ve only read your comment so far, but I thought it was obvious enough to be surprised your comment was in top

If Chamberlain can give up Czeckoslovakia for “peace for our time”, and be remembered as a great man (or at least as a garage door opener) surely Trump can be remembered for all time by giving up Eastern Europe for profit for his time

Yep, both sides, amirite?

Seems like he recorded his own evidence about election interference. Now the question is whether other officials are too far up his ass for charges

Let’s start by agreeing Trump is an idiot and battery electric vehicle technology covers personal transportation. We need to move as completely as possible to renewable energy.

However

• current BEV technology can’t replace aviation, shipping, cargo trains, construction and farming equipment, and we don’t really have a good solution yet. We’ll keep improving related technology and see how far it goes but we may need other choices.
• renewable energy is intermittent and current grid storage technology does not scale. It’s great to stabilize the grid and allow peaked plants to come online but not to, for example, last through the night until solar is again available. We’ll keep improving related technology and see how far it goes, but we may need other choices

One possible choice to cover both storage and creation of renewable fuel for the cases where batteries do not scale, is hydrogen. We do need to overbuild renewables, because production is affected by the weather, plus we need to produce enough energy in part of a day to run everything for a full day. Production of hydrogen might let us productively convert that daylight (for solar) energy into nighttime energy, and might help other areas where batteries don’t scale. And it doesn’t have to be hydrogen directly: perhaps we need a liquid fuel that works at room temperature and green hydrogen can be a precursor to methane or some variation of synfuel. That can be stored or manipulated more regularly. A tank of green synfuel might be an effective storage for turning daylight energy into nighttime time energy. We already have an approved synthetic aviation fuel - using renewable energy to create that might be more efficient than the more difficult task of scaling batteries for aviation

While I completely agree on the limitations of green hydrogen as a primary fuel, I also see that there are many usages that neither renewable nor storage nor batteries can yet scale for. Hydrogen as a storage medium is no worse than those options

• Most manufacturers pledged to support NACs starting next year, and a couple already have. Also, Tesla is adding the older standard to at least some chargers
• We might be losing “pay at the pump”, that was required for federal money to build out charging. Now we’re switching to NACs but Tesla hasn’t supported “pay at the pump” and I don’t know if that’s still a requirement. While it is actually more convenient to use the app and Tesla has been consumer friendly so far, I’m uncomfortable with yet another app holding my credit card hostage just so I can adult.
• we should focus on rest areas on highways, both to build out the trip charger network and as something that can more easily be standardized/influenced

We need to pivot the goal for hydrogen …… there are fossil fuel uses now that batteries can’t serve and hydrogen might be a good substitute.

Instead of saying that even with feee electricity it’s too expensive to make green hydrogen for cars, let’s use that free electricity to make synthetic aviation fuel Or at least create hydrogen as a precursor

And would need a huge new infrastructure for production and distribution. I’m convinced that most of the push for hydrogen is from oil and gas interests wanting to have essentially the same business they do now.

Clearly one of the advantages of EVs is how cheap and easy the infrastructure is compared to any other alternative (and somehow we’re still finding it difficult)

Even a coal burning EV emits less carbon than a gasoline car. The payback threshold may increase uncomfortably though. A while back I read something doing that analysis per US state. I believe the threshold ranges from 2 year in states with cleaner energy, up to 14 in coal burning West Virginia and Wyoming

I understand politicians may decide it’s fair game to play games with reality, but having this come from what people expect to be a medical authority is going too far.

Does the article state that he was convicted of a serious threat and prove any sort of planning toward implementation?

• being accused is different from being found guilty
• being found guilty of a threat is different from being found guilty of a threat and attempting to carry it out
• being found guilty and facing legal consequences is different from being publicly named for doing so
• he’s an effing kid

Sure but those are solvable. Personally I’m nowhere near as optimistic about the self-driving. I hope we eventually get it and current tech is truly amazing but it’s just not acceptable.

So far self-driving has mainly proven

• driving is all edge cases. Handling normal conditions is only the starting point
• it’s all about liability. Even if it’s provably safer than human driving, what human will accept their loved ones being killed by a self-driving car and what manufacturer will shoulder that liability?

The entire problem with Musk is people giving him an audience, every twit turning into a headline. Y’all are still doing it. Make any car purchasing decisions on what is right for you, rather than the ramblings of some celebrity. He has a right to an opinion but we don’t have to listen to it. Stop listening.

And here’s where everyone jumps all over me …… evaluate the car on its own merits. Personally I found a Tesla still the best EV available where I live, for the best price, and with similar quality to any other vehicle.

The internet also has way too short of attention span. Try to remember a few years back where Tesla was first struggling to scale up production of Model 3. There were many mistakes, many issues, poor build quality. But it’s like every other Tesla/SpaceX product: build something ambitious, test in public or even on customers, crash and burn until you get it right, continually increment. They have worked out their production issues, have continually incremented, and current products are much better than the ones from those headlines. Be open minded enough to make your decision on what you see now

There’s a plan. The best plan. It will be huge, everyone says it. Well, the concept of a plan really. Actually I’m just saying what you want to hear so I can indulge my ego, attract more fawning, and claim the power to act in my every impulse

Trump is also the Lightning rod: Lightning strikes might be less frequent or less focused if he weren’t there

Personally I believe it will be a typical curve:

• greater violence after the election as the crazies don’t accept the results
• opportunity to make an example of the crazies. Let use up that jail space formerly dedicated to profiting off minor drug users
• a general calming as their crazy conspiracies don’t pan out,
• as Trump realizes he’s too old for another go in four years and retires to Mar El Lago: he’ll still instigate, still dish the crazies but people will realize he’s no longer the lightning rod, the craziness will lose focus
• Truth Social shits down as the remaining crazies are not a viable business plan
• try as they might, other Republicans are no Trump. Trying to copy his brand of populous outrage won’t work for them

It’s the title of this thread

We were so innocent back then.

But one of the points is those big stars don’t just happen to be white. Throughout the years, a variety of conditions made it more likely that big stars would be white. Continuing to cast them for their star power instead of fitness for source, is pretty much the definition of “systemic racism”

Those people will tell you they’re not racist, that’s why there is no systemic racism. They think you are being racist for singling that out when there was none. Could it be a large part denial, lack of awareness? Or is that just a claim to explain their outrage?