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bb123

2,571 karma · joined June 20, 2019

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bb123··on Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
> Every damn thing needs an app (and an account and registration - fun if you don't actually live in the country in question). Seriously just put up a charger and a contactless payment reader. Imagine if every petrol pump needed an app to start? May as well go back to having to put pound coins in a meter...

This actually isn't true. It is law in the UK that every public charger must have a contactless reader on it. Many of them have apps but you don't need to use them.

Your point about the price is very valid though. With the exception of Tesla Superchargers they are extremely expensive. For some reason Supercharger prices range from 12-35p. The Supercharger network in the UK is pretty good, but driving anything other than a Tesla is a nightmare.

bb123··on Details on Xiaomi EV
Yes. In Europe there is the Corsa-e and the e208. Both have >200 mile range and can be picked up less than 3 years old for under 10k.
bb123··on Swimming Pools and Granite Countertops: How College Dorms Got So Expensive
For what it’s worth, the cultural expectation to share a room in college is not universal. In the UK, Australia and many parts of Europe are often horrified to find that American students share a bedroom.
bb123··on An Empirical Study and Evaluation of Modern CAPTCHAs
By recall you mean a completely routine OTA software update done while the driver is asleep.
bb123··on Photographer captured one image of Cambridge every day for 13 years
How have you found the the transition from Cambridge to Seattle? I’m considering a similar move.
bb123··on Normal Operating Sounds
This is due to a phenomenon called heat soak which is where the engine temperature increases above normal for a time after it has been switched off due to the lack of coolant flow. The fan is coming on to aid cooling the engine/engine bay to reduce the effect of heat soak. With carburettor fed engines it is sometimes advised by the manufacturer to allow the engine to idle for some time after running it at high RPM. This is because the effect of heat soak can be significant enough to boil all the fuel off in the carb, making the engine hard to restart when hot.
bb123··on Normal Operating Sounds
I don’t think this is true - this is completely normal behaviour. The cooling fan is coming on due to a phenomenon called heat soak which is where the engine temperature increases above normal for a time after it has been switched off due to the lack of coolant flow. The fan is coming on to aid cooling the engine/engine bay to reduce the effect of heat soak.

With carburettor fed engines it is sometimes advised by the manufacturer to allow the engine to idle for some time after running it at high RPM. This is because the effect of heat soak can be significant enough to boil all the fuel off in the carb, making the engine hard to restart when hot.

bb123··on Scientists Are Researching a Device That Can Induce Lucid Dreams on Demand
How do you do it? I've only ever had a few and they seem to come on at random.
bb123··on Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap
As with all news about battery technology, I will believe it when I can go out and buy it. Until then it is vapourware. Does anyone know why battery technology in particular is so rife with these "A battery that NEVER needs charging is just 3 years away!!!" Type press releases?
bb123··on Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
>Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe.

>Eventually, the IRS calculates what they think you owe, and if you underpaid, they send you a bill

It definitely feels like a few steps could be skipped here…

bb123··on First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by CS student
> It is incredible and beyond conception

Could you elaborate a little bit about what you think gives it these qualities? I've dabbled in some classical literature before but I've always found them to be very difficult reads, so I rarely have the motivation to finish them. I am wondering if there is something I am missing about the genre.

bb123··on Teen arrested in England after felling ancient tree
The awful stabbing was on literally every front page yesterday.
bb123··on Ask vs. Guess Culture
I feel like British politeness is a huge counterpoint to this.
bb123··on A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis
I actually found this really pleasant to read. My eye seemed to be able to move from each word to the next more smoothly. It is interesting to note how the slightly uneven weights on each character are similar to fonts designed to aid Dyslexic readers like OpenDyslexic. I wonder if that is why. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDyslexic
bb123··on Higher interest rates mean for the size and distribution of UK household wealth
Who said anything about losing jobs here? Joblessness is exceedingly low.
bb123··on Higher interest rates mean for the size and distribution of UK household wealth
What variable rate debt do poor people usually have? You have to be of a certain income level to even get a mortgage in the first place.
bb123··on Higher interest rates mean for the size and distribution of UK household wealth
Hm I’m not sure you’re factoring variable rate mortgages, which most people in the U.K. have. As interest rates rise so do mortgage payments (usually with a 1-2 year delay).
bb123··on Higher interest rates mean for the size and distribution of UK household wealth
Is that true? It seems to be hurting the households with huge mortgages most directly.
bb123··on Threads: The BBC drama which affected a generation of viewers
We were shown When the Wind Blows at school when I was about 13 and it absolutely traumatised me. To this day just thinking about it makes my stomach drop and I still occasionally daydream about how I'd create a makeshift fallout shelter in my childhood home.
bb123··on Use clean energy charging on your iPhone
Let's assume an average iPhone battery is 5.45Wh and that they are charged to full every other night. That is 0.99kWh/year. We know there are 136 million iPhone users in the USA (1) so we are looking at 134GWh of electric consumption shifted to green generation.

Now assuming those phones were previously charged on the standard energy mix in the USA that is 0.368kg of co2 saved per device per year, or 501,584,76kg of co2 saved. That seems like a huge number! But is it?

Well let's put it in perspective. A flight from Heathrow to New York emits 312kg of co2 per passenger (3) so we have saved the equivalent of 600 fully loaded transatlantic flights. There are ~1700 flights a day so it doesn't seem like a huge difference. Disappointing.

But it seems like a pretty easy win so at this point I ask why not do it? I'm a big believer in aggregation of marginal gains and there are 10x that number of iPhones worldwide and many more Androids.

(1) https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/number-of-iphone-users (2) https://carbonfund.org/calculation-methods/#:~:text=We%20cal...). (3) https://www.nesta.org.uk/press-release/gas-boiler-emits-more.... (4) https://www.eurocontrol.int/news/celebrating-100-years-trans...

bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
Yeah I think that is true, I think the goal of the width restriction is really about weight - they don't want very heavy HGVs going back and forth over it all day so they probably don't care about SUVs
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
Yeah there are a few exceptions (some people also just import them) but we have avoided the worst of it so far. Anyone who has driven in the US knows that the average car size way larger.
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
There are tons of bridges around the UK with a 6ft 6 width restriction, for example Chelsea Bridge in London. The X is 6ft 6.6 inches wide.
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
Agreed - the U.K.’s is around 15% higher than their closest neighbour, France.
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
That's the model 3 and now the model Y. This just affects the S and X which were never mainstream anyway.
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
I think in the UK and Japan the model S and model X are far too large to ever be big sellers. There are even some bridges in the UK that the model X can’t cross because it is too wide.
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
It is far less safe to drive a car with a steering wheel on the wrong side - it shouldn’t be legal for Tesla to sell them in this way.
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
It is legal to drive a left hand drive car here, but I'm also surprised it's legal to sell one new. It is definitely much less safe. I was in a near fatal accident with a left hand drive truck who didn't see me in his blindspot because the steering wheel was on the wrong side.
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
Yes, one of the upsides of driving on the left is that it has spared the UK/Australia/Japan from those awful American gas guzzler tanks.
bb123··on Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive
This is just plain wrong. Last year Tesla sold 56,000 cars in the UK. That makes it about the same size market as the next three largest European countries combined. Given the doom mongering in the news you’d assume everyone in the UK is foraging in bins for their food, but the reality is there is plenty of people with money.
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