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Comment cargo cult (Score 1) 45

Repeating someone's stupid is the dumbest cargo cult imaginable.
Starship is an idiotic system, it doesn't do anything useful for any purpose whatsoever except transferring money from the people's pockets through the government manipulation apparatus into the hands of Musk and his cronies, that's all. The Chinese could really find a better way to waste money, I am sure of it.

Comment Destination chargers (Score 1) 140

Your mentioning having slow chargers at destinations, such as offices, is actually a potential solution to apartments being slow about installing charging capacity, or being too expensive about it.
Have people charge at work, not home, in such cases.
The workplace will probably want reasonable rates, many already cover parking for their employees, and with solar power ever expanding, daytime power might actually become cheaper than nighttime.
For areas with actual parking lots, imagine covering the lot with solar panels. Help keep cars cool and clean, not snow covered, etc... While charging them up.
Might not work as well in the extreme north, but not all of the USA is that far north.

Comment Must not be in the USA (Score 1) 140

I don't remember the last time I visited a gas station in the United States that didn't have pay at the pump available. I'm sure there are some janky stations out there, but not many.

Plus, at least in the USA, refueling one of our 300 mile ranged EVs is only maybe 50% more often than a gasoline vehicle - you don't want to go under 10% in a gasoline vehicle anyways, but while full is not a problem with ICE, with an EV you probably want to stick to around 80% most of the time to avoid the charging slowdown (upcoming tech may change this). 30% is probably closer. IE if you need to fill up 10 times with an ICE vehicle on a trip, with an EV it'd be 13 charging stops.

Plus or minus some accounting for placement of towns and charging/fuel stations.

That's only about 60 miles difference,

Comment Called it - Politicians backing off (Score 4, Insightful) 140

I've said before that the upcoming bans were more aspirational than effective, placed far enough in the future that when things didn't go as rosy as predicted (which itself should be predictable), that they'd modify them.
Examples include:
1. Expanding the qualifying vehicles, like including HEVs in the same category as EVs
2. Pushing deadlines back
3. Lowering percentages.

Comment Re:Rejected the AMZN Aquisition? (Score 1) 100

That may explain it. I have a Qrevo S, which is from 2024, while yours is from 2022. The only thing that it ever gets stuck at is one spot where, from under the couch, it can see out the ground-level window, and get stuck between the couch and window ledge (not actually stuck, just confused), because the LiDAR sees out the window. And I fixed that just by setting a small exclusion zone there. It never "gets lost" - maybe your house has some vast open spaces that it can't handle? But the LiDAR seems to see pretty far. The only other issues I've had are things like where I'll have a loose cord on the floor or some large piece of debris or whatnot, and even then, it's usually good at not getting stock on them. I'm also impressed with how well it deals with doors vs. a Roomba - my Roomba used to always get itself locked in rooms by accidentally closing doors after it entered, while the Roborock really tries to avoid ever touching them.

The Qrevo S has actually rotating mops, and they do a superb job with the floor. Spotless. My robot has the hardest mopping job in the world, too - it has to clean under my parrot's cage, and he poops off the edge onto a plastic mat under it ;)

I've never had to contact support - hopefully I don't need to :)

Comment scourge (Score 4, Insightful) 64

There is no story about ruzzians that I do not find disgusting, the only good ruzzian is a dead ruzzian. Trump believing that he can negotiate a business deal with them, involving Exxon Mobile buying the rights to some oil fields for a bargain and putin caring about doing business is cute. putin has Trump and all other Americans figured out. Americans want to do busuness, rhey are all about making money. Certainly it seems to be a rational thing to do. Except putin doesn't care about making money, to him money is not made in business deals, it is taken from whoever makes it, he just takes it, business is for chumps.

putin looks at Trump and the rest of them and understands how to manipulate them easily to achieve his own goals, which are not business goals. putin wants Ukraine, the whole thing and should Ukraine fall he wants the rest of Europe, all of it.

Europeans don't get it but really it shouldn't be that difficult. There is another force they are familiar with tbat has the same goal of world domination - islam. The muslim brotherhood and putin are really very similar concepts. Both want to dominate, both use the weaknesses of democracies and the business approach as jiujitsu of sorts against the West. The West does not understand this because it cannot wrap its head around such concepts, it makes no sense to the Western sensibilities, the West is too rational but also short sighted and too full of itself. The West cannot imagine being outplayed by ruzzians or the islamists. The West is wrong on all counts in this game, it does not recognize its own shortsightedness and its own narcissism.

ruzzians are a scourge, a plague, so are islamists. The West is not ready for this war.

Comment Re:Robot vacuum cleaners - meh (Score 1) 100

A real vacuum cleaner just about maxes out a standard residential 120v 15a circuit, as anyone who remembers the incandescent bulb era can attest to. A circuit with a few lamps shared with a vacuum cleaner could easily end with you flipping a breaker or replacing a blown fuse.

When you look at the absolutely tiny lithium ion pack these robo-vacs come with, ...

Sitting on my kitchen table right now is a drone pack. It's 57,5Wh, smaller the batteries of most modern Roombas. It's 50C - thus it can output up to 2,9kW. And there's even higher packs available than that. Lithium ion cells can handle some truly high power outputs. It's *energy*, not *power*, that is their limitation. Run a pack at 50C and it'll be empty in a bit over a minute. That said, on hard floor surfaces there is absolutely no reason why you should be drawing more than 300-400W or so, and you can get by with well less than that. High powers are for like shag carpeting and the like. Also, the head matters more than the power (though of course contribute) - for a hard floor, for example, a fluffy roller head is ideal.

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