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Comment Re:The book burning has begun (Score 1) 72

It's kind of trite and belittling to say this, but the problem here is that you're an idiot. But belittling you isn't the point, the point is you have a series of extremely limiting though-terminating cliches embedded in your head, where you short circuit any actual analysis with predetermined rage bait"

Ask yourself "What policy have the dems actually enacted that are 'concerned with undocumented immigrants' or 'concerned with [...] transexuals'?" and you'll come up with jack shit. Zero laws passed that do anything to offend your (entirely fictional) "blue collar american".

This is a center-right to right wing party with a center-left voting base in a political reality that desperately needs some actual economic planning to counter the death spiral of the escalating r>G phenomenon. The corruption is too rampant for that on the left, and the right is too goddamn stupid and obsessed with made up enemies to do it, so China wins.

Comment Re:EVs are not a solution beacuse of (Score 3, Informative) 200

You are talking nonsense. A Tesla Model Y battery is 1700 pounds, whereas a full gastank of a typical sedan is less than 150 pounds

SIGH.

First off, none of the battery packs in the 3/Y are 1700 pounds. The SR pack is 350kg / 772 lbs, while the LR pack is 480kg / 1058 lbs. This includes the charge cabling.

Secondly, unless you drive around in a vehicle that is nothing more than a gas tank or a battery pack, you're kind of forgetting a few things. Let's help you out.

ICE engines typically weigh 150-300kg (~330–660 lbs), and high-performance engines can exceed this. On top of this, the transmission usually adds another 70-115kg (150-250lbs). EV powertrains are light. An entire Model 3 drive unit, including gearbox, oil pump, filter, etc is ~80kg / ~175lbs. And actually this plays it down, because except in the performance Model 3 - which matches up against quite powerful / heavy ICE powertrains - they're software locked, so they're actually well oversized relative to what they're allowed to deliver.

ICE exhaust systems add ~25-45kg / ~50-100 lbs. Obviously absent in EVs.

ICE fuel systems (pumps, lines, etc) add another ~15-20 kg or so (maybe 30-50 lbs)

ICE vehicles, due to their inefficiency, require much larger radiators, coolant reservoirs, hoses, etc (again, another ~15-20kg extra over EVs).

The battery pack in an EV makes up the floor pan. Again, that cuts mass by a couple dozen kg.

The battery pack is a stiffening element, and eliminates the need for many dozens of kg of extra stiffening mass.

The needs of an engine block impose a lot more difficult design constraints on an ICE car, including a larger front end, a higher centre of gravity, a less compressible front end in an accident, etc. The need to compensate for these things also adds significant mass.

ICE vehicles have all accessories driven by the engine, and all electrics on low voltage (heavy wiring). EVs do it either with a DC-DC converter or direct HV, saving many kg again here. New EVs are also ditching the low-voltage battery altogether.

I could go on and on. The simple fact is, while EVs add (significant mass) in the form of one part, ICEs nickle and dime the car for mass all over the place. ICEs still win out mass-wise, but on a class-and-performance comparison, like-to-like, the mass differences just aren't that much (again, unless the designer is just bad at their job or doesn't care - *grumbles again in Hummer*).

(Also, re: serviscope_minor above: You don't compare vehicles by length; it's not a very useful metric. For size, you can compare by interior space specs - trunk / frunk volume, driver/front passenger head/leg/shoulder/hip room, rear passenger head/leg/shoulder/hip room. Length isn't a good proxy because it ignores packaging; a 1960 Chevy Corvette might be "long", but has very little interior space. Interior space and overall profile are often included as part of the category of "class" (for example, the Model 3 and BMW 3-series both have very similar interior space metrics and profiles). Also part of "class" is perceived / marketed luxury, though people differ over what counts as luxury, so it's not a very clear-cut metric. Performance is another axis, as higher performance cars tend to be heavier and/or have less interior space relative to their footprint (though EVs suffer a lot less on this than ICEs).

Comment Re:The book burning has begun (Score 1) 72

Ultimately, I agree with you.

The dems, crippled by an attachment to donors who hate what democratic voters want are strategically incapable of anything besides bare-minimum maintenance of the empire and its alliances. Their major accomplishments of the last 30 fucking years are all center-right patches on immense status quo problems: NAFTA, welfare reform, obamacare, *vague hand gesture* "infrastructure"

Trump, on the other hand, totally satisfies republican donors with two words "tax cuts", and can execute any pet right wing project of his no matter how catastrophic or cruel.

This dichotomy is why we're 20 years into the Chinese century now.

Comment Re:I am a bus rider. (Score 1) 200

You mention you have the N version? That's the one with simulated engine noise and gear movements - how are you finding it? Fun? Or are you finding you're not using those bits?

Curious - I like the idea of the N, it's not a car for me but I can very easily see its appeal as a useful vehicle that still adds a bit of a fun factor.

Comment Re: Not a plan every nation can emulate. (Score 1) 200

I don't know why - 'an hour for my car to charge' hasn't been a thing for years. I owned a first gen (nose-cone) Model S and could spend 45 minutes getting to 80% of a 202 range if I ran it to the bottom. But that car came out eleven years ago. No car today charges like that - I have a Y right now and 10-15 minute stops if any are the norm, and that's on a much bigger range to start with (330 miles I think - says everything that I can't remember because it's just not an issue I hit).

Get through a day's driving on a single charge? Easily. Two days for most. Three days for some. Charge it while I sleep? Of course, I do that every day and have done for the seven or eight years I've been driving an EV now.

Comment Re:Makes sense. (Score 1) 39

You can't get sunburned from far-UV like you can with normal UVC. It doesn't penetrate deep enough to reach living skin cells (e.g. the (dead) stratum corneum is 10-40 microns on most skin, up to hundreds on e.g. palms and soles) - in human tissue, 222nm penetrates only a few microns, with most of the energy deposited in the first micron; the deepest any degradation was seen in one study was 4,6 microns (for 233nm, it's 16,8 microns). As mentioned earlier, the only cells it can kill are the outermost layer of cells in the eye (corneal epithelium), but they're constantly being shed regardless (the entire corneal epithelium is 5-7 cells thick and has a ~1 week turnover, so on average just over 1 day per cell on the surface).

The comments about material degradation probably are also not true with far-UV. It's certainly ionizing, but again it doesn't penetrate deeply into surfaces . Paint is generally many dozens of microns thick (a typical two coats of interior paint is ~100 microns), while epoxy is typically millimeters or more, so you're only going to be affecting the extreme outermost surface. I doubt you could even tell.

Also, contrary to popular myth (and indeed, our pre-COVID medical understanding), most common communicable diseases (influenza, COVID, most cold viruses, etc) spread by direct airborne transmission, not fomites (surface transmission). So how well surfaces are cleaned has no bearing on this primary means of transmission. That's not that surfaces don't matter - said diseases still *can* be transmitted from fomites, and some other diseases (esp. fecal-oral route ones like norovirus) are still believed to be primarily transmitted via fomites.

Again, honestly, the only thing I would have concerns about are plants. Most plant cuticles are only like 0,1-1 micron thick. Xeriphytes (desert plants) can be thicker, though, like 1-20 microns, and are in general adapted to more UV exposure, so might be able to deal with it. But I'd think a plant with only a 0,1 micron thick cuticle and a 0,1-0,3 micron thick cell wall will get its leaves pretty badly burned by far-UV. I'd expect any epidermis and stomata exposed to the light to be almost entirely killed. But if you had a cactus or plant with really waxy leaves, it might be fine.

Comment Re:That is a hell of a lot of words to say (Score 1) 163

That we should be cool with them blowing through billions of our taxpayer dollars so that they can throw shit at a wall and see what sticks.

SpaceX has saved the US government an immense amount of money. What are you even talking about? Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy is by far the cheapest launch system out there, and is also, FYI, the most reliable launch system out there. And it go that way by exactly the process above. And that process cost far less than NASA spends to develop its super-expensive launch systems.

Comment Re:EVs are not a solution beacuse of (Score 4, Insightful) 200

Tesla has been at approximately mass parity with its closest class/performance competitors from BMW (with a full tank of petrol) since 2017 (the 330i vs. the SR, the 340i vs. the LR, etc). This "EVs are super-heavy thing" is a myth. I mean, sure, if you're terrible at your job you can design a really heavy EV (*grumbles in Hummer*). But usually, if the designers did their job right, the weight difference is small when matched up on class/performance competitors.

And beyond what others pointed out - that PM emissions are only a fraction of pollutants, and that they come from both brakes and tyres, and EVs have far lower brake emissions - it should also be pointed out that tyre PM tends to be mainly *coarse PM*, not fine PM. Both are harmful, but fine PM is significantly more harmful per amount produced. Brakes have a higher ratio of fine to coarse than tyres do, exhaust is higher still.

Cars also have air filters which capture PM. Generally well less than is produced, but I've seen a proof of concept where they amped up the air filtration so that the car was net negative. If you really wanted to, nothing is stopping you from mandating that. Still, economically your best bet is surely on taxing tyres (esp. studded ones) to incentivize people to choose durable ones and ones that don't wear down the roads, to limit hard accel / braking, etc.

Comment Re:Now deport Elon (Score 0) 205

How about deporting him for lying on his citizenship application?

He entered the US on a student visa, didn't enrol or undertake studies (the purpose behind being on a student visa) and focused on his start up instead.

Clear violation of his visa terms. But because he's famous with money and has been perceived as an entrepreneur he's been able to avoid the same consequences as other people who have violated similar visa terms, i.e. citizenship stripped (as it was fraudulently obtained) and deported.

---

I have no dog in this race though as I'm not a US citizen, nor do I live in the US. In fact it's quite funny to see the US speed run an empire collapse. I just hope it happens without an all-out war outside US borders.

Comment Screwing the rural communities (Score 5, Insightful) 205

This bill cuts Medicaid to the bone. Large hospitals in cities can take it, because many of their patients have good jobs and good insurance. But the majority of hospitals in small towns and rural areas depend on medicaid.

Those hospitals will go out of business. So even if you have employer provided health care or Medicare, you will have to travel 3-6 hours to go to a hospital.

People will die in the ambulance.

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