I use Swift. As such I dropped semi-colons years ago...

Because you need some way to tell the idiot in headphones looking at his phone that he's about to die?

"making the infrastructure work for the humans that live there"

That means redesigning things for humans, not for cars.

"You need massive upgrades to roads to get that TEMPORARY reduction in congestion."

FTFY

The only way to reduce congestion is to reduce demand. WFH is one way. Congestion pricing is another, and is only really viable here because NYC actually has a transit system.

Battery swapping means you need extra batteries, of every kind and shape that needs to be swapped. Or is a car battery the same as an SUV battery and as a truck battery and as a heavy-duty truck/semi-truck battery? Probably not.

You iterated many of the problems, but unless you're going have specifically schedule pickup times you're going to need dozens of extra batteries or each size and type. Some charging, some waiting to be charged, and so on. It's not just a five minute gas station swap if a charged battery isn't ready.

And I don't see manufacturers of personal vehicles standardizing on something that makes them more competitive than someone else ("We have longer range!", "We have faster charging!", "We're better in the cold!", "We last for 10,000 cycles.")

IMO, the only model where such a thing makes sense is long-distance trucking and the like where fleets can standardize on a specific system, and where the packs aren't structurally integrated into the vehicle. Semi pulls into a terminal, swaps, keeps going.

The economics indeed don't work out. The infrastructure costs are high, the battery costs are high, and you STILL need to build charging infrastructure anyway, in order to recharge the dropped off batteries.

With that factored in, what are you paying per swap? 3-4x what normal recharging would cost?

Besides, battery tech is improving daily. Increasingly seeing mentions of 5-6min recharge times.

First car? MG-B. Second car? Triumph Spitfire. Third? VW Bus (manual). Fourth car...

Never mind. Point remains that I've been there, done that, I and I know that a part of your attention is monitoring engine speed/noise, engaging/disengaging the clutch, shifting, etc., etc..

And that's a part of your attention that's not focused elsewhere.

Besides, I'm way past the point of thinking I'm a badass driver just because I can stomp my foot and make a car go vroom-vroom... ;)

"Don't make people think or force them to pay attention..."

Right. Because heaven forbid we let drivers actually focus on the road. You know? Looking out for other cars? Bikes? Pedestrians?

Much better to distract them micromanaging gears and focusing on split-second timing and clutch control. After all, nothing says road safety like diverting attention away from what actually matters.

And fun in this context usually means clinging to the fantasy that mastering an outdated gearbox somehow makes you a better driver.

A comforting myth in a culture that confuses noise, speed, and complexity with competence, and one that injects unnecessary complexity into a task that already kills 40,000 people a year.

Often by people swerving back and forth in traffic, speeding, racing, and blowing red lights.

"In the winter, "sticks" are better because you can start out in 2nd gear..."

True. And could come in handy the five days in the year I might need it.... as opposed to the other 360.

As pointed out above, I cancelled the subscription. As long as alternatives (or doing without) are options, one in fact can say, "No."

I actually have the Adobe "Photography" Plan that recently just bumped up from $9.99/mo to $15.52/mo. ($19.95 listed on site).

Or had, rather, since I just cancelled it. I no longer use it enough to justify the cost, and have been using Pixelmator Pro for the odd work that I needed done.

Switching to a new program isn't easy... but it's getting easier, and I was getting tired of Adobe's incessant price increases.

I'm also currently going through the painful process of trying to delete the apps from my machine. Apparently Adobe didn't hear about the "one click cancel/delete" rule...

"Clearly they care far more about the bottom line than doing what's best for their customers."

Staying in business is good for customers.

So, one person has has to stand behind that continuous miner and run it.. Cool. Now tell me, how many miners did that machine replace?

Okay, I'll bite. Please explain the circumstances under which the population replacement rate again climbs above 1.2?

Absent some major restructuring of society, Japan's only real hope is immigration.

Same as the US, actually.

If you're in command of a starship, head of engineering on the fleet flagship, or so on, I doubt you're in the bottom percentile in anything.

Try reading Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear for an alternative take on this,