I’m also amused that the Epstein ballroom might hide an Epstein datacenter but it seems overly complicated. If someone wanted a secret datacenter without congressional oversight, pick any military base anywhere. It’ll be cheaper, you can hide it in military appropriations and military network traffic. He’ll, just make it an annex to an existing military datacenter and no one will think twice

The problem is it’s very expensive. Solar installers charge tens of thousands of dollars and has a long history of scams. They take the place of the old trope about scammy used car salesmen. They’ve created leases and PPAs in an attempt to make the initial cost easier but only succeeded in being scammy

It doesn’t help that we have tariffs and other barriers to low cost solar panel imports, yet insufficient support for domestic manufacturing to be competitive.

The math is hard. Everyone wants to know the payback threshold from the huge install cost up front but it’s not straightforward.

When I looked into solar I found

• lots of scammers, poor service
• I calculated a payback of 12 years from install cost given free energy, which is longer than I’m likely to own this house. But they claim 7?
• I only have sufficient unshaded roof for half my usage
• is it poor service or scamminess that it’s so difficult to get them to explain that?

A big part of it is being realistic about how often that would come up.

Especially for those with their own house, charging overnight at home (like you do with your phone) is more convenient. It is so nice never having to go to a local gas station!

Forget looking for discounts like Costco, charging from home is half (for me) the cost of gasoline. Everyone likes saving money

The only time this doesn’t work is road trips, where I need to stop for 20 minutes every 4-5 hours of driving. If I’m eating a meal, it’s going to take longer than that anyway.

So

• 90+% of the time an EV is more convenient and much cheaper
• on road trips where I would have stopped to eat, it’s equally convenient
• on road trips where I’m stopping more than I would otherwise and for slightly longer ……. That’s actually very rare

Edit: looking at my charging stats, it’s only been twice in the last year. One of those was a 1,200 mile road trip that did wonders to overcome my range anxiety

most Americans don’t want an EV with batteries at their current state.

That’s a risky assumption given how driven by propaganda this is. The reality is current state of batteries is perfectly fine for most Americans. What if they realize that? It does partly depend on charger availability, which is being rapidly built out despite the efforts of the current administration to block that. What happens as Americans realize how many new chargers are near them?

Can you really not think of anything not included in quarterly profit-taking? Long term thinking? Externalities? Tragedy of the Commons?

This is government failing its duties yet again. Higher Short term profits for a few, at the expense of a livable climate, violence related to petrostates, higher costs for consumers, increased injuries and deaths, increased funding needs for military, infrastructure, etc …… including long term viability of the industry

Is it though? Sure they’ll have a couple great quarters, but the US isn’t the world car market. If they can look beyond a couple quarters, they’re just becoming uncompetitive everywhere else and eventually the hammer will drop in the us as well

And after the pre plays out, the land is abandoned back to the government, is listed as a superfund site so the government is in the hook to clean up the pollution

I hope they all noticed Pete Hegseth is a coward who immediately tried to blame it on the guy he ordered. If an order is at all questionable, you will be hung out to dry. Blame only goes downhill

If the military aren’t going to think about the orders they’re given, maybe it’ll give them pause when the person giving them is clearly a coward who will blame those he ordered

I’ll start a gofundme!

We all should care. Not only is the east wing destroyed but that’s $350M taxpayers money down the drain. If it doesn’t meet building code we’ll also be on the hook to rebuild it. This is yet more harm to the country and its people.

…… while I’m aware taco Don claimed to have secret private donors, does anyone remember how it went for Mexico paying for his stupid wall?

I’ve been through river cleanups everywhere I ve lived. There’s always something toxic that corps got away with dumping for so many years and then just left it. Government on the hook for so many billions of dollars cleaning up the mess. Where’s that sense of personal/corporate responsibility we hear so much about?

Depends on what you call enough protein. Part of the point of those pushing protein is the claim that most people need a lot more than government standards

“War” usually implies a cause and an opponent. This is just chaotic, and against everyone

Signing (intermediate) certs have been compromised before. That means a bad actor can issue fake certs that are validated up to your root ca certs

While you can invalidate that signing cert, without useful and ubiquitous revocation lists, there’s nothing you can do to propagate that.

A compromised signing certs, effectively means invalidating the ca cert, to limit the damage

Mine actually does have a replaceable battery but not a standard one.

The thing is even where things are maintainable, you get to the point where maintenance exceeds replacement cost, where multiple things need attention at once. There’s always the trigger point, but the accumulation affects the weight

Rational … hahahahahahahahahhehehe hoo hohoho hah haha hah hah hahahahahah aha haha. Sorry, where were we again?

Oh ok. I have no idea what the situation here is for bidirectional charging. It’s not common yet.

And yes, we’re trying to work out common payment systems, but as far as I know, that’s just software. Historically chargers required you to register and pay through the manufacturers app, but that’s unscalable when you have many possible charger manufacturers supporting a common standard.

One of the requirements for US incentives to build out chargers was mandating credit card readers so anyone can drive up and charge without a proprietary app. Of course that was cancelled in our chaotic political situation, so will take more years to happen

I believe EVs are being harmonized, although separately….or is that what you meant?

Don’t EVs in EU have a standardized charger and negotiate voltage and current?

In the US, we have an old standard that needs to go away, a newer standard that is going away, and Tesla’s standard which seems to be on the way to the winning standard. But the handshake is already compatible: switching between systems just requires a physical adapter. I believe the car and charger negotiate for the best voltage and current it can use

And of course level I and II charging use residential electrical standards, so already must be as standard as you can get. No one wants to try resolving those

Of course, but there’s also the matter of the degrading battery with much shorter life, the peeling handle, the worn head. Yes, I can put up with the battery for longer, but it will need to be replaced and it may not be any cheaper than replacing the toothbrush. I could just deal with the peeling handle, but it’s not hygienic. I could buy more replacement heads but it’s throwing more money after an appliance whose time is nearing its end