raymw

It's not only crowd funding that is a problem - reliance on one guy https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/12/cryptocurrency-investors-want-to-exhume-ceo-who-took-250-million-to-his-grave/

unfortunately the tag line in above ad - undress to impress- made me think of Kevin's previous post, of a few pages back - I wish I hadn't...

I mentioned paying for 'fuel tax', ages back in this thread, iirc, about £29 billion per year in UK,. It will be quite possible to know where the car is, and if it's charging, and that can be linked to the change in a nearby charging point load. Trivial technology, and cheap to implement, if needed. If you saw the post someone made about China, where facial recognition means you get fined for jay-walking as you cross the street, that tech is already here. No point if having laws or rules if you don't police them. I'm waiting for 'ransom-ware' being placed on car computer systems, either by governments or others. In order to save building extra roads, to cope with more traffic, perhaps the solution is to reduce the traffic. Make it increasingly awkward for folk to use the car in the way they do now, and for many the difficulty in charging, costs, etc., will make them decide not to bother. However, electric cars, or the lack of them, are only a small part of the inevitable changes that will be happening in society over the next few years.

When it gets worthwhile, there will most likely be a 'fuel tax' applied to the electricity used to charge vehicles, in the same way we were encouraged to buy diesel cars because of the fuel economy, but when there were enough users, the price was raised. Also, I guess when you stop at services to recharge for twenty minutes, or however long, you'll most likely buy a coffee, or something, so that cost should possibly also be included. This will possibly mean more forestry removed for extra coffee plantations.

Tesla is old tech. You need one of these https://alcse.org/the-american-wind-powered-car/

Trigger's broom is the modern take on King Alfred's axe.

reference the 'banana art' A few years down the road, it will not be original, the tape will have lost it's sticky, and it'll be the umpteenth banana. Good piss take, though, but too arty to win the turnip prize in the Wedmore pub...

number 1, Uk top ten, 12th April 1953 - the wonders of the internet when yer memory be failing. I knew it wasn't Pet Clark, she pissed off a load of English folk with the comments she made when she went Frenchy side.

Lita Roza

An interesting talk about electricity supply in Australia. and statistics world wide, smart meters/whatever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYHX-Ib3Q5Q

Trouble is, there is too much 'style', not enough functionality. It used to be that indicator lamps and rear lamps were well defined, sometimes in separate housings. Now Ii've seen rear lights as two wavy lines of bright leds, with the wavy line of the amber indicator leds in between. You can not easily see the indicators if the rears are on. Of course, i suppose stuff like that is all that is left to distinguish the current crop of jelly-mould cars- badge engineering at it's finest.

My first two ford cars had vacuum operated wipers. Anything is an improvement after that, including the older Lucas hand operated type.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/22/us/florida-dog-drives-circles-trnd/index.html

here's the cybertruck launch - starts half way through.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Most window's users would be able to do all they need with a half decent Android tablet, and windows 8 was the stepping stone for Microsoft to develop the multi-platform successor, w10. Here's a relatively recent comparison of the two https://www.itpro.co.uk/operating-systems/25123/windows-10-vs-windows-81-which-is-best-for-you-1 and apart from the support expiry date (2023- and that is completely meaningless for many folk) there is really not that much difference.

Revo uninstaller is pretty good at removing junk programs.

I've only used defender for years. It updates regularly, my main pc is on 24/7. I occasionally, if something appears to be running slow, run Malwarebytes - the free version - which may or may not find something. I would think, since Microsoft have continuous access to your pc, they should know what should be on there, that they should have the best chance of finding stuff that should not be on there, and be able to take appropriate action. The best defense is the user, however, don't click on links that you don't know where they go to, for example.

Halfords, many years ago, and I expect others, not sure if so today, used to sell little 'parking lights' a low wattage lamp in a plastic case with a red lens one end, and a white 'tother, to clip on your car window when parked.

Depending on the traffic conditions, stopping on rhs can cause less disruption to your, and other road users' day, since you are not opening the driver's door into the traffic stream. On some roads, there is parking on one side only.

It's on a 'need to know basis'.

Not wishing to be critical of the JJenny Jones article, because that could become political, but I think it could be less biased. Just one example If there is no witness, who can the police bring charges against, the driver or the pedestrian/cyclist who was not paying attention? If there is evidence, e.g. drug or alcohol involvement that can be independently verified, then I expect the guilty party/parties would be investigated. The following explains, (from https://www.police.uk/information-and-advice/court-service/the-process/ )

25litres 15W-30 mineral oil, retail price £63.12 inc VAT - today. A tenner a gallon is near enough.

It's pretty obvious that the car companies will be/are modelling their business plan on apple. You will not have the right to repair, or you will not be able to get the parts. It will be cheaper to scrap the ev in five years, because it will not have the latest touch screen, hence it will be worthless. In the same way you are charged for your worn tyres, guess when you'll get charged for your scrapped battery? But, if the ev's were cheap, and the electric was cheap, everybody would buy them, and the infra structure could not support that. Prices will be kept high, so that nobody will actually want to buy them for cash (usury is encouraged)., thus there will be less vehicles on the roads, which saves on the expense of more roads, etc. It will be interesting to hear the complaints when attempts are made to recover the equivalent fuel tax from the fewer vehicles.

Corbyn the kitten