This sounds like they have a vendetta against Tesla and are going through the trash and processing fines for empty brake fluid bottles. People are defecating in the streets but that is just part of the culture and not an environmental problem.
I think this is failing at accountability and achieving something more like empty criticism. If it was only a balanced commentary on the pros & cons of public funding for these things, I'd be more inclined to like it.
TBH, there's a lot to be said for cutting back public funding. Wal-Mart is massively increasing investment in their own charging network (not EA any more!). They are being joined by Circle-K, BP, Pilot/EVGo, and many others that are making investments in a lot more than just government funded NEVI sites. I don't really think we even need NEVI at this point and we especially don't need state funding.
But I've seen too many articles from him to see this as nuance and policy shaping. Its just a sugar rush for people who agree with his anti-Tesla and virtually anti-EV style of writing. There's little real informing here.
We currently have 40 million acres of corn dedicated to ethanol production. All our energy needs can be met by 15 million acres of solar panels. The same set of facts that make you sad make me happy.
They are practically OTC everywhere in the world. A huge pain in the add to get in the US where the MD cartel engages in rent seeking by claiming every pharmaceutical is dangerous and they need $200 every quarter to let you buy the meds at hyper inflated prices.
Well, sure, but the solution to that is to make it OTC or added to the list of medications that pharmacists are allowed to prescribe by themselves. That way the medication dispensed is still coming from an authorized and inspected facility with adequate quality control. Mixing it with dodgy supplements is not the solution.
This phenomenon is anecdotally true at least. I remeber years ago reading an article about running that mentioned the same thing. People who are "age groupers" are way more outwardly hostile and competitive than actual elite athletes (so the article was saying) and the conclusion again was that the lower the stakes the more seriously things get taken by those involved. There was actually also an article on HN a few months ago talking about the same thing in swimming as a metaphor for something else - there's three lanes, the top, middle and recreational, top and recreational are nice, middle are all assholes.
There's some truth to that saying about "academic politics", but I think it can also twist the understanding of a situation, so that people unfamiliar are less sympathetic than they should be.
Consider all the kids aspiring to pursue some field that at some point funnels through a university. They're not knowingly signing up for some niche bloodsport. And that's not what the situation actually is. The complaints about academic research dynamics in some fields aside, there's a more immediate problem of frequently unchecked bad behavior by individuals, often victimizing people who are in very vulnerable positions.
The term "academic politics" invokes our ideas of "politics", such as around those who run for elected office: that it's largely BS and lies, and only for those who have the stomach for that, and that everyone who plays it has to learn how to play dirty. Fortunately, that's not an accurate characterization of all that goes on in a university, and it's certainly not the traits for which we want to pass-filter all our researchers and university teachers. When some individual in a position of power is behaving badly, and the consequences rain down upon the defenseless, that's not "politics".
("Politics" only kicks in when the abuser brings in enough money/prestige that that a corporate-oriented official wants to silence the messenger, or when members of the abuser's academic caste implicitly close ranks in ignorant solidarity. But the abused still aren't political operators.)
The joke goes way back. But decisions affect careers--those who have invested eight or ten years of post-secondary education hope to find a forty-year career. There is not (by banker's standards) a lot of money involved, but it is a big chunk of someone's life.
(I am not an academic, by the way, and never aimed to be one.)
I agree with that. It’s also more about respect and feelings than industry. For the most part industry motives boil down to money. Academic motives are varied and often hard to measure.
Recently the postal service awarded vehicle replacement to a defense contractor (Oshkosh) who knows how to win government contracts but absolutely nothing about building reliable fuel efficiency vehicles. They are fine for the military when making things like trucks which can haul tanks around but an insane choice for building delivery vehicles. The post office could have easily gone with something like the Ford transit which has a known warranty profile and existing history and endless engineering put into it. Instead the post office is going to end up with a low volume turd made by a defense contractor with no experience making daily use vehicles. Government decision making is bonkers because they put ridiculous requirements in contracts, rather than just thinking logically about the most cost effective way to deliver Americans their mail.
This shouldn't be too surprising. Doing government contracting isn't easy, so certain companies get really good at it, while others simply decline government work because it's too much hassle. That's why there's very little crossover between government contracting companies and other companies: companies that make stuff for the government generally don't make anything else, and companies that are successful in other places don't generally make anything for the government. There are a few exceptions, with the most notable one probably being Boeing (makes both military and civilian aircraft), and also Honeywell.
Honestly, it makes perfect sense fo the USPS to go with a "low-volume turd": they apparently don't want something off-the-shelf, they want something custom for their unique needs. Who's going to build this for them other than a government contractor? You mention the Ford Transit, but the steering wheel is on the wrong side and it probably has some other problems since it isn't specifically designed as a mail truck. You might suggest here that they could contract with Ford to make a custom version, but look above at what I wrote: most companies have no interest in this, and will simply turn down any government contracts, and I imagine Ford is the same way. Why deal with the hassle? For most companies, it's simply not worth it, otherwise they would be actively bidding on government contracts. So a Ford vehicle probably simply isn't an option here, and the USPS's only options are low-volume turds made by defense contractors.
Did you ever experience feelings or have thoughts that were overwhelmingly lovely? Like only you can see the true beauty of the path you are on? I dabble in combining sleep deprivation with multi day fasting. Dream processes start to kick in, and sometimes the copying from the brain’s 1 day RAM to the brain’s long storage happens while awake. This process is only supposed to happen during REM sleep, but when it happens in awake real-time it feels like a spiritual experience. You look at a bird and all the sudden that bird is integrated with all prior knowledge in a way that makes it feel like a religious vision. This brain race condition feels like being one with the great spirit or something.
Unfortunately not. It's a very strange feeling. You are awake but your brain is so depleted that you can't make sense, you see things that you would normally know would not be real but because you are so out of it you don't realize for a couple minutes that trees really can't talk. I have heard of other runners who have very spriritual experiences though.
I didn’t take away the same message. To me it was a decent attempt to explain that offensive liberal bourgeois foodies have been sold a bill of truthy sounding bullshit because that is how free markets work. If you want to help someone tell them the truth, if you want to help yourself then tell them what they want to believe. There is a whole market of selling expensive things and claiming it will save the planet or the poor or stop colonialism or some other lie which is designed to enrich the seller.
In terms of peak bullshit, I personally think the absurd stupidity of vertical farming is what caused most people to realize the ideas coming out of one camp are mostly bullshit.
The terminology around illegal is a political act. It is illegal to cross a border without authorization everywhere. The goal is prey on social grace to get people to use words like “undocumented” which means policy can be controlled via documentation. The idea is to subvert the law by changing terminology. I can’t tell if you are a sheep or a wolf from your post.
Half the story is the lead acts as a octane booster, but raising the octane without lead chemicals is trivial. MTBE works, so does just selling pure toluene. The issue is that in addition to raising the octane, some metal lead deposits around the valves which maybe makes them seal better and switching away from lead could cause engine failures unrelated to octane.
