Posts by Roland6

A friend has recently switched to a hybrid.

They selected a model that enabled them to do their regular across-town commute on the battery, switching to ICE for the less frequent longer journeys. time will tell whether this was a good choice or not.

A concern with hybrids (unlike combine harvesters) has to be that the mileometer only records distance travelled not the amount of time the ICE has been run. So mileage is no longer an indicator of engine condition.

>when you allow for the drop in range due to cold weather, fully loading the vehicle, sticking a bike rack on, and wear and tear on the battery, 200 miles could equate to only 100 miles or so when the vehicle is 10 years old.

Which, for me, is a reason to walk away.

My 2008 diesel (*) with 180,000 still gives me +44mpg and similar performance (speed and acceleration) and the last time I filled the tank up, it still took 50 litres...

Yes, I buy a car and run it until it becomes scrap.

(*) According to independent on-the-road real-world testing it produces lower emissions than more recent Euro 5 and 6 engines and many petrol engines...

Re: Too expensive, too heavy, too range limited

>As for batteries, they are completely recyclable and have been so for a while...

Looking at what seems to be the only company with a large-scale battery "recycling" facility in Norway, it would appear in this context "recycling" means grinding up the used battery and use it as high-grade lithium ore. So whilst "recycling", a lot of energy is consumed...

>And in what world is that better than buying an EV - *any* EV?

Depends on your take on "better"...

If you live in an area with poor electricity supply infrastructure and unreliable supply then I suggest it is better.

However, we can expect the emission rules for ICE to get increasingly stringent, so that 2029 ICE will probably have super low emissions but only do a couple of miles to the litre because of all the exhaust filters... Also given the quality of current generation ICE vehicles and all the electronics in the dashboard, I suspect the cost of maintaining a modern ICE vehicle over 12 years will be significant.

Re: The ICE will be with us for...

I presume an extended ferry journey will form part of this road-trip...

BTW wouldn't be surprised if the total ferry time and cost isn't too dissimilar to the cost and time of actually driving, but with less wear-and-tear on the driver and passengers...

>I'm a free variable(**).

(**) Well, I was in Computer Science.

Given you were at UEA "Do Different" suspect you were probably more of a quantum variable...

That would have been winter 80/81 - I remember delaying my drive back to Norwich (*) until the snow ploughs had cleared the A505 between Baldock and Royston...

(*)I had only got my driving licence in the summer of '80.

The Prime and VAX at UEA dates you, I assume you were still in the Village and that the campus 1900 wasn't affected (or had this been removed by this time?)

Re: What gets me ....

>Have you tried it?

Yes, frequently.

However, this is probably part of the problem, the average driver in the UK only does circa 6000 mile pa - mostly as short around town journeys, so I've built up the concentration stamina etc.

>In some circumstances it really does help with long drives

For normal people, I suggest they would be better of taking a break.

I seem to remember that you (werdsmith) have a physical disability and hence whilst you may have the mental stamina you have good reason to find long drives a bit more of a physical challenge.

Re: What gets me ....

> I suspect the Audi chavmobiles have a 50 cm setting.

Probably gets reset to -50 cm in chav mode...

Re: "whether the car has an in-cabin camera"

>"How the car is rocking"?

There was some publicity a few years back about some Tesla owners filming themselves and a friend "rocking the car" with autopilot in operation and most certainly not in "some dark corner"...

Re: Yet Another BS "survey"... 54? how about mid / high 50's?

Those deduction rates seem to be broadly in a line with the UK.

For many years my effective tax rate (before legal tax efficiency actions) was 61% of the gross amount invoiced. Wouldn't mind so much if the powers that be actually used those monies for the people eg. education, NHS, rather than for backhanders to their mates.

Re: Heat is a marketable product

> Limiting the number of connections and using properly tested connectors and hoses will be important.

A likely candidate would be the Speedfit system - proven over many years in millions of homes and with people skilled in installation...

But being IT expect the need to reinvent the wheel and gold-plate it...

>So whose fault is it?

Well suspect it is part of the English disease, which is most prominent in Tories and their allies...

Unfortunately, they have created the English Trade Unions and the Labour party, who also the world through myopic eyes...

And no I'm not suggesting the LibDems, Greens etc. have the necessary vision etc.

Basically, the UK is f*cked for generation or so.

Re: Capmmunism

> I have never known it so bad for the past 3 years.

It got bad in the early 90's, to the point that the Grey Man did the honest thing and invited New Labour into Whitehall way ahead of the general election he knew he would loss. I expect the current Tories will do everything to deny a small transition of power, in the belief that they will win the general election...

> conveniently ignoring the fact that the entire planet contributes to open source

I also noted how the article omits or ignores the contribute to part.

The question with respect to say Huawei’s fork of Android, is are they contributing back? if not how can we encourage or make them? And thus make the changes available to review and cherry picked for inclusion in other projects.

I would tentatively suggest by allowing full participatory access to open source, we continue to make it easy and natural for developers to contribute back, which from an intelligence pov may provide instructive.

Fundamentally, for developers to be using open source for undesirable purposes, someone and most probably a government is paying them to do so. It is this political motivation we need to be targeting.

Re: only apply to devices sold after July 1, 2023

For much tech, I doubt even repair shops will want to go below reasonable 'assemblies' such as screens, motherboards, batteries etc.

The catch is ensuring a "whole assembly" isn't the whole device.

Re: Lessons lernt from Apollo programme?

>But if the standard is dodgy

This article seems to suggest the USB-C specification is trying to be too clever and thus permits some dodgy configurations.

https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/all-about-usb-c-illegal-adapters/

Another article in the series notes there used to be 8 types of USB-C to USB-C cables, now there are 12 and no labelling requirement...

Re: Escape pod???

Playmonaut?

Lego astronaut? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KlUHHUllfQ

I seem to remember a few years back ElReg covered a uk amateur high altitude / edge-of-space escapade - haven’t located the article so can not confirm whether that had a Lego or playmonaut.

Re: Lessons lernt from Apollo programme?

So an important lesson was not learnt.

Particularly, the need to evacuate all personnel from the ISS was an obvious requirement from the outset, combined with the experience gained by having crew like Tim Peakes using the Russia spaceport….

Re: The cloud is just someone else's computer

>1Password doesn't force unique passwords

Be glad it doesn't.

For example, my Amazon US and UK accounts have now been merged into a single account. However, if I log in on the US site,I get my US profile andsimilarly on the UK site I get my UK profile. Hence my password manager has two sites that seemingly reuse credentials.

I have a few other entries the password manager also flags as being credential reuse, but which aren't.

Re: wow, bling value $millions

My question is slightly different: why doesn't the screen have the absolute minimum bezel and thus fully utilise the keyboard faceplate.

Re: It's nearly 2023 and still ...

>I think this year was worse than others

Well given the trend and many MS products in common business usage going EoL, 2023 is going to be a bumper year ...