I was looking at the Volt a couple years ago but the only ones around were over 25k. Then I started looking for a BMW i3, but, like so many of the cheaper EVs, there’s not many for sale. It’s a shame these smaller vehicles, even a hybrid, aren’t pumped out the factories left, right, and centre.

It’d be so much safer - and quieter - in the city if smaller cars were more pervasive.

It’s almost like they knew in the sixties that they were in for some problems and have since been devising ever more complicated methods of disinforming the public in order to maintain their wealth. Does my head in sometimes.

Without knowing any examples of the vehicles that are for sale everywhere except, roughly, half the world, I can’t really say much them. What I can say is that compared to the monstrous subsidies the oil and gas industry recieve, it does seem like those tariffs could be done away with. At least on the face of it, perhaps the issue is more intricate than that but I’m sure you grasp my meaning.

When 52% of all trips made are less than 3 miles and less than 2% are over fifty miles, I don’t think battery swapping is something any individual needs on a regular basis.

I could get on board if manufacturers were making $10,000 sub 50 mile vehicles that were compatible with a swap station so you could switch to a larger battery for the weekend. This would have to be a standard adopted by all however, and even before that, they’d have to make small cars. Which they won’t, because we all know they are too busy making trucks and SUVs.

Not sure if this image from the DOT is actually of this specific shipment because I found this image from April when they moved the eighth part and it’s less that half the weight. Here’s a two minute video of it.

I see what you mean. People use their devices at different levels. That may not be the best way to put it.

My meaning is that a portion of the users will be the type to spend a couple hours digging through each setting on a new device to set it to their needs. Another group will use the device with minimal initial adjustments, and tweak things as they find things they don’t like. Then there’s a third group that will almost never open a preferences panel and just use a device by its factory settings, likely to never consider potential improvements to their user experience.

From what you’ve said, I imagine your in that second group. I myself am in the first one I described; I look at the options of any hardware I purchase or software I download before I actually begin to use it.

Unfortunately - in the context of this post - the number of people in that third group I imagine outnumber us by multiple orders of magnitude, and therefore companies with shareholders to appease will always manufacture devices with as much bloat and advertising and invasive data mining as they can be paid to put in.

I think that last bit is more of a ‘what you make of it’ situation, regardless of how smart or dumb a phone is.

Unfortunately the manufacturers want the data and advertising revenue, and they’d only be persuaded to offer an alternative if they made the same amount of money.

If each sale of a $900 smart phone gives them $100 of ad revenue over a couple years, I’d bet my bottom dollar they would charge $200 for the ‘dumb’ version.

Unfortunately, like most issues we face, this is not a stand alone problem. I’ll concede, over the length of ownership of the car, a brand new electric vehicle is more environmentally friendly than keeping your current combustion engine vehicle.

However, we don’t live in a society where the majority can make that choice independent of other factors. EVs are more expensive across the board.

Even if the purchasing cost of an off-the-lot EV were equivalent to continued use of an older ICE across two years - most people can not afford it.

I see buses as a good method of figuring out routes when first implementing a transit system similar to how some developments leave out walking paths to see where people typically walk and install them afterwards.

Generally though, trams can allow for more passengers transported per trip and per operator than a bus. Good for high and low traffic areas with dedicated transit lanes.

Don’t get me wrong - trams certainly don’t replace buses. Multiple forms of transit are best practice of course. I just don’t see the need for only buses or mostly buses.

As a minor detail, tires are one of the top polluters of both microplastics and noise levels in cities, and it would be nice to lower the amount of them being disintegrated in the process of moving people from place to place - be in from buses, or the larger culprit, private vehicles.

For further than bike distance, it’s confounding why cities don’t have a tram system.

If something is being moved from one place to another, and back again, you would of course look for more efficient ways to move that thing. Use a box.

When there’s dozens of those things making the same trip, put them together in the same transport method. It’s not complicated. Factories don’t have people moving one product at a time to the next station. They have conveyor belts or similar to accomplish the task.

When needed, sure, have an electric car that someone could drive. But it’s not necessary for a good portion of the population.

I can’t say I’ve seen any people ‘forcing’ others to go out and replace a perfectly functional combustion car with an electric one - the manufacturers maybe. Most of the conversation I see is focused on the lack of low cost options when it’s time to purchase a brand new vehicle. Gas and electric both.

Once you move away from the brand new discussion, it seems pretty well agreed that keeping what you’ve got is the best option environmentally and financially. Buying used being a close second.

Freedom is important. But when the industry only offers you trucks and SUVs, where’s your choice?

Electricity isn’t critical?

In terms of road costs, the vehicle being electric or combustion isn’t particularly relevant in a country where the most popular vehicle crosses the scales above 4,000 pounds.

Who pays for the roads?

I checked the carriers around here and all of them unsurprisingly offer the same thing. 50GB 5G for 50€ that drop to roughly 2G speeds once the limit is reached.

Almost 20x the cost of your subscription.

Paywalls are a nuisance.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Agricultural land use contributes to 13% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Half of these emissions stem from livestock production. Going vegan would significantly reduce this impact
Amazon Rainforest Destruction: Meat subsidies inadvertently incentivize the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Brazil, a major beef producer, received substantial government investments in the beef industry. Unfortunately, this led to illegal rainforest burning to make room for cattle ranching, endangering thousands of species

Meat production contributes to 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, beans emit 90% less harmful greenhouse gases per 100 grams of protein compared to beef.
Beans even benefit the environment by converting atmospheric nitrogen into usable soil nutrients. They’re like tiny nitrogen-fixing wizards!

Livestock grazing consumes a whopping 26% of the world’s terrestrial surface. Cattle require 20 times more land per unit of protein than beans.
Imagine if we swapped beef for beans: over 40% of US cropland would be freed up! That’s a green revolution waiting to happen.

Even after harvest, beans leave some nitrogen in the soil. This boosts soil quality and reduces the need for excess fertilizers.
Rotating beans with other crops enhances future yields and keeps diseases at bay. It’s like a natural soil spa day.

Producing a kilogram of beef guzzles 43 times more water than beans. Bean cultivation requires fewer fertilizers, preserving water quality.
Beans sip water like eco-conscious tea drinkers.

Beans promote biodiversity by fixing nitrogen in the ground. They’re like the life coaches of ecosystems.
Plus, they’re a crucial component of natural functioning ecosystems.

Heart Health: Research involving 48,000 people over 18 years found that vegans and vegetarians have a lower risk of heart disease compared to meat-eaters. However, they do face a slightly higher risk of stroke due to potential vitamin B12 deficiency. But fear not — nutritional yeast or fortified foods can easily provide this essential vitamin
Reduced Environmental Footprint: Going vegan significantly shrinks our environmental impact. It conserves water, reduces deforestation, and minimizes greenhouse gas emissions. It’s like a green superhero cape for your plate!
Healthier Diet: A well-planned vegan diet is rich in fiber, vitamins, and minerals. It allows room for health-promoting options like whole grains, fruits, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. Plus, it’s kinder to animals and supports biodiversity.

They wrote this seemingly on the back of 2015 subsidy research that they link to but instead it’s a different article by the BBC that has no information about these subsidies. So it’s not clear what the article is predicated on. Though some good points are made, I like to see more of the data presented in articles like this.

Fantastic, I’ll certainly be making use of that. I’ve never been one for digital reading - I printed out Little Brother and read it that way - but with no DRM how could you complain. I appreciate the link.

On your recommendation, I picked up a copy from my library this morning. Only had time for the first chapter, but I’m already liking it. Thank you.

I’d heard and used both phrases before but didn’t realize they had the same author. Coincidentally, I recently reread one of his books, Little Brother, also by chance of reading about it on a Lemmy comment.

It’s no surprise the author of that book has these views. I think I’ll read more of his work.

Sounds like my usage is just different to yours. I can’t remember why but I got accustomed to listening to audio at increased speed around a decade ago and slowly cranked it up to the point that now I can follow certain people’s conversations slightly higher than 2x. Only with voices and cadence I’m familiar with though. Any guests on a show can really throw me off.

The silence trimming aspect is a bit absurd honestly. It makes laughter sound almost all the same and robotic; you have to infer where comedic, dramatic, or thoughtful pauses in the speech are; and if there’s a more rapid fire back and forth in the conversation it can be tricky to follow. Although that last point doesn’t happen with podcasts where all the speakers record separately and it’s edited together to be coherent.

If you listen to a lot of shows, with hundreds of hours of episodes, it’s worth dialing up as much as you can stand. Then again, if I didn’t have two dozen podcasts with decades of backlog, I sure wouldn’t be listening at auctioneer pace.

Well sure they could’ve made a larger battery and whatnot else, but it’s not like the Vision Pro is some slightly polished Oculus. The tech allowing for 12ms visual pass though is impressive enough without any of the other things they developed for it.

While your point about Apple’s tremendous resources has truth to it, I’d argue that even had they committed their entire cash reserve to the development of the AVP, it would still involve more people using the device than just the engineers designing the thing.

At some point diminishing returns mean you can’t refine much further. I think the regular release of barely improved smartphones is evidence of that. Eventually when the goal of a pair of glasses - or hell, even contact lenses - is reached, this first generation Vision Pro will be one of many milestones we look and wonder how we ever had something so bulky and awkward looking.

Oh and the point I had made about the secretive development processes was to counter the previous comment regarding Apple ‘not being deep into artificial intelligence’. No one outside of Apple really knows what they’re doing. They’ve been tight lipped about underway ventures since Jobs returned to the company all those years ago.

As I noticed I’m typing a reply to a several day old comment, I’ll leave a couple quotes Tim Cook made recently:

As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in… technologies that will shape the future. That includes artificial intelligence, where we continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort, and we’re excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year.

In terms of generative AI… we have a lot of work going on internally, as I’ve alluded to before. Our M.O., if you will, has always been to do work and then talk about work and not to get out in front of ourselves. And so we’re going to hold that to this as well. But we’ve got some things that we’re incredibly excited about that we’ll be talking about later this year.

If you read all this, I’m surprised. I’m surprised I bothered to type it out. Cheers.