Smitty, of course

The specific effort here has to deal with his 2 week long fact-free diversion driven by his utterly unhinged hatred for the NIH. Start back here where I pointed out that our broken health care system needs to be completely scuttled to arrive at something that could ever improve outcomes. Then out of nowhere he declares the NIH to be an "epic disaster" , in spite of the fact that they do not have any meaningful role in the patient-provider aspect of health care. Strangely enough he mentions it right after backtracking away from his anti-factual bit about Sweden (perhaps in some alternate reality) abandoning Nordic Socialism.

Shortly after in a different thread we saw his NIH hatred come up again . He came up with a few random musings on the matter, including

Not a single one of which he gave any factual support for. Along the way he kept insisting that I was somehow calling them "perfect", in spite of multiple comments where I very plainly said the opposite of that. He did get in his last posts on the matters, so clearly he won on that dimension.

Apparently, the readers and writers for outside magazine don't read enough of the writings from Smitty's friends to realize that they erroneously chose a hopeless warzone hell-hole wasteland as one of the "top 15 happiest places to live in the US.

Certainly, Outside Magazine - and the people who wrote for it - must have accidentally visited some other place that they didn't see the "real" Minneapolis where people need to run for their lives and the murder rate exceeds 5,000,000%.

People are claiming that Trump's bit where he says that a Joe Biden re-election would cause WWII is some sort of gaffe. Excluding the standard GOP rant that exempts the infinitely infallible Saint Donald from ever making gaffes, there is a better explanation for what he was saying.

Really, this lines up with the standard GOP conspiracy of the Democratic Time Machine. After all if President Lawnchair had access to a time machine that could have prevented Benghazi, then certainly Biden would know about it as well, wouldn't he?

Too bad for Trump he didn't use that time machine to prevent the January 6th uprising. He'd be in a whole lot less trouble if he had.

I ran into a situation recently when trying to get a prescription filled for one of my sons recently (he's under 18). We have two main drug store chains here where we live, we'll call them "A" and "B". There are other options but these are the main players.

For no particular reason I've always had my own prescriptions filled at "A". A while ago my wife and I were talking about trying "B" in the future but we never progressed beyond talking about it.

Then we ran into supply issues getting our son's prescription filled at "A". Our son's doctor suggested we try "B" so we did; I asked a pharmacist at "B" if they had his prescription available and they said yes, so it seemed like a good thing to do.

Except I then went there after the prescription had been called in - mind you we had to adjust the dosing to match what was available but that wasn't terribly difficult - only to find that our insurance wasn't accepted there. All other things being equal the prescription would be $15 at "A" or around $50 at "B" (in other words full retail price at "B").

So then I was directed to a different pharmacy, that exists in some other local retailers. I went there and was told they couldn't fill that prescription for new patients currently; hence two different pharmacies that I could use could not fill the prescription while one I could not use could.

I'm sure this make sense to someone. All I see is another way that we are lining the pockets of the wealthy shitheads that run the most morally bankrupt industry the world has ever known.

My electricity costs of $0.11 per kWh plus tax (say, $0.01 per kWh) are my residential rates. That's what I pay at home, and WV doesn't have time-of-day pricing, so I get no discounts for middle-of-the-night usage versus during the day. Things may be different where you live.

The cost calculations I've done are based on that, though I'm still waiting on the permit to get my home charger installed so I'm not charging at home, yet. My county, where building permits are regulated, is running about a 21-day delay in issuing any sort of permit. This isn't unique to electrical or EV-related requests, that's just how overworked they are. As I'm DIY and not hiring a licensed electrician for the install, they're applying a little more scrutiny and it is taking a little longer.

Hyundai has a deal with Electrify America (EA), a nationwide charging network owned by Volkswagen, for 2 free years of charging on a new Hyundai EV. I get a free 30 minute session a day of DC fast charging. The nearest EA fast charger to my house is 22 miles away in a Walmart parking lot, but free electrons are free electrons and I can do my weekly shopping while charging. There are closer chargers than that, both Level 2 and DC fast, but free electrons.

There are basically three types of chargers -- Level 1 (AC), Level 2 (AC), and Fast DC which is sometimes (erroneously) called Level 3. Again, I'm in the US and our home mains comes in at 120 V, single phase AC. If you're in a country that doesn't use wimpy circuits, Level 1 may not exist for you at all.

Level 1 is simple run and extension cord from your car to your wall and plug in. Trickle charging. The car comes with an adapter for doing this and mine will supposedly pull up to 18 Amps this way, charging at a rate of 3-5 miles per hour. Unfortunately my house is over 100 years old and some of the wiring is still what they'd call "pre-War" in the UK, so the closest plug to my driveway was only giving me 6 Amps, or about 1 mile per hour of charging. Almost, but not quite totally useless. Trickle indeed. I have a long-term project to upgrade the rest of the circuits in my house, but this is a bit better than nothing.

Level 2 is what we in the US use for electric clothes dryers and ovens, 240 volt circuits. That's what a "home charger" is if you buy one. They are configurable to a variety of amperages, from 12 on up to 48, giving you upto 19.2 kW of charging power depending on your actual circuit. Circuit breakers are supposed to be rated 20% higher than the amperage draw of the devices on the circuit, so my 40 Amp Electrify Home charger needed a 50 Amp breaker. That's a fairly common size for L2 chargers you see out in the wild. They're often referred to as "destination chargers" and can be found at many hotels, universities, and office buildings. They add about 30 miles of range per hour of charging. In may of those places they are free to use for a couple of hours while you're at work, in class, or staying at the hotel.

DC Fast Charging are those chargers that look like gasoline fuel pumps. They commonly range from 50 kW to 350 kW for charging, though the amount varies based on what your model of car can handle, temperature, number of cars charging at once, phase of the moon, you name it. The ones closest to me are 150 kW and with my free 30 minutes I can go from 20% to 80% in my car. Unfortunately that's because the damn things usually cap out at around 75 kW for some reason. There is a set of 350 kW chargers a little further away at a mall, and I've used those with rates of 280 kW for my car, meaning 20% to 80% in like 10 or so minutes. They are nice. 10 mintues is simply me plugging in, going in the store to take a piss and buy a drink.

But let's talk reality. Where I live in WV is as close as you can get to not WV. I could just release my brakes and roll down the hill into VA and then keep coasting right on into MD. There may not be a lot of EVs in WV, but the Greater Washington DC area has a bunch, which means there can be lines to charge. So far the longest I've waited for a spot is 30 minutes. This is very much due to two factors: lack of enough chargers and free electrons. There are other chargers I could pop off to, but...free electrons. I'm not really in a hurry so the only DC Fast Chargers I've used are those belonging to EA. The Nav in the car (as well as Google Maps) shows chargers as POI, just like gas stations. If I was back in my always-in-a-hurry days, then I'd be checking out other charging stations. But, just like my grandfather would only full up at Shell stations, I'm only using EA for now.

That being said, their rates are NOT $0.12 per kWh. The EA rates are between $0.36 and $0.48 per kWh depending on prime vs non-prime times. So 3x to 4x what I'd pay by filling up at home, or standard big-business fuel rates comparable to gas prices.

The EPA window sticker says I am expected to save $4,500 over 5 years in fuel costs. The fine print around that is "Actual results will vary for many reasons, including driving conditions and how you drive and maintain your vehicle. The average new vehicle gets 28 MPG and costs $8,000 to fuel over 5 years. Cost estimates are based on 15,000 miles per year at $0.14 per kW-hr. MPGe is miles per gasoline gallon equivalent." Adjustments to their numbers based off of my local electric rates and driving habis should get me to $5,000 over 5 years -- almost DOUBLE that compared to the beast of a truck I was driving prior to this, which was getting about 15 MPG.

Finally, I've had one instance where the charger that I pulled in to didn't know the car that was there before me had left. It was still sitting there racking up idle time and I couldn't convince it to stop and let me charge. I called the EA support number (Sunday early afternoon) and it took 17 minutes on hold before they picked up. Once support answered they were able to quickly reset the charger and I was able to charge. For the record the charger was running Windows 10 and they just remotely rebooted it. Sadly, some things never change. I waited because the other spots were in use, and I just waived other people ahead because I wanted the experience with EA support. There were also other brand DC Fast Chargers around the corner, so if I was actually in a hurry, I wouldn't have bothered. Free electrons.

I'm a little over 40 days in with my new Hyundai Ioniq 6 and wanted to share some of my experiences in driving an EV as well as charging. To put things in perspective, I live in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, which means there are no long areas of flat road at all. Everything is hilly with my house being at 660 ft elevation, but the nearest shopping center is at 450 ft and 5 miles away, with a bunch of up-and-down in between.

The official EPA fuel economy estimate for my car is 103 MPGe combined city/highyway with a rated range of 270 miles on a full battery. That works out to 33 kWh per 100 miles, according to the window sticker, or a calculated 3.0 miles per kWh. That's the full EPA estimate.

The car records these numbers in three groups -- all time, since last charge, and current trip. With the settings I have these numbers are in miles per KwH for efficiency. For the rest of the world, except Myanmar, who doesn't use Freedom Units, measurements are in kWh per 100 Km.

My actual usage, 2,950 miles over 40 days (I've been busier than normal), has recorded 3.7 mi / kWh as opposed to the 3.0 window sticker, so I'm getting about 23% better mileage with my driving habits than EPA rating. On short runs to town an back (10 miles roundtrip), I'm averaging between 4.1 and 4.5 mi / kWh. The car is reporting a full charge range estimate of 326 miles when I topped off. I am expecting the difference comes from the EPA calculations are on the "normal" drive setting of the car, which engages both drive motors regularly, and also they don't include any regenerative braking. I routinely drive using the "Eco" setting, which is more aggressive at shutting down one motor when cruising, and use a fairly aggressive brake regen setting. I don't notice the difference in the settings, except when accelerating from a dead stop, or rapid overtaking to pass. "Eco" behaves more like an ICE car, but still quicker off the line than almost anything other than a sports car. A quick tap on a steering wheel-mounted button gets me to "Normal", and a double-tap to "Sport" -- which brings me to around a 4-second to 60 MPH, neck-snapping level of acceleration.

So, for me, not paying special attention to driving, I end up with right around $0.03 per mile fuel cost to drive ($0.12 per kWh local electricity cost, 3.7 mi / kWh) or 120 MPGe. While my car came with the 20" wheels with no option for the 18", switching to the manufacturer 18" rims would up the fuel economy estimate to 121 MPGe combined with a 316 mile rated full-charge range. But if I did switch, it would actually be cheaper for me to buy aftermarket. Fast.ca makes titanium wheels that are 20 lbs(9 kg)/wheel lighter than the stock Hyundai wheels. If I was going to obsess over range efficiency, I think the combination of ligher and smaller on the wheels would easily bump me to a full-charge 350 mile range.

Note: For those who aren't familiar with car wheels, the actual tire size on the 18" and 20" is the same. The difference is the amount of sidewall exposed, with the 20" being physically larger rims. Those larger rims are metal and heavier, but "more aggressive" and "prettier". It is mostly a cosmetic thing, but the smaller wheels provide a smoother ride as well as a more economical one.

For comparison, today's fuel rates in my area are $3.69, $3.89, $2.99, and $6.49 all per US gallon for Regular Unleaded, Highway Diesel, E85, and Untaxed Kerosene.

I'm certain of this now. Not because someone would have assassinated Hitler, or Stalin, or any other political figure. Not because someone would have prevent 9/11. Not because someone would have stopped the assassination of JFK, MLK, or Archduke Ferdinand.

No. We have a plague that certainly someone would have prevented if they had the ability. I would have done so if I could have.

I'm talking about Windows 10.

I don't get a choice on my work operating system, I have to use software that runs in Windows 10, and it needs drivers that only run in Windows 10. There's no other choice.

But what really blows my mind is how astonishingly unstable it is. Even Windows 3.0 was more stable. Old versions of MacOS were more stable as well.

That is only the start though. Stability is something you can accept. What really goes beyond that is how incredibly unpredictable it is. I'm not sure that it's possible to make a piece of software of any kind that is that unpredictable without setting out with that as a design goal. If you don't know what I'm talking about, try to bring up the command prompt in the fewest possible number of actions. It should be by pressing the Windows key, then typing "cmd" and enter. Yet how often does that work? Maybe 20% of the time. Another 15% of the time Windows will try to be "helpful" and suggest something else similarly named. The rest of the time you'll press the Windows key, and you'll get a black menu with no options, that only responds to the Escape key (if even that).

How did they manage to screw up such a simple function? They wanted us to launch applications through menus - instead of desktop shortcuts - but the menus don't work. Now I need more desktop shortcuts to get around the broken menus.

I carry smartphones from both of the main mobile ecosystems; an iPhone for work (we use a couple iPhone apps that were written in-house for some of what I do) and an android phone for personal (keep some things separate). One thing I've noticed is that no matter how I try, some parts of the internal dictionaries - particularly the suggestions that it will come up with while writing an email or text - cannot be changed no matter how many times I try.

My first gripe is the suggestion of "u" as a word. Not once in my life have I used that as a word. I don't pay per text on either phone, and I don't know anyone who still does. I use real words in my text messages, to help with clarity. Yet no matter how many times I tell either phone not to offer that, they still do. Of course this is made slightly worse by the fact that the QWERTY layout (now over 150 years old, according to wikipedia") places the letters "i" and "u" next to each other.

My second gripe comes up more often in my field, and probably hits other people less often. At work we have a support group with the acronym "fsg". Once in a while I might refer to them in texts or emails with coworkers. Recently I've noticed - particularly in text though I caught outlook doing it as well - that "fsg" gets autocorrupted to "fag". It particularly surprises me that the dictionary on an iPhone would do that.

I've been planning on buying a new car for over a year as my existing vehicle was getting to the point that repairs were starting to get big, expensive, and plentiful. I have been watching the EV market for a couple of years and finally took the plunge. I selected a Hyundai Ioniq 6 after a ton of research and test driving. Most of my decision making was standard big purchase car standard, and not specific to EV. The EV-specific stuff is below and really the only thing that might interest people.

EVs have been politicized in American culture. With gov't incentives and even some State mandates, our "you, especially gov't, can't tell me what to do" DNA kicks into overdrive. While the saying used to be "You can have your own opinions, you can't have your own facts", in about the mid-2010s conservatives went "hold my beer" and fully embraced "alternative facts" and yes, then they DID claim to have their own facts. Combine that with the "just asking" trend of not understanding the difference between "possible" and "probable", and flooding the field with manufactured "issues", when my wife understood that I was leaning towards an EV, I had to address her concerns. After all, we both had old friends who've gone off the deep end with "conservative" and anything that "owns the libs" they push around, actual facts be damned.

That being said, the various "issues" we wanted to research to see if they were real or imagined, were: horrible charge times, cold weather vehicle range, fire risk, towing range, being towed, excess vehicle weight, and excessive registration fees. These are in addition to normal car-buying concerns of insurance cost, financing, and service availability.

I'm going to address these in order of ease of answer.

[Towing Range]
While the Rivian R1T and Ford F150 lightning were vehicles I considered, once I ruled them out then anything towing-related was no longer a concern. I've towed one thing in the last 7 years and don't anticipate doing it again.

[Being Towed]
The disinfo going around is that if you tow an EV you'll destroy the drive train so you will always need a flat-bed, and then be prepared to wait longer and to pay more. The truth is this isn't an EV issue, it is an AWD/4WD issue. For a FWD/RWD car, EV or not, you need to put it in neutral and hoist the drive end or you're destroy the transmission. As someone who has had Jeeps and other 4WD vehicles for decades, I am used to having to request a flat-bed for a tow.

[Excessive Registration Fees]
West Virginia charges a $200 fee for registering an EV. I don't consider that excessive since our road maintenance is paid for with fuel (gas/diesel) taxes, and I'm no longer buying fuel but still using the roads, this seems fair to me.

[Excessive Vehicle Weight]
I've seen lots of disinformation out there about EVs being heavier so they damage the roads more and thus should be charged more in fees. This is factually incorrect. The average EVs are slightly heavier than mid-sized ICE sedans, but well under the standard American pick-up truck or SUV. To prove this, I went to Kelly Blue Book's site to get vehicle sales numbers for 2023, then either the manufacturer's website or Edmunds.com to get the vehicle curb weights. The short answer is the #1, 2, and 3 sales figures in the U.S. are for pickup trucks: the Ford F-Series, Chevy Silverados, and Ram (nee Dodge) series, and they're all heavier than most EVs. Only the Tesla X Plaid compares -- well, and the F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T, and Hummer EV, but if you can afford $80,000 - $120,000 for a vehicle, you can afford a weight tax. So NOT cherry-picking super expensive, extra large vehicles gets us this:

Kelley Blue Book - 25 Best-Selling Cars of 2023, So Far (07/17/2023)

Curb Weights from either Edmunds.com or Manufacturer's site

Rank, Make/Model, Units Sold YTD, Curb Weight in Pounds

1. Ford F-Series (212,516) - 4,021 - 5,886# Depending on cab style & engine
2. Chevy Silverado (140,076) - 4,750 - 5,600# Depending on cab style & engine
3. Ram Pickup (117,699) - 4,765 - 6,439# Depending on cab style & engine
4. Tesla Y (105,500) - 4,415#
5. Toyota RAV4 (102,313) - 3,450#
6. Honda CR-V (96,456) - 3,926#
7. Toyota Camry (84,705) - 3,340#
8. GMC Sierra(75,810) - See Silverado Numbers, Same Truck, Different Badge
9. Nissan Rogue (71,246) - 3,616#
10. Jeep Grand Cherokee (70,454) - 4,413#

For Comparison Select EVs

• Hyundai Ioniq 6 (4,990) - 3,950 - 4,650# Depending on trim level
• Tesla Model 3 (63,001) 3,582 - 4,065# SR, LR+P

[Fire Risk]
Lots of scary stories out there about Lithium fires and how EVs are so dangerous and can spontaneously combust. While Lithium is a metal, and the fires are seriously challenging, the simple fact is EVs are less likely than ICE or Hybrids to catch fire. According to the NTSB, there are an average of over 200,000 vehicle fires in the U.S. each year, with ICE cars being the most both in absolute terms (because they are the most on the road). You don't read about them every day because there are over 600 every day and that is "dog bites man" and isn't NEWS anymore. EVs are new and even though SAFER and cause fewer fires per mile driven, they're a novel "man bites dog" and thus make the news. Battery-electric vehicles are only .03% likely to ignite, compared to 1.5% for gas-powered vehicles and 3.4% for hybrid vehicles. CarsDover summarizes the NTSB statistics nicely.

[Cold Weather Range]
I live in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. We have winter, where it can routinely fall below freezing, but normally doesn't get frigid or below 0F. Still, I need to get around in the winter and it is common knowledge that batteries don't like excessive cold temperatures. Temperatures like this do affect gasoline cars, and the frigid stuff can turn diesel into jello in the fuel lines, but how does it really affect a new EV?

According to these two articles in Consumer Reports, the first from 2019 and the second from 2021, it most certainly does. Anywhere from 20% to 40% depending on just how cold we're talking about. Below 20F is when it starts to really kick in, so if you routinely have winters that stay well below freezing, this is an important consideration. In my case, it doesn't normally get that cold here. However, I also don't have an enclosed garage and park in my driveway, so the car is exposed to the elements and outdoor temperatures.

But, I work remotely and thus don't regularly drive into an office. If I do need to go in, I take the commuter train for the 60 miles, with the train station being only 2 miles away from my house. With me normally averaging less than 10-20 miles of driving a day, we were comfortable with the possible range loss. InsideEVs has a couple of superb articles with real-world testing of specific vehicles and details on how they each react in both charging and running. The first is from 2020, and the second a follow-up from late 2022.

[Horrible Charge Times]
One of the biggest complaints by ICE supporters is that they can fill their gas tank up in 5 mintues and be back on the road, but it could take anywhere from half-an-hour to multiple DAYS to fill up an EV. And that's assuming you don't have to wait for a free charge bay. Why would anyone do that? The short answer is, no one does. IF, like me, you own a house, you install a Level 2 charger and charge at home. I had space capacity, so didn't need to upgrade my electrical service to do this. In all my years I've never known ANYONE who has their own gas pump in their garage. I have a charger at the end of my driveway. It takes me an extra 30 seconds after I park from my last trip of the day to plug the car in. How long does it take to charge? I'd have to look because the car manages that overnight when I'm asleep. In the morning it is always topped off.

And if you don't own a house and use public charging stations? Well, first of all you're going to be paying retail rates for electricity prices. For Electrify America (EA), the largest non-Tesla charging network, and who is owned by Volkswagen, that's $0.48 per kWh guest rate, $0.36 per kWh subscribed "member" rate. Or back to "bend over and insert nozzle" big company greed. How long to charge? It depends on the rating of the charger you're at. For me I've used the common 350 kW super fast and 150 kW fast public chargers and they bring me from 20% - 80% in 15 and 35 minutes respectively. Fortunately Hyundai throws in 2 years of free charging with EA as a promotion so I get a 30-minute fast charge session a day for $0 for the next 2 years, which is why I know the charge times for those chargers.

As a sidebar, almost all cars use lithium-ion batteries, and those don't like to be regularly charged to 100%, or let drop below 20%, if you want to maximize their lifespan. My car is set to normally "top off" to 80% charge. In the app I can tell it to "trip charge", meaning I'm going on a longer trip and bring me to 100%. I can also schedule that, telling the car next Friday to bring me to 100% because I'm going to go on a weekend trip.

[Fuel Cost Stability]
Now, some people live in places that not only have time-of-day variable pricing on electricity, but demand pricing. That means the cost of electricity can vary depending on overall usage in the area and can change on an hourly basis. Gasoline at the pump has always been that way, with pricing changing depending on which way the wind blows. But some of us live in areas that have regulated utilities and it takes and act of the State Legislature to change electricity prices. It can be a year or more for some places to get an electricity rate increase. This means my costs to fuel up are stable and predictable, unlike some of my friends who bemoan seasonal, if not weekly or DAILY, gas price changes.

[Fuel Convenience and Speed]
One of the biggest complaints by ICE supporters is that they can fill their gas tank up in 5 minutes and be back on the road, but it could take anywhere from half-an-hour to multiple DAYS to fill up an EV. And that's assuming you don't have to wait for a free charge bay. Why would anyone do that? The short answer is, no one does. IF, like me, you own a house, you install a Level 2 charger and charge at home. In all my years I've never known ANYONE who has their own gas pump in their garage. I have a charger at the end of my driveway. It takes me an extra 30 seconds after I park from my last trip of the day to plug the car in. How long does it take to charge? I'd have to look because the car manages that overnight when I'm asleep. In the morning it is always topped off.

[Fuel Cost]
Please tell me if I screwed up my math. I still have flashbacks of my high school science teacher with a disappointed look, shaking his head lamenting my innate abilities to invert units and totally screw up equations. Here I'm just multiplying tank/battery size by price per gallon/kWh of gasoline/electricity to get price to fill from empty. Then dividing that number by the range in miles to get cost per mile to drive. You can do your own math for your area's fuel prices.

According to Hyundai's spec site, all three versions of the Ioniq 6 have 77.4 kWh battery system capacity. The version I have, the Limited AWD, has a spec range of 270 miles, and that's about what I've been getting so far, plus or minus depending on how aggressively I'm driving. Living in West Virginia, I have fairly cheap electricity rates, but no variable pricing. That is a flat rate of $0.116 per kWh of electricity regardless of time of day or night, residential outside-city-limits tariff rate, plus tax. Including tax would bring me up to $0.12 per kWh. So, simply multiplying 77.4 by 0.12 (canceling out like units) gives me $9.29 to "fill" my car up from dead empty and that allows me to drive about 270 miles without charging. That works out to be about $0.034 per mile of fuel cost for the charged-at-home EV.

For an unfair, but real comparison with my directly previous vehicle, a Chevy Silverado 1500 LTZ came with a 26 gallon fuel tank. As it is a Flex Fuel vehicle, E85 in my area was right around $2.999 per gallon. Regular unleaded (E10) was around $3.499, though gas prices change so often you can do your own math. Nevertheless, that means between $78 - $98 to fill up from dead empty. However, the range varied from between about 315 to 400 total miles with the E85 getting the shorter range and E10 getting the longer. That gives me about $0.245 per mile of fuel cost for my gas hog truck with almost no difference in cost per mile based on fuel choice. No surprise there.

To be fairer with the vehicle type, my previous previous vehicle was a manual-transmission VW Jetta TDI. I was getting about 40 mpg with their emissions-cheating turbo diesel, but could hyper-mile up to 50 mpg on a long road trip. That lead to me destroying a clutch plate with too much dicking around with the clutch, so I'm not going to count that and go with the 40 mpg, which was real measurement versus the EPA 32 mpg rating. The Jetta had a 14.5 gallon fuel tank. So 40 x 14.5 gave me about 580 miles of range and that sounds about right. That Jetta would go forever! However, we're talking the more expensive diesel at $4.199 per gallon, or $60.89 to fill up and $0.105 per mile to drive.

All of that works out to be 3-times cheaper to drive of the barest bones, manual transmission, turbo diesel, butt-busting fuel sipper. God, I loved driving that car! Then a full 8-times cheaper to drive than what is the 2nd most popular vehicle for sale in America today -- beaten only by Ford's F150 and followed immediately by Ram's 1500. American's do love their pickup trucks.

[EV Driving]
So, trying to focus on just the differences of an EV and filtering out what is really just 10 year newer tech and a higher end trim, there are just a couple of things: regenerative braking, noise and vibration, and power.

[Regenerative Braking]
This is adjustable and can go from "off", where the car will coast just like taking your foot off an ICE gas pedal, to one-pedal drive where it'll start to "brake" when you lift your foot and bring you to a complete stop in short order as it captures energy back to the battery. The level is controlled by paddle shifters on the steering wheel. It tooks me about three days driving to get used to how it worked and another day or two to get fully comfortable. I almost never use the traditional friction brakes at all which means I'll be replacing the brake pads sometime around never. One less thing to service.

[Noise and Vibration]
There isn't any. Well, there is this ethereal tone the car plays because it is required by law to make noise so you don't sneak up on people and kill them. There are options for graduated engine sounds in case you go thru withdrawls. But the car is just SILENT and it is a thing of beauty. Now, the Tesla has fart mode, and the day Hyundai lets me change the sound it plays then The Jetson's car, here I come!

The car has push-button start, which I've used before on ICE cars, but this has been the hardest habit for me to break. I'm used to "push button until you feel engine vibration" but there IS NO engine in an EV. Turning it on is like turning on a silent PC -- the screen blinks on and you're ready to go. You can add certain on/off sounds and I had to do that to train myself to actually turn the car OFF when I get out. Again, think silent PC.

[Power]
And then the thing that electric motors do well. Instant torque and instant response. In "Sport" mode, the 0-60 time is just over 4 seconds, which earned me "you're never to do that again when I'm in the car" from my wife, but that doesn't really communicate the full experience. Even after more than a century of refinement, an internal combustion engine is a fundamentally limited device. It can't change speeds quickly or easily so needs gears of different ratios to compensate. The transmission in an EV is a single speed and just acts to redirect torque to the different wheels. It doesn't do anything else. If you want to go faster, the motor just spins faster. Backwards? The motor just spins backwards. But an ICE needs to coordinate the fuel flow for the little explosions that drive the shaft and timing for all of that, plus different gear ratios all because an ICE engine can't just "spin faster". Typical RPMs for an ICE road car are between 2,000 and 5,000. An Indycar can rev up to 12,000 rpm. The electric motor in the Ioniq 6 hits 15,000 rpm. Electric performance cars top 21,000.

What I'm getting at is there is no downshift to move faster to pass; no lag when you step on the accelerator before you move; the control stick-shift enthusiasts brag about is matched and even beaten by just a couple of inches of movement of a driver's foot on an EV. The torque is immediate and it just feels natural. Step on the accelerator and move. Step hard, move immediately. Step more, move faster. Nothing in-between you and the speed. You're one with the car. Even at slow speeds, the immediate response is what gives the feel of "this is the way things should be".

Once you get used to that, going back to an IC engine feels downright primitive. There's all this noise and vibration and lag, like you have to hire a translator to communicate what you want. Don't get me wrong, after a century IC engines are a thing of mechanical mastery. But the simple fact is they need a couple THOUSAND extra precision machined, lubricated, tuned, and maintained parts all working in perfect harmony to come close to what a dozen or so EV parts are doing just by themselves.

I've driven the future and it is electric. ICE vehicles are rapidly on their way to being ever fading niche solutions.

As we keep seeing one indictment of the former POTUS after another, I'm left to wonder if anyone would dare to release an indictment against Trump - and potentially Giuliani - on September 11th? Giuliani had so taken ownership of that day as his greatest achievement that it is practically called "Rudy Giuliani Day"; it would seem like it would be quite the shot across the bow to hand him an indictment on that day.

Not that he has a political - or legal - career left to salvage after what he has sacrificed at the altar of Saint Donnie, but an indictment on his favorite day would put a little more emphasis on what he has thrown away.

So apparently in some alternate reality, the coke found in the White House is actually a deep state conspiracy to take down VP Kamala Harris , because ... reasons.

But fret not, as Smitty proudly tells us that his conspiracy is supported by at least one of his fellow cheerleaders .

We're hearing lots of chatter about the screw-up son of the current POTUS - a respectable politician focused on trying to undo the destruction from his immediate predecessor - and his history of drug issues. We've seen that play before.

What happened last time we saw this? The screw-up son bravely quit drinking and using drugs some time in his 50s, then got elected governor of a screw-up state. Then friends of his daddy helped him become POTUS himself.

Then of course he started two unjustified wars that cost us the lives of thousands of US service members and trillions of US dollars.

Let's hope at least the last part doesn't repeat. It would seem all it would need to happen is for Hunter Biden to renounce the democratic party and run for the GOP nomination. After the GOP delivered our country its first non-believer POTUS, it would seem he wouldn't even need a "come to Jesus" moment to pull that off.

Some things didn't quite go as planned with my 2021 taxes. Not sure yet about my 2022 taxes, either. Turbotax apparently didn't realize that the "refundable child tax credit" from 2021 - which was a series of checks issued to taxpayers in 2021 - was actually a zero-interest loan to taxpayers rather than an actual refund.

My point here is this. The "refundable child tax credit" from 2021 meant I owed some $2,700 back to the IRS that I hadn't properly calculated in turbotax. For people in a higher income bracket that might not be a big deal. For people like myself that's more than a full paycheck after taxes, more than half of what I take home in a month. Yet the IRS expects people to be able to cough this up on demand, and assesses interest for those who cannot.

At the same time, people who make enough money to owe 5 figures - or more - of back taxes in a year can negotiate with the IRS to pay far lower totals through settlements. All they offer to us peons is installment programs. Sure, you can bring tax attorneys in to the game if you want but any amount they save you, you will end up paying back to the attorneys for their fees.

In other words those of us who make less, pay more. Just the way it's always been. Biden can harp on how broken trickle-down is - and he's absolutely right that it's broken - but it's so ingrained throughout the system that we all get screwed by it.

Side note, I'm surprised the JE system here doesn't have a topic option of "taxes". We have "Government", we have "The Almighty Buck", and several others but nothing that is specifically "taxes". I would expect the conservative supermajority here would have implemented it by now.

No, I don't mean unicode on slashdot. We know this site will shutter before that ever happens.

I'm talking about printer discovery in Ubuntu. I suspect this is more than an Ubuntu thing, it likely is a CUPS thing in general when attempting to deal with Bonjour.

I recently installed a new Ubuntu release on my laptop after some updates had turned the previous install into a nonworking pile of smoldering rubble. I bought a new SSD and installed on there, so I wouldn't have any remnants of anything to worry about. Things seemed great, until I went to set up my printer.

At this point of course I should reference the great comic strip on printers from The Oatmeal , essentially everything he mentions in there applies to this printer. Really the only good thing I can say about my current printer is that my employer bought it for me; I wish I would have had some say in which model though.

To the point, discovering printers couldn't be easier. Localhost:631, Admin, etc ... Except it then sets up a printer that you can't actually use. Every recent version of Ubuntu sets up the "discovered" printers such that jobs will all error out with "unable to find the printer". Yes I've searched google for this. It seems to be something with nss-mdns, and how that tells your system to go about finding things.

Except when it isn't, of course. I installed the expected libraries, and edited nsswitch.conf. I restarted CUPS, then I restarted my PC. I of course rebooted the printer as well. None of that made a difference at all.

Finally I said to hell with it. I checked the IP address for the printer, and changed the configuration to

And now it works fine. I had to manually pick the driver but that was a small tradeoff. Yes, that is a static address in my network so it should "just work" from there. We'll see how long that printer decides that is OK before it throws a fit and discards its settings.

I saw a message about a recent Journal Entry from him . I've followed and conversed with him before here. I'm responding in my own JE because I'm not allowed to respond to his JE itself - not sure how I earned a spot on his foes list.

His JE - and I'm taking it at face value as a literal depiction of how he feels - describes someone who could really benefit from mental health care. I know the world is dreary in a lot of ways. A lot of us are drowning in stresses and strains in ways that we didn't before. It doesn't help that our country still places a stigma on seeking out help with mental health issues, and our insurance system tends to savagely fuck over many who do.

I don't know who squiggleslash is in real space. I only know what he writes here. I only call him he because he mentions a wife and child. I have made no attempt to seek him out anywhere outside slashdot.

More importantly I wish him well. I don't know how much of his anguish is directly from this site - I presume it's not none of it as he mentions closing down his account here - but I hope it wasn't somehow at my hands. I'm known for griping about what a hopeless cesspool / echochamber this site has become, and yet I am guilty of returning time and again. That doesn't mean my choice is right for others.