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Comment Re:Quite a bit of culture in Japan is ossified (Score 1, Insightful) 85

For those that have attended a Christian wedding ceremony there's often a biblical passage read about the need for the man and woman to break ties with their parents and create a new family.

- But why should I give a crap what it says in your cult's shitty book full of rape, murder, incest, and other bullshit?

Comment Re:This is the way. (Score 1) 127

Diminished maybe, but not all that much.

I think we can reasonably assume that if there's a huge blackout, it won't last forever. A lot of smart people will work hard on getting things up and running again. A few years ago in the USA it lasted for a bit longer, what was it, a week or two? Recently in Spain it lasted a few days. But all those power stations and power grid operators don't just shrug and go home. So getting through those days is probably all it takes for any reasonably realistic scenario.

And you can build things up piecewise. I've got my solar now. The next thing will be a battery. Once I have that, I can think about an electric car.

Comment Re: It's not about the software (Score 2) 60

>Yeah, why would a city government want to ensure they can
>accurately read/display their last few DECADES of official, legal
>documents?

If they're concerned with that, they should *avoid* Microsoft, unless they are going to keep an old machine with each version forever.

Historically, staroffice/libreoffice/openoffice has done a *better* job than ms of reading prior versions of ms documents.

Comment Re:Imagine explaining solar (Score 2) 127

And most humans donâ(TM)t work at night either, making addressing that demand a bit easier.

I've recently started looking at my power consumption on a 15-minute graph, and it turns out that power usage isn't all that much less during the night. In fact, at times it is higher because all the lights are turned up. But even at night, there's the fridge and freezer, the house electronics, security cameras, etc.

Turns out the stuff I need for work - a notebook and an external screen - barely register.

Comment Re:This is the way. (Score 2) 127

You are totally wrong.

I've installed a really small solar array and on sunny days I produce more electricity than I use. I'm sure it'll be a lot less in winter. BUT - I have a wood-burning heater which needs only a bit of electrical power for its control system. I'm pretty sure I can produce enough of that even in winter. So in theory, with the addition of a battery to cover the night, I could survive even if the power grid went down for an extended time.

Solar as a provider of independence doesn't mean everything needs to run on solar. Sometimes, it's just an enabler for another system.

Comment "A" I ? (Score 1) 57

So, in a nutshell, AI runs the risk of creating unrealistic relationship expectations and simulate perfection? No way. That's a completely new thing in the world. Romance novels, movies, gold diggers or marriage swindlers or just, frankly, a whole lot of ordinary people into "presenting themselves" in order to "score" a good catch, rather than being authentic and looking for a good match - I'm sure all of these things are hypothetical, don't already do essentially the same thing just with a lot less processing power, and cause the same issues.

But hey, this one has "AI" in it, so hype!

Comment run them on bus routes (Score 1) 65

actually, running them on bus routes at bus prices might be a practical options.

Run a half dozen of these at five minute intervals rather than a bus every half hour and mass transit suddenly becomes more practical and attractive.

One key question is how many you can run for the cost of one bus.

The long intervals are a major factor in making bus travel practical in all but the densest cities in the US.

So is the inability to automatically electrocute disruptive morons, but that's for another topic.

Comment Re:A significant reason I bought an electric car (Score 1) 363

Was to to have a way decouple from the petroleum supply chain and its volatility. An electric car coupled with rooftop solar and suitable battery storage is a good way to declare your energy independence.

This. I've started with solar. Now that in good weather I produce more than I consume, I'm thinking about adding storage next. Once you have solar power with storage, an EV or at least a plug-in hybrid becomes a logical next step.

Comment Re:Same hoary old conflicts of interest (Score 2) 363

because obviously developed world economies are going to transition fastest.

That's not necessarily a given.

Developing countries have the advantage of not having an established base. For example, mobile phones took Africa by storm and were available in many places where landlines were not. And with smartphones, for a while Africa was leading in mobile payment systems - exactly because it didn't have the established base the developed world has.

With solar power and batteries dropping in price, solar is an obvious choice for people in developing countries where the power grid is unreliable. Once you have solar power and storage anyways, an EV means independence from oil prices and not having to drive to a petrol station to refill.

EVs are coming down in price rapidly. They might soon be an actual alternative outside the developed world.

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