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Comment Re: Excellent (Score 1) 121

Apple made that change in March of 2015. The EU didn't even *start* talking about standardizing on USB-C until roughly January of 2020.

While the standardization on USB-C arrived later, the EU started campaigning for standardization and regulation of chargers much earlier, first trying an approach based on voluntary industry adherence, then moving to more strict regulation and first targeting some devices before broadening the scope.

The EU asked the industry to standardize chargers for mobile phones in 2009 and released a corresponding standard in 2010. In 2014 they published a review of the impact of the change, which led to moving towards a mandatory regulation as opposed to voluntary industry commitment.

So I'm not sure whether Apple did the change in 2015 due to EU regulatory pressure, but the EU was definitely already involved in the matter.

The EU was pushing for micro-USB. Apple ignored them almost completely, doing the absolute minimum required to technically comply with the law. Apple is fond of malicious compliance, and has been for a long time.

Comment Re:only use less gasoline if you actually charge t (Score 1) 108

It seems that the "free market" would incentivize landlords to install charging as a desirable amenity. That's what I have done with my commercial office building. It's very popular and pays for itself.

For commercial buildings of any significant size, I think it's a much easier sell, because those go out of lease, and you might spend months searching for someone, and if you do it at the end of the lease, you can increase the lease price and make your money back pretty quickly, because you can be almost guaranteed that anyone who leases it will have some employees with EVs.

For apartments, it's potentially a harder sell, because you're dealing with a small number of units coming on the market at a time, and for each unit, you have a one in three chance that the next person will have an EV and will pay a premium for an EV space. So if it takes two or three years to pay for it and there's only a one in three chance that each of those years will have a tenant who wants it, it might statistically take almost a decade to pay for itself. And that's before factoring in the interest on the loan, which is to say it could actually take two or three decades, or almost the lifetime of the building, to pay for itself.

It's way easier to deal with when you're allocating a bunch of units at once (e.g. new construction), because you're not having to try to force people to change parking spaces mid-lease to get the benefit or figure out how to do just-in-time wiring if and only if the person pays an upcharge for an EV space. Possible, maybe, but not necessarily easy to justify the hassle.

Comment Re:only use less gasoline if you actually charge t (Score 1) 108

The progress needs to be made in apartment building parking slots. Yes there would need to be as many charge cords as there are tenants with electric cars / PHEV's, but they don't need to be "superchargers." California at least is making it happen.

Not very well. The requirement is that new construction have 10% of spots with EV charging, and 25% that could have charging if someone installed a charger. This is in a state where 29.1% of new car registrations are EVs. That means even if everyone rented only new apartments, the requirements would still barely meet *current* demand.

With apartment complexes not getting torn down until they are 50 years old or more, anything less than 100% EV ready is unconscionable, because within 20 to 30 years, every car still being driven in California will likely be an EV, to within the margin of error, and the cost of retrofitting is way higher than the cost to do it right to begin with.

Comment Re:Nuclear Facility in WA (Score 2) 27

Hanford announced last week that their spent fuel vitrification plant is officially in operation, converting nuclear waste into glass ingots that can be safely stored for millenia. If they keep going for about a century they might be able to vitrify the spent fuel we already have. But we still have no place to store the ingots.

All these small modular reactors have the same deficits. They require high assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) produced only in Russia. They're a proliferation risk. They require a substantial footprint with passive and active defenses, 24/7 armed security, security clearances for all the highly paid professionals involved. They're slow to approve, finance, build. They're more costly even than classic nuclear reactors to build and operate, and those are the slowest building and most costly form of energy which means high energy costs when (if) they are finally built. Traditional nuclear reactor projects have a 95% failure rate from proposal to generation so 19 times of 20 they never deliver a single watt hour. Those times the money is just spent and lost. The one time in 20 that the generation comes online to produce the world's most costly power doesn't even include those costs.

At Hanford cold war nuclear waste continues to seep gradually toward the mighty Columbia river. Inch by inch.

Somewhere in America just now a homeowner just plugged his DIY solar panels into the inverter and battery he bought on Amazon for the first time. It will give power 24/7 for 30 years at no additional cost. It was quick and cheap. He didn't even need permission. It won't kill his family, nor yours, nor mine. There is no chance that his solar panels will result in radioactive salmon or other seafood.

Comment Re:only use less gasoline if you actually charge t (Score 1) 108

I suppose people are more likely to charge the easier and more affordable it is. Assuming that is the case, it would follow that the existing plugin-hybrid cars will be charged more often in the future than they are today, because charging infrastructure will improve during the lifetime of the car.

Except it won't, for three reasons

  • Using PHEVs on workplace charging is really wasteful, because they charge up in three hours, but you're there all day, and swapping cars around really doesn't work very well, so you typically end up with low charger utilization.
  • If people don't install a charger at home when they get a car, they usually won't ever install one.
  • Chargers in random locations can actually be more expensive than gasoline.

It's not an infrastructure problem. Hybrids are intrinsically a mistake. It's just too much easier to keep using them as ICE cars and not put in home chargers, and without home chargers, you're going to end up doing most of your miles on gasoline.

Comment Re: Excellent (Score 1) 121

No making you buy a new charger instead of just a cable was by design and a feature not a bug. The change is because the EU has made it clear this kind of thing will be legislated against.

Apple made that change in March of 2015. The EU didn't even *start* talking about standardizing on USB-C until roughly January of 2020. So I can't say for sure what made them start using separate cables, but I can say with near absolute certainty that the reason was *not* regulatory pressure from the EU.

Comment Re: Excellent (Score 1) 121

Apple, ironically, since they're usually the worst offenders in this sort of thing

There's a chance I might have accidentally caused that. Way back, when the original MagSafe chargers were around — probably about 2008 or 2009 — I filed a Radar asking for removable MagSafe cables, pointing out that I kept having to throw away $80 chargers over a $10 cable, and that this had been a problem with every Mac charger I had ever owned from the PowerBook 145 all the way up to the MagSafe stuff. And I pointed out that having removable MagSafe cables would also provide a permanent solution to the problem of external battery makers not being able to provide cables that hook up to the MacBook. I think I laid out a pretty solid case for why the charger cables should be detachable.

To be fair, the transition to USB-C might have been the only factor, and my bug might have just sat in some hardware team's queue and never gotten looked at, but other companies do build USB-C supplies with non-detachable cables, so I like to think that maybe at the very least seeing my bug might have gotten someone thinking about the possibility.

I wonder if somebody got to close that Radar as "Hardware Changed" a decade after I filed it. I wonder if somebody is looking for that bug now, trying to get credit for closing it. :-D

Comment Re:End driving (Score 1) 127

It just sounds like the greatest nation in the world is incapable of doing what other smaller nations do

We just don't want it...nor need it.

Then I travelled the world and actually looked at how things work and now I'm just sad that I lived with my own narrow minded view. Stay ignorant buddy, you'll kick yourself if you actually experience something that changes your world view, it's not a nice feeling

I've been to Europe and some other parts of the world.

While visiting I had fun and thought it was "quaint".....but it's not how I would like to live.

As I've mentioned before, I don't want to share walls with neighbors or live in tower apartments....

I like to have a yard to enjoy....I've always owned FUN sports cars and motorcycles, I love to drive them....every time I jump in my car or on my bike, I get a big stupid ass smile on my face 'cause I'm off on a new adventure.

I think much of the difference is due to mindeset of nations. The US has long been a country of the "individual". Places like the EU are more group think...."the needs of the many".

And those differences lend themselves to different lifestyles.

Different strokes for different folks.

And again...in the US, if you don't like the lifestyles,, laws, etc of where you live...you CAN move to where things more align with your life preferences.

Here we don't have to depend on one size fits all....and, isn't choice the best thing?

Comment Re:End driving (Score 1) 127

You know what is unreliable? Cars. I have no idea what traffic will do. Will I be there in 35minutes or an hour and 10mintes?

Sounds like poor road design if that's your problems.

I rarely run into "traffic" that is in anyway bad ....it's not something I have to plan for...and I can get to where I want door-to-door in minutes anywhere in the city.

And I live in New Orleans....so, quite often there is going to be drinking involved, and in my older years, I just don't bother driving after adult beverages anymore, so I just call an uber for those times....again, door-to-door.

No needing to deal with the elements walking to a train station, etc.....we might not get THAT cold down here, but a large part of the year is very HOT and HUMID.....and at times you really wanna limit your outdoor time, especially if you are dressed nice...otherwise you show up at your destination as a sweat stain.

Public transport...it just really isn't a thing here, nor in most cities I've lived in in the US, but I'm not felt my life has suffered in the least because if it.

I've always had a car or motorcycle that is FUN to drive and I hop in and enjoy it....

Comment Re:End driving (Score 1) 127

Obviously even Americans prefer walkable cities.

Obviously we don't....if we did, we'd either have more of them or would have more in the works.

That just isn't our mindset.

We generally don't like to be clumped all together, we prefer more open spaces and elbow room.

I prefer to have a yard where I can, in the back, set up my large log burning offset smoker to do BBQ, or set up a large 100 gallon pot for crawfish boils.....and have friends and neighbors over to enjoy a nice day with me.

And going out to see things?

I live in the New Orleans area....we only have 52 weeks a year, and there are FAR more fests (music, food, etc) that you can attended if you tried annually.

And yet, I don't live in "walkable"....nor do I want to.

I have my nice yard, my friends have places to park their boats and we go out on them fishing or just for fun....and again BEST of all, I do not share walls with anyone. Over the years I put a LOT of investments into building my AV system and I occasionally like to exercise its decibel range....with no shared walls, I don't disturb the neighbors and they don't bother me.

I do walk my dog...daily and meet my neighbors as I do...the nice thing is...it's not all concrete like an urban city where you have limited green space.

And guess what - they serve wine on all those occasions.

LOL, I live in fucking New Orleans....we have wine....beer and hard liquor cocktails anywhere here you want, 24/7.....no open container laws either.

Try THAT in your urban paradise.

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