I accept that.

I do it just fine. What part of California are you in?

Here you go. https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/... . If you want more detail, go here: https://www.calcities.org/reso...

The intent of the project is to connect the LA Metro region with Sacramento and the Bay Area. The extent of actual *highspeed* rail, though is intended to go between Merced and Bakersfield (where people would prefer to zip by at max speed anyway). You can see the map of current stations and sections being constructed here: https://www.buildhsr.com/ . It's really quite fascinating the lengths they have to go through to ensure the rail is grade-separated.

Historically, California runs a surplus: https://calmatters.org/explain...

That's related, but not exactly correct. Half of California's income taxes come from California's top 1% wealthiest residents. A whole lot of their income is based on the capital gains tax and thus the performance of the stock market. The market wasn't great, so tax revenue expectations had to be be adjusted downward and cuts have to be made to be more inline with actual tax revenues.

That's consumers for ya. Most consumers think that they can lie well enough to convince a company ignore all its data and research. The truth is, those who were mooching off others accounts did the calculus (as expected) and figure that it's worth paying a small monthly subscription to continue to have access to the shows and movies they like.

It's like this in so many sectors.

"Would you buy this burger for $10?"
"No way, that's too much! It needs to be $3, no more."
-- A week later, the person's eating the $10 burger because she liked it and it's actually worth $10 to her.

"If we put in a bus route to Disneyland and it only cost you $2 to ride, how often would you ride it?"
"Like every weekend!!"
-- The bus route fails due to insufficient ridership.

"You've told us airline tickets are too expensive. Part of the price is carrying luggage on the plan. If we separated the price of large luggage and allowed everyone to take two small items each for free, would that be better?"
"Hell yes!! I would love you for that!!"
-- People complain about having to pay for having large luggage.

The honest, unspoken answer to the question to "What do you want?" will always be "More stuff and more services regardless of what it is."

The honest, unspoken answer to the question to "How much are you willing to pay?" will always be "I won't know until I have no choice but to pay."

What? No. Some things are new. LOTS of things are new.

You can build brand new cities in places where no cities have ever been placed. That's actually VERY easy to do. What's difficult is building very heavy cities very quickly in very wet areas.

I am a public employee and have a work cell phone. Every communication on that cell phone is retrievable by public records request. Knowing that I ensure that ONLY work communication happens on that phone.

I also have a private phone. The few people at work who know this phone number know that they are to use that number ONLY if I'm needed and am not responding to my work phone. The only appropriate communication is, "Hey. Are you there? Check your work phone."

The problem is that SOME people think that having a work phone is a perk of the job and can/should be used in lieu of maintaining your own private phone. This is a bad practice and should be cracked down on more for the employee's, public's, and government's sake.

I loved the first movie. Watching it in the theater was a genuine experience. The second movie (Reloaded) was a little goofy due to the over-reliance on certain nascent technologies, but I could appreciate the story. I was pumped for the third movie (Revolutions) because I thought they would course-correct a bit and present a solid movie. My expectations were not met.

As a fan of the Matrix movies (and even video games!), I wanted some type of continuation of the mythos, but that fourth movie was such a boring, self-indulgent, and performative stinker that I don't want to even consider further expansion of the mythos unless the Wachowskis don't have an influence. Much like modern Start Wars stories, it's better off without George Lucas having creative influence and better with Dave Filoni being on point.

Because I'm such a fan of the mythos, I will probably watch whatever gets produced and I'll need to make my own judgement on the final product, but I'm probably not going to look forward to it. My expectations are very low.

Are you able to use a VISA gift card instead?

Do you complain about screwdrivers because they can cam out (slip)?
Do you complain about hammers because they allow the user to miss the nail?

You seem to agree that the tools are widely (almost universally) used and accomplish goals at a price people are willing to pay, but since the tools don't ascend to the perfection of your imagination, you brand them as "gimmicks". That's simply unreasonable.

Well this is just ridiculous. It is an oft-repeated meme that "The world runs on Excel" because it's true. Ya, huge, well-planned things actually run in databases, but for everything else, it's Excel. Same with Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Those three programs are the basis for most major enterprises and anyone who attempts to say otherwise with a straight face is ignorant of the real world or has an axe to grind.

It's analytics for people who know how to use Excel and need to show the results of the analytics online. That's not bad.

Vizio could/should be integrated as a feature pack in PowerPoint. It doesn't need to be standalone.

Forms is unnecessary. SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics have that area locked down.
Calendar as a part of Outlook is intensely functional.
Sway is an outright gimmick.
Stream is transitioning into Sharepoint.
ToDo should just be a feature pack for Outlook.
Bookings is great if you need people to make meetings on your calendar without direct interaction. This is particularly useful for customer-facing fronts.

Personally, I'm still sore about the loss of Microsoft Mappoint. It was the only way I could cheaply (nearly free) and easily geocode a ton of addresses and then run experiments on travel distances, travel times, and proximity. It was a HUGE tool in sustainability. ArcGIS is nowhere near as usable and as a couple years ago when I last looked for replacements, everything out there wants to charge you to geocode per address (or per hundred addresses).

So ya... just like EVERY major company out there attempting to innovate in the software sphere, they make some pieces of software that won't be relevant to you. Eventually unpopular pieces die off. (See: Google.)

Here's what you need:

0. Assumption that you have a worthwhile chance at winning the grant
1. Grant writer/manager ($$)
2. Project managers ($$)
3. Planning lead time with your utility
4. A worthwhile location (within a mile of an alternative fuels corridor, preferably near low-income housing, preferably near arguably rural space, etc.)
5. Matching funds ($$)
6. A plan with costings and estimates not just for where the chargers may go, but all the other facilities that will have to support the safe and compliant ingress/egress of all the potential users of the EV charging location. That may mean putting in a new signalized intersection and crosswalks. ($$)

Once you have all that, you can apply and roll the dice. And if you win, then you have to bid out all the construction work, select the hardware, and begin the process of procuring all the hardware, and validate the digital security of the EV chargers/transactors. Ya, the chargers are relatively easy to get, but the transformers? We're looking at a 2-year lead time unless you want to pay scalper prices.

It's a LOT of f*cking work and money to put in chargers where there isn't already an abundance/overbuild of power.

AND THEN THERE'S MANAGEMENT!

These need to be treated like gas stations. They need to be price-controlled, validated for fuel delivery, maintained, etc. You're going to need to handle customer service, complaints, and accusations of overcharging/gouging because people think that should ONLY pay for the cost of the electricity-- or worse, a SUBSIDIZED cost of electricity. Because they're single-handedly saving the environment by driving an electric luxury vehicle.

All this while public agencies throughout the US are going through silent recessions-- being asked to cut 3-10% of budgets because wages keep going up (because rents keep going up).

Anyone who complains about the lack of haste in rolling out EV infrastructure has no clue about rolling out or managing EV infrastructure.

The current level of productivity globally and nationally is sufficient for literally everything. We're not short on gadgets, vehicles, food, housing, tools, clothes-- ANYTHING. We have enough and we can make more. The problem that needs solutions are the distribution of food, the longevity/sustainability of our semi-durable goods, and the exploitation of basic necessities like the corporate ownership of housing to force people into renting.

When people say "we need more productivity", all they're saying is that they want to be more competitive with other businesses. They want to grow and dominate to make more income for their investors because that's the came the 1% play. That's nothing worth cheering about. I don't want to partake in a "boom" whose goal is to squeeze even more life out of me for the benefit of investors.

I'm waiting on that "quality of life" boom. When's the last time we had one of those? The 1950s?

Not FUD.

While battery cells are MUCH easier to recycle than other e-waste, the process is either extremely wasteful or extremely costly depending on the recovery method. The most popular method (because it's less labor intensive and thus cheaper) is to shred the batteries, melt the shreds into a black mass, and then use toxic chemicals to separate/recover the more valuable materials. Of course, there's nothing inherently bad about using toxic chemicals when they're used under strict regulation and enforcement. However like most recycling efforts, you can fully expect the largest operations to shred and smelt locally while the chemical separation of materials happens in cheaper, less regulated countries where negligence will result in a further polluted environment.

- Plastic recycling was a lie.
- Carbon fiber recycling is a lie. You can't separate the glues from the carbon fiber. At BEST you can shred the material, add more glue, and reform it into something that's "made with carbon fiber" but it not have the same properties as a fresh piece.
- Battery recycling is false promise based on the hopes that some future technology will come rescue us like Superman.

Look up the companies that are trying to do battery recycling today. What are they saying their capacity is right now... and what might it eventually be? What types of recycling can they do? The truth is that we're not ready to handle the influx if recycling demand and will end up having to store batteries until we are.

The "spirit" of the internet never would have survived as well as it has if it weren't for the corporations and nation states. The free (as in speech) internet costs money. Cables have to be laid and maintained. Computers have to bought, installed, upgraded. Employees have to be paid.

In that investment, people take some level of ownership. Comcast owns THOSE lines. Starlink owns THOSE satellites. All THOSE websites are stored on Microsoft's servers.

Were there to be infinite resources, it would be different. But that's never been the case.

What a perfect example of flippant and uninformed response! Kudos! Since we're role-playing, I'll be the person who actually knows what she's talking about:

Your ubiquitous American three-prong outlet is usually backed by 120v and 20A. This can fuel a modern EV sufficient to travel ~50 miles if left plugged in for 12 hours. Even if you were willing to accept that refueling time, you'd have to actually connect the EV to that socket. For some people, that's not a big deal-- just pull into the garage and plug in. For the majority of US households who don't have a garages, it poses quiet the challenge.

"Just install sockets outside."

Fine idea. That requires permitting, trenching, and a bit of electrical work. That's a few thousand dollars at least-- just so you can get 50 miles every 12 hours. That's insufficient for that VAST majority of vehicle users out there.

"Ok, so put in a more powerful EV charger"

You want "Level 2": 240v and at least 40A. For that, you need the EV Supply Equipment ($500-$1200), the same trenching, electrical work, and permitting, but you'll also need a dedicated circuit on your panel. If you have an older home, you may need an entirely new panel... and you may even need your electricity provider to increase the amount of electricity going to your home. And your neighbor's home. And your neighbor's neighbor's home. Because everyone's supposed to get EVs, right?

"Actually, I live in an apartment community and we park in a carport. The landlord should put in level 2 chargers."

Well, best of luck. Chances are that your parking areas were built to minimum ADA code standards. That means the chargers are not going in front of the car on the sidewalk and it can't go in the parking stall itself or people will just crash into them. AND you have to bring the entire parking facility up to modern ADA code standards when you upgrade the facility by adding EV fueling options. New paths of travel. New curb cuts. New truncated domes. Concrete work is very expensive, you know.

And that all assumes that your landlord can afford to provide EV charging ports to 75%+ of the parking stalls, one or multiple transformers to feed the EV charging ports, and have the ability to manage the complex billing backend so you can pay your fair share of the cost of electricity and infrastructure.

It also assumes that your electricity provider can get all that additional power to your apartment community.

"Wait... this is just electricity. Why isn't it just free?"

Electricity costs money. In California, it costs over $0.30/kWh. In fact, when consider the cost of fuel per vehicle mile traveled, an EV is only as cost-effective as a 45-mpg gasoline vehicle and that's if you're ONLY paying for the electricity coming from the charger. If the owner encumbers the cost of the installing everything (as they should), the cost equivalent will likely be around 35-mpg.

"If it's so complicated, why are we doing it?!"

Because someone said, "Something has to be done. This is something. Let's do it. Technology and the free market will solve all the problems before the deadline," and everyone bought into it.

It really depends on the source of the degree. Distance learning? Most of the degrees are trash. In fact, most people who start a distance learning degree don't even finish.

4-year degree from a brick-and-mortar R1 school (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States)? Almost certainly worth it. And notice the lack of for-profit schools in that list.

That's because perceived worthless degrees do not fully describe the breadth of a college education. A person who graduates with a degree in Social Psychology (a field that is completely saturated by people who want to learn the subject, but not practice the science) still had to complete a large amount of writing, math, research, science, and related courses.

It's how people who graduate with degrees in biology still know about art history and those freshly minted engineers understand a thing or two about the endocrine system.