Policy is where the rubber meets the road. We need to encourage (some would say subsidize, and go reee!) the renewables. Solar, and battery storage. Wind is pretty obvious,

Now some will be triggered by that policy, but here's where it gets interesting. Many people living outside urban areas receive electrical power for one reason only. The rural electrification project. We didn't see people whining about that back in the day, and if it didn't exist, they'd be still getting electricity via - windmills - how ironic, because running wires and poles and getting right of way is expensive. Part of why many people who see the cost of running mains power find that solar and battery is the cost effective option. K-ryste, the irony is impressive.

And while the goalposts keep getting moved, yes - there are places where the wind blows 24/7/365, such as the Allegheny Front escarpment in PA.

Solar installations are getting batteries, which does operate quite well when the sun goes down.

And while subsidization triggers the anti-renewable folks, their favorite forms of energy are all subsidized https://fractracker.org/2025/0...

760 billion here, 760 billion there, after a while you are talking real money! 8^/

And I want to see a nuc plant pay for insurance all by itself instead of relying on the Government. It's a conundrum, that safe clean nuclear energy needs to be indemnified - if it is so safe, the Price-Anderson Act that holds nuc power providers not responsible for big accidents, would be pointless.

for clarity, I believe that a nuclear power plant can be made quite safe. Just not by humans, who have managers who demand on time delivery, bean counters who want things on the cheap, and a pervasive antagonism toward anyone who would declare otherwise. And now here's where I bother a lot of people.

My analysis of the AGW issue is that we hit the so called "tipping point" around 1985. We are now in a short positive feedback loop of de-sequestering methane. Bad news indeed. But the people who think that we iron the oceans, spray sulfur aerosols or hydrogen chloride aerosols to cool things off are doing a mono variant analysis. Yes, it will cool things off for a short while as the aerosols attach themselves to the water cycle and return to earth as sulfuric or hydrochloric acid.

To actually have an effect on the weather until the CO2/Methane gases lower to some pre agreed amount will take many many years, where we endure the effects of that rain - Acid rain destroys infrastructure, does harm to living things, and acidification of the oceans will kill off a lot of oceanic life. It is probably worse than any of the AGW effects.

So in addition to doing what we can to make the de-sequestration as low as possible, we need to encourage responsible and especially controllable re-sequestration of CO2 and Methane. Just hiding it with continuous acidic aerosols will likely make things worse. We need to analyze how to protect endangered wildlife.

We're in for a hella ride for a while.

note: the wildlife issue has a few quirks. Much wildlife will move to higher latitudes or elevations. IMO, the most endangered ones are those around the edges, this that cannot move after their particular niche cannot be found any more. This are teh ones we concentrate on the most.

Here's the thing. You are correct. If AI created that commercial, those against any and all AI would be pointing out that commercial as a hallucination. Remember the google AI creating Nazi Wehrmacht soldiers, with a Chinese woman and a Black man? We hooted and hollered at the incongruity. Gotta be congruity. The woke reference ended up getting the standard woke response, which is to attack the messenger. Fortunately, those responses don't get the results they did for a while.

I'm not certain any AI designed customer service would use an unintelligible voice. 8^) And my experience with the upsell during customer service is that it is the sign of a company in trouble.

Exactly. Maybe I've been around long enough to see tech changes that were going to "put everyone out of work", but it never happened. Hand assembled tube radios to transistors to integrated circuits to neural nets to AI in my field, Other areas, other technology changes. Tech fields are no place for people who want one task and job their entire working lives. New

And you should not ever trust them. They are grifters, con people. They are the mental compadres of Elizabeth Holmes, wouldn't hurt if they ended up in her situation.

The worst part is they are operating from a doomed paradigm. The power guzzling polluting data center in addition to restoring 1960's technology mothballed nuclear power reactor paradigm is already superannuated. Apple has a Mac that can self host LLMs already. Sam Altman, after FUBAR'ing the RAM market, is now whining that he should have all the Memory, and us droogs should only be sitting at dumb terminals.

There is a reason for that. The present model is bloated, unsustainable, and teetering on bursting.

Apple's mega-Mac is expensive, but then again, so are tokens in the long run. Already Claude for code is available for self hosting on normal decent machines.

In the end, AI will be evolved to a trimmed down version sitting right on our computers, and more of a helper than an existential threat.

Yes, many apartments have those amenities now. My best guess is the people who cannot have a charger are living in high-rises in intensely urban areas, and probably don't have a car of any sort.

Come on dude! I said what we need to do, not that we are not doing what I think we should do. Is your need to disagree wit someone so strong that you need to make up something I presumably said. Fine - thanks for the conservation.

There are people that make a living making commercials. They tend to get paid for making those commercials work. And just like coding, there are rules. Don't follow the rules, the commercial doesn't work, don't code well, then you lose your job to AI.

Has not one thing to do with culture wars, it is communications. It is guidelines. That you cannot see that and that you simply don't care about what they do, then they shouldn't care at all if you lose your career.

I like that last sentence!

The anti-EV people are running out of room to move those goalposts. Between EVs don't work", "The batteries won't last, "too little range" "not enough chargers" really, wouldn't it be easier to just say "I don't like them?

Like it or not, there was a time called peak woke. You can look it up. I also removed the bolding you put on Peak Woke" in my reply, quite dishonest on your part, my triggered compadre.

Yet I was the one making a thought out explanation, and that isn't how commercials are supposed to work. If you are trying to sell diamonds and show pizzas, people will say "wut? I like diamonds, I really like Pizza. And you've decided I'm a bigot. Who is triggered?

Why would I not? That's how commercials work. And before you go too far, while I can easily see the utterly minor differences between people, race doesn't exist. Which is why I consider the modern inclusive people to have missed the bus. Race is the ultimate social construct.

That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of racists out there, and some who consider themselves inclusive are among the most bigoted - they choose a different "color" the inferior or even evil. At "wokes" most pejorative, it tends to denote a censorious and performative progressive tribe.

I'm calling your "mild curiosity" as you being triggered. Why? You appear to be trying to turn me into some homophobic racist, when I merely noted the incongruity, then you speak of "mild curiosity. If you can call my curiosity homophobic and racist, you cannot escape the arrow pointed back at you.

And that is really the problem. I don't actually think you are homophobic, although I find many people who call themselves inclusive to be quite racist. But I'll even reserve that pejorative in real life, other that you expose that you are being a bit of a hypocrite.

I do not care about your genetic background, I do not care about who you want to have sex with. I do not care about how you dress. I do not care about genetically mixed couples of different skin or facial features.

I merely note that in marketing, there is a short time to get the message out, and if a family unit where neither parent could be a parent of the child, it creates incongruity. I've seen couples who are of different so-called races, where the offspring are clearly biracial. That makes sense, and sensible casting occurred. No one got confused.

That is such a weird take on your part. There are plenty of biracial couples and children in less urban areas as well. Back to you - I note incongruity, and you went there. Hey monchichi Make feminine hygiene commercials with men, make commercials claiming to be for pizza, using only energy drinks, make makeup commercials with dead people in caskets, do as you wish. But if you can't take an explanation of why that doesn't work, that's very much a you problem. And don't expect it to work. I merely point that out. That commercial I referred to was eventually pulled, and probably because it was not working.

I agree, they should get the vehicle that fits their needs. I've long said that a person should drive what they want. If they want a RAM 1500, then get one. Not my problem - If they want to roll coal at EV's then have at it. I'll roll my eyes, but it's their money.

Now to the people who cannot charge their EV at home. They are likely living in an apartment in a more urban area. so there is the question of affording a car at all. Urban parking eclipses EV charging costs. So a lot of those folks will opt out of having a car at all, preferring to take public transit. Or they can use chargers at convenience stores. I'm in a small city, and we have hundreds of them, even in state parks. Or at work.

As well the charging paradigm is not the same as ICE vehicles. Typically a ICE car gets run to a quarter tank or less, but in an EV you charge when you get the opportunity, you are continually topping it off which means the charging time complaint is obviated.

Or, they can buy an Internal combustion vehicle, and be satisfied.

In a weird irony, at least at our state parks with chargers, if a person is running on gas fumes, or nearly discharged, they are much better off in the EV.

Dude who was smart enough to post as a true coward, yet thinks there are only two people in the commercial. You see, you don't get to tell me that I was triggered, while you were so triggered, that you replied to me as AC - which all that tells me is you are hiding behind your cowardice. Bwak Bwak?

Commercials are a very minor art form. Short duration, selling something. Would you think a feminine hygiene commercial for Tampons would be effective with a man or a little boy as the spokesperson? Or a makeup commercial with a 90 year old man doing it? Or a restaurant commercial set inside a bank? Or a 90 year old woman or a child hawking Viagra?

It is called inconguity, and it is a cousin of the uncanny valley. And yes, when you only have a few seconds to hawk the product, you use that time wisely, not make people wonder what is going on. It's marketing, not political indoctrination. And concern over biracial relationships are so 1965. Anyone having an issue with that is fighting a war long over. And really, who cares any more? The incongruity is that none of the three people are racially mixed, so there must either be a back story, or some incongruous "inclusion" going on. The commercial no longer airs, so apparently others were also wondering what was going on. Commercials must be clear, and not having you think about anything other than the product they want you to buy.

Sorry, mon chichi it appears I just triggered you. Reeee much? Now let the adults talk

It was not being triggered, it was just noting a basic tenet of advertising, You apparently got triggered as soon as you saw that, so you're looking in a mirror.

Now for today's lesson: Advertisement relies on stereotypes. Why is this? because while there might be humans in the ad, if we have something like three separate "racial" characteristics, we start considering them rather than whatever is being sold. You only have a few seconds to get your message out, and in the case I noted, people wondered. The dark skinned "black" man and a pale skinned "white" woman would tend to have children that are "biracial", not a clearly non biracial Chinese daughter.

Was the child adopted? Was she the neighbor's kid? Were the man and woman not a couple? So in a 15 second commercial, people were thinking about anything but the product being sold. It is really that simple.

Yes, commercials are there to get a product sold. So the content must be relevant.

So we see people in bathing suits in psoriasis commercials because you need to see skin to see cleared skin.

Beautiful women in makeup commercials because they tend to consume makeup.

Same-sex couples in HIV medicines is great because that is a target group. Hetero people in the same because HIV is not exclusive to one group

On the other hand We tend to not see women in bikinis in restaurant or cooking commercials, men in feminine hygiene product commercials. Or to children in wedding jewelry commercials.

We tried that at peak woke. Victoria's Secret tried including men and morbidly obese women as part of it's erotic lingerie livery. Between 2021 and 2023, Victoria’s Secret’s stock went from $70–$75 down to around $20. There were just not enough of their new core group to sustain sales. They went back to their beautiful fit women and recovered. https://www.alainguillot.com/v... You cannot force-fit inclusion. The question raised on a personal level - are you really that obtuse? Or just triggered to obtuse?

Then walk - When people being up "I can't charge, I live in an apartment" as some sort of reason to not make EV's, I have to chuckle. I don't have space to put in a Dump truck, that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist.

Wow - the same argument from the days of the Prius! Which was so debunked that I thought it went away. Prius batteries had to be warrantied 100 thousand miles, 150,000 miles in California. And almost none ever needed replaced, outside accidents.

Here's the problem. What is the cost of replacing a EV engine? 20 years ago I had to replace one - 5 grand for a used engine.

Or maintenance. EV's require no where near as much. Anyhow, you buy what you want. Drive what you want. Roll coal if you want. But the argument that battery life in either hybrid or full EV is going to render cars useless in a few years just doesn't hold water.

If it is done incorrectly, AI can can suck bigly. Then again, AI has no monopoly on suckage.

I've seen plenty enough real living people suckage. During Peak Woke, I saw commercials so filled with "inclusion" that I never figured out what they were selling. An African man, a pale skinned woman, and a Chinese child talking in the kitchen. People spent so much time mentally figuring out the gestalt of that family they missed the point. Nothing to prevent a black man, a white woman, and an East Asian child from being a family unit, but commercials are supposed to make you think about the product, not a back story.

AI Customer service. I lost two credit cards last week. Called customer service on the back of the cards to get new cards issued The first one had two actual humans. one a woman with a Spanish accent that I could understand, the other a man with a very difficult to understand Indian accent. After being passed back and forth, giving my information at least 5 times, they started upselling me, trying to get me to buy some kind of discounted package, kind of like the old coupon books for 35 dollars a month, I said no, then they tried to upsell me on some healthcare package at 50 dollars a month, I said no to each, and as this was almost two hours in, I asked what this had to do with me getting a replacement card. Then I was told to hang on, for a third offer. I fear I did lose my sangfroid at that point, and after telling them they were not sane, hung up.

Wife, who had me do the calling as punishment for losing the cards found another number, called that and got the card cancelled. I think she ended up feeling badly, as it takes a lot to get me to lose my temper.

The second card - I called the number on the back of the card, and got AI help. In 4 minutes, I had the old card cancelled, and a new one on the way. Those are just examples.

As for the idea of an AI only workforce, the FUD people seem to forget that if the workforce goes full AI, who will buy the things that need sold to make money? Some work will change for certain, But as things evolve, and we lose the idea of the humongous energy sucking Data Centers, things will settle down. I notice that computer resident Claude exists, Apple has a Mac that can handle and run resident LLM's now.

Changes? sure. That's technology, and technology has never been a field for people who want to do one thing their entire careers. I've done like ten different technology based workflows my career, and I'm not smart, so smarter people should have no problem adapting.

You are correct, I forgot to mention that.

Meanwhile, MacOS has been using Time Machine, which will back up your files and programs for a couple decades now. Comes with the Operating system. Works.

Use that 4.5 Gigabytes wisely , My Windows friends.