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Comment Re:too bad (Score 2) 233

It definitely didn't originally mean "government approved"

That is exactly what it meant. Regulation (from Latin rex = king) means: per the King's law. Or as Wiktionary has it: Borrowed from Latin regulatus, perfect passive participle of regul (“to direct, rule, regulate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from regula (“rule”), from reg (“to keep straight, direct, govern, rule”).

Comment Re:Stupid(?) Astrophysics question: (Score 2) 26

You can do the calculations yourself. To break apart, a rotating object has to reach its escape velocity at its outer perimeter. Otherwise, the gravity would pull back anything that was trying to break apart. A black hole by definition has all its mass within its event horizon, and the event horizon is defined as the surfaces where the escape velocity equals the speed of light. That means that a black hole would have to rotate so fast that its equator surpasses the speed of light to break apart.

Comment Re:Well cult followers (Score 4, Insightful) 309

Nebulously talking about known problems without naming them just shows you don't know the problems or won't enumerate them in fear of sounding ridiculous.

If I have my own source of electricity not relying on the grid, then that is my decision. If it makes business sense, why should I forego it? If it satisfies me as a hobby project, why should I abandon it? If the utility wants to pay me for my leftover electricity, why not sell it to the utility? This is none of your concern.

And the alleged problems for bird life are about the same than each single tree on the landscape. Yes, birds sometimes hit trees, because either they have misjudged their trajectory from the start (birds can be clumsy too), or because a sudden gust of wind blew them away. I sometimes find birds knocked unconsciously on our terrace, because they flew against the wall. Shit happens. To make this a problem of wind turbines is just arbitrarily and selectively projecting blame.

Comment Re:NO we dont (Score 2) 237

A lot of those computers are necessary to squeeze out the required efficiency of the car, both in mileage and in reduced exhaust pollution. It would be far more expensive to try to recreate the same with purely mechanics and fluid dynamics. Imagine recreating the functionality of the motor chip with something else! You would either have a very simple setup, which can only be tuned for a narrow range of conditions, and everything else sucks. Or what you need in a car would dwarf anything in a mechanical clock with ten complications. And for all the riding comfort, you won't be able to recreate it anyway. Electronics are the cheapest way to control a car.

A typical modern gasoline engine consists of about 1300 parts. But it allows your car to get 200 hp from a 2.5 liter engine without your mileage dropping being below 10 mpg, and without your engine blowing up after 40,000 miles, or you having to replace the cylinder gaskets every 5000 miles. You can have a look at American cars of the Malaise era to get an idea how a low electronic car would look like, 3 liter six cylinders barely getting above 90 hp.

Chinese EVs (and similar Korean cars) cost the equivalent of $10,000 in China. That they sell for $25,000 or $30,000 in Europe is due to the adaptation to European standards, of the cost of getting them licensed in Europe, and because of tariffs.

Comment Re:Energy Crisis (Score 1) 152

- Removing the boot from the neck of the resistance even temporarily could make the difference between ineffective protests and a true revolution, and I think that's what we all have to be hoping for.

Here lies a big illusion: The Resistance does not exist. This is not Star Wars. This is Iran. There are many factions here, and one faction, Shiite technocrates, is currently on top. Women, Kurds, Baloch people, Azeris, Sunnites, Parses all have their own set of priorities and gripes. Sunnites probably won't allow women any more rights than the current elite. Azeris won't cooperate with Kurds, mirroring their conflict in Türkiye. Baloch people, being an ethnic minority, want their own autonomous region, but being only 2% of the population, won't find any supporters in other factions. Parses and Bahai are not Muslims, so they are viewed with distrust by everyone else. And those groups are not even mutually exclusive. There are Azeri women and Sunnite women. Most Kurds are Sunnites, but most Azeris are Shiites, in line with the Persian majority, and a huge part of the Azeris are aligned with the current regime. Azeris probably would support the Pahlavi crown prince, but Kurds would not, having had bad experiences with the old Shah.

On the other hand, a lot of people belong to the ruling faction, and a big part of that are owners and managers of a large part of the economy, and they have a lot to lose if conditions change.

Comment Re:multi-day? (Score 1) 178

You get something wrong here. Usually, a driver is legally required to stop after a few hours of driving. That's the point where the 20%-80% recharge comes in (which isn't too impressive, as the Daimler eActros series or the Scania 40 R A4 have about the same charging speeds). While the driver is resting, the truck recharges, and the next 300 or 400 miles of range are available.

On YouTube, there is a channel named "Elektrotrucker" by a German guy who for a year has driven fully electric semi trucks on long-haul services (like Germany-Spain or Germany-Türkiye) and reports his experiences in a video blog. It was never an issue to recharge without compromising his schedule, and he was running on the same schedule as every other truck driver with a diesel powered semi. His employer now has a fleet of 80 electric semi trucks, given the experiences of the last year.

Comment What would Broadcom fear most? (Score 0) 31

Wouldn't it be funny if the E.U. decided to model legal requirements according to the U.S. car market? For certain software categories, you as the manufacturer are not allowed to sell directly to the customer, but have to go through a local dealership. It would not affect Free Software though, because there, no sale is happening.

Comment Re:too late (Score 1) 144

The result will be that no one will voluntarily hold up law and order, because even the slightest mistake will cause him to lose everything. The best you can hope for is that they do nothing for fear to screw up.

And then someone will agree to step in only if everyone else will warrant him that he will not be punished for his honest mistakes, and you just reinvented Qualified Immunity.

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