>"What's needed is a different battery chemistry, but as long as Lithium batteries are available at low cost, this problem isn't going away."

What hasn't happened in any significant way is to package lithium batteries in some small, unique sizes (different from non-lithium) and mandate things have openable battery hatches, like we have traditionally had in all battery-operated devices, and used these sizes. There are lithium standards like these:
https://em3ev.com/lithium-batt... but they are very difficult to find and don't go small enough for many devices. And there are no standards for rectangular prismatic cells (that I know of).

Manufacturers really love the idea of non-replaceable batteries. It is horrible for consumers, and horrible for the environment, but wonderful for manufacturers because it is slightly less expensive, makes devices smaller/sleeker, and requires consumers to keep rebuying things....

I was recently looking for some wireless phone headsets. Now, suddenly, they ALL have non-replaceable batteries! All of them. I don't want to spend $150 on a quality headset that will become trash in just 2 or 3 years when the battery dies. But what choice do I have? My old Plantronics one that I love had a replaceable one. It was small, lightweight, and sleek, yet had a battery compartment. I have replaced the battery twice (3 batteries total) even though it wasn't a "standard" size, and still use it today. But I what do I buy now for other users?

My toothbrush- non-openable/replaceable.
My Sony stereo headset- non-openable/replaceable.
My watch- non-openable/replaceable.
My USB power bank- non-openable/replaceable.
My micro keyboard- non-openable/replaceable.
My phone- non-openable/replaceable.
My bike light- non-openable/replaceable.
My beard trimmer- non-openable/replaceable.
My hand-held carpet spill cleaner- non-openable/replaceable.

I could go on, but you get the idea. There are countless MILLIONS of these things out there now.

>"Here's an ambiguous prompt that will delete all your extensions, themes, and custom settings if you answer "yes". "

Yeah, I really hate that thing. I really don't understand why they added that "feature." In any case, it can be disabled. Go to about:config , create a new boolean with the name âoebrowser.disableResetPromptâ and set it to âoetrueâ. Or manually add to your prefs.cfg:

lockPref("browser.disableResetPrompt", true);

>"Firefox users were choosing Startpage long before today"

Yep. I have been using StartPage and DuckDuckGo as my sole search engines for many years. DDG has been included in Firefox for quite a while, but not StartPage. So I am glad to see it added, although adding it yourself is not difficult.

StartPage is essentially Google search without Google spying on you and without AI and other annoyances.

DuckDuckGo is essentially Bing without Microsoft spying on your and without some of the annoyances.

>"They should have always been limited to 10-15 items. No more than you can carry in a hand basket. It's infuriating when you have 1 or a couple items and you're stuck waiting behind someone who's purchasing a heaping cart full prepping for the apocalypse"

[My Walmart is 15 items] And it is also infuriating when you have 16 to 30 items and are stuck in a GLACIAL line with people who have 50 to 100 items. AND then muck around with their stupid phones AND multiple payment methods at the end AND with readers that don't allow tap to pay.

I prefer self-checkout, if the self-checkout is done correctly, but often have "too many items" to use it. Ultimately, I don't care if it is self-checkout or not. I just want to get the F out of the store without waiting forever.

My Target is always TREMENDOUSLY faster than my Walmart. Always. Target has many more open checkouts and with fewer people in each, and moves much faster. They have fewer self-checkouts than Walmart, but at Walmart, there is often a queue 10+ deep just to get into the self-checkout. But at least it is a single queue, so it moves faster than most non-self checkout lines. But Target generally has fewer people checking out, so that is a factor. Anyway, I guess it depends on the store.

Single queue lines are always WAY more fair. I don't care which register line I stand in, it is usually wrong. The one next to me moves faster. I wish all checkout lines were single-queue but they are not as space-efficient. And there are times a single dork will hold up the entire process because he/she doesn't quickly see and go to the next open register.

Sigh.

>"The backstory. Walmart refuses to accept contactless payments because [...] your name and credit card info does not show up to be harvested when you use a contactless payment. They want your name an credit card info for their mountain of data they harvest."

https://www.rfidcard.com/nfc-p...

That supports the idea if you use the tap instead of insert on a credit card, the merchant can't know who you are. Is that really true? If so, that is fantastic for privacy. And it would explain resistance to the technology.

But...

https://beyondbancard.com/tap-...

OK, that information says inserting the card is no different. The merchant still doesn't know who you are. It is SWIPING the card that reveals your number/id. So in that case, there is no practical difference between tap to pay and insert card.

I think that info is bogus, because I have had purchases show on my Walmart web account when I use a credit card via their only normally-supported option in the store, which is to insert the card. Other info I read says the card transaction doesn't reveal who you are, but the payment processor will share that info with the merchant later, in the background.

More research keeps coming up with conflicting information. When and how does the merchant/vendor know WHO YOU ARE when using a card?

If only voters would get this worked up about corruption.

People are also ignoring the benefits. Data centers don't bring a lot of jobs after construction is complete, but they can generate a lot of tax revenues for counties and cities. Huge amounts of money that can be a real game-changer for the local budgets, and could be very beneficial for the locals. By itself that's not a reason to accept them, but it should be part of the overall calculation, and the net cost/benefit of the projects should be reasonably and fairly evaluated, and negotiated.

But this isn't what's happening.

The thumb wheels on the steering wheel do that. You do have to use the touch screen to put it in "mirror adjust" mode, but really that's something you only do once. Set up your driver profile, set your mirrors, then the car just always changes them to your settings.

I find the auto wiper works pretty well... it is important to keep the windshield fairly clean, but I like to do that anyway.

Yeah, the Model 3/Y handles are weird. The S/X handles are pretty nice. In theory the fact that they're motorized could make them a maintenance problem. In practice, little electric motors are extremely reliable. There was a problem with the wiring harness getting fatigued and breaking about 10 years ago, but that's been fixed.

Those are also on the thumb wheels on the steering wheel.

Before I came up with my current system I spent a lot of time looking into actuators for windows. They exist but they're expensive, often bulky and look like a lot of work to install and maintain. Then it occurred to me that I already have a whole-house fan (HVAC system)... if I could just get it to draw from outside rather than from the air returns. That part woks great and I think it does give me a pretty good single point of control. The only problem is that the house is pretty tight so I also needed a way to create some negative pressure, hence the laundry room to attic fan. I think that's still my airflow bottleneck.

As for whether I've crunched the numbers.... no, I haven't. And since I installed solar last year it maybe doesn't even matter any more? Throughout most of the summer I'm actually giving away nearly a MWh per month of electricity even after running house, A/C, car, steam shower, etc. So it's really more of a game to me than a serious attempt to save money. That said, I do watch my energy consumption closely (game, right?) and running the fans consumes maybe 400W. Overnight that's about 3.2 kWh. Meanwhile, my AC draws 4 kW, so if my AC kicks on for 45 minutes it consumes as much as the passive system does all night. And for that, the passive system cools the house by ~10F degrees while the AC will cool it by about 2F, which would indicate 5X efficiency improvement. But even that doesn't fully capture it, because the AC will cool the *air* by 2F while the passive system will cool the house and also much of the thermal mass, so it's actually moving quite a bit more heat out than the thermostat temperatures would indicate.

So, yeah, an order of magnitude more efficient seems about right. When outside air cools down at night!

I've also been thinking about building something for my shop. It's an uninsulated pole barn (30' wide x 40' long x 25' high) which gets quite hot in the summer and quite cold in the winter. I think some automated fans to exploit day/night temperature variations could probably move the average interior temperature several degrees closer to comfortable, year round. Even better if I insulate it.

>"They SUCK in my area...mediocre prices and every store is a horror show of damaged shitty merchandise thrown all over the place, flicking lights, and poorly maintained everything."

My nearest Walmart, which I frequent, has on-part or lower prices on most goods than anywhere else, and it really not dirty or overly disorganized. And no problems with lighting. My problems are:

1) They are *ALWAYS* out of SOMETHING I need. Often it is several items on my list. And often it is something basic like eggs, distilled water, or cat litter. It is infuriating, and I try to counter it by buying much more of what I need when available (although I can't do that with things like eggs, due to shelf life).

2) Most of the carts are dirty, broken, noisy, or can't go straight.

3) They never have enough checkout lanes open, so are always INCREDIBLY slow. The self-checkouts are wonderful (best anywhere), except they limit to only 15 items now, which is stupid, and often half of them are out of service.

4) No tap to pay with credit cards, further slowing down checkouts.

>"They won't go NEAR a major city because they try to avoid labor laws at all cost...so because I live in the city, the nearest WalMart is 30 min away, but I have 10 Targets in the same range with one just a few blocks down the road."

That is just your area. I live in a large city and Walmarts are plentiful. In fact, there is one 2 minutes from my house... and a Target 3 minutes. One other Walmart is 10 min away. And a third is 15 min away. The Targets are cleaner, have tap to pay, and are rarely out of anything. But they also have less selection and considerably higher prices.

>"After years of refusing to adopt tap-to-pay technology in its stores, retail giant Walmart announced today that it is finally accepting payments via both Apple Pay and Google Pay. "

The definition of "tap to pay" is not Google Pay and Apple Pay (or Samsung Pay or whatever). It is touching the reader with ANY device, including a physical credit card, and have it contactlessly and quickly completing the transaction.

All the Walmarts around here don't allow you to "tap to pay" with anything; INCLUDING real physical credit cards. You have to insert the card and stand there, waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And in my case, 25% of the time, it fails and I have to try again. Every other merchant I can think of uses tap to pay with cards, except Walmart. And I don't believe that ability would cost more than inserting the same exact card into a reader.

https://www.savingadvice.com/a...

The consensus seems to be that Walmart just wants to make using credit cards as inconvenient as realistically possible, in the hopes customers will just use their app or whatever.

>"I don't know a single person who ever said that they want more or bigger touchscreens in their car."

Well, I am one of those, even though you don't know me. I am much happier with the much larger touch screen in my new vehicle compared to my previous, 16-year-old one. Maps are much easier to see, more information, better layout, less scrolling, and larger fonts and buttons.

>"Quite the opposite. I want physical controls and so do most people I've talked to."

So do I. And that was a requirement. Mine has all the same physical controls as my old car did. All important/major functions have physical controls as well. There are choices, pick wisely. Just because it has a larger/better screen doesn't mean it has to have fewer physical controls.

>"This is a car, not an iPad. Most of it I should be able to operate without taking my eyes off the road. And a touchscreen doesn't offer that."

A touchscreen doesn't negate that, either. Lack of physical controls does. They are not mutually exclusive. Oh, and my new vehicle also has a real dashboard with display in front of the driver, like a vehicle should have (unlike a Tesla). AND it ALSO has an HUD display with speed, speed limit, nav info, etc, as well. AND it has voice controls. So all options are on the table.

>"There is not going to be $2,000 worth of RAM in a new computer, get real"

This is my position. ALL new cars are going to have screens and some type of infotainment, even if they have physical buttons as well (like mine does). So there is a base amount of RAM that is needed for ANY system. The additional amount for more functions is negligible compared to the price of the vehicle. So they double the 4GB of RAM to 8GB? Big whoop- what does that add? Another $100 or $200 on a $30,000 or $50,000 vehicle?

>"A lot of the newer Chinese EV's have a nice balance with a touch screen for all the controls and then a set of physical buttons and controls for all the things you commonly touch while driving"

That is also true of many Japanese vehicles. Nissan is doing it right, for example (my 2025 Ariya is great). Telsa is one of the worst offenders (they don't even have a dashboard, just a center screen). VW was pretty bad. Korean is a mixed bag.

My advice is to REALLY examine what you are buying and make sure it has physical buttons for at least the primary functions:

Primary audio- volume, track, play/pause, mode
Primary HVAC- on/offf/temp/defog/recirc/vent positioning
All wiper/washer functions
All primary light functions
Mirrors
Primary seat controls
Shifter, drive modes, parking brake mode, brake hold
Locks and door/hatch/windows
Camera views/mode
Trip and primary info functions