Correct. The proper response is "I don't answer questions". And if they detain you, "I don't answer questions without a lawyer present".

The proper question is why should you be required to answer such a question if it's not related to a traffic stop. Your response is riddled with assumptions that first, the officer is investigating another crime, in which case indeed they may have questions to ask. A robbery? Do they have a description of the vehicle? Does it match yours, even minimally? If not, they really don't have any evidence on which to base a further expansion of the stop. Nonetheless, if you go to trial, you're not going to be required to say yes, that was my car. Let them prove it was your car. And in this case at the stop, all of what you're describing is more or less entirely inadequate for detention. Innocent until proven guilty is part of this. If they have reasonable suspicion, of course they can expand on the stop. If they're just fishing around, where you're coming from, where you're going, no.

Consider:

Traffic stop. Officer is making 'small talk'. "Where ya goin?". Where ya comin from?".

These are generally not 'small talk'. They are fishing questions, cop asking for info that could lead to suspicion, and detention while they dig for more.

And these sorts of questions can generally be answered by, simply, "None of your business, officer".

Every subsequent question, such as "I'm just making small talk", or "Hey, no big deal", or "What's the problem, you have something to hide?" are all just follow up fishing questions. And deserve no answer.

During a traffic stop, Flock gives officers information they would normally be lawfully denied, like "Where ya coming from?". Flock sidesteps your right to constitutionally refuse such information (and in the absence of reasonably articulable suspicion or other evidence, during a traffic stop, denies the officer the right to demand such information) and as such is a blight on constitutional protections. Flock must be better controlled, or abandoned.

And officers using Flock to look up the plates of their ex, former landlord, or the random guy who gave them a dirty look at a stop light are plainly violating these individuals' rights, and must be sanctioned. And the supervision of the abuses systems similarly sanctioned. Meaningful sanctions, every incident.

The Government rarely surrenders access to information. They seek power at every opportunity. In America, only the Constitution, and adherence to law, can nominally restrict this.

That is not making it better...

I certainly do not expect better of you. Wrong ahs a new spelling, and it starts with you.

If the dealership wanted to discourage public, non-customer use, they could post the fees and ward off those who would not pay $5 per minute PLUS kw charges. But, I suspect, this is just sharp practice, gouge them when they are not looking.

And why do I want to stick with hybrids?

Do we expect better from a 5digit UID? Actually, nope. We've given up on reason from most of you all.

Betcha Lenin, Stalin, Engels, and Mao weren't vegans either.

Don't forget to read my sig.

If they build it they will use it. But do they want to use it? Hydro seems so very easy and simple, but impoundment caused problems in many places. Out west drought has lowered water levels almost to the point where generation must stop. Similar problems in Europe. Pumped storage needs a water source to pump. The engineering has to be done. Somehow nuclear seems to be overlooked too often. SMR, anyone?

I know how 'theoretical max' works. Without defending the utilities and generators, that's when everything they have is operating at maximum capacity. No maintenance, no fuel shortages, etc. different numbers for daylight and darkness where solar is included, calculating wind capacity is, shall we say, an art. You don't have to trust the generators, but their numbers are all ya got. Derate it as you feel necessary.

'load shedding'. 'service prioritization'.

How many ways are there to reduce power consumption in a statement, before turning off servers. Oh, wait, in addition to turning off servers...? Reduce the cloud population, reduce power, but reduce performance. What would the utilities be offering for responding to unsupported demand, even for an unplanned supply outage? I don't read a lot about these options. Even rejecting them.

0) It was once in Florida that commercial users who exceeded an agreed-upon load during certain hours were essentially fined for that, with that fine, increased rates, lasting up to a year. Many shopping malls in particular used onsite generators to run their A/C systems in very hot weather,. which both depleted their ice banks and, coincidentally, caused higher residential demand etc. Worth it to avoid the surcharges. Datacenters may want to invest in onsite generators to be used not just for backup and restoration, but for load shedding.

1) Datacenters may have to investigate negotiating with users for prioritized power use, which seems to me to be incredibly unlikely, but it has to be an option.

Put these both under the heading of resilience. Easier to sell.

You could hardly be further from the point. And no point in telling you. As with many you know history but do not understand it. Don't give it much thought, it's not important enough to get exercised over.

You missed one, and inexcusably. But understandable, because the missing link is a great offense to so many.

And, no, it is not Islam.

Ah. I'm a Windows user from the days when it did not have a version. Played my first computer game, Balance Of Power, back then. Used every version, even ME, supported and maintained my clients machines on everything from Windows 3.1 when I became a tech. Reinstalling 95 and 98 I don't recall as being a big thing, but I was supporting a fairly homogeneous population then. I installed 95 Upgrade Edition and ran it continuously for over 30 days without rebooting. Then the first update broke that, and I learned as many did to reboot occasionally, or more often. I found 98 and 98SE to be improvements. ME we will consign to the manure pile of MS. NT was a greater leap forward then most realize, that kernel is still the basis for Windows, and it is superb despite the naysayers. Vista was a great leap forward also, though it was an interim step towards 7, perhaps the most durable and resilient Windows yet released.

8, 10 this was an era of genuine improvement. 11 also but it suffers undeserved complaints. To this day very few understand that Windows has to, and always had to, tolerate drivers from manufacturers of varying quality and performance, which Apple hardly has to at all. Also Linux has an army of obsessive (often) coders noodling over drivers as well as the benefit of a Unix-like kernel that can tolerate more abuse than commercial software does, and only because it gets so much more attention from a huge volume of coding expertise. But as you know, Linux desktops can be changed, sometimes grammatically, on a whim of the 'owners', the GUI world under X was complex and inscrutable, Wayland is a seismic disruption, and while I think for the better, it took some time to become fully featured and adopted. This event is similar to the 10>11 migration, though perhaps oversimplified this?

But in all this, I encounter disgruntled Windows users with unusual problem histories. Unusual because these are single-digit percentages of users. Not that you experience should be ignored, no. But on the desktop Windows 10 and 11 is working and performing to high levels. In the server room nobody much bothers with anything but Linux, the advantage is huge. The vocal Windows complainers I see are too often making what seems to be a religious argument. I've encountered this since the 90s, and the 'Helpful Internet Community' responding to my Windows questions with "oh, Winblows", get a real OS" in the days of Slackware 1.x. yeah, I did run that, but not as my daily, and 'Windoze' was working. Fortunately they are much less offensive than before. But Windows 10 has run its course. The objections have been answered. Old apps are overdue, mostly, and that's expensive, but your complaint may be with the vendor. And that's software, and that's a problem even with FOSS. Just the cost being in effort.

But, after all that, if it works, use it. If not, go and find the solution.