Anyone seeking to browse those kinds of sites that has a lick of sense is already using a VPN or Tor browser, and if it's somehow possible to get a VPN service to block sites they will quickly find themselves losing users for doing so; either to find a service that doesn't block web traffic, or simply out of protest for being untrustworthy.

The only use this could have is as a cudgel for rightsholders to harass sites they don't like.
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Some saner countries have child protection laws.

But I suspect the main reason is children don't have money so they tend to be targeted by a different class of advertiser. Views are more valuable if you can show the people watching are at least old enough to want/buy the products.
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That article doesn't seem to say what you think it does.

"Self-oxidizing" does not mean excess oxygen. Oxidizing means electrons are being transferred, and since that's how batteries work yeah that's kind of a no-brainer. Exactly as I said: They continue to generate heat by self-discharging, and that heat can trigger burning if and when atmospheric oxygen is allowed back in. Hence, the primary strategy to fighting lithium battery fires is to keep them cool (with water) so the flammable chemicals stay inside the cells where there is no oxygen.

You can put out a battery fire by smothering it. Blanket and foam systems are effective. But, if the cells are damaged to the point they are shorted, the chemical reactions will continue and generate heat, releasing more flammable vapors that can re-ignite. As long as you prevent those vapors from mixing with air and heat, you will not have a fire.
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> lithium ion batteries don't even need oxygen to burn as they're self oxidizing

This is incorrect. I don't even know where this bullshit originated.

Flame testing is a routine thing - it's really good to know what kind of fumes and particles a fire might be producing, y'know? - and while the proportions of combustion products for lithium batteries varies with the exact chemistry and state of charge, they always produce non-trivial amounts of carbon monoxide, carbon particulates (soot), and hydrogen gas.

You do not get any of those combustion products if there is excess oxygen available, which you'd think there would be if you had both ambient air AND supposed oxygen generation within the chemical reaction itself. Instead, you always get incomplete combustion characteristic of a insufficient oxygen.

As with any fire, you can put them out by depriving them of air. What you can't do is prevent the other chemical reactions from continuing to generate heat by simply cutting off the oxygen, which is a separate issue. This is why a constant flow of water is recommended to extinguish battery fires; to keep them cool so the flammable chemicals stay inside the cells where there is no air to support combustion.
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> However while the total area may be pretty large, the area doesn't have to be as cleared or denied sunlight

Agrivoltaics is a thing; Solar PV and crops sharing the land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Meanwhile I still argue that the kite system will need an exclusion zone. On the ground for personnel safety, but also in potentially the air as structures above a certain height (on the order of 100 meters usually) require warning beacons for aircraft... I imagine something that will be airborne above 400 meters and flying around would pose an even bigger hazard. You'd also need to consider anything that's within maybe 500 meters of the base station because if things DO go wrong that kite could hit the ground anywhere in that radius. Buildings, roads, high voltage lines, etc. are all things to worry about.

And if it's so remote that none of this is a concern, it's probably best to install something that doesn't need to be actively managed and maintained by a specialist.
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> The example they give is farms that want to produce power but don't want to dedicate as much space as is required for solar panels in that power output range.

A few problems with that, though; 10kw worth of solar is not that much space. 10kw is barely enough to part a tractor under.

Sure the winch and *folded* airfoil is compact, but so is a stack of solar panels. You can install solar panels on racking - also very compact when knocked down for transport - and do stuff underneath them. You probably need a reasonably large exclusion zone around the winch because you'll have a steel cable under several tons of tension whipping around unpredictably. You'll need to be clear of buildings, overhead utilities, and trees for several hundred feet at least I reckon in case the kite dips low too fast to be reeled in safely.

Okay the airfoil works at night and on cloudy days... is this not for temporary power though? You still need a storage system too, and the system is not self-restarting. They do not mention how they get the kite aloft in the first place but traditionally they've used rockets, small aircraft, or lately drones to carry it up until the wind catches it.
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This kind of system has been commercially available since at least 2010. It's been a "game changer" and "the next big thing" since the 1990s. In fact there have been, in my opinion, better implementations of the concept than this using two reels for more continuous generation.

Forgive my skepticism but the fact that we haven't seen more pilot projects like this, let alone full commercial deployment anywhere, really suggests there's something fundamentally lacking in this tech. I suspect that deployment and re-deployment of the airfoil is a major hurdle that torpedoes the viability.
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> Plague has a very effective vaccine aleady

Really? What's it called?

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"Messing around with your car"

How long do you think it takes to plug in?

If I need to plug in when I get home, it literally takes under 30 seconds. I had someone else time it as well as counting myself on more than one occasion. 30 seconds to: open the charge door, remove the plastic cover on the port, walk over to the EVSE (around the corner of the house), grab the charger, unwrap one loop of cable, walk back over to the car, and plug it in. And I can do all that one-handed while carrying something else.

Then I go inside and forget the car even exists. Next morning, it's exactly the same process up reversed. This is the routine roughly twice a month.

Meanwhile, while I was still a gasser, I'd have to make a detour at some point during my travels to pull into a gas station and deal with all that, which all told would all 15+ minutes to my commute. A mandatory 15+ minutes, mind you, because there is no alternative... I can't refuel a gasoline car at home.

I can count the times I've used a DCFC in the past 5 years of EV ownership on one hand, and at least two of those were completely unnecessary and I did it just to have that experience. I'd say it's about the same 15+ minutes overall because I don't count all the stuff I'm doing that I would have done anyway if I had just parked a gas car... except my parked gas car would not be getting refueled so I'd have to make another special trip for that.

This might be the weakest of weaksauce complaints against EVs you've come up with yet.
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https://github.com/0x192/unive...

I've been using this to good results. Of course it's always sketchy uninstalling system level packages so the risk of bootlooping/bricking your device and/or breaking features you actually want is entirely on you.

That said, permanently disabling/removing Gemini shouldn't be a problem.
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> The cost of development for the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy were incredibly low

Which is to be expected since governments spent on the order of a trillion dollars and 50+ years developing the technology. Just about every aspect of their operation was conceived, developed, and trialed before Musk was even born.

SpaceX deserves a lot of credit for refining that tech, but do not dismiss the fact they are standing atop a mountain of taxpayer funded R&D without which they wouldn't even have a business model, let alone working rockets.
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> First, this isn't a law, it's a clarification of an existing set of laws.

So... it's a law. A piece of legislation voted on by congress and signed by the president. That's what a law is.

> Second, it doesn't make any stipulation about what means of payments must be accepted on anything, let alone gas stations

It's literally about the implementation of digital payment methods, and interoperability with other systems. That's exactly the issue raised with "Imagine if every gas station required you to use their shitty payment app before the pump worked."

> Like this?

That's not an adapter, dumbass. That's a level 2 EVSE.

> Chademo was the only existing one at the time

IEC 62196 connectors for DCFC were in use years and had several revisions before Chademo was created.

> NACS specifies both the physical form factor and the communication protocol.

It does not. You clearly have not read it. Tesla has since removed the files from their site but they've been reposted on the user forums. To quote the document: "For DC charging, communication between the EV and EVSE shall be power line communication over the control pilot line as depicted in DIN 70121." That's it. That's all it says. you know what DIN 70121 is though? It's the same protocol developed for and implemented by CCS. Consequently, NACS is going to have all the same problems as CCS does unless and until someone takes the reins and enforces interoperability.

As for ISO 15118; that's more or less where all the problems are. The ISO and DIN standards overlap but are not compatible, so some DCFC stations speak one or both, some vehicles speak one or both, and there's no guarantee they'll be perfectly compatible because - again because I cannot stress this enough - there is nobody enforcing interoperability testing in the US. That's the very heart of the reliability problems.

> What the hell are you talking about? Tesla alone outnumbers all other cars on the road nearly 2:1 even to this day.

There are more non-Tesla charging locations in the US than Tesla ones. Tesla barely eeks out a lead if you count individual cables because they have some large installations, but Tesla Supercharger locations are out numbered over 3:1.

> I don't know why the hell Eurotards keep bringing Europe into this when that was never the context of the discussion

I'm American. I mention Europe because we are talking about standardization and reliability, and European laws have played a pivotal role in standardizing EV charging across the globe. The EU formally standardized and they have no reliability issues to speak of, the US let the private sector figure it out and it's a shitshow. It's extremely relevant to the discussion.
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> ICE cars that aren't turned on generally don't just spontaneously combust

They absolutely do, though. In fact that's exactly what happens in the vast majority of vehicle fires that are not attributable to an accident (e.g. very recent and severe physical damage). You would probably be very alarmed at just how common and widespread safety recalls for vehicles are citing risk of fire.

On that note; https://www.ntsb.gov/investiga...

This is a case of a car carrier ship catching fire because an ICEV, having an outstanding safety recall for risk of spontaneous fires, spontaneously caught fire.
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> I don't think there are vaccinations against fat.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.10...

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> When was the last time a new ICE vehicle fire sunk a ship?

Certainly more than EVs have, because to date zero cargo ship fires have been definitively attributed to EVs.

The Grande Costa D'Avorio caught fire in 2023. That one was confirmed to have been started by an ICEV.

There was also the Hoegh Xiamen in 2020 which was carrying used ICEVs, which caught fire because the 12V battery in one of them was not properly disconnected.

In 2019, the a fire broke out on the Honor damaging the cargo before being put out by the crew. The cause was determined to be the starter motor solenoid on one of the crew's personal vehicles that was being transported.

In 2015, the Courage (same US-based owner as the Honor) ended up being scrapped after a fire destroyed $40M in new vehicles and cargo. The cause was determined to have been a faulty ABS module in one of the new cars on board. (Hint: not an EV...)

Then there was the Freemantle Highway, carrying 3000 vehicles, caught fire in the North Sea. Early reports and speculation blamed one of the ~480 EVs that were on board for the fire, but during investigations they discovered that all the EVs on board were intact. AFAIK the official cause of the fire remains undetermined but it definitely was NOT one of the EVs on board as everyone sensationally claimed at the time.

The cause of the fire and ultimate sinking of Felicity Ace in 2022, despite all the speculation and lawsuits from the insurance companies, has not been positively linked to any of the handful of EVs amid thousands of ICEVs on board.

So let's see,,, total ship fires confirmed to have been caused by ICEVs: at least 4. Total fires confirmed to have been caused by EVs: zero so far. Maybe y'all will finally get lucky with this one, eh? Get the lube and tissues ready 'cause I'm sure it'll be a massive anti-EV wankfest if it happens!
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