I wasn't talking about Kei cars here (although having driven a few, I rarely found them to be lacking on the engine power side. Their size and weight do matter).

Isn't it a well established slahdot tradition to go off on tangents (although my remark was still related) ?

I wasn't aware of the acceleration capability as a selling point. Over here, some people pay attention to it but they're quite clearly a tiny minority. I don't think I've ever seen any commercial talking about it.

Oh boy, does it show the influence of advertising...

European here.

I'm fascinated with the number of posts in this thread saying something along the line of "these cars' engines are too weak to get to highway speeds"

Coming from anyone in the US where the highways speed limit is notoriously low, I find it pretty laughable. I drive a 20 year old Yaris Verso (Funcargo in Japan) by choice - it's the b st car built in the last 40-50 years and it took me a year to find my latest one. In any case, it's got a 1.3l engine - tiny, by US standards - and I find I must be careful not to go over the highway 130km/h speed limit.

Colonial insects ha a ruling class !?

Please do share which species you're talking about.

Hint: ant nest's 'queen' is anything but. A more proper name would be something like reproductive unit

Well, no, you're wrong.

"A la" is short for the French "Ã la maniÃre de ???", which means "in the way that ??? would". "Ã la" doesn't vary with whatever ??? is. So, in English, "a la" is a perfectly acceptable shorthand.

Next time you try to get pedantic to avoid addressing the point of the post you're replying to, do try to get it right.

True, I'd forgotten about these (that does make 4 for me)

The post below offers ideas, but I wonder whether there's a list of devices with their average frequency somewhere. I would be curious to know.

TFA says "average passenger flies with four devices powered by lithium-ion batteries

On a plane, I usually have my phone, my laptop and my camera, and I'm pretty sure that only a minority have the latter.

So what are standard devices that make 4 an average ?

Energy wise, how does it compare to current codecs ?

I'm talking about the total : encoding, decoding, file transfert (but let 's forget the cost of renewing hardware)

Genuine question. Does anyone know?

You're confused: I'm not a Kanak.

However I did have a couple of Caldoche classmates back in highschool. The one time we talked about New Caledonia, I was struck by how much of their point of view on the situation there was cookie cutter colonist stand point: before the European arrived, the locals didn't make anything of the land, making it a terra nulla as it were but now the 'lazy locals wanted to steal them back after the Caldoches had done all the hard work. At the time, I just couldn't believe how much of a caricature they seemed.

The first referendum results were about 56% pro-remain, the second 53%. So, although it could turn out the same, held under normal circumstances, the third one was going to be close. Keeping in mind what I said about the Caldoches overall attitude, of course they jumped at the chance to get rid of their problem, and Macron was all too eager to support them.

Indeed : it was getting closer, but there was some likelyhood of a pro-remain victory.

Except that it would had been entirely within the scope of the Noumea Accord, and fully legitimate (not just legal, as things stand now).

He was precise.

Not precise enough: the phrasing suggested complete disenfranchisement when it mostly pertained to the referendum only.

in case of a proper pro-remain victory" That's what happened. One side foolishly not voting doesn't make the other side's victory improper.

When a government is warned well in advance that circumstances necessitate a minor change and ignores it, they create a crisis situation. Democracy isn't the enforced rule of the many (1/2 +1), it's a system where most everyone agrees to respect the decisions taken and consent to it, even if they don't agree with them. New Caledonia is a former (?) colony, which gives special privileges to the natives when it pertains to whether or not they get independence: delaying by few a months a referendum because circumstances and their traditions prevented them from participating was in no way a problem - especially if it meant making a possible pro-remain victory fully legitimate. But of course, Macron only listened to the Caldoches who saw an opportunity to insure a victory against independence when they felt it was otherwise too close for comfort.

Caldoche isn't intrinsically an ethnicity but a historical origin : that of the colonists. And yes, being one or supporting Macron reduces credibility because of the vested interests.

As for the hate of democracy, that has been amply demonstrated ever since 2017 : use of force against demonstrators on a level never seen before in a so-called democratic country, use of the 49.3 clause to pass major laws with no parliament votes on an unprecedented scale (the only time something similar happened was back in 1980's with the Rocard government which was a precursor to Macron's). And let's not forget the flaunting of Parliament 's rules, be they customary or actually written, so as to stop a law from being voted upon by the MPs.

So yes, I stand by what I wrote: these people hate democracy (which isn't voting every four or five years for a president and letting him do as he pleases until the next elections).

To finish, I used the words 'hypocrytes' and 'morons' to describe hypothetical people who would have opposed changing the date of the third referendum in order to avoid the crisis that is taking place right now. Do you feel you'd have been in either category?

I avoided getting into too many details to avoid making too long a post, but since you've wrote about the franchise, let's be precise: the limits on voting rights oare only valid for the referendum and some local elections. For anything else, standard national rules apply.

we wish it could have been solved to everyone's satisfaction

So you're either a Caldoche (descendants of the colonists, for those who don't know) or a supporter of Macron. That does limit your credibility.

Considering the circumstances back in 2021, only morons or hypocrites could have protested changing the initially planned date for the referendum. As for the aftermath, anybody with a lick of sense would have known that even in case of a proper pro-remain victory, further négociations on how to move on would have been needed, never mind what really happened.

It would be much more accurate to call it Far-Center. It might be counter-intuitive, but it does describe something very specific : a government made up of so-called technocrats who hate nothing more than democracy (i.e. debate, consultation, compromise and so on are anathema).

Of course these self-described geniuses are the very reason for the riots in New Caledonia. When back in 2021 they were asked to postpone by a few months the third (and last) referendum about independence because of COVID, they refused, leading to no more than around 43% turn-out ( the second referendum had over 80%). And now, rather than negotiating the way forward with those who want independence (around 50% of the locals, Natives and later arrivals) they buldoze this law through (with the help of the Far Right MPs).

260000 miles in what looks to be around 1,5 years ?!

With no off day during that time, that's around 500 miles a day! How is that even possible without exploding (you, not the car)?