For a while, it was full of pictures. Only pictures. That “lunch” thing was trendy but not at all the main content. Whatever you wanted, it was there. It was no different than any other platform. Some great content, some bullshit. Now it’s shitty “reels”, ads, and fraud. You’d have to sift through a lot of forced garbage to find your subscribed content.

You’re an excellent case for my point. Most car-owning households in the US have slightly more than 2 cars. An EV covers your needs 335 days of the year and a gas car covers the other 30 days, yet people act like that’s why they need a 7 seat suv every day. I plugin hybrid will be my next move when I stop picking up lumber every weekend and put my little trailer back in use for the once a month “haul”

I just said I’ll use one of the 2 other gas cars when needed and didn’t even mention the bikes, but OK, you do you, ignore everything I said about having multiple cars because you’re mated to yours for life or something. You speak for the world. You’re the face of the majority. There’s definitely not an actual silent majority of people who don’t give a shit about cars, don’t talk about cars, treat cars as a costly appliance, and keep buying EVs for their boring, sub-100 mile commutes.

Lots of people consider only their commute. They just don’t complain about… Making it to work OK? Or don’t announce it? The frequency of 200+ mile trips is vastly overestimated by anti-EV people in both terms of how often they do such trips and how many more people live in dense, urban areas. Lots of people already have shitty, dedicated commuter cars they wouldn’t want to sit in for more than an hour as it is. A half-dead 2011 Leaf would still cover my 40-mile round trip. Back when I daily’d a Geo Tracker, I’d take my spouse’s normal gas sedan if we had a trip. Or my weekend gas car. The average number of vehicles in US households that own cars is 2.3 cars. An EV can be slotted into most households without any real change.

And those weird products that make common, simple tasks easier (think: 90s-00s infomercial for like jar openers or soda pourers) only ever showed normal, able-bodied people badly performing tasks. Doesn’t change the fact that those were targeted at people with disabilities without singling them out. The shown user is not always the target audience.

I’m always shocked by how unimaginative this tech-centric community acts. OK, so this version is silly for YOU. Are you the whole world? Are you the future? Stuff like this is typically a bulky demo unit in need of further development. Fringe case devices are also that - fringe case solutions. This isn’t for the person sitting at home with a dormant phone. This probably has an application in medical and scientific fields where mobility is critical, staying in one device is necessary, avoiding a tangled external battery pack is preferred, and automation prevent human error like not plugging in the dead pack fully kor at all). Could have larger applications for swapping vehicle batteries, as well.

So don’t buy it.

I assumed it was just very high octane, often available at stations near race tracks. Regular (US system at sea level) is 87, premium is 93, “race” is 105-110. Could be used in dedicated race cars or ones set up to be retuned on site at the track

For those who want to laugh at the headline and not take 3 minutes to read the article:

An investigation of Livelsberger’s searches through ChatGPT indicate he was looking for information on explosive targets, the speed at which certain rounds of ammunition would travel and whether fireworks were legal in Arizona.

Kevin McMahill, sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, called the use of generative AI a “game-changer” and said the department was sharing information with other law enforcement agencies.

So the embarrassment comes from the sheriff’s response, thinking ChatGPT is a game changer for its… Advanced googling and potential hallucinations.

Anyway, while I don’t want to fuel better terrorism, the gearhead in me is seething with this other part.

stopped to pour race-grade fuel into the vehicle, which it then dripped

High octane gas is not extra spicy gasoline. Race gas is not super spicy gasoline. The higher the octane, the less flammable it is. Marginally, but octane is not an explosiveness rating. It’s literally anti explosiveness - called anti-knock capability. Knock is when the fuel/air mixture self ignites, namely before the spark. High performance engines tend to have higher compression and run hotter, making predetonaion (knock) more likely. Higher octane fights this condition so it combust at the correct time.

Stop putting high octane in cars that say use regular. Some can account for it, but high octane is wasted on many normal cars. And it’s not cleaner. Gas station chains may add cleaners to upsell you on vpower or invigorate, but that’s just a marketing ploy. Get injector cleaner once a year for a lot cheaper if you must.

That was my take. Still is, but was before, too, although I have concerns about it. I don’t even use xitter. It’s an unfortunate conundrum and I don’t know the answer. We are clearly seeing the results of channeling government communications through private platforms where information can be gatekept. But what’s the alternative? I agree that the government website should be the primary source and private platforms the secondary source, but, much in the way US-market cars hide the “real” tail lights in/under the trunk in order to put “aux” tail lights on moving trunk/tailgate panels, that’s just not how the general public will use it.

People want to be entertained. Getting info through private media is the most we can hope for. People don’t want to get real news media, let alone their local government’s attempt at a blog site. I know we get amber alerts direct from the cell network to some unique software on phones, but I imagine rolling out some more-frequent alert system will cause a ton of privacy/freedom backlash crying about being one goosestep away from China.

All devices are rated in both voltage and amperage. The reason the voltage is not typically listed is because the market defines the voltage available and the plug on the device is what tells you the device’s voltage rating, if nowhere else. It’s still important to tell you if it requires an adapter, ignoring the part where the average consumer isn’t going to try to wire a NEMA 5-15 (regular north American plug) to a 12v barrel plug.

This next part is not me trying to be a know-it-all, but to dispel an incredibly dangerous misconception. Amperage is not necessarily what kills you. That is a myth, and a dangerous one at that. Amperage is what causes burns, including internal burns, and is what kills you later at the hospital. Higher voltage is what kills you NOW by finding more paths. If it crosses your heart or brain, it’s probably over. Electricity does not seek the path of least resistance, but rather it travels across each path inversely proportional to the resistance. If you complete a circuit with opposite hands, you’ll probably be safe because your chest cavity of blood vessels will conduct the majority of electricity in paths other than through your heart or brain. AC power and higher voltages increase this risk. Low voltage is not entirely safer, but for most consumer use, “low voltage” is mostly below the breakdown voltage of dry skin, about 30-40v. Wet, and especially sweaty skin will conduct far lower voltages - licking 9v batteries is a normal example, but I’ve also been shocked by a 12v car battery the first time I worked around a side-terminal battery. Opposite forearms, too, so you can bet I took a minute to monitor my pulse. But the Lethal voltages and amperages are in the milli-unit range if they find the correct path. That’s not a high threshold, even with the significantly lower resistance pathways across your chest taking the majority of electricity. And, even if it was just amperage that kills you, you have no control over it because you’ll never know how much resistance you’re creating for the circuit to travel. It’s an unknown variable that’s supposed to be infinitely large but, if you’re getting shocked, it’s something lower than infinity. I household circuits, your drawn amperage will be much lower than the 15a circuit breaker and it won’t trip to save you. That is where GFCI circuits come into play by detecting incorrect electricity paths rather than amperage overload. 15a circuit breakers prevent fires. GFCI prevent death.

110/120 is the voltage. That’s irrelevant to the amperage, which is somewhat standardized as 15a on normal outlets and 20a on kitchen or garage outlets.

Extension cords do not have fuses/circuit breakers. That’s found in some power strips but it’s neither required nor necessary with proper use.

And I can literally only reach my car with a welder if I use an extension cord…

The risk of daisy-chaining power strips is it become very easy to overload it, so yes, a circuit breaker would be nice as fire protection. 17 phone chargers would be fine but heating appliances will overload it fast. With no internal breaker, it’s easy to cause a fire with really cheap strips but, if life was ideal, they’d all be made to handle 20a loads like the receptacle in the wall.

The risk of daisy-chaining extension cords is the extra resistance incurred at each connection. There’s a varying amount form the imperfect contacts and a varying amount from pulling the cords apart over the time of device use. If you keep burning plugs with your yard care equipment, it’s probably not normal. It’s usually from partially unplugged cords trying to carry 10-20a across half the planned plug contact. You can readily buy 10-16 awg cords in 110v markets. It’s up to you to determine the appropriate gauge. In an ideal world, they’d all be 10awg. But we don’t have that, we have a world where you can actively choose to save money and increase risk.

Alternative fuel vehicle, barefoot, and earthen home? Woke af

From someone who made the screen trippier and trippier as a kid until he Icarus’d it, strong magnets taped to a drill bit and spun at high speed around the screen can degauss it. But this type of information basically has no application anymore

Speaking of Icarus, the Parker Solar probe has made its closest approach to the sun this morning. It cut contact (as planned) on Monday and it’s probably reconnecting on Friday. That little guy is great. 3.8 million miles from the surface at 430,000mph.

Because the primary reader of a car’s identity is still visual, be it by eye or by camera. Swapping out every plate camera (arguments against scanners notwithstanding) and making it impossible for humans to read plates sounds very destructive at this time.

Anecdotal inconvenience: Teslas have a high rate of vanity plates in my area. I suspect it’s because they park in the same places and owners can’t tell them apart with 2 common models (3 and X) and 4 total colors (white, red, blue, black). Holding the fob is not something people do with touch/proximity unlock

I disagree on this case. Disrupting surveillance blending unpaid tolls into society is one thing, but this doubles as identity theft with the burden placed on one innocent individual. It’s not victimless in the sense a thief makes off with a few dollars saved like an obscured plate, it puts the accusation on a specific different person. They then have the legal trouble to deal with individually. This is something that should be as secure as a standard physical plate (which isn’t truly that secure at all).

That’s not what I see in your parent comment. “young people don’t seem to give a damn” and “I’m nearly fully on team ‘young people are dumb fucks and won’t save us after all’”

I can see your point when talking about broader topics that people tend to absorb over time (politics, social dilemmas, economical condition) but this is more about users intentionally searching narrower topics. What’s wrong with my code, how do I fix my car, what computer should I buy, what’s the best way to get rid of termites - those kinds of things.

I unashamedly call myself an expert about exactly one car. I learned everything from it’s most popular forum from 2010-2015. I admin a Facebook group for it. When I started just on the dedicated forum, we’d get basic questions all the time about super common issues but a few links to good threads and recommendations about using Google with site:thisforum added helped avoid “repeat customers” in the future. That’s gone. The forum is forgotten because original owners have sold and new owners don’t know about it. No one wants to make an account on a site for just one topic these days when Facebook and reddit are so easy to use. Shitty answer sites following in the footsteps of Yahoo Answers (such as quora, fixya, and justanswer) have dominated normal Google searches. Google often suggests appending “reddit” to searches which is an improvement over those sites, but still atrocious for unpopular niche topics such as my forgotten car, in comparison to the forum. Having an existing account on reddit or Facebook promotes joining a relevant group/sub, not even knowing how to vet them for accuracy, and just blind-firing questions into the void. Google can sparse reddit, but the internal reddit search is rough. Facebook is locked down and the search is even worse. As I’ve joined other groups for cars I know less about, I can’t beleive the abysmal quality of answers I’ve gotten myself. People act as if I personally sent them a letter requesting information and I get answers that are overly generic, downright useless as they say they don’t know, or tell me to try something I said in my main post I already tried. This is the state of the world. None of these platforms value solutions, they value interaction for the sake of user volume. Wanna know why FB Marketplace is continually awful to sift through? Because every minute spent groaning about irrelevant listings and ignoring search parameters is another minute not given to Craigslist, kajiji, or any other classifieds. They don’t need you to win, they need the competition to lose.

I don’t want to hear anyone’s bullshit about ditching reddit and meta. We’re a microscopic niche of the internet, here on the fediverse. Our little bubble is not swaying half the fucking planet off meta. Do not act smug and say just go back to the original forums when they’re dead/devoid/deactivated because a handful of corporations socially engineered the ideal content streaming platforms.

Blaming kids for being dumb is a cop out. You have niche knowledge from your era about vetting content and avoiding scams/misinformation. You’re saying new kids are dumb in those regards. I bet you think older people are dumb in those regards too. Please realize both of those groups have their own niches and think you’re dumb, too, in some other topic. You are the peak of a decade, not a century. I don’t know your age, you don’t know mine, but consider this quote:

“Our youth now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders, and they love to chatter instead of exercise. Children are now tyrants not servants of their household. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

Sound accurate? Look up who said it.

Things were looking positive but Elon invested a couple mil into mesh bags and nows he’s sticking to them for sunken cost fallacies and gluttonous pride immense unrealized genius reasons so we’re actually fucked by an unsolvable dilemma that real engineers couldn’t solve

The gen pop doesn’t want to read articles

All the pro-small-government people I know (the ones wanting less oversight on guns) are excited for this ban and don’t see the irony that they’re really only small-government in the topics they want, big-government in others they decided are bad (hfcs, some red dye, banning men from women’s bathrooms). We all want government protections, turns out.