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frankus

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frankus
·16 dagen geleden·discuss
If you're in the US, Costco has certain models at the old price through Saturday (or while supplies last). Just pulled the trigger on a 24GB/1TB 13" MbA for $250 off the new price.
frankus
·23 dagen geleden·discuss
The most popular proposal (from Henry George) is to maintain individual land ownership, but impose a land-value tax that approaches 100% of the land rent.

The result is that real estate basically sells for roughly what it would cost to rebuild whatever is built on the land.

There is still a premium charged (in the form of LVT) to allocate access to desirable locations, but the revenue goes to the government/community instead of the previous owner. And the eliminating the incentive for land speculation should actually reduce overall costs.
frankus
·23 dagen geleden·discuss
The difference is that investment in a company can create “more company”, whereas investment in land can’t create more land.
frankus
·vorige maand·discuss
I'd like to see these if these can be scaled down into ebike size, or beyond that into micromobilty form factors that people carry around (like lightweight scooters and skateboards).
frankus
·vorige maand·discuss
In the FAQ they discuss how in most of its range this particular species is invasive, feeds almost exclusively on humans, and is not believed to be a major food source for predators.
frankus
·3 maanden geleden·discuss
I grew up speaking German and still use "zu!" with my (otherwise English-trained) dogs for "get out of the way!".
frankus
·4 maanden geleden·discuss
This one is resistive (tiny and cheap to purchase) but will be just an emergency-backup shower once my home renovations are done.

The house is getting a split-system air-to-water heat pump with an indirect tank for domestic hot water, so it should cut that down substantially (the unit maxes out at around 3kW input but likely will run longer to recover/preheat).
frankus
·4 maanden geleden·discuss
I wish we did more e.g. district heating with that waste heat in the US.
frankus
·4 maanden geleden·discuss
The number I guesstimated for my e-scooter is about 500 miles per dollar of electricity.
frankus
·4 maanden geleden·discuss
The electric shower also seemed pretty optimistic. I live in an area with about 50°F/10°C ground temperature and my 14.4 kW water heater can just keep a relatively efficient shower head flowing at a comfortable temperature.
frankus
·4 maanden geleden·discuss
Every single ICE car driving down the highway is throwing away enough waste heat to heat a small apartment building on a freezing cold day.
frankus
·5 maanden geleden·discuss
I feel like the gist here is that "faster, better, cheaper: pick two" doesn't apply to sub-optimally-spaced bus stops. You really can have all three, at the cost of some political blowback from the people who used to have a shorter walk.
frankus
·5 maanden geleden·discuss
I wonder if part of it is also that mining companies are generally allowed to just leave their tailings in a big pile near the mine rather than have to responsibly dispose of the majority of the ore that has no (or negative) commercial value.
frankus
·6 maanden geleden·discuss
The diabolical case is M5 versus 10-32. About a 4% difference in diameter and about 0.8% difference in thread pitch. Basically indistinguishable with the naked eye and even the "nest the threads in each other" check doesn't help without a pretty long length of threads.
frankus
·6 maanden geleden·discuss
There's now a product for that: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-1-4-in-to-1-2-in-Drive-Metri...
frankus
·6 maanden geleden·discuss
They're obviously not the most affordable things around, but if you have an iPhone and spending ~US$250 on a pair of wireless earbuds won't unduly stress your budget, the transparency mode on AirPods Pro is great for this.
frankus
·6 maanden geleden·discuss
I think the way this would work is you would have your Canadian friend/owner drive it across and then return via another mode of transport. It's entirely possible you could get away with it pretty much indefinitely (especially in an area where folks are used to seeing Canadian plates), but I could also see someone checking a list of "foreign vehicles that entered the US and never left" at some point and one or both of you having some explaining to do (i.e. being ruled inadmissible).
frankus
·8 maanden geleden·discuss
I had a couple of coworkers who had them. I vaguely remember it being based on a ~$35k value in 1997 dollars, so definitely out of my price range as a new graduate earning only a little more than that in a year.

On top of that I'm pretty sure the unit economics were firmly in the negative, even discounting the R&D costs.

They were pretty remarkable though—I got a chance to drive a pre-production one at a ride-and-drive a year before and was super impressed.
frankus
·8 maanden geleden·discuss
Pre-Tesla EV companies were kind of stuck in a catch-22, where they couldn't enter the low end of the market (because the tech was still super costly) and they couldn't enter the high end of the market (because either the performance was lacking or they didn't have the resources to scale production).

But with a combination of throwing a lot of money at the problem, being in the right place at the right time, and good execution, they managed to scale up the high end of the market enough to eventually move (somewhat) down-market.
frankus
·8 maanden geleden·discuss
Showering in hot water is one of the more energy-intensive things people do on a daily basis. I have a 14.4 kW on-demand heater that just barely keeps up with a 1.5 gallon (~6 liter) per minute shower head with 50°F/10°C incoming water.

On a per-minute basis that's comparable to highway driving in a smallish electric car.