It’s typical of the bass ackwards sound bite over substance handling of passenger rail. The Northeast Corridor is the best use case for high speed rail in the country and runs on the oldest routes in the country. The unglamorous, politically difficult and expensive solution is a massive track improvement including…

I took the Acela for the first time a few weeks ago from NYC to DC. It was neat to do 150mph for a few short stints, but I’m not really convinced I’d ever do it again when it’s only 30-45 min faster than driving. Plus, that’s not counting extra time you’re spending getting to/from the train stations and your actual…

And complicating the problem is that the rail network exists for freight traffic, not passenger traffic; the lines are built for 50mph freight consists, which have right of way over passenger traffic. Realistically, high-speed rail would require separate right-of-way, and as we’ve seen with the California high-speed…

Rail, the nineteenth century solution to eighteenth century transport problems.

Trains are never going to be big again in the United States. The distances are just too great to manage it nationwide. So no matter what happens, it’ll always be confined to limited regional routes like Acela and slow longer routes like the current Amtrak offerings.

This. The argument always seems to get boiled down to “range anxiety” and I’m not sure that’s the right term. I would say mental load is what drive a lot of people away from EVs right now—the idea that having an EV adds another layer of mental preparation devoted to finding chargers when it comes to driving. Right now…

@neverspeakawordagain - we’ve come a long way from 1999 and the nicad batteries that were most notorious for that memory effect. today, in 2023, yes, most people charge their phone every night. I did with my galaxy s8, for six years (2017-2023) and only got rid of it because it because a security issue with the lack…

Gas-optional is great. Electricity only (no option) is not great. I don’t have range anxiety and would be happy with an EV that only went 150 miles on a charge IF I knew I could count on charge stations that were as common as gas stations. But they aren’t. And when you do find one it’s in some God-forsaken corner of…

Do people leave their phones on the charger every night? When I first got a cell phone, in 1999 or thereabouts, I was told that to maintain the life of the battery you should never start charging the phone until it had completely run out of battery; never stop charging the phone until it had completely filled up to…

Cool, cool. Now can you do me a favor and make my work install a charger (just for me) and maybe one less than 8 miles from my house.

I feel bad for a lot of traditional watch manufacturers right now. Citizen makes good watches, but smartwatches aren’t watches, they are tiny tablet computers that happen to fit on your wrist.

In a past job the issue of the business I was working for being impacted by ITAR came up.

And it hasn't broken 50k US sales since 2002.

Not for nothing, but you only see this kind of cheap entry level vehicle covered on sites like these when they get discontinued. Appreciating these vehicles for what they are and their intention doesn’t drive clicks.

I also find it curious that researchers seem to look for the answer to “what killed the residents of Pompeii (and Herculaneum)”, when the most likely (and sensible) answer is “all of the above”.

So, the people that got covered in ash suffocated huh? Shocking...

Those old people who fetishize old cars seem to forget that cars back in their glory days of youthful perfection were utter garbage that died or rotted away by 100000 miles.

For those of us “less frequent” drivers (I average about 7500 miles per year thanks to a relatively short commute) how many miles/how long we can keep our cars ends up being very dependent on how long replacement parts are around for. My vehicle may be theoretically capable of lasting 150,000 miles with regular…

Yeah I was willing to sort of let the Destiny 1 to Destiny 2 content loss go, but the removal of content I actively paid for in the game I was playing - the Red War campaign, then the Forsaken campaign then planet after planet... It got old.

I just want to play the game. Levels for challenges are dumb in 2023. Let me just jump in and gate me by setting Hard/Normal/Easy.