> (this is equivalent to speed cameras when the induction loop in the ground says that a car passed faster than the speed limit)
This isn't how many speed cameras work in Europe. They work by having a speed camera at location Y on the highway that snaps a photo of your car/license plate read, and then another one 5km down the road that also snaps such a photo and plate read.
If you average more than the speed limit in that distance between photo timestamps, you get a ticket mailed to you.
Due to the way it works, it's taking a snapshot of every single vehicle that passes each camera. How long that data is stored/etc. I suppose is a matter of how much you trust the government.
This system is considered better most of the time since it allows for brief excursions of the limit for overtaking, and doesn't just set up a situation where everyone slows down for the one known speed camera point (or slam on the brakes when they notice a mobile speed camera van on the side of the road).
The type you describe is unusual here in Norway. They exist, but they're even signed in a special way. I'd hazard a guess that they make up <5% of cameras. Most cameras here by far are induction loops that trigger photos. From memory, it seems to be the case in the rest of Scandinavia + Germany too. But I could be wrong.
Either way, the public auditing procedure I outline could apply to time-between-two-photos-cameras too.
Yep. It seems like for this application you'd want a larger one, a few feet across, with a nice shiny metal foil coating for the radar to bounce off. So, not a $1 balloon.
While I agree that the unreliable grid dominates I don't see how that says it's been factored in. The cost is hidden, pushed off onto the existing powerplants which run less of the time and thus cost more per kwh actually produced. This "works" until you don't have enough gas when it's calm and things go badly.
Most places simply do not have a high enough percentage of renewables to hit this yet. Last I knew Hawaii had hit a different wall--while in theory a transformer works equally well in both directions real world engineering of high power transformers doesn't work that way. The substations can't push power up, thus solar connections were prohibited if they could cause the situation to occur. (You can't have panels if too many of your neighbors do.)
> But in a normally functioning market, production at 5 will rapidly ramp up to capture the excess profits to be made by selling at 8.
Not if your production is effectively random. If your factory produces a product at $5 this week, but next week your production is halved for a few days, someone else needs to step into that market who doesn't have a factory which produces like yours. You don't have any warehouses, and your product is consumed immediately. If there is not enough product for the market at any given 1 minute window of time Really Bad(tm) things happen to society.
You can build all the $5 factories you want, but when they tap into the same source of unreliable inputs then it really doesn't matter there is massively more cheap production than needed when the timing is fortuitous.
Once someone figures out how to build a different type of factory (battery storage) to buffer your good days of output into a warehouse for that $5 or less cost, then those $6 factories will simply go away over time as they can never sell their output on the open market.
> The gas plants could be 1% of given moment, yet still set price
Makes sense. Since no one would build that last 1% (or then, last 10%) of needed capacity due to it being wildly unprofitable. Then you are dealing with rolling blackouts or even worse.
The cost of a watt is not fungible. Reliable electricity is worth many multiples more than an unreliable grid no one can rely on being there when they need it.
Gloves are not for severe cold. They are for dexterity during limited exposure time - as no gloves can keep your fingers warm for very long no matter how well-made they are.
Look for mittens or "choppers" as we called them back in the day if you are going to be outside for a long period of time. These are outer shells (leather or gore-tex/etc.) with various types of removable liners. You basically layer your hands inside them. For folks outside all day you usually would have a few liners on hand to replace when they get wet.
Add a heat pack (iron oxide) to these on those super cold days and you'll be pretty much set.
Good reminder. Actually, I’m there with you, already have mittens, and they are warmer than my gloves (although, my fingers still get cold, even in them).
But also, kind of don’t like how they make me look like a teenager, and I already look young for my age, don’t need any help in this department:) have been trying to find a glove-solution that is still warm. Have just tried some heated gloves, they seem pretty good, but early still
> have been trying to find a glove-solution that is still warm.
Good luck! Let me know if you find anything, I certainly tried for a few years and now have an absurdly large glove collection to last me a lifetime.
I've found when I need to use gloves I just burn a dollar on an iron oxide heating packet - and it mostly works until it gets to about 10 degrees or lower. After that you really need to wear serious winter gear if you're going to be out for more than an hour or so, at least for me.
I have been wanting to try some of the battery heated gloves but I'm still a little suspect of them. When I find a pair I like on sale I plan on trying them out. I tend to lose things, so we will see if it actually is a net savings vs. burning up a few dozen of the disposable heating packs a year. I certainly don't like the waste generated either way and it seems a bit silly.
Thanks!
And in terms of heated glove/mitten tech, have a pair of heated mittens already, the Thxtoms brand (although, they're discontinued):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CDLN91CN
The tech definitely works, and these were, at the time, just another relatively-cheap, but decently-well reviewed pair. Yeah in fact, on their own, they aren't that thick or durable, but when the heat is turned on, they are plenty warm. Seems like almost any decent pair of heated mittens/gloves would work well.
For me at least, the iron-oxide heat-packs work pretty well too, but they typically don't heat the fingers too well, so when its really cold, the main parts of my hands are warm, but my fingers aren't. It's not that bad, and it's easy to heat up the fingers by curling them around the heat pack, but with a heated glove, the heat typically reaches the fingers, so you don't really have to do anything and can just completely forget about your hands - but yeah, if I was loosing gloves often, maybe heated gloves would be a net waste compared to heat packs:)
Recently, bought a pair of heated liners to go under an oversized pair of gloves - I have Leki ski-gloves that directly attach to the ski poles, and they don't currently have a heater option, so am trying this instead. This are the heated liners:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082XXKXCP
They're nothing special, but by my initial tests, they seem pretty warm under my gloves. Will know more tomorrow:)
I wear these walking the dog down to -20F or so. They're warm enough with the tops flipped up, and you can quickly flip them down for a little dexterity to tie a poop bag. Not gonna say your fingers won't get cold while you're doing it, but it's the best approach I've found short of multiple pairs of gloves, which is just a pain for a quick dog walk.
Underground power lines are weirdly vulnerable to lightning strikes.
I lived through two >24hr power outages at my previous place that had buried power lines into the subdivision. Both due to lightning strikes on trees that happened to be close to the buried lines. The lightning then fed into the line, and you could literally see black scorch marks on the lawn that followed the wiring until it eventually dissipated.
This required digging up 30-40ft of melted wiring each time and re-running it. These appeared to be direct-burial cables fwiw.
Talking to the utility guys, it was pretty common for this to be the failure mode. I found it pretty interesting and somewhat ironic.
Others have said it but I will pile on as this is dangerous misinformation.
It’s sort of true in a legal sense, but not a practical one. If you find yourself in a dispute (even outright fraud sometimes) you might end up stuck for weeks or months with your disputed funds frozen.
If you are a highly paid software engineer with considerable assets and transaction volume at your bank it’s likely you will never experience hardship with disputing a transaction. If you are someone scraping by and that $200 depends on you paying rent on time that month you will find your experience to perhaps be different.
I’ve helped friends and family with such disputes in the past. Credit cards even when it “goes wrong” are much better to deal with. Your credit limit being reduced a bit is immaterial to your life most of the time. Having your own money tied up during an investigation that demands more and more paperwork like police reports etc. can be incredibly damaging and if nothing else quite stressful. The experience some of my friends had in these matters is nothing like I had when I had my wallet stolen and I no longer recommend anyone use debit if they can avoid it.
Heck, I had a friend who doesn’t even have a passport dispute an ATM transaction in a country he never visited. The bank initially denied it and it took weeks to eventually get it resolved in his favor.
In the end having the banks money tied up vs your own money at risk is always better if you can handle the responsibility of a credit card.
> Others have said it but I will pile on as this is dangerous misinformation.
Was that an introduction to the rest of your comment?
Explain to me please how a dispute with a vendor on a purchase makes a difference for your ability to pay rent? If the purchase was not fraud, then you have used that money anyway with your purchase. Unless you're planning to pay rent by bartering your Amazon order.
If you're instead talking about a stolen or cloned debit card, then that money is refunded usually as soon as you've made a police report and sent it to the bank, which is a matter of two days at most. The paperwork is not difficult, because cards get stolen and cloned all the time.
But the fraud protection is the same, even if procedures and timelines might differ.
> But the fraud protection is the same, even if procedures and timelines might differ.
I wrote about outright fraud taking weeks (in one case, months) to resolve. From my own personal direct experience.
> I had a friend who doesn’t even have a passport dispute an ATM transaction in a country he never visited.
Does this sound like a dispute with a vendor or outright fraud?
A dispute with a vendor can also mean an overcharge or something like a renewal fee for a yearly membership that is under dispute. It's not just marginal items you bought and the vendor refuses a return or it never shows up or whatever.
Like I said - if you are a highly paid professional you likely will never have a problem with this. It's an invisible part of the economy to you. If you are working class you are much more likely to have a wildly different experience. Banks have what is effectively an internal credit score system for each customer. For those with serious assets with the bank you get a lot more leeway and benefit of the doubt until you start abusing it.
Please spare me the "working class" appeals. You don't know anything about me, and I don't know anything about you.
I've had my own bank account emptied by card cloners. And the bank reimbursed the money swiftly after having made a police report. The same for everybody else I know who have fallen victim to the same. None of us with any kind of impressive assets when it happened.
As for disputes with vendors, sure, I give you that there is a difference in time frame when paying by credit instead of debit.
A cloned or stolen card should never take weeks or months to resolve. In that case, you've been the victim of a criminal bank. It's not the experience for most victims, whether rich or poor.
These are historically called “charge cards” in the US and are common for corporations who give employees “credit cards” for travel and the like.
American Express is big in this market - what looks like a normal Amex Business Platinum card can very well be a charge card that needs to be paid in full at the due date every month.
There are minor differences but the big one is no carried balance between months is allowed. Payment in full due each month.
The richer a country gets the more individualist you can become, is my basic theory.
Raising a kid as an atomic couple apart from extended family and community is a horrible experience for the parents. It takes a village and all that. Parenting is utterly exhausting if you are doing it alone with a partner and responsible for every waking moment of childcare.
You see this in immigrant communities in the US. The demographics with the most children universally are those with "old world" style family and community situations. More or less communal child care without the weirdo expectations that the "richer" parts of society has on parents. Parents are allowed to actually be adult human beings with real lives that are not hyper-scheduled to death. Kids tend to be more independent and "roam" between family and friends without official activities being scheduled every day for them. Ironically this typically results in more engaged parenting overall.
That's my theory at least - it's not much better than anyone else's though.
I grew up in a small town in EU, my parents had a lot of help from their parents and I was able to play outside with friends early on. Everyone knew each other. My life in the US is nothing like this.
The first 5 years, I've spent $100k on daycare, and this is relatively "affordable".
I try to be an active and involved parent, add home projects/maintenance, and other things like health issues and I have zero energy and a lot of burn out.
When I was younger I did not understand why people stick around jobs for long. Now, I do.
This isn't how many speed cameras work in Europe. They work by having a speed camera at location Y on the highway that snaps a photo of your car/license plate read, and then another one 5km down the road that also snaps such a photo and plate read.
If you average more than the speed limit in that distance between photo timestamps, you get a ticket mailed to you.
Due to the way it works, it's taking a snapshot of every single vehicle that passes each camera. How long that data is stored/etc. I suppose is a matter of how much you trust the government.
This system is considered better most of the time since it allows for brief excursions of the limit for overtaking, and doesn't just set up a situation where everyone slows down for the one known speed camera point (or slam on the brakes when they notice a mobile speed camera van on the side of the road).
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