phineastcat's comments

Crappy upstream kernel support on alternative boards is probably why the Raspberry Pi is king of this kingdom.

I chose to forgo all the cheaper options from China for a recent project, and instead go with (considerably) more expensive Raspberry Pi 3's, because I didn't want to risk the shite software support. I know I'm going to get kernel and firmware upgrades on those boards for a good long while, and that's one less thing I have to worry about.

"He's probably crazy to be trying it in Vermont though," is an understatement. The largest city in Vermont, Burlington, only has a population of ~40,000. He's proposing a city half the size of Burlington in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Vermonters are VERY resistant to people trying to change their landscape or way of life, and as you might expect, they (myself included) are not thrilled with this plan.

Mazda actually had a Mazda2 EV prototype with a rotary range extender that they unveiled in 2013. Not sure what ever happened with it, though.

Mazda eventually got their engines to consistently last over 100,000 miles with the Renesis in the RX-8. The biggest thing is lubricating the seals; as a result all Mazda rotaries burn a little bit of engine oil to lubricate things, via a metering oil pump. That's the biggest reason why they struggled to keep emissions down.

The reason Mazda struggled with the rotary engine is due to what their application was. Rotaries work most efficiently and reliably when run for long periods of time (hours) at a consistent RPM. Vehicles with traditional manual or automatic transmissions (what most Mazda rotary cars had afaik) do anything but keep consistent RPM. Mazda subsequently struggled with keeping emissions down, and fuel economy up, while prolonging the life of the engine.

If you tie a rotary to a generator, or true CVT transmission, they're much better suited to the task.

I have to run an old version of iTunes to have my 4th gen iPod even sync properly. :\

I'm on the spectrum and don't feel any emotional disconnect unless my blood sugar drops (usually from forgetting to eat or sleep.) When that happens, it's like part of my brain just... goes to sleep. I'm still awake, but I have a really hard time producing or sensing any emotions. My loved ones tell me 'it's like talking to a robot and not [PhineasTCat].'

The weirdest part is I can physically feel that part of my brain isn't awake; it's like a weight in my head, pressing on my eyes. When I was little I called it 'the brain fuzzies.'

ICE cars will go first. Most personal cars are only driven a small mileage per day and don't need to carry much weight. Needing to go more than 350 miles in a day, or needing to tow a trailer are statistical outliers to most users. Anyone who occasionally needs to go really far or carry more weight will find another solution.

As you said, I doubt ICE cars will go away completely. There's too much hobby/enthusiasm behind them for that to happen.

Trucks, buses, and planes will take much, much longer to phase out because of their extreme needs; e.g. light, compact power with a huge range.

Any other problems outside the vehicles themselves will be solved very quickly as they gain more market share.

For me, #1 is the extra bandwidth cost (I have a crappy internet connection), #2 is malware, and #3 is tracking.

My crappy internet connection is what originally pushed me to block ads. Everything's a lot more speedy when you're not loading all those extra scripts, images, and videos.

When I got diagnosed with manic depression, I did some research on my family medical history going back several generations. Many of them through two lineages (my father's mother's family, and my mother's father's family) in my family exhibited symptoms of manic depression, but have no corresponding diagnoses.

Not anything scientific, but it does point toward the fact that destigmatizing mental illnesses and our better understanding of them is leading to more diagnoses, not anything else. Everyone's quick to forget how horrifying psychiatric care in the US was up until quite recently.