Convenience über alles!...

[Ricky]

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 10:09:05 AM UTC-4, Fred Bloggs wrote:

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 9:58:35 AM UTC-4, Ricky wrote:
On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 9:42:14 AM UTC-4, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Sunday, May 29, 2022 at 9:19:52 AM UTC-4, Ricky wrote:
snip

One of these days you\'ll get the education of a fifth grader.

The German uber alles doesn\'t have the meaning you ignorant, uneducated people think. It was used to reinforce the idea of a nation of unified states to take precedence over regional state loyalties. It doesn\'t mean the Germans considered themselves as above the rest of the world.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Deutschlandlied
Your reading skills are very impressive. You read into a post, so much that isn\'t there at all.

It would be nice if you didn\'t bother to correct people when you have no idea what they are talking about.

Not that it matters much. This thread has drifted far off topic, über alles.
I notice you just love telling people they don\'t know what they\'re talking about. Which is kind of a joke since you\'re one of the most ignorant people on usenet.

Ok, it\'\'s clear this guy is a troll, with nothing to contribute to even a drifted conversation. Very unusual in s.e.d.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Don Y]

On 6/3/2022 7:04 AM, rbowman wrote:

Vehicles are treated as \"property\", here. So, annual registration is a
function of assessed ORIGINAL value.

Same here but if the vehicle is 12 years or older you can pay what amounts to 2
years of registrations and the plates are permanent; you never pay again. Bikes
are a one shot registration regardless of the vehicle year. You pay once when
you purchase it and never again. Trailers of all sorts are the same.

You need an emission test in order to get your registration, here.
Results must be submitted with registration renewal.

(some vehicles it\'s just checking the OBD; others take a trip on the dyno).

The registration cost drops to something trivial over time -- though
the emissions test is a constant cost regardless of how tested (IIRC).

OTOH, *licenses* are issued once and not renewed until 65th birthday.
That\'s a change from other places I\'ve lived (with ~4 year renewal cycles)

[I can\'t recall CDL requirements; likely renewed pretty regularly]

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Thursday, June 2, 2022 at 6:49:29 AM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:

On 30/05/2022 12:36, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 2:12:54 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 29 May 2022 15:51:37 +0100, Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:

<snip>

Oil and gas were major contributors to human well-being. Now that we\'ve burnt enough of them to generate appreciable global warming, the downsides are starting to become more obvious (not that John Larkin wants to know).

snip - reversion to the Middle Ages isn\'t the only choice available

In practice it might well be at least for all but the richest people.

Energy is going to be very expensive now and for the foreseeable future.

In Australia it is quite a lot cheaper to generate electricity with solar cells or windmills that it is to generate by burning coal, gas or oil in in old-fashioned generating plants. Electric cars production is a factor of ten smaller than internal combustion car production, so each one costs roughly twice as much to make.

They are selling largely because they are more efficient and thus cheaper to run per mile travelled.

When economy of scale kicks in harder, they will be quite a lot cheaper. \"In practice\" usually means \"my outdated idea of what used to be true\".

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 12:56:59 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 09:53:43 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:
On 6/2/2022 2:20 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jun 2022 17:24:08 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:
On 5/31/2022 10:40 PM, rbowman wrote:

<snip>

One of the reasons the university system in the US has become such a
racket and they can charge anything is that if you\'re rich, and you\'re
white, that degree is still a pretty reliable ticket to a white-collar
job. Someone will almost surely hire you eventually in a way that a
person without the credentials would not be even if they had the same
skillset.

This is interesting and very well researched:

https://tinyurl.com/2p8sc2xp

One conclusion is that going to Harvard is not much better than going
to some cheap state college.

It doesn\'t say anything of the sort. It talks about how genes work, and points out that while the genes that influence intelligence are very numerous none of them have much effect on their own. John Larkin seems to have conflated it with \"The Bell Curve\" which wasn\'t nearly as well researched.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_by_Design

was much better researched, and explained how going to Harvard was always better than going to some cheap state college - all the rich creep whose parents paid through the nose to get them into Harvard know all kinds of people who have good jobs to offer to friends of their kids.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Ricky]

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 1:17:13 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:

On Thursday, June 2, 2022 at 6:49:29 AM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:
On 30/05/2022 12:36, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 2:12:54 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 29 May 2022 15:51:37 +0100, Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:
snip
Oil and gas were major contributors to human well-being. Now that we\'ve burnt enough of them to generate appreciable global warming, the downsides are starting to become more obvious (not that John Larkin wants to know)..

snip - reversion to the Middle Ages isn\'t the only choice available

In practice it might well be at least for all but the richest people.

Energy is going to be very expensive now and for the foreseeable future..
In Australia it is quite a lot cheaper to generate electricity with solar cells or windmills that it is to generate by burning coal, gas or oil in in old-fashioned generating plants. Electric cars production is a factor of ten smaller than internal combustion car production, so each one costs roughly twice as much to make.

They are selling largely because they are more efficient and thus cheaper to run per mile travelled.

When economy of scale kicks in harder, they will be quite a lot cheaper. \"In practice\" usually means \"my outdated idea of what used to be true\".

There are some who have a gut instinct that when something is bought more, the price must go up. They ignore the matter of economy of scale, but also, that the increase in sales is partly due to the low price continuing to drop. With the rapid adoption of new technologies, energy costs can continue to drop, just as modern electronics brought down the cost of many items such as TVs (compare a color tube set from the 60s to a flat panel now).

I don\'t think the economy of scale applies to the entire auto market in the way you seem to be describing. Much of a BEV car is the same as an ICE. It is only the motor and battery that has a premium cost. So there\'s no additional economy of scale for the common parts. Even with larger quantities, it will be a while before much savings is had, because of the cost of ramping up material production. New lithium, and other raw material sources cost money to develop. That requires sustainable higher prices to continue the process of ramping up. Once the cost stabilizes at a higher price the sources will be developed and prices can creep down again. So in the short term, handful of years, we are not likely to see lower BEV prices, but beyond that, they will resume to seek a bottom.

As the outlier, GM has announced lower prices for the Bolt. $26,000 for their lowest priced model. We\'ll see if they can keep selling them at that price.

--

Rick C.

+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 6/3/2022 1:37 PM, Anthony William Sloman wrote:

On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 12:56:59 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 09:53:43 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:
On 6/2/2022 2:20 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jun 2022 17:24:08 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:
On 5/31/2022 10:40 PM, rbowman wrote:

snip

One of the reasons the university system in the US has become such a
racket and they can charge anything is that if you\'re rich, and you\'re
white, that degree is still a pretty reliable ticket to a white-collar
job. Someone will almost surely hire you eventually in a way that a
person without the credentials would not be even if they had the same
skillset.

This is interesting and very well researched:

https://tinyurl.com/2p8sc2xp

One conclusion is that going to Harvard is not much better than going
to some cheap state college.

It doesn\'t say anything of the sort. It talks about how genes work, and points out that while the genes that influence intelligence are very numerous none of them have much effect on their own. John Larkin seems to have conflated it with \"The Bell Curve\" which wasn\'t nearly as well researched.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_by_Design

was much better researched, and explained how going to Harvard was always better than going to some cheap state college - all the rich creep whose parents paid through the nose to get them into Harvard know all kinds of people who have good jobs to offer to friends of their kids.

There was only one kid at my fairly affluent public high school who
seemed like a \"natural\" genius. He hardly had to study very hard and was
at Princeton IAS by about age 25 or something.

There were no shortage of kids who ended up at other quality schools
including MIT that scored 1600s SATs though, but I recall to get there
their parents shoveled money into after-school tutoring and other such
extra-curriculars for many months to get a leg up to pull those scores.

There were some recent Soviet expats living in the area who were a bit
perplexed as to why these public schools they\'d heard had such an
excellent reputation seemed mediocre in practice; they didn\'t see them
as being much better at educating their kids than what the parents had
experienced back in Estonia.

They didn\'t \"get\" (at least not immediately, anyway, there are a number
of Russian-owned private tutoring services in the area now particularly
in math) there was an unwritten-kinda rule in wealthy New England that
you were supposed to be shoveling money at your kids for a concurrent
private education and that this then translated into reviews of
\"excellent public school system\" for the area.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 3:47:18 AM UTC+10, Ricky wrote:

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 1:17:13 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Thursday, June 2, 2022 at 6:49:29 AM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:
On 30/05/2022 12:36, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 2:12:54 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 29 May 2022 15:51:37 +0100, Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:
snip
Oil and gas were major contributors to human well-being. Now that we\'ve burnt enough of them to generate appreciable global warming, the downsides are starting to become more obvious (not that John Larkin wants to know).

snip - reversion to the Middle Ages isn\'t the only choice available

In practice it might well be at least for all but the richest people.

Energy is going to be very expensive now and for the foreseeable future.
In Australia it is quite a lot cheaper to generate electricity with solar cells or windmills that it is to generate by burning coal, gas or oil in in old-fashioned generating plants. Electric cars production is a factor of ten smaller than internal combustion car production, so each one costs roughly twice as much to make.

They are selling largely because they are more efficient and thus cheaper to run per mile travelled.

When economy of scale kicks in harder, they will be quite a lot cheaper.. \"In practice\" usually means \"my outdated idea of what used to be true\".

There are some who have a gut instinct that when something is bought more, the price must go up. They ignore the matter of economy of scale, but also, that the increase in sales is partly due to the low price continuing to drop. With the rapid adoption of new technologies, energy costs can continue to drop, just as modern electronics brought down the cost of many items such as TVs (compare a color tube set from the 60s to a flat panel now).

I don\'t think the economy of scale applies to the entire auto market in the way you seem to be describing. Much of a BEV car is the same as an ICE. It is only the motor and battery that has a premium cost. So there\'s no additional economy of scale for the common parts. Even with larger quantities, it will be a while before much savings is had, because of the cost of ramping up material production. New lithium, and other raw material sources cost money to develop.

Obviously, but a much bigger mine has it own built in economies of scale. Australian iron ore mines are huge, and each one comes with anew railway to get the ore to a new port. A new lithium mine is likely to be just as big, and offer the same kind of economy of scale,

> That requires sustainable higher prices to continue the process of ramping up.

Not really. When the Chinese bumped up solar cell production volume by a factor of ten, the price went down, not up.

>Once the cost stabilizes at a higher price the sources will be developed and prices can creep down again.

If you bump up production volume a lot you have sell a lot more product to pay the interest on the capital you invested. You make lots of product as soonas you can and price it to move.

> So in the short term, handful of years, we are not likely to see lower BEV prices, but beyond that, they will resume to seek a bottom.

Probably not.

> As the outlier, GM has announced lower prices for the Bolt. $26,000 for their lowest priced model. We\'ll see if they can keep selling them at that price.

They wouldn\'t have dropped the price if they didn\'t need to sell more of them.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 10:54:57 +0100, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 01/06/2022 22:08, bitrex wrote:
On 6/1/2022 4:49 PM, Martin Brown wrote:

Evidence for this? They had a false dawn around 1910 but then were
outpaced at every turn by the internal combustion engine. Until the
advent of modern Nd magnetic materials and lithium batteries they were
always in very real trouble for power to weight ratio.

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g15378765/worth-the-watt-a-brief-history-of-the-electric-car-1830-to-present/


Battery and motor technology were just not really up to it until
comparatively recently. UK had daily milk delivery vehicles powered by
lead acid cells when I was young but that was about it as far as
electric vehicles went. (advantage of nearly silent operation)

Trams were OK because they could avoid carrying the battery weight.

Wow, were the milk trucks run on battery so they wouldn\'t disturb
residents early in the morning?

Got it in one. They didn\'t have to be very quick either since it is
entirely short bursts of stop start driving. The weight of the batteries
was huge though. The odd one would have hand brake failure on a hill and
run away down it destroying whatever it happened to hit at the bottom.

They were not quite silent either since the bottles would make chink
chink noises rattling around in their metal frame carriers.

That\'s different than how things are in the US where all service
vehicles that come thru your neighborhood early in the morning seem to
try to make as much noise as they can unless your neighborhood\'s median
income is 100 grand or over

Par for the course these days. Our bin men don\'t get to my village until
about lunchtime so it isn\'t a problem for me.

Our serious noise source is un-muffled motorcycles. The morons love to
blip! blip! just to wake up more people.

--

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end with doubts,
but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
Francis Bacon

 

[Fred Bloggs]

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 10:56:59 AM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology..com wrote:

On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 09:53:43 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:

On 6/2/2022 2:20 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jun 2022 17:24:08 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:

On 5/31/2022 10:40 PM, rbowman wrote:

\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to
walk.\"

Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago..

No. The USA was \"designed around\" horses and mules and canoes and
sailing ships and wagons. People like to move themselves and their
stuff around. If anything designed our country, it was the collective
personal preferences.

The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

When you start with a town square that really is an irregular pentagon
things go to hell in a hurry. Then you have to remember the Back Bay
really was a bay and the Fens a tidal marsh. Even the Fens got redone
when they dammed the Charles and it went from brackish to fresh water.

It adds charm. I enjoyed walking around the town when I had work in the
area. \'Walking is the operant word. I\'d drive down from NH Sunday night
and park the car, only retrieving it to drive home Friday afternoon.


The \"charm\" also then tends to mean nobody wants anything built in or
near their charming neighborhood.

Housing in San Francisco and Boston proper is a terrible value for what
you get, this $448/month unit in Tokyo (also some of the most expensive
real estate in the world) is fantastic for the rent.

https://youtu.be/ooh1aoEJKZc?t=732


You\'d be hard-pressed to find anything as nice within the Boston city
limits for three times the price.

People who want to live in SF or Boston bid up the rents. They
obviously think it\'s worth it.

Google grossly over-pays them anyhow. Property values escalate within
walking distance of the google bus stops.


Yeah I will agree I\'ve only rarely met anyone in their 20s or 30s paying
several thousand a month in rent who seemed like they had a skillset
worth whatever their Boston employer was paying them to be able to
afford that.
Google and Apple and Facebook and those guys pay big bucks to bright
kids. And the kids can get a tiny condo or apartment to sleep in and
spend a lot of time outside.

$200K income, $400K for a couple, and $2-3K per month for rent can be
fun.

One of the reasons the university system in the US has become such a
racket and they can charge anything is that if you\'re rich, and you\'re
white, that degree is still a pretty reliable ticket to a white-collar
job. Someone will almost surely hire you eventually in a way that a
person without the credentials would not be even if they had the same
skillset.
This is interesting and very well researched:

https://tinyurl.com/2p8sc2xp

On conclusion is that going to Harvard is not much better than going
to some cheap state college.

A lot depends on the student body because the school tailors its curriculum for them. Most state schools are full of people with no respect for scholarship and they\'re there to party and get their ticket punched. And I can\'t believe the number of people in that relatively mature age group who participate in organized cheating in some way- seems very childish to me- oh well the government has to get its applicants from somewhere. Even a decent community college is better than that.

--

Anybody can count to one.

- Robert Widlar

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 12:04:13 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 10:56:59 AM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 09:53:43 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:

On 6/2/2022 2:20 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jun 2022 17:24:08 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:

On 5/31/2022 10:40 PM, rbowman wrote:

\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to
walk.\"

Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

No. The USA was \"designed around\" horses and mules and canoes and
sailing ships and wagons. People like to move themselves and their
stuff around. If anything designed our country, it was the collective
personal preferences.

The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

When you start with a town square that really is an irregular pentagon
things go to hell in a hurry. Then you have to remember the Back Bay
really was a bay and the Fens a tidal marsh. Even the Fens got redone
when they dammed the Charles and it went from brackish to fresh water.

It adds charm. I enjoyed walking around the town when I had work in the
area. \'Walking is the operant word. I\'d drive down from NH Sunday night
and park the car, only retrieving it to drive home Friday afternoon.


The \"charm\" also then tends to mean nobody wants anything built in or
near their charming neighborhood.

Housing in San Francisco and Boston proper is a terrible value for what
you get, this $448/month unit in Tokyo (also some of the most expensive
real estate in the world) is fantastic for the rent.

https://youtu.be/ooh1aoEJKZc?t=732


You\'d be hard-pressed to find anything as nice within the Boston city
limits for three times the price.

People who want to live in SF or Boston bid up the rents. They
obviously think it\'s worth it.

Google grossly over-pays them anyhow. Property values escalate within
walking distance of the google bus stops.


Yeah I will agree I\'ve only rarely met anyone in their 20s or 30s paying
several thousand a month in rent who seemed like they had a skillset
worth whatever their Boston employer was paying them to be able to
afford that.
Google and Apple and Facebook and those guys pay big bucks to bright
kids. And the kids can get a tiny condo or apartment to sleep in and
spend a lot of time outside.

$200K income, $400K for a couple, and $2-3K per month for rent can be
fun.

One of the reasons the university system in the US has become such a
racket and they can charge anything is that if you\'re rich, and you\'re
white, that degree is still a pretty reliable ticket to a white-collar
job. Someone will almost surely hire you eventually in a way that a
person without the credentials would not be even if they had the same
skillset.
This is interesting and very well researched:

https://tinyurl.com/2p8sc2xp

On conclusion is that going to Harvard is not much better than going
to some cheap state college.

A lot depends on the student body because the school tailors its curriculum for them. Most state schools are full of people with no respect for scholarship and they\'re there to party and get their ticket punched. And I can\'t believe the number of people in that relatively mature age group who participate in organized cheating in some way- seems very childish to me- oh well the government has to get its applicants from somewhere. Even a decent community college is better than that.

His point is the genes dominate. Harvard is very selective. Harvard
grads are good mostly because the entering freshmen were good.

Good book. Lots of interesting stuff.

--

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end with doubts,
but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
Francis Bacon

 

[rbowman]

On 06/03/2022 10:03 AM, Don Y wrote:

On 6/3/2022 7:04 AM, rbowman wrote:

Vehicles are treated as \"property\", here. So, annual registration is a
function of assessed ORIGINAL value.

Same here but if the vehicle is 12 years or older you can pay what
amounts to 2 years of registrations and the plates are permanent; you
never pay again. Bikes are a one shot registration regardless of the
vehicle year. You pay once when you purchase it and never again.
Trailers of all sorts are the same.

You need an emission test in order to get your registration, here.
Results must be submitted with registration renewal.

No emissions tests in this state.

OTOH, *licenses* are issued once and not renewed until 65th birthday.
That\'s a change from other places I\'ve lived (with ~4 year renewal cycles)

[I can\'t recall CDL requirements; likely renewed pretty regularly]

I think it was 5 years like the DL. I dropped my CDL when you had to go
through DHS screening for a HazMat endorsement. I once thought I\'d drive
summers after I retired but I never got around to retiring and realized
my enthusiasm for living in a truck had waned. Quite a few married
couples do that; it\'s like RVing with someone else buying the gas and
paying you to boot.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 5:50:30 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 12:04:13 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 10:56:59 AM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 09:53:43 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:
On 6/2/2022 2:20 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jun 2022 17:24:08 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:
On 5/31/2022 10:40 PM, rbowman wrote:

This is interesting and very well researched:

https://tinyurl.com/2p8sc2xp

On conclusion is that going to Harvard is not much better than going
to some cheap state college.

A lot depends on the student body because the school tailors its curriculum for them. Most state schools are full of people with no respect for scholarship and they\'re there to party and get their ticket punched. And I can\'t believe the number of people in that relatively mature age group who participate in organized cheating in some way- seems very childish to me- oh well the government has to get its applicants from somewhere. Even a decent community college is better than that.

His point is the genes dominate.

True. But his metric was \"years in education\" which is pretty unspecific. His data-base is places like \"23 and me\" which offer a lot of genomes but aren\'t set up to collect much data from even people who - like me - who are willing to provide the data.

> Harvard is very selective. Harvard grads are good mostly because the entering freshmen were good.

Harvard is very selective, but the students whose parents want their kids to get into Harvard pay a lot for extra instruction to make their kids look good.

> Good book. Lots of interesting stuff.

But it doesn\'t say what John Larkin likes to think it says. He\'s got Flyguy\'s kind of reading comprehension - he can always understand text in a way that suits what he wants it to say.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Don Y]

On 6/3/2022 8:33 PM, rbowman wrote:

OTOH, *licenses* are issued once and not renewed until 65th birthday.
That\'s a change from other places I\'ve lived (with ~4 year renewal cycles)

[I can\'t recall CDL requirements; likely renewed pretty regularly]

I think it was 5 years like the DL. I dropped my CDL when you had to go
through DHS screening for a HazMat endorsement.

One of the non-profits I\'m affiliated with has asked me to get forklift
certified so I could \"cover\" for those times when no one else was on-hand
to operate.

Fine. I can OCCASIONALLY schlep pallets around the Yard (gravel-over-earth
so a pallet jack doesn\'t cut it) for 15-20 minutes. Or, help load the
truck (someone with a pallet jack inside to receive pallets I\'d load on
the lift gate with fork lift).

But, when they asked me to get my CDL (their expense) for similar reasons,
it was easy to see how I\'d spend my one-day-per-week, there, schlepping
stuff around *town* (loading/driving/unloading is not my idea of a fun
way to spend a day -- largely outdoors in 100F heat!). So, I conveniently
forgot to go for the medical... and that ended that! :>

I once thought I\'d drive
summers after I retired but I never got around to retiring and realized my
enthusiasm for living in a truck had waned. Quite a few married couples do
that; it\'s like RVing with someone else buying the gas and paying you to boot.

RVing wouldn\'t be my idea of fun, either. I dislike traveling (in all forms).
I\'m waiting for the first commercial teleporters...

[Colleagues from around the country get together a few times annually for
an offsite where we can discuss our projects, catch up, etc. The dilemma
is always: \"Do I want to HOST (which means no need to travel but a fair
effort to coordinate the event) or do I want to BE hosted (which means
traveling but few other responsibilities)?\" As folks tend to be eager
to \"visit\", here, it\'s pretty easy to \"win\" a bid to host...]

 

[rbowman]

On 06/04/2022 12:24 AM, Don Y wrote:

But, when they asked me to get my CDL (their expense) for similar reasons,
it was easy to see how I\'d spend my one-day-per-week, there, schlepping
stuff around *town* (loading/driving/unloading is not my idea of a fun
way to spend a day -- largely outdoors in 100F heat!). So, I conveniently
forgot to go for the medical... and that ended that! :

The company I worked for had local drivers but I was OTR. Loading carpet
at the LA terminal and delivering it to Dalton GA, then loading more
carpet and going back to LV or LA was not uncommon. We rarely had to
touch the carpet. Furniture was the other money maker that usually was
warehouse to warehouse.

I wanted to be a truck driver when I was a kid and when I needed a break
from the tech world I finally got around to it. It was fun for a while
but it gets old after a few hundred thousand miles. The best part was I
could quit in November, spend the winter in AZ, then go back north in
April or May, climb in a truck and take up where I left off. Now my boss
gets a little sweaty if I\'m out of town for a long weekend and even if
I\'m on vacation I\'m watching email and Slack.

 

[Ricky]

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 2:05:50 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:

On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 3:47:18 AM UTC+10, Ricky wrote:
On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 1:17:13 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Thursday, June 2, 2022 at 6:49:29 AM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:
On 30/05/2022 12:36, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 2:12:54 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 29 May 2022 15:51:37 +0100, Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:
snip
Oil and gas were major contributors to human well-being. Now that we\'ve burnt enough of them to generate appreciable global warming, the downsides are starting to become more obvious (not that John Larkin wants to know).

snip - reversion to the Middle Ages isn\'t the only choice available

In practice it might well be at least for all but the richest people.

Energy is going to be very expensive now and for the foreseeable future.
In Australia it is quite a lot cheaper to generate electricity with solar cells or windmills that it is to generate by burning coal, gas or oil in in old-fashioned generating plants. Electric cars production is a factor of ten smaller than internal combustion car production, so each one costs roughly twice as much to make.

They are selling largely because they are more efficient and thus cheaper to run per mile travelled.

When economy of scale kicks in harder, they will be quite a lot cheaper. \"In practice\" usually means \"my outdated idea of what used to be true\".

There are some who have a gut instinct that when something is bought more, the price must go up. They ignore the matter of economy of scale, but also, that the increase in sales is partly due to the low price continuing to drop. With the rapid adoption of new technologies, energy costs can continue to drop, just as modern electronics brought down the cost of many items such as TVs (compare a color tube set from the 60s to a flat panel now).

I don\'t think the economy of scale applies to the entire auto market in the way you seem to be describing. Much of a BEV car is the same as an ICE.. It is only the motor and battery that has a premium cost. So there\'s no additional economy of scale for the common parts. Even with larger quantities, it will be a while before much savings is had, because of the cost of ramping up material production. New lithium, and other raw material sources cost money to develop.
Obviously, but a much bigger mine has it own built in economies of scale. Australian iron ore mines are huge, and each one comes with anew railway to get the ore to a new port. A new lithium mine is likely to be just as big, and offer the same kind of economy of scale,
That requires sustainable higher prices to continue the process of ramping up.
Not really. When the Chinese bumped up solar cell production volume by a factor of ten, the price went down, not up.

You are confusing the free market with government subsidized industry growth. I\'m talking about the natural order of business economics. A good example is shale oil production. Oil prices were high and the industry was created. Oil prices dropped to a point where it was no longer affordable and production stopped. Now that oil prices are high again, shale oil won\'t resume unless there is an indication the high prices will last long enough for the investment to be recovered with profit. That said, it would seem the forecasts do indicate continued high prices, so there are efforts to increase oil production, including shale oil.

In the case of battery materials, very large investments are required. The gain in efficiency won\'t be seen, until these investments are made *and paid for*. Companies are not altruistic, they will have to recoup their investments. So they won\'t expand production unless they know they will be able to sell at a clear profit for the near future. I.e. higher prices for a few more years.

Once the cost stabilizes at a higher price the sources will be developed and prices can creep down again.
If you bump up production volume a lot you have sell a lot more product to pay the interest on the capital you invested. You make lots of product as soonas you can and price it to move.

You sell a lot more when the demand exists. At this point going forward, the demand for battery materials is not very flexible. Automakers are betting the farm on the rapid expansion of BEV production and need more materials. They will pay what the market can offer. That cost will be passed on to the consumer who is currently happy to pay premium prices to get the BEVs they want. In another 3 to 5 years, there will be more competition and buyers will want to shop price more, but the market will be what it is. The number of BEVs won\'t increase 50% by lowering the cost by $1,000 or $2,000. Although, it seems that\'s what GM is counting on. They\'ve dropped the price of the 2023 Bolts by $3,000, clearly in an attempt to regain market share after their battery fiasco. We\'ll see how well that works for them. Meanwhile Tesla has increases the minimum prices for the model 3 and Y and continue to sell everything they can produce with months long waiting lists.

So in the short term, handful of years, we are not likely to see lower BEV prices, but beyond that, they will resume to seek a bottom.
Probably not.
As the outlier, GM has announced lower prices for the Bolt. $26,000 for their lowest priced model. We\'ll see if they can keep selling them at that price.
They wouldn\'t have dropped the price if they didn\'t need to sell more of them.

Duh! That wasn\'t the question. The question is are they losing money on every BEV they sell? That\'s not uncommon to gain market share. Like a pilot giving up altitude for airspeed.

--

Rick C.

++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Don Y]

On 6/4/2022 9:45 AM, rbowman wrote:

On 06/04/2022 12:24 AM, Don Y wrote:
But, when they asked me to get my CDL (their expense) for similar reasons,
it was easy to see how I\'d spend my one-day-per-week, there, schlepping
stuff around *town* (loading/driving/unloading is not my idea of a fun
way to spend a day -- largely outdoors in 100F heat!). So, I conveniently
forgot to go for the medical... and that ended that! :

The company I worked for had local drivers but I was OTR. Loading carpet at the
LA terminal and delivering it to Dalton GA, then loading more carpet and going
back to LV or LA was not uncommon. We rarely had to touch the carpet. Furniture
was the other money maker that usually was warehouse to warehouse.

Yeah, we had a national chain that used to bring all of their electronic
kit to us for refurbishment/recycling. An 18 wheeler would show up every
month. Driver would just \"stand around\" waiting for us to unload.

Times I had to unload the truck by myself! Climb in, move pallet to rear
of truck. Jump down. Get in forklift. Pull pallet off back of truck
and drop it <somewhere>. Climb back in truck, move next pallet to rear
of truck... lather, rinse, repeat.

I used to wonder why the driver wouldn\'t offer to help. Then, realized
he\'s probably getting paid to *wait* for me! <frown>

I wanted to be a truck driver when I was a kid and when I needed a break from
the tech world I finally got around to it. It was fun for a while but it gets
old after a few hundred thousand miles.

Yeah, I had that feeling before my first cross country driving trip; I\'ll
see all of the states FROM THE GROUND (previously had visited almost all
of the states but by air -- so very selective \"pinhole\" views). I recall
driving into Kansas (or maybe it was Nebraska). \"Gee, this is interesting.
A totally featureless landscape!\" Thirty minutes later, \"OK, I\'m ready to
move on to something NEW...\" (Hours later, still more of the same!)

The best part was I could quit in
November, spend the winter in AZ, then go back north in April or May, climb in
a truck and take up where I left off. Now my boss gets a little sweaty if I\'m
out of town for a long weekend and even if I\'m on vacation I\'m watching email
and Slack.

My solution was to work for myself. As it\'s relatively easy to make far more
money than I can (realistically) spend, I could trade that surplus for \"free
time\". Standing joke is that I retired 40 years ago! :>

Keeping weird hours/calendar means no one knows *when* to expect a reply.
(I quickly learned to give up the business line and force everyone to use
email. I\'m not real keen on having to drop what I\'m doing just because YOU
want something!)

This has a strong impact on cutting down the number of \"what if\" conversations
to those that really matter! (don\'t waste my time expecting me to tell you
why your idea has problems; figure it out for yourself -- THEN run it past me.
Keeping in mind that we\'ve already written the contract for THIS project...)

 

[rbowman]

On 06/04/2022 01:44 PM, Don Y wrote:

Yeah, we had a national chain that used to bring all of their electronic
kit to us for refurbishment/recycling. An 18 wheeler would show up every
month. Driver would just \"stand around\" waiting for us to unload.

Times I had to unload the truck by myself! Climb in, move pallet to rear
of truck. Jump down. Get in forklift. Pull pallet off back of truck
and drop it <somewhere>. Climb back in truck, move next pallet to rear
of truck... lather, rinse, repeat.

I picked up a load of those annoying newspaper inserts in Boulder,CO
that were going to Baltimore. Let\'s just say when I finally contacted
the receiver I wasn\'t impressed when the instructions included \'turn
left at the burned out van.\' When I finally got there it was a store
front operation. The \'staff\' consisted of the owner walking up and down
the block trying to recruit people sitting on the stoops drinking Mad Dog.

The inserts were on pallets, probably 800 pounds each. The equipment
consisted of one two-wheeled hand truck. The technique was to roll the
pallets end over end until they fell off the truck when they would be
wrestled onto the two wheeler. The tires looked like they were about to
blow. I pitched in to help, hoping to get out of the neighborhood while
I still had 18 wheels. I overheard one of the recruits muttering \'never
seen mf\'ing truck driver work before\'.

That also illustrates one of the problems of cheap (relatively)
transportation. Print inserts in CO to go into the Baltimore Sunday
paper? Nobody in say, Maryland, can print advertisements that will wind
up in the trash?

I used to wonder why the driver wouldn\'t offer to help. Then, realized
he\'s probably getting paid to *wait* for me! <frown

We got paid a minimal flat rate for a stop but were getting paid by the
mile, so no. Some union drivers get paid by the hour but most OTR
drivers are by the mile. Doing the necessary paperwork, waiting for the
next load, and hanging around while the truck is loaded or unloaded is
on your own time. While the yearly income isn\'t bad realistically you\'re
lucky to make the minimum hourly wage.

My solution was to work for myself. As it\'s relatively easy to make far
more
money than I can (realistically) spend, I could trade that surplus for
\"free
time\". Standing joke is that I retired 40 years ago! :

That\'s what I did back east. I had all the work I wanted from
established clients and word of mouth so I didn\'t have to go out and
sell myself. That\'s not one of my skills.

I did \'retire\' when I was 40, got rid of most of my stuff, and hit the
road west. I mostly traveled around the west for a year, then
volunteered on a Forest Service mule ranch for a year, then had a fling
with trucking. Not having any contacts in Montana I went back to direct
employment. I\'ve enjoyed it and still do but am currently negotiating a
part time status. I\'m not ready for real retirement but don\'t need 40
hour weeks either mentally or financially.

Keeping weird hours/calendar means no one knows *when* to expect a reply.
(I quickly learned to give up the business line and force everyone to use
email. I\'m not real keen on having to drop what I\'m doing just because YOU
want something!)

Yes, the weird hours. I lived in a small NH town that mostly shut down
at 9 PM except Dunkin Donuts and one convenience store. I\'d take a break
at Zero Dark Thirty, go to the store, play a few games of Asteroids, and
wander around town for a while.

Email wasn\'t much of a thing in the \'80s. I did come home once to find a
meeting request thumb tacked to the door. Never liked phones. About 9
years ago the company redid our end of the building. Through an
oversight the phones were never replaced in engineering or QA. Nobody
has complained.

 

[rbowman]

On 06/04/2022 08:26 PM, Don Y wrote:

No family? Makes it a LOT easier (and more affordable) to call your own
shots.
Real estate is another boat anchor.

Definitely. I should have bought property here thirty years ago but I
wasn\'t sure I was done roaming.

OTOH, it\'s easy to accumulate lots of \"stuff\" which makes moves tedious
(and costly). I filled an entire moving van, once.

The move from NH was easy -- if it didn\'t fit in the pickup it didn\'t
go. A guy was trying to flesh out a high school computer lab so he got
all the hardware and books. Other books went to the library. A few
hundred pounds of vinyl records may still be in a basement in Concord
MA. I gave a friend the Sprite and a rowing dinghy I\'d built was left on
the beach above the high tide line. Other stuff went on the sidewalk.

I\'ve lived here for over thirty years and have collected too much stuff
but I\'m not planning to move again.

I\'ve found that I can\'t work \"part time\" -- on some schedule. E.g., \"20
hours
a week\". Rather, I prefer taking on a job and working on it how and when I
think best -- knowing what commitments I\'ve made to its completion. So, if
I feel like doing \"something else\" for a week, I don\'t feel like I owe
someone 20 hours. I think that would require a lot of discipline (\"OK,
I put in my 20 hours for this week, now I can do something else...\")

That\'s part of the ongoing negotiation that will resume Monday. It might
be 5 hours, it might be 50 depending on what needs doing and my
enthusiasm, with a day or two where I will be available, if not
necessarily working. Unless something is burning down they can save
their issues up until Wednesday between 9 and 4 or something like that.

I fell on the ice and broke my hip the end of January and was in a rehab
facility for seven weeks and was putting in about 20 hours. The
therapists were amused when they\'d come for me and I\'d say \'Wait a
minute until I punch out.\' If nothing else it was wonderful for my
mental health. I\'d been thinking about cutting down for a while and that
showed it was feasible to work remotely on an irregular schedule.

 

[Don Y]

On 6/4/2022 10:33 PM, rbowman wrote:

On 06/04/2022 08:26 PM, Don Y wrote:
No family? Makes it a LOT easier (and more affordable) to call your own
shots.
Real estate is another boat anchor.

Definitely. I should have bought property here thirty years ago but I wasn\'t
sure I was done roaming.

I don\'t see it as \"roaming\" but, rather, \"not having ties\" (despite
having ties \"left behind\" in many of the places I\'ve lived). I used
to love the lushness of New England. Now, find it confining and prefer
the open spaces (and black skies).

OTOH, it\'s easy to accumulate lots of \"stuff\" which makes moves tedious
(and costly). I filled an entire moving van, once.

The move from NH was easy -- if it didn\'t fit in the pickup it didn\'t go.

My first move out of school cost the employer $15K. He wasn\'t prepared
for THAT! :> (probably figured he was moving some kid out of a tiny
dorm room)

A guy
was trying to flesh out a high school computer lab so he got all the hardware
and books. Other books went to the library.

I moved 80 \"Xerox boxes\" (10 ream paper) of *paperbacks*, here (I read A LOT!).
Not counting my reference texts, paperwork (back when it WAS paper), etc.

A friend had a son who was into science fiction. I offered them to him.
The Dad was chagrined when he saw that it overfilled the back of his
pickup truck! (make sure you understand what you\'re \"accepting\"
before you accept it!) I had culled the ones I wanted to cherish
down to about 4 boxes by that time.

I\'ve probably got 50 or 60 boxes of reference texts, still. But, have switched
to epubs for my \"recreational\" reading as I can store thousands on an ereader
that I can then store in a desk drawer! :>

A few hundred pounds of vinyl
records may still be in a basement in Concord MA.

I have probably a comparable amount (plus laser video discs). And, a
Beogram 8000 stored in a box for the day I think I need to digitize
them (most being boots). Who knows, they may be worth money, at that time!
(what\'s old is new)

I gave a friend the Sprite
and a rowing dinghy I\'d built was left on the beach above the high tide line.
Other stuff went on the sidewalk.

I worked for Stanley for a while so have a boatload of handtools (a couple
thousand pounds). It\'s next to impossible for me to discard/giveaway tools
so that \"collection\" just keeps growing. (I can fill two of the 6 ft tall
rolling toolchests, easily -- without putting anything that is powered
in the mix!)

I\'m interested in assistive technology so have quite a collection of
such appliances/tools -- including a pair of electric wheelchairs,
braillers, etc.
<https://www.easechair.com/sites/default/files/gallery/permobil-m300_46.jpg>

[You *really* don\'t want to ever NEED such a device! Aside from the
initial novelty of \"personal-scale motorized transport\", it is a dreadful
way to exist!]

Lots of \"bigger\" bits of kit for my automation system (e.g., 5KVA UPS w/battery
boxes).

And, my \"recreation\" is fixing things that are otherwise headed to the tip.
Recent additions are a power washer and (today) a little 42cc chain saw
(clean carb, fix oiler, \"make pretty\" and then set aside)

But, by far, electronic things consume the most space. As I have ready
access to lots of discarded kit, I can\'t help but pull select items to
tinker with (as \"distractions\"). And, once fixed, put them on a shelf.
(I\'ve some 20 spare monitors -- plus another 10 deployed; several LCD
TVs -- discarded the plasma as it throws off too much heat; 6 workstations;
a dozen UPSs; a few servers; hundreds of disks; etc.) In my line of
work, much of these things become \"references\" (e.g., I have half a dozen
different commercial speech synthesizers against which to evaluate my own;
different development systems to check for code portability; etc.)

[Presently working to convince myself that I *don\'t* want the three
10ft wide motorized projection screens I\'ve been offered! (\"Shirley,
there MUST be a use for them??\")]

And, that\'s after discarding (donating) most of my test/prototyping equipment
(I kept a Leister, a couple of DSOs, a couple of logic analyzers and a
programmable power supply)

[Amusingly, there never seems to be an \"empty\" space after going on a
discard binge! <frown> ]

I\'ve lived here for over thirty years and have collected too much stuff but I\'m
not planning to move again.

In my case, its consideration for my other half; she lives in fear that
I\'ll drop dead, some day, leaving her with all this \"stuff\" to sort out.

\"Throw it all away; I\'ll be dead, what will *I* care?\"
\"Then why can\'t we throw it out NOW?!\"
\"I\'m not dead, yet!\" <grin>

I\'ve found that I can\'t work \"part time\" -- on some schedule. E.g., \"20
hours
a week\". Rather, I prefer taking on a job and working on it how and when I
think best -- knowing what commitments I\'ve made to its completion. So, if
I feel like doing \"something else\" for a week, I don\'t feel like I owe
someone 20 hours. I think that would require a lot of discipline (\"OK,
I put in my 20 hours for this week, now I can do something else...\")

That\'s part of the ongoing negotiation that will resume Monday. It might be 5
hours, it might be 50 depending on what needs doing and my enthusiasm, with a
day or two where I will be available, if not necessarily working. Unless
something is burning down they can save their issues up until Wednesday between
9 and 4 or something like that.

I\'m usually involved in a design (or specification) process. So, it\'s hard
to just \"turn off\" those thought processes. And, not fair to any other
projects that are running concurrently if they have to compete for gray matter.

So, I prefer to do fixed-cost quotes (\"Sorry, no changes!\") where all I have
to do is ensure I finish *that* work before the agreed upon deadline (and
discipline myself not to get too \"creative\" exploring odd design options)

> I fell on the ice

\"Ice\"? What\'s that?

and broke my hip the end of January and was in a rehab
facility for seven weeks

Bummer. I\'m told hips are a real pisser.

I was laid up for several months -- couldn\'t even use a laptop as
that would require sitting up. I dug out a tablet and did my
work with that. Tedious (stylus without keyboard) but at least gave
me an \"outlet\"!

and was putting in about 20 hours. The therapists were
amused when they\'d come for me and I\'d say \'Wait a minute until I punch out.\'
If nothing else it was wonderful for my mental health. I\'d been thinking about
cutting down for a while and that showed it was feasible to work remotely on an
irregular schedule.

PHBs are often the biggest impediment to such work. I guess they must
feel that if they can\'t *see* the folks \"under\" them, then what purpose
do THEY fill?

But, personal discipline also plays a big role. I\'ve known folks who
couldn\'t cut it \"solo\" because they couldn\'t focus on the problems
they\'d contracted to solve -- always finding distractions, instead.

Others never knew when to \"settle\" (\"shoot the engineer\") on a design.

Still others never \"challenged\" themselves... settling for the
same ol\', same ol\', over and over (never trying anything revolutionary
or that has a significant probability of failing!) until they were
just rehashing old designs and of little value.

[Doing fixed cost jobs means I can cut the client out of the decision
making loop. If *I* want to take a risk and explore some new approach,
the risk falls entirely on me, without his potential to veto!]

Good luck with your negotiations. And, more importantly, finding
a way to then make any such arrangement work for *you*!

 

[rbowman]

On 06/05/2022 03:45 AM, Don Y wrote:

On 6/4/2022 10:33 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 06/04/2022 08:26 PM, Don Y wrote:
No family? Makes it a LOT easier (and more affordable) to call your own
shots.
Real estate is another boat anchor.

Definitely. I should have bought property here thirty years ago but I
wasn\'t sure I was done roaming.

I don\'t see it as \"roaming\" but, rather, \"not having ties\" (despite
having ties \"left behind\" in many of the places I\'ve lived). I used
to love the lushness of New England. Now, find it confining and prefer
the open spaces (and black skies).

I do get nostalgic for forests with other species than Ponderosa pine
and Douglas fir. This last time I was back to the area was 2004. It had
been an exceptionally wet summer to start with but the humidity was
oppressive. I was looking for information about a historical gas house
in Troy NY when I clicked on a Zillow link out of curiosity. Of course
you\'d have to see the houses but there was a good selection for under
100K. That confirmed by 2004 observation that everybody had left and
never came back.

Tell me about black skies... Sun has been optional for a while. \'We
need the water\' is partially true Lush undergrowth in June tends to lead
to hellish fires in August.

I\'ve probably got 50 or 60 boxes of reference texts, still. But, have
switched
to epubs for my \"recreational\" reading as I can store thousands on an
ereader
that I can then store in a desk drawer! :

You\'ve got me outclassed completely. I seldom buy a hardcopy book
anymore. I\'ve used about 2GB of 4GB on my main Kindle and I have no idea
how many books that represents other than \'a lot\'.

I\'ve even stopped buying hardcopy references. In the software field,
except for the basics, they\'re obsolete before the ink is dry.

I\'m interested in assistive technology so have quite a collection of
such appliances/tools -- including a pair of electric wheelchairs,
braillers, etc.
https://www.easechair.com/sites/default/files/gallery/permobil-m300_46.jpg


[You *really* don\'t want to ever NEED such a device! Aside from the
initial novelty of \"personal-scale motorized transport\", it is a dreadful
way to exist!]

A friend is quadriplegic and while it\'s in no way optimal it\'s better
than the alternative. He has enough mobility that he can drive a
converted van with the chair latched into place and type using pencils
in custom splits. Still it sucks. I\'ve often made little repairs to the
van\'s ramp or latching mechanism. He knows what needs to be done but
can\'t. Of course there is the frustration of depending on PA\'s for
transfers, shopping, meal preparation, and so forth.

The irony is he would be economically better off vegetating than
choosing to remain productive.

In my case, its consideration for my other half; she lives in fear that
I\'ll drop dead, some day, leaving her with all this \"stuff\" to sort out.

\"Throw it all away; I\'ll be dead, what will *I* care?\"
\"Then why can\'t we throw it out NOW?!\"
\"I\'m not dead, yet!\" <grin

One thing that saves me is limited square feet. If I had unlimited area
I would be screwed. At one point I contemplated buying an old filling
station, the sort with a couple of bays and a life. I\'m a minimalist so
converting the office and storage to living space wouldn\'t be a problem
and I\'d have plenty of work space. The fly in that ointment is they have
EPA time bombs with the underground storage tanks that gets passed to
the current owner.


> Bummer. I\'m told hips are a real pisser.

My grandmother broke her hip in the \'50s. Back then they might as well
have taken her out back and shot her. Now they nail you back together.

https://www.stryker.com/us/en/trauma-and-extremities/products/gamma3.html

There are two small incisions, each about 1\" long. I asked the surgeon
how he pulled that off and he started talking about jigs and reamers.
The whole deal looks and sounds like something I might do to fix a break
on one of the bikes.

I had to accept that I realistically couldn\'t return home without being
a burden on friends so I went into a rehab facility. Fortunately I could
get around with a walker. The surgeon restricted me to 25% weight
bearing, which the PTs reminded me of whenever I started getting around
too well. When he moved me to full weight bearing as tolerated I
switched to a cane and was out in a week. Not long after I discarded the
cane although I do bring my trekking poles when I\'m out on trails just
in case.

The rehab was a wing of a nursing home so I got to see that side of
life. I watched \'Wild Horses\' with Robert Duvall last night and there
was a trailed for another one of his movies on the DVD, \'A Night in Old
Mexico\'. One of his lines was \"I\'m more afraid of winding up with
somebody spoon feeding me oatmeal than dying\". Yeah and hell yeah.

I was laid up for several months -- couldn\'t even use a laptop as
that would require sitting up. I dug out a tablet and did my
work with that. Tedious (stylus without keyboard) but at least gave
me an \"outlet\"!

Fortunately I could get up and sit in a chair, using the overbed table
for a desk. I had a Dell laptop and the rehab had a solid WiFi
connection so I was good to go.

PHBs are often the biggest impediment to such work. I guess they must
feel that if they can\'t *see* the folks \"under\" them, then what purpose
do THEY fill?

Even before covid we had some people working remotely. That would come
up in the conversation frequently -- what exactly is xxxx doing. When
most people went remote for covid they had to submit daily reports of
what they were working on. When they were physically on site it was
always assumed as long as everything was going smoothly people were
doing what they were supposed to be doing.

But, personal discipline also plays a big role. I\'ve known folks who
couldn\'t cut it \"solo\" because they couldn\'t focus on the problems
they\'d contracted to solve -- always finding distractions, instead.

That can be a problem. One person I hired was going to move and be on
site but because of covid remained in Boise. Things were getting done
and we cut him loose. That happens when people are physically in the
office too. The rule of thumb is you\'re lucky to get 6 hours of
productive work in an 8 hour day.

[Doing fixed cost jobs means I can cut the client out of the decision
making loop. If *I* want to take a risk and explore some new approach,
the risk falls entirely on me, without his potential to veto!]

That works better with hardware projects with a stated, quantifiable
goal. There have been a lot of fancy project management schemes over the
years but with software the real process is:

1. Client tells you what they want
2. You prepare a proposal and submit it
3. Client signs off without reading it
4. You proceed to implement the agreed on design
5. You deliver the product
6. Client realizes that wasn\'t what they really wanted
7. rinse and repeat

Agile gets a lot of hype and often becomes a mantra for management
rather than being practiced but it does recognize the design process as
being highly iterative.

In the classic waterfall process the requirements and design phases tend
to be so protracted and bloody that the delivery phase happens
regardless (q.v. F-35, Zumwalt, ...)

Admittedly prototyping battleships isn\'t as feasible as prototyping
software systems.

Good luck with your negotiations. And, more importantly, finding
a way to then make any such arrangement work for *you*!

Thanks. I\'ve reached that point in life where stuff has to work for me.
It\'s not being a curmudgeon, just realizing compromises for long term
goals are a moot point when there ain\'t no long term statistically.