Given how few disgruntled students murder their professors, no it would not be the Occam's Razor conclusion that the murderer was a disgruntled student.
Such an incident at a random small college or small university would not make the national news. MIT is one of the few nationally known universities, so it did.
I believe you are being downvoted because your comment violates the guidelines ("Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously... Edit out swipes."); anyway, that's why I downvoted.
Your later comment that enforcement might benefit from latitude to be reasonable and accommodate nuance is not invalid, and you could have just said that rather than call the gp's aspiration "perverted." The expressed norm of guidelines is that your belief that the gp's logic is circular does not justify your derision.
Anyway, you will probably be more convincing to others by being less insulting.
If you don't want to contribute in adherence to the guidelines, what is the point of posting here at all?
I'm being downvoted by being anything less then apologetically polite while expressing a viewpoint that isn't pro whatever the lowest common denominator wants.
That's just how comment sections that keep "rightthink score" are.
I couldn't downvote your direct reply to me, but if I could have I would have because you're being an ass. Calling me "perverted" because I don't think people should block bike lanes says way more about you than me.
Not wanting the bike lanes blocked is fine. The problem is that you want, as a means to this end, 100% enforcement of laws that were never written nor were their punishments apportioned with the expectation of such with zero regard for the consequences. That is a bad thing to be advocating for over such a mundane issue and I think it's belies a lack of moral character you often see in this subject of discussion (though you do see it in others and it's bad there too) wherein people want their preferred class of traffic prioritized using state force to the determent of all the others.
On the contrary, it is not a mundane issue. Traffic infractions and parking violations such as blocking bike lanes or crosswalks directly contribute to a less safe environment for everyone on the street. Traffic fatality is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States. It is the cavalier attitudes of people who think they should be able to whatever they want, whenever they want with their cars that belies a lack of moral character.
There is no social contract in scored internet comment sections. The herd will do what makes the number go up. If a large number of people showed up and upvoted every racist comment to the moon the verbiage in here would pivot almost overnight. Mobs don't have self awareness or free will.
I think you can't directly acknowledge the guidelines because you know you are willfully violating them.
The guidelines are the rules of the road for the community. The moral obligation to follow the guidelines is not conditional on whether you think the community is a mob. Even if you thought you have no obligation to the community, your behavior is still disrespectful to the intentions of the moderators.
The way you write makes it seem like you hold both the community and the guidelines in contempt. What is the purpose for you in participating in this community? Would it not be better for you and the community both if you stop posting like this?
Not contradicting your point, but adding tangential interesting information.
Blu-Ray UHD discs can no longer be played on modern computers as Intel has removed the trusted execution environment needed to decrypt them. Blu-Ray UHD players do a handshake that verifies the use of Intel SGX.
One might have always been skeptical of these discs, especially as AMD had never implemented those TEE instructions.
But I believe the interesting takeaway is that even physical media is becoming something you can’t count on using without the continued permission/assistance of some outside party.
Without regulation I would expect that all new media will eventually require players to be always-online.
The UHD DRM scheme requires some kind of secure enclave for key management, and SGX was the only suitable system for that on PCs. There is no non-SGX system they would certify.
> So was everything with Taiwan hunky dory when they were a murderous military dictatorship for all those decades[1]?
It's good to remember that Taiwan's adoption of multiparty democracy is very recent, and that a one-party dictatorship preceded it.
And of course the PRC has always had lots of reasons to want to take back Taiwan, regardless whether it fears that mainland Chinese might see the Taiwanese system as preferable to their own.
But the gp's statement that Taiwan's example today threatens the raison d'être of PRC authoritarianism is also quite valid. PRC's authority does not rest alone on a monopoly of force and surveillance, but also reputation for stability and for organizing economic growth. Now PRC population is aging, growth is slowing and suffering from serious structural problems, economic management is becoming more centralized/ideological/less effective.
A successful, freer counter-example of what a Chinese nation might look like is actually quite dangerous to the PRC. Likewise, I think this is exactly why the PRC has kneecapped democracy in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was set as an example how Taiwan can be integrated as a separate economy, separate government and separate everything as long as it is part of China. The reason why it happened in Hong Kong was that the political movement was out of control, you have some members of the parliament saying "fuck China" when they swear to service during the ceremony. It is more about how Hong Kong sees China, not how China sees Hong Kong. China would be very happy to see Hong Kong works in the two system model. How China is thinking now is that, giving Hong Kong the freedom to operate does not work, the same apply to Taiwan. Most Chinese people have negative views on politicians, the multiparty democracy system in Taiwan is not seen as a positive thing to be honest.
This is straight up the official CCP party line you're repeating here. How Chinese people are somehow uniquely unsuited for democracy.
The "multiparty democracy system in Taiwan is not seen as a positive thing" by whom? The Taiwanese? The election results from that country have shown quite the opposite.
Because I was curious I looked up some election numbers.
Taiwan's population is ~23.4 million.
In 2020 there were ~19.3 million registered voters with 74.9% turnout. [1]
In 2024 there were ~19.5 million registered voters with 71.86% turnout. [2]
Note that voter registration appears to be automatic[3] so I believe turnout also represents the percentage of all people 20 years and older who voted.
I didn't say how Chinese are unsuited for democracy. You are making up words I didn't say.
Westerners need to go out of their comfort zone, and realize that maybe other people don't envy the western political system, just think about the possibility.
you see what's going on in the last few years, westerners are still living like nothing has changed. The ordinary people outside the west sees hypocrisy of your political system, it is a very different time.
Many mainlanders see shitshow of TW legislature brawls and think no thanks. They'd prefer quiet CCDI purges etc, not sarcasm. Like most of the PRC disaphora who moves abroad in advanced economies think democratic voting / political process is a joke after a few election cycles.
I don't know where this idea that CCP thinks Chinese people are unsuitable for democracy comes from except for repeating LIO autocracy vs democracy propaganda that insist so. CCP advertises itself as whole process democracy even, because it likes the idea of having democratic processes. If anything CCP already thinks itself democratic, more/better than 1 person 1 vote. CCP also doesn't give a shit what model is on TW, they once offered TW 1country2systems+ model where TW got to keep their political system AND military in exchange for on paper reuninfication and some foreign policy concessions (security). It matters little how TWnese conduct themselves, PRC wants political reuninfication foremost. It's about land, and always has been.
First, I believe you are right that the CCP believes that "giving Hong Kong the freedom to operate does not work." I believe you are right that the CCP believes that "the same applies to Taiwan." I believe you are right that the CCP does not see the multiparty democratic system in Taiwan as a positive thing.
If Taiwanese people really care about retaining multiparty democracy, then everything you said is a good reason for Taiwan to be wary of PRC attempts to gain more control over Taiwan.
--
Second, I don't know what the average person on the street in mainland China thinks about the HK protest movement or Taiwanese democracy. Today, when the successes of the PRC are more salient to most people than its failures, the average person in mainland China may well look down on the perceived disorder of democracy.
What comes up may come down. Mainland China has had some incredible decades as it industrialized and caught up. That is a typical phenomenon (not a uniquely Chinese one) when an authoritarian country introduces liberalization to their economy. It is harder for authoritarian countries to maintain growth when they are already mostly caught up with peers, because decentralized economic decision making becomes much more effective than centralized decision making. Decentralized economic decision making is a form of decentralized political power, and the authoritarian country is eventually forced to choose between maintaining a monopoly of authority or pursuing further growth.
At least, that's the thesis of economists like Daron Acemoglu. And the PRC is currently trending away from economic decentralization and toward a re-centralization of decision making.
Mainland China now faces some severe economic and geopolitical headwinds; maybe the PRC will navigate them wisely and earn yet more prestige. Or maybe the PRC will fail to respond adequately to new challenges because of the weaknesses of its authoritarian model. And since the PRC's authoritarian system relies almost solely on efficacy as a source of legitimacy, its legitimacy may prove extremely fragile in the face of a downturn in fortune.
Whatever comes to pass, it will not be a result of a Chinese exceptionalism. Perhaps centralized, one-party states without elections and with limited free speech will prove the dominant governmental model in the next era of history. But, historically, states like that seem to have been mostly outlasted by more liberal peers.
May I ask what high school? We did not have a linear algebra course in my New York high school. I would have liked to have been able to take linear algebra then.
Pretty exclusive private bay area school - not the norm by any means. It's offered as one of the electives after calculus - multivariable, linear algebra, and a rotating set of others.
I disagree with any suggestion that makes the game easier. There are a lot of websites with name-that-country games. For people who are pretty good at locating and naming countries, they want to improve their ability, and they need a tougher game to do that.
It would be fun if there were some country factoids or images, probably. But for people who are trying to get really good at locating countries, they probably already do know facts about various countries, so there isn't a lot of value there.
Spaced repetition of mistakes would be valuable. Very few alternatives offer this.
Maybe you could also offer to filter on a population cutoff? I frequently cut off countries with less than 200k population, because I am not that interested in the various island countries.
Just joining in with others who report that I haven't had any problems with LED bulb failures. I've used exclusively LED bulbs for at least 5 years now (maybe about 15 bulbs across my home), and none has ever failed on me.
They do sometimes flicker when they're in a traditional dimmer set at an intermediate level, even though the ones I've bought claim to work with a dimmer. That's frustrating.
But I haven't had any outright failures.
If it helps: I bought mostly SANSI bulbs off Amazon.
My experience is in northern California. Probably no one can speak for the experience across the entire US. FWIW, this guy in Minnesota seems to have had a very similar experience to what I’ve seen:
Is this a station with a wait list? Did it fail to charge? No, there were multiple dispensers open without anyone there and it worked on the first try. On his 1,200mi road trip they encountered one dispenser not working but there was another one unused right next to it.
So no, he's not constantly encountering long lines with belligerent people at multiple broken fast chargers, he's pretty much always rolling up to charging locations that are mostly empty and worked on the first try. Technology Connections is not the person to point to trying to showcase how bad charging is in the US. If you're going to paint his experiences as the norm, then I guess most CCS chargers do work fine and there aren't usually lines.
I didn't watch the video you linked, but I accept your summary of his experience then (1 year ago). The video I link is from 2 weeks ago. A good half of the video is describing many frictions he has encountered with non-Tesla charging networks. Perhaps his experience/evaluation has changed in the intervening interval.
I personally have experienced those frictions myself, in my limited EV experience. I am glad that you have had a better experience - I absolutely want non-Tesla charging networks to be high reliability and easy to use! For everyone, but also for myself, since I don't want to purchase a Tesla.
In the final analysis, I don't know how Technology Connections feels about the state of non-Tesla charging networks. In fairness, I'm not sure you do either. It sounds like his experience was more positive a year ago. But from his most recent video, it doesn't sound like he feels like non-Tesla charging networks work very well or reliably.
To be clear on one point: I haven't encountered lines or interpersonal conflict at charging points. I have encountered plugs not working, payment not being accepted, and rates lower than advertised capability. Before I had those experiences, I had heard people on HN complain about CCS charging network reliability. After, I saw Technology Connections complain about it. All I can say is that my experience has corresponded with those reports.
I don't know where you're getting "a good half of the video", it barely talks at all about his own personal experiences of CCS. It mostly talks about the history of the plugs, discusses Tesla's process of opening up NACS (and his previous reservations on it), describes how automakers are switching to it, talks about the slow roll out of CCS, talks about how Tesla chargers and 800V cars might not play nice for a while, and then talks about V2G. Could you give me some specific timestamps where he's spending half the video talking about these negative experiences? Which few sections are mostly his experiences? I've seen the video a few times before and just re-scrubbed/watched at 1.75x and I didn't see much of his personal experiences at all.
He does briefly touch on charging networks should work on reliability and just having a new connector won't necessarily improve reliability, but I'm not disagreeing with that. I've got no doubts those who do have bad experiences legit had bad experiences, I'm just suggesting it's often regional and not like every non-Tesla station is plagued with non stop problems. And given his own video publications it seems like his area and the places he traveled had reliable chargers. Maybe most of the issues are on the West coast. Either way that's not half the video nor is it really him talking personal experiences.
Also, kind of funny you're suggesting I watch a video when you refuse to watch one that rebuts your own points. You might want to re-watch both videos if you want to understand his experiences with EV charging. He's got a few of them, and they're generally not filled with routinely bad experiences.
Also, go check out Out of Spec Reviews. They've got a number of videos rightfully critical of the charging networks and several videos showing lots of them failing all at once. But notice how in most of his videos with CCS cars, the experience is almost always rolling up to a station with empty ready to use dispensers, plugging in, and getting a charge. And it doesn't get brought up like some "woah, its actually working this time!" No, instead he'll mention " these are some great Delta units" or "these ABB chargers are top notch" if anything gets mentioned at all. So obviously his experiences, which this is a guy that seems like he's practically on the road every day in multiple different EVs, seems like it's mostly that they work but with some big examples of them not.
"So now, why are automakers suddenly itching to make this switch? Well, there's a pretty simple answer: the CCS charging networks available here in the US all kinda suck."
Now, is that judgement based on his "personal experience?" I don't know. But that's what he says. He does say about Electrify America that while he's never "been stranded" by it, (18:37), he describes having problems with using the app to use the chargers. He describes more than half the stations having broken NFC readers. He says "It wasn't great and that experience is happening to far too many owners of new EVs." "Meanwhile, the Tesla supercharger network largely just works." He implies that redundancy at EA stations is insufficient (20:42). At 21:07 says that activating the charger is harder than it needs to be...
At 21:30: "The main problems with CCS networks are poor maintenance, horrible up-time, largely terrible apps which are often the only way to start charging, ..." He then says: "Let me go through those one-by-one." And the he does.
Through 26:56 (this section is labeled "The Many Reasons We're Switching"), he describes issues with non-Tesla charging networks. (You're right that he doesn't blame CCS for the problems, and neither do I.)
I didn't watch your video because I conceded your characterization of it. You don't agree with my characterization of this video, but I think you missed this section.
I don't think it's reasonable to characterize his take on non-Tesla CCS charging networks in this video as anything other than quite negative.
Other than him experiencing broken NFC readers and poor app experience it doesn't sound like a lot of personal experiences being shared. Making general statements of uptime isn't necessarily personal; I also agree they should work on uptime because clearly other people do experience problems and I've seen dispensers down I've just used the open one next to them whenever that's the issue. That whole "Many Reasons We're Switching" is largely him talking generally, but a few specific personal experiences are mixed in as short quips (like the charging latches). Him talking about the networks going with more expensive cables and them being slower to replace the cables when failed isn't necessarily a personal experience, just explaining why they struggle with reliability.
As for the app experience, I wouldn't know, I don't use apps to activate the chargers. And that sounds like that was easily half his personal frustrations.
Do you have a CCS car? You mention a limited experience with charging networks. How many years have you used them? How many times have you tried charging at a non-Tesla charger?
You're moving the goalposts. He expresses his judgements about the reliability of CCS charging networks in the video. I suppose that you don't have to credit Technology Connections' assessment if you don't think it's based on his personal experience. But I think you now agree that his assessment (right or wrong) about the state of non-Tesla charging is not positive, and can be (and is) summarized as: "it kinda sucks". And that is what we have been disagreeing about.
I don't accept or trust your pivot to personalize the discussion by focusing on my personal experience. I never said I had vast experience with EV charging (I said it was limited). But for the benefit of anyone reading this thread, I will tell you my experience, and then I'm going to disengage with you.
I have owned a CCS vehicle (Toyota Rav4 Prime) for about 6mo. I live in San Francisco. I have tried to charge it about a dozen times at non-Tesla chargers. I succeeded one or two times. I have also observed friends charge their Tesla vehicles at Tesla chargers about a half dozen times.
In my personal experience, I have had connectivity problems (unable to pay because NFC didn't work, and EA app had no signal in a garage), and chargers labeled as up in the EVgo app were not functional. On the Plug Share app I have seen a non-functional station (https://www.plugshare.com/location/37345), where it has been labeled as up for over 12mo, during which time it has never worked. It happens to be the exact station I have most wanted to use.
Those are some of the exact problems Technology Connections mentions, which is why his video did resonate with me.
It sounds like you've had a good experience with non-Tesla charging, which is great. I wish my experience was as positive as yours, because I am unable to charge at home at my rental unit. I would love to have a great experience with non-Tesla charging, both for myself, and for wide adoption of non-Tesla EVs. It sounds like where you live non-Tesla charging infrastructure works more reliably than it has for me here.
Maybe you're going to tell me I'm a moron and don't know how to charge my car. But I haven't had a great experience at it.
I'm not saying you're a moron or that your experiences didn't happen. I've suggested several times I think a lot of the worst experiences are possibly regional as the vast majority of bad experiences I see here mention being on the West coast. But telling people asking if it's normal for over half the chargers to be practically non-functional, always long lines, etc. as the norm across the whole US is a stretch. It would be like me telling someone outside the US summers for the whole country is like 105+F every day.
I'm not suggesting the non-Tesla chargers are perfect, I'm not even saying they're particularly great. They do need to have faster turn around when even a single dispenser goes offline. They've been adopting regular credit card terminals over needing the apps, which is how it should have been from the start. I'll definitely agree overall Tesla charging experience is better. They've been way more responsive to problems and made the better bet on cheaper but easier to replace components. I agree with practically everything he said in that video, but that doesn't mean it was personal experiences. A lot of my "they need to improve" agreement is looking at plugshare around the country, reading comments like yours, seeing videos on YouTube from places like Out of Spec Reviews, and others, but not much personal other than seeing like 1 of 4 chargers out at the places I've gone to.
I'm just suggesting it's not the way the OP said it is across the entire United States. The poster was essentially describing a charging hellscape, someone asked if it's like that across the whole US, and you said yes based on your experience in SF. Well, maybe SF isn't the whole US.
I am trying to suggest Alec's experience isn't as bad as failing to charge 83% of the time. It sounds like he had a road trip where the EA app was glitchy (which he'd prefer to use over a credit card as his car has free charging through the app), he's run into a few dispensers which should have worked save for a broken clip and used another one at the site, and he's seen some percentage of dispensers out of service when he's gone to charge but still managed to charge. But from most of the content he's posted over both of his channels and other channels he's participated in, it looks like his overall success rate is much higher than 17%. Can we agree on that?
Another poster here mentioned plenty of empty chargers in the Midwest. Another mentioned no problems in the PNW outside of holidays. Multiple people in California talk about charging hellscapes. Maybe it's not a US thing? Maybe we shouldn't tell people it is?
