chrisbolt (u/chrisbolt)

chrisbolt commented on US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees travelandtourworld.com/ne... · Posted by u/duxup

swasheck · 3 months ago

i’m hard-pressed to think of an industry whose financial principles i’m more skeptical of than the airline industry. post-9/11 the industry cratered and they said they needed to add fees to keep from going bankrupt. united created ted, their own low-cost no-frills carrier which was actually decent. once air travel recovered, they (airlines, in general) kept the fees and have been turning record profits ever since. united dumped ted so that they could return to focus on squeezing customers there.

i love travel but i hate dealing with airlines. their executives rank up there with health insurance as some of my least favorite personalities.

and one last thing, other than (eventually) telecom way back in the 80s, has there ever been an industry whose deregulation has been a net win for consumers? i’m genuinely curious and not asking sarcastically

chrisbolt · 3 months ago

Looking at the numbers, for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines#Business_trend...

United had their highest revenue in 2024, and their profit margin was... 5.5%. Would reducing your ticket price by 5.5% make any difference?

chrisbolt commented on US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees travelandtourworld.com/ne... · Posted by u/duxup

matwood · 3 months ago

EP is just economy with slightly more leg room. PE is closer to business than EP. The food is upgraded along with the service. The seats are more recliner like and you generally have more room. Additionally, the PE seats are often the quickest to deplane if that's important. I can also work in PE seat, whereas EP not so much.

The problem with PE is that it's often not that great of a deal. Unless it's a super busy route, you can usually keep shopping for an upgrade and just go all the way to lay flat business. Side note, when going business class, understand that not all plane layouts and seats are the same. Check seat guru.

Source - I fly back and forth to the EU quite a bit.

chrisbolt · 3 months ago

Seatguru hasn't been updated in ages, use https://www.aerolopa.com instead

chrisbolt commented on Are electric cars that much cheaper to operate? pavlinbg.com/posts/are-el... · Posted by u/Pavlinbg

KallDrexx · 10 months ago

Electrical charging on the road is expensive, because those are fast chargers, and not normal chargers a home would have.

A ~7kw charger you'd install in a home or a business has is relatively cheap wiring electrically, and the stalls are not that expensive.

Rivian adventure network uses chargers that have to output 220kw into the car. This requires significantly higher cost for getting electricity to each stall, the stall needs to be able to handle that much power transfer, and they must be actively cooled (since that much power causes a significant amount of heat). They also require a decent amount of maintenance.

These stalls can cost upwards of $100k per stall for installation.

This is all done so you can charge in ~20 minutes (as opposed to several hours it would take at a normal 7kwh one).

That's why fast chargers cost significantly more. They also need higher profit margins to make back the installation and maintenance cost depending on utilization rates they expect, otherwise installing these chargers doesn't make a lot of sense for businesses.

chrisbolt · 10 months ago

> That's why fast chargers cost significantly more.

Utilities also charge higher per-kW rates due to the high demand to be able to charge each car at 250 or more kW.

https://pluginamerica.org/understanding-demand-charges/

chrisbolt commented on LG and Samsung are making TV screens disappear spectrum.ieee.org/transpa... · Posted by u/jnord

joelfried · a year ago

According to The Telegraph, they're researching how to do it in the UK: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/27/apple-tv-plo...

chrisbolt · a year ago

Note that this is talking about Apple TV+, their streaming service, not the Apple TV device itself.

chrisbolt commented on AI is exhausting the power grid msn.com/en-us/money/techn... · Posted by u/guerby

Davidzheng · a year ago

Good stuff. 50% of earth energy consumption will be in AI soon.

chrisbolt · a year ago

https://xkcd.com/605/

chrisbolt commented on Apple is launching its own password manager app techcrunch.com/2024/06/10... · Posted by u/kelthuzad

chrisbolt · 2 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40636292

chrisbolt commented on One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence bbc.com/news/articles/c88... · Posted by u/yowmamasita

ryandrake · 2 years ago

> It's only in the last decade that I've noticed the specific language of "keep your seatbelt fastened even if the light turns off".

It makes you wonder why they ever even turn off the seatbelt light. Just keep it on the whole time, just like the equally anachronistic no-smoking light.

I feel like the light is just there to mollify the older generations who didn't grow up with mandatory seat belts wearing in cars, fought those laws loudly, and are still bitter that the government makes them take a sensible safety precaution. Are there enough of those people still flying that it makes sense to keep that light in use?

chrisbolt · 2 years ago

There are times when the pilots are expecting turbulence, when they are notified by ATC or other planes ahead of them. During that time, the light means passengers shouldn't use the lavatories.