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otoburb commented on Ford kills the All-Electric F-150   wired.com/story/ford-kill... · Posted by u/sacred-rat
jandrewrogers · 2 days ago
The kinds of situations that drive range consideration for things like trucks is that your planned route suddenly becomes unavailable after you've already burned most of your range. Range anxiety isn't about the ideal case.

I've had several situations in the Mountain West when roads suddenly closed <25 miles away from my final destination (and fuel). Some of these required upwards of 100 mile detour on rural roads with almost no civilization. That detour was not part of the original range calculation. For an EV the detour may not even be an option, you have to go backwards to a major highway to find a charging station that may be in range.

Hell, I've nearly come up short in an ICE vehicle a couple times. I try to keep 150-200 miles of spare range on my vehicle when I am in that kind of country. That is hard to do on a typical EV.

otoburb · 2 days ago
>>I try to keep 150-200 miles of spare range on my vehicle when I am in that kind of country. That is hard to do on a typical EV.

Plus the additional anxiety of trying to figure out if dropping temperatures will add massive downside variance to your initial range estimate.

otoburb commented on Mathematics is hard for mathematicians to understand too   science.org/doi/10.1126/s... · Posted by u/mmaaz
adornKey · 15 days ago
The desire to hide all traces where a proof comes from is really a problem and having more context would often be very helpful. I think some modern authors/teachers are nowadays getting good at giving more context. But mostly you have to be thankful that the people from the minimalist era (Bourbaki, ...) at least gave precise consistent definitions for basic terminology.

Mathematics is old, but a lot of basic terminology is surprisingly young. Nowadays everyone agrees what an abelian group is. But if you look into some old books from 1900 you can find authors that used the word abelian for something completely different (e.g. orthogonal groups).

Reading a book that uses "abelian" to mean "orthogonal" is confusing, at least until you finally understand what is going on.

otoburb · 15 days ago
>>[...] at least gave precise consistent definitions for basic terminology.

Hopefully interactive proof assistants like Lean or Rocq will help to mitigate at least this issue for anybody trying to learn a new (sub)field of mathematics.

otoburb commented on America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy   theatlantic.com/ideas/arc... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
micromacrofoot · 2 months ago
what does "really graduating" even mean in 2025? you're eligible for a slightly less bad minimum wage job?
otoburb · 2 months ago
Not having a highscool diploma or GED can limit one's future career options; an example is the US armed forces[1].

[1] https://www.usa.gov/military-requirements

otoburb commented on The Simple Mathematics of Chinese Innovation   marginalrevolution.com/ma... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
Antibabelic · 3 months ago
Is it a good idea to start learning Mandarin in 2025 to be able to follow these Chinese scientific innovations?
otoburb · 3 months ago
This reason alone is unlikely to provide sufficient motivation to keep grinding away. Language acquisition can be a slog even though it's (eventually) super rewarding.
otoburb commented on Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank   theverge.com/tech/781387/... · Posted by u/arnon
addaon · 3 months ago
I don't carry a battery, but I do carry a solar panel that weighs around 300 g. I use my phone when backpacking as a GPS receiver, map, flashlight, and eBook reader. Phone + solar panel weighs less than paperback + paper map + flashlight, gives me more flexibility for adjusting plans, and doesn't leave me out of novel after a few days.
otoburb · 3 months ago
Assuming you could afford it, would the new iPhone Air be a consideration in your ultralight base load going forward?
otoburb commented on U.S. intelligence intervened with DOJ to push HPE-Juniper merger   axios.com/2025/07/30/merg... · Posted by u/rascul
stogot · 5 months ago
Isn’t Ericsson (HQ in Texas) the best positioned to counter Hauwei in the telecom space? don’t see why HPE/Juniper tech merger would be a priority or advantage
otoburb · 5 months ago
Ericsson is a Swedish company with headquarters in Stockholm. They (and everybody else) have lost and continue to lose market share to Huawei short of these types of overt government interventions/market interventions.
otoburb commented on Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria   science.org/content/blog-... · Posted by u/A_D_E_P_T
jjk166 · 5 months ago
There definitely was never a life form which exclusively slept - all the critical parts of life require being awake. Life that didn't sleep, however, is possible.
otoburb · 5 months ago
Maybe not 'exclusively' slept, but koalas[1] sleep for a majority of the day (16-20 hours) in order to digest highly toxic eucalyptus leaves which constitute the main portion of their diet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koala

otoburb commented on The patterns of elites who conceal their assets offshore   home.dartmouth.edu/news/2... · Posted by u/cval26
WalterBright · 5 months ago
The US government has confiscated value from T Bills before.

The government used to sell two bond types - dollar bonds that paid off in dollars, and gold bonds that paid off in gold. The gold bonds were safer and hence paid a lower interest rate.

Enter FDR. FDR decided to pay off the gold bond holders in dollars, not gold, and since the value of gold vs dollars had diverged substantially, FDR confiscated the difference.

That was the end of the phrase "sound as a dollar". Gee, I wonder why nobody says that anymore!

The largest risk of TBills is that inflation will shrink their value, and with catastrophic deficits that is a very, very real risk. That's why I don't invest in bonds or any investment that is denoted in dollars.

otoburb · 5 months ago
>>That's why I don't invest in bonds or any investment that is denoted in dollars.

Most investments seem to eventually (?) denominate into USD equivalents, especially if you live in the US. Do you mean hard(er) assets like real estate or commodities (which also leaves me puzzled because they’re still typically denoted in an underlying fiat currency and especially USD if they’re domestic assets).

otoburb commented on In a milestone for Manhattan, a pair of coyotes has made Central Park their home   smithsonianmag.com/scienc... · Posted by u/sohkamyung
kjkjadksj · 5 months ago
Coyotes are all over socal and they really don’t go for people at all. Small dogs maybe.
otoburb · 5 months ago
>>Small dogs maybe.

A judge in Brooklyn recently ruled[1] that dogs are (now) classified as "immediate family members". I wonder if the this might push the Central Park Conservancy to step up considerations for eradication of the coyotes to avoid potential emotional damages in light of the ruling if such a situation were to occur.

[1] https://www.nonhumanrights.org/blog/dogs-family-members/

u/otoburb

KarmaCake day4451October 20, 2008View Original