overzeetop

joined 2 years ago
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[–] overzeetop 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Temu is the current loss leader. You have to be careful as there are some items more expense than the Amazon or Aliexpress options, but many are 1/2-2/3 of the Amazon price with free shipping. Most items are 7-10 days shipping, but Amazon (to a rural address) is barely a couple days better with prime and about on par without.

Shipping has pretty much killed Aliexpress for me. I’m not willing to buy anything expensive as it’s effectively impossible to return and most sellers have an Amazon sellers account that is the same price or less once intl shipping is added.

[–] overzeetop 0 points 11 months ago
  1. When you die at the palace, you really die at the palace
  2. Try the mulled wine
  3. It’s good to be the king
  4. A gentleman’s cuffs should be even with the tip of his penis
  5. Jews can joke about whatever they want if they’re the scriptwriter
[–] overzeetop 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Doubtful. 20 years in Afghanistan bought us nothing. Half a century of meddling in the rest of central America has produced refugee waves. While we could, theoretically, try to assist the Mexican government with funds we’d probably fuck that up too.

[–] overzeetop 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I’ve had it for 15 years and just replaced the seat cushion last month.

I have 5 cmdrs in elite, I think. Only one is on Odyssey. One Horizons-end-game-all-but-carrier with 6B credits and a fleet, one stuck 15,000LY in the black, two with T-9s I made for commodity storage, and one new play through that’s mid-game (the odyssey one). I’ve mostly given up since I don’t have the free time / desire to grind for alien fights and the new on-foot and eco-bio stuff just doesn’t wow me.

[–] overzeetop 4 points 11 months ago
[–] overzeetop 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Any braking without energy recovery is wildly wasteful. Public transit (busses, trains) are fucking terrible wastes of energy due to their large mass and frequent stops. Hybrid and/or electric busses are, in this respect, potentially far superior to their diesel counterparts. I'm not a train person (engineer...train...haha) but I don't think even the all electric trains use regenerative braking and there are few battery powered trains in service.

I've spent the last year altering my driving habits when I can. I try not to be an asshole when others are around/in traffic, but when I'm not pressed I will coast to a stop as much as possible (esp uphill) and use hills to gain momentum. Over 6000 miles, I've raised my overall mpg around 18%.

[–] overzeetop 10 points 11 months ago

Not quite. EVs can still do door to door transport, are faster portal to portal, and have a vastly more diverse infrastructure, including the ability to (at least in a limited extent) traverse areas without track or road infrastructure. Public transit is still better, especially for rail, in reducing energy losses due to wheel deformation, reduction of human fatigue and dependence on attentiveness, and in some cases station to station speed and net air resistance per passenger mile. Since this is technology instead of fuckcars, it seems reasonable not to circlejerk too much.

[–] overzeetop 81 points 11 months ago (10 children)

In traffic, the largest reduction of efficiency comes from accelerating and the braking. You use energy to start moving (proportional to m V^2) and then you dump that energy into heat in your brakes to stop. The second comes from idling where you use energy to keep the engine rotating. As others have mentioned, EVs use regenerative braking so a substantial portion of the energy used to slow and stop the car is used to recharge the battery. EVs have no need to keep an engine running so unless you’re running the a/c there are minimal demands on a stopped/idling EV.

On the highway, you have the internal friction in the drivetrain to overcome, the constant deformation of the tires, and - most importantly - wind resistance, which is proportional to cd x rho x V2.

Cd (drag) and rho (air density) are low, but that V (speed) squared means driving at 75mph incurs 25x the energy use as driving at 15 mph. An EV gets no sage harbor here - plowing through a fluid (air) is essentially the same work.

To give you a sense of numbers, my vehicle (F150) gets less than 10mpg the 5 miles to my local pool/gym. The speed limit is 25 mph but there are stop signs every block or two. Lots of braking loss. On back roads with gentle curves and a 45 mph limit I get close to 30 mpg. That’s the sweet spot between overcoming transmission friction and air resistance. On the highway at 60 mph I get 22-23 mpg. At 78-79 mph I get 19 mpg. These are all generally on flat stretches using the 6 min average on my dashboard.

(Sorry for the long post…I’m an engineer and mechanical efficiency and aerodynamics are my happy place)

[–] overzeetop 6 points 11 months ago

Like so many things, the good/great reasons for homeschooling have been twisted and perverted by the Christian right (and, in some cases, misguided parents) so that often the optics are for the worst outcomes. If we had it to do over again (20/20 hindsight) we probably would have had a better outcome homeschooling our daughter. We just didn’t see out recognize the shortcomings until it was too late.

[–] overzeetop 3 points 11 months ago

ICU docs who deal with many flu, COVID and other respiratory critical illness

While almost certainly not incompetent at their jobs, they have little reason to have specific knowledge of vaccine efficacy. Without some active immunological research component (which an ICU doctor is unlikely to undertake), they are practitioners seeing a self-selecting population and drawing conclusions from anecdotal evidence. You may as well ask an auto mechanic what they think of a newly formulated fuel additive. Not a slight to the doctors, but a recognition that it's not their specialty no matter how many vehicles they see.

I've read the same thing - that the current iteration of the vaccine is not specific to the most prevalent version of Covid at the moment and is not exceptionally effective at preventing infection. But I've also read that the prevalence of complications from the most recent strain are substantially decreased for those who have gotten (the|a recent) vaccine booster. I wouldn't trust me or my knowledge either though, as I'm not a doctor, much less a degree in immunology. For my information I usually get updates from a good friend who has her PhD in immunology, worked in a lab for two decades, and is now a scientific writer for an immunological journal and sees many of the new research papers coming out.

Personally, it costs me nothing financially to get the vaccine and my reaction is minor at worst with no down time. Same as influenza. OTOH, I stand to lose a great deal, financially, if I get sick (no work=no income) so I will continue to get boosted as new versions come out and I'm eligible.

[–] overzeetop 2 points 11 months ago

In many cases,in the US, the rack rate for a full course of a serious cancer is easily the $500k I suggested and frequently more than double that. My treatment for a suspected single point melanoma was close to $75,000 and it was a single outpatient procedure with a pre- and post-op office follow up. No chemo, no stage designation, nothing - zero cancer found at the site of the questionable biopsy site.

It’s true the Luxturna is an odd case (though the OP article is talking about customized treatment so it is appropriate here). It’s not the disease or cure but the justification of how they determined the cost of their treatment. Not based on the research cost or market, not based on the production or application of the treatment, but on the value of your eyesight they would be preserving.

[–] overzeetop 3 points 11 months ago

That’s the one good thing about normal white collar over-the-holiday weeks - there’s rarely a panic so things are a little more laid back.

For my 50th birthday I took a month off and pre-scheduled nothing to do. It. Was. Glorious. Of course, I didn’t get paid, but it was a fair birthday present value / trade.

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