I always thought this was baloney but James Hoffman’s recent video where he steamed water with the steam wand instead of boiling it normally for an americano changed my mind. I tried it and it was a genuinely different tasting drink. Not sure what causes it but different dissolved gases seems plausible.
I had been paying monthly for 13 years straight and they still demanded a cancellation fee because it turned out I was on an annual commitment (which by the way they hiked the price of by 50% with a month’s notice and by the time you notice the larger payment go out you are in a whole new 12 months).
Ok so you were on an annual plan to save money and when you cancelled you had to pay an exit fee to account for the annual discount. Seems reasonable to me.
They gave you a months notice of the price increase and you didn't cancel until after it went into effect?
An annual plan shouldn't require a termination fee. If I purchase an Annual Subscription, I should be able to cancel it whenever, with no fee whilst retaining the benefits for my subscription, as I paid for a whole year up front anyways....
Adobe software being a subscription service is nonsense too, but thats for another discussion.
Yes, and if you get an annual plan from adobe and pay up front there is no fee for cancelling. The fee is if you get an annual plan with a monthly payment and cancel early.
I remember when it was like $600 for photoshop for a single version(like 25 years ago so what would that be today?). The subscription pricing is a steal.
If the subscription pricing was a "steal" and the perpetual licensing was genuinely more expensive and worse, they'd still offer the perpetual licensing.
Instead they killed it, they clearly do not want to cannibalize their subscription offing. It clearly makes them more money.
Your first point is valid, I was misunderstanding the yearly subscription pricing, they offer an upfront payment as well as a monthly (but with year commitment).
I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.
The subscription pricing makes it more accessible to consumers where as previously the only people that paid for licenses were companies(and probably only large companies given it was basically always the most popular warez). So they charge less per release but they dramatically increase the possible consumer base and release lumpy revenue based around semi-regular annual releases with constant cash flow. So on a per user basis it is without a doubt cheaper but overall they can still make a lot more money.
>I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.
I've not seen anyone claiming this actually happened but maybe I just missed them? Everyone I've seen has said the opposite.
It’s perfectly normal to have a fee for breaking a lease. And that’s what an annual subscription paid monthly is anyway. It’s a commitment for an extended period of time.
If you could just stop paying and retain the discounted rate, what is an annual subscription vs a monthly one?
Varies by jurisdiction. Residential leases typically require notice, and inedequate notice (both by time and by method) nullifies the agreement. This is because the legal world generally agrees that contracts that would expose consumers with practically zero legal access or knowledge to one-sided contracts providing one party unilateral control would be unconscionable.
Even if it were technically legal it should distress you.
Because it is not obviously theft. If you are getting a discount for making a year-long commitment, and then cancel, breaking that commitment, isn't a cancelation fee appropriate?
The middle ground is integrated solar panels, where you have normal sized panels but they are flush with the rest of the roof and there are no tiles underneath them. There are normal tiles surrounding the panels. This is the style I tend to see now for new builds, but it’s more expensive than just layering on the panels if your roof is already in good shape.
> The middle ground is integrated solar panels, where you have normal sized panels but they are flush with the rest of the roof and there are no tiles underneath them
Flush with the rest of the roof seems like a mistake. What if you need/want to replace them with a different sized panel?
Horses for courses relly. I think the panels are all standard sizes now as well? When done tastefully, they almost seamlessly blend with the tile (limits tile choices), certainly from a distance. Some new builds near me, you can’t really see the panels until up close. Raised panels do have an issue in that birds/rodents/etc. nest below them and can cause major damage if unchecked. This is why pest protection (unsightly up close) is a must. The major cost of dealing with nesting under panels comes from the labour and probable need for scaffolding etc. to resolve - i.e. minimum of £2k.
That and op said it's more expensive. Why would you do it flush, then? Looks? Eh, I prefer practicality over form and many architects would agree with being more honest.
Looks, no need for bird caging to stop nests underneath the panels, and I don’t believe it is particularly more expensive if you do it when replacing the whole roof. It’s more expensive if you don’t want to replace your roof.
Aero is driving a lot of EV design choices yes but it’s not as much of a limitation as you are implying - see the Ioniq 5, Cybertruck, F150 lightning or any of Rivian’s vehicles for examples where they’ve traded a bit of range for a boxier, less aero shape (admittedly often with _some_ rounded corners still).
It’s a trade off most manufacturers are not making because the US market is _so_ range conscious but I think it is fairly small margins we’re talking.
Well yes, hydro and geothermal are the easiest (and earliest perfected) renewable sources to provide consistent base load. It would be odd if the first countries to achieve fully renewable power weren’t making use of those technologies.
Other countries will have to be more reliant on interconnects, diverse renewable mixes and batteries. Luckily this is now almost always cheaper and more secure than fossil fuels and the trend lines point towards that continuing to be more and more true over time.
You can absolutely see a GP you’re not registered with if you are travelling and need to. I have done it multiple times. I have been offered it same or next day after calling 111.
This article is about a sodium-ion battery which is a different chemistry to the one BYD claimed those results on (that was LFP).
Sodium-ion is exciting because it has the potential to have less degradation over time, much less sensitivity to cold and less reliance on rare earth metals. Could also end up significantly cheaper. However it has struggled to reach the same energy densities and so hasn’t been practical thus far.
This seems like a big step towards it being a practical technology choice for certain models, if it bears out.
What sodium ion lacks in energy density, it actually partially gains back in the reduced need for cooling. The same properties that make it work across a larger temperature range also mean that you don't need a lot of (or any) cooling/heating to condition the battery. That means less weight is used for that and less energy is needed for running a heat pump.
Another thing here is that volumetric density matters more than weight density in cars. Space comes at a premium and while weight affects efficiency somewhat, it pales in comparison to aerodynamics and rolling resistance. The difference between the best and the worst cars on the road is at least 3x. You have some heavy, brick shaped, monstrosities that barely do 1.5 miles per kwh and then you have some cars with low drag coefficient that easily do 5-6 miles per kwh. Even swapping tires can add meaningful range. Weight reductions help a bit but the difference between the best and worst energy densities on a 60kwh battery is probably 1-2 big passengers in terms of weight.
Peak energy makes sodium ion batteries for energy storage. Their pilot batteries are deployed in a desert. High temperatures during the day, freezing temperatures at night. They use only passive cooling without any moving parts (fans, pumps, etc.). Aside from that being impressive, that also lowers maintenance cost because it reduces the amount of stuff that actually needs servicing.
Sodium ion gains back volume because it doesn't need cooling. At the cell level, they are worse but at the pack level, it starts looking pretty decent. Anyway, there are multiple sodium ion batteries on the road now in China. It's practical right now. The rest is just the widening technology gap the US and EU have with China. We'll just have to wait a few years for local manufacturers to catch up. Some models with these batteries will probably start making it to the EU in the next two years or so.
> Most of the cost will be safety systems designed to prevent the battery from being exciting and even then a crash will likely set them off.
People say the same thing about Li-ion batteries yet they have proven to be significantly less likely to catch fire compared to ICE vehicles [1].
> people who don't want to admit that large scale electrification is a dumb idea. We electrified everything that made sense to electrify a half century ago.
I'm very curious to hear why you think this. If nothing else, the 'situation' with the Strait of Hormuz would seem to have shown the importance of energy independence achieved through large scale electrification. Individually, I couldn't go back to an ICE car or even garden tools, they're worse in every way.
Anything can happen, but you're predicting the future without any evidence. You just made up a scenario in your head, predicted it would come true, then you can't believe people would say it's ridiculous.
When was the last time this happened with a gas car? How often are fires happening with lithium iron phosphate?
You think a car is going to crashing into a building AND burst into flames AND be impossible to put out AND burn the building down?
When was the last time this happened? Let's think about odds and statistics super hard.
>When was the last time this happened with a gas car?
ICE car fires are easier to put out.
>You think a car is going to crashing into a building AND burst into flames AND be impossible to put out AND burn the building down?
EVs catching on fire and then being impossible to put out is something that has already happened, and in fact as I understand it the latter invariably follows from the former. The only new thing that needs to happen is the fire happening while the car is not out on a road, but inside a building where it can set other things on fire. The fact that the vehicle cannot be put out and can frustrate firefighting and rescue efforts makes an already dangerous situation even more dangerous.
Which part of any of this is straining your imagination?
>When did one crash into a building, catch on fire, and kill people? Surely this must have happened at some point for you to put all this together.
You can't think of a single example of an ICE vehicle crashing into a building, starting a fire, and a bunch of people dying? I can think of two such crashes happening the same day, involving jet engines.
I don't know why this is relevant, though. The topic of discussion is lithium batteries, not ICEs. A vehicle crashing into a building and starting a fire that kills people is not some science fiction scenario that should need to be defended. Your incredulity is straying into bad faith territory.
>you changed what you're saying
I changed it because I think it's it's pretty obvious that the concerning thing is the EV catching fire where it can easily spread to other things. Whether that's because the vehicle crashed or for some other reason is inconsequential. The reason I gave that example initially was because that's just what I happened to have in mind at the time; it makes sense that a crash could damage the batteries enough to cause a thermal runaway, rather than the car randomly bursting into flames for no reason.
>It's only a matter of time before someone gets hit by lightning after winning the lottery too.
Winning the lottery doesn't increase your chances of getting hit by lightning, nor vice versa, but crashing your EV does increase the chances that it can catch fire, and a building is one of the things it can crash into. Having a fire that cannot be put out likewise increases the chances that someone may die from it, compared to if the fire is easily to be put out.
I don't know, do you really find it that unreasonable to be a little bit concerned that cars now have these giant energy stores that if they fail they're impossible to control until they burn out completely?
You can't think of a single example of an ICE vehicle crashing into a building, starting a fire, and a bunch of people dying? I can think of two such crashes happening the same day, involving jet engines.
So your argument is that electric vehicles are dangerous because of 9/11 ?
That's what you said. Cars became planes and suddenly 9/11 is your example and somehow it means that someone will crash a car into a building, the car will light on fire and everyone in the building will dies. These are your words.
I'm not really sure what you think the difficulty is. A firefighter in fire protection gear hooks the burning car with a large metal chain, the other end goes to the fire truck, tow truck or winch, the car comes out of the building.
The building is made of ordinary building stuff like wood and plastic which can be extinguished using ordinary means, you just need to remove the car so it doesn't set it on fire again. The same means (dousing it with a fire hose) can temporarily lower the temperature of the car. Firefighters already have the equipment necessary to deal with toxic smoke.
I went in and played a few videos. I'm not sure if anything in there is "sobering" to me (as an EV owner), all the incidents that he shows make sense and the physics are easy to understand.
He seems to be pretty knowledgeable about battery and EV architecture and the stated facts and numbers seem solid, but it also sounds like he takes great care not to scare away his flock of EV-hating idiots.
Just because you state your opinion confidently, does not mean you are correct. For example, as of 2024, there are 30 billion kilograms of proven reserves of lithium, more than enough to replace every single one of the 1.5 billion ICE cars in the world with an electric car. Please focus more on getting the facts right, and less on speculating about the character of other commenters in an overemotional manner.
Elemental sodium is reactive. Ionic sodium is not, lest you blow up your dinner. Furthermore, the lithium part of a Li-ion battery isn't the flammable part, the electrolyte is.
> If you want to replace FF there is exactly one solution, that's nuclear.
> Stop acting like you care about this issue. You have never cared enough to learn about it, so until you do, stop spreading misinformation about how physics works.
It's wild for you, in particular, to take such a weirdly aggressive stance here. Zero basis in reality, just virtue signaling.
> Just like you (at the moment) are acting like you don't care if people die in fires.
There is nothing in my comment that could possibly be interpreted as meaning I don't care about people dying in fires.
> If you want to replace FF there is exactly one solution, that's nuclear.
We're talking about batteries, so I'm not sure how this is relevant unless you want reactors in cars?
> Stop acting like you care about this issue. You have never cared enough to learn about it, so until you do, stop spreading misinformation about how physics works.
I made a single, sourced, claim in my comment and didn't mention physics once?
> Too bad there isn't enough Li for everyone to have one.
Could this be why companies are looking at alternatives? Either way, this claim really should be provided with a source.
I ride an electric scooter to work. An older friend of mine saw this, and reminisced about how he rode a gasoline-powered scooter to work 20 years ago in the early 2000s, and how he had to deal with the fact that it was loud and smelled of gasoline. I'm sure it was possible to buy some kind of electric scooter then, maybe even one that would've worked for his commuting needs. But I'm not surprised that lithium ion battery tech got significantly better over those 20 years, such that when I bought my scooter last year it didn't even occur to me to look and see if there was something gas-powered I could've bought.
