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I agree. My son suffered kidney damage among other issues due to contracting sepsis when he was nearly two years old. I’m really hoping some of these new technologies will bear fruit in the next several years. While I hope not to have to get to the point where we may need a transplant, I really hope that the technology matures and can help many people.

For a while, they did offer a Big Mac, and one version smaller and one larger. I think they did away with that some time ago.

Those look delicious!

I think where Disney really mishandled the Star Wars franchise is focusing so much on their movies (7, 8, 9). Most of the older fans (i.e. those with money) have nostalgia for the original and prequel trilogies and the toys, books, comics, video games, and lore from that time. They want to see characters and callbacks to the content they watched and the toys they played with.

This I think are one of the bigger problems. Who is funding a 20 year old to run for a school board position? The left has been very sly in fielding left-wing candidates into local elections and there doesn't seem to be a strong response from the right.

Even if the Democrat loses, it's still a platform for them to inject their poisonous worldview and nudge the needle a little left. Without a strong counter-balance, the voters tend to drift leftward.

That’s why we bought a plug-in hybrid minivan. For short around town trips and a lot of idling, we spend most of the time on electric avoiding ICE wear and tear and the level 2 charger at home keeps it topped off between errands.

For our longer family vacations, we just fill up and go with the ICE engine. Our battery pack is way smaller than a full EV and we get the benefit of both, plus not having to rely on a single fuel source.

Over the last several thousand miles, we’ve been averaging between 40-50 MPG equivalent on the combo of electric and gasoline.

The last time I went to a CVS, they had a sign paying Pharmacy tech’s $18/hour. Our local In-n-Out starts some positions at $17/hour and the people who visit In-n-Out generally want to be there, unlike a Pharmacy where many are there because they feel awful or are tending to sick family members.

They wouldn’t have a shortage if they actually used some of that savings from replacing employees with automated cashiers to actually compensate people who are supposed to have at least some training to handle life saving drugs.

If CVS was paying $20/hour to start they probably wouldn’t have a problem finding more people.

Meanwhile, my local CVS — 24 hours, but who knows how much longer — has to close their drive-through, and stop answering their phones. The only way to interact with a person is to stand in a long line and hope what their app tells you is ready is accurate.

Series hybrids operate like that. Basically the gas engine is just a highly optimized generator that supplies electricity to the motor which drive the wheels, electronics and battery. The engine only needs to run when the battery level gets too low or at high speeds when there is a constant demand.

I remember seeing somewhere there is a list that groups hybrids into series (like above) and parallel (where the electric motors and engine can both be linked or unlinked to drive the wheels).

Seems like a highly optimized diesel electric series hybrid could be really efficient. The tech runs locomotives and subs.

The last vehicle I purchased was a PHEV minivan. I spend a lot of time thinking about it and analyzing the cost/benefit. For our particular use case it was the perfect vehicle.

All our short trips and errands around town, plus a lot of idling waiting for kids is done on electric. The battery is small so a level 2 charger in our garage fills up in 2 hours from empty — easily manageable between errands.

For longer trips, including a couple 3000+ mile family vacations, the car works perfectly. No range anxiety, quick fill ups, and plenty of space for passengers and cargo.

For many people who do not have regular access to charging, I can see Hybrids and PHEVs being a good solution, especially since the smaller battery can give you 4-5 vehicles for the same amount of battery as a single BEV.

I had a similar experience. Bought a new van in Feb 2021 and the timing was perfect. Covid dropped sales, a historically bad ice/cold snap hit us further depressing sales and the chip shortage hadn’t started affecting supply yet so I was able to get it new for a little over 10K below MSRP.

If I’m on electric in my plug-in hybrid and sitting parked, the only usage my onboard computer records is climate and electronic systems which can be between 1-2 kilowatts.

Running the A/C isn’t too bad, but the heater definitely consumes more power in the winter. I believe there is also a heater for the battery pack to keep it at a warmer temperature.

Fortunately, winters tend to be short where I live.

I put in a 50amp circuit and a level 2 charger for a little over $1000 back in 2021. We have a plug-in hybrid which has a much smaller battery than a fully electric vehicle. It takes about 2 hours to charge fully, and I get 31 miles on electric before the gas engine takes over.

Since most of our in city appointments are completed within 31 miles, it’s easy to run errands, attend appointments, etc. and keep the battery charged between them if I have to return home.

The gas engine kicks in if we need it so there’s no range anxiety, and it doesn’t have to operating where it’s not as efficient — in slower stop-and-go city/suburban driving.

The company I bought my unit from (Grizzl-E) does sell a unit with two charging connectors. It will use up to the recommend amp rating of the circuit but will split the load if two vehicles are connected.

Personally I like the plug-in hybrid vehicles. You get the best of both worlds — electric for slower in town driving and gas for long trips. Plus charging time is much quicker due to the smaller batteries.

Too bad the industry isn’t moving in that direction as you could build 2-4 plug-in hybrids for the battery requirements of a single fully electric vehicle.

I’ve been in a datacenter that had power failure where the generators didn’t kick in and everything was running on battery. With the CRAC units out, the temperature climbed rapidly — much faster than I would have imagined. It went from cold to sauna in minutes until the battery banks were exhausted and everything started shutting down.

And I believe also out of respect for the special relationship we have with the UK. As I recall shortly after 9/11 the Queen ordered her band to play The Star Spangled Banner during the changing of the guard to honor those who had died, which was unprecedented — broke a 600 year tradition.

So I feel that while definitely outside established norms, it is a great gesture of goodwill between our countries.

That is how a series hybrid vehicle is supposed to operate. You have an internal combustion engine that generates electricity, a battery for storage (usually much smaller than a pure EV) and electric motors drive the wheels and handle climate, electronics, etc.

From what I’ve read this might be great for local, in city fleet type vehicles (e.g. US Mail trucks, delivery trucks) as they generally are lower speed and hybrids do very well in stop-and-go city driving.

Since many Americans do high-speed freeway driving, I think most hybrids use a parallel design where both the engine and battery pack are connected to the transmission and can drive the wheels... at high speed, it’s mostly the engine providing the power while charging the battery and at low speeds the battery provides the efficiency boost.

That’s the main reason why I don’t want an EV. It’s not just the range anxiety, it’s also that you have to cater to the needs of the car and its charging requirements. You can’t just stop anywhere you want, it has to be near charging infrastructure... that out of the way BnB? Sorry, can’t charge there.

When I travel, I want to be in complete control of my itinerary, not subject to my car’s needs.

Now our main car is a PHEV and I think this is where the sweet spot is. For short trips around town with a lot of stopping, starting, and idling, I’m pretty much on electric all of the time. I have a L2 charger in my garage so I can charge up fully in about 2 hours — easy to top off between errands.

But for a family vacation when I have kids, luggage, coolers and several thousand miles of driving, I just go like I would normally and gas up at any available station.

I think it’s the best of both worlds. If the industry was doing that, since PHEVs have smaller batteries you could probably build 3 or 4 of them at least for the same number of battery cells as would go into a fully electric vehicle, which would lower costs.

That was my thought as well. I could imagine:

- disk not in standard DVD format
- disk session not closed
- media is using codec not available on PC by default (VLC is a free download that could be used to play it)
- filesystem on disk is MacOS formatted and PC can’t read it.
- error in disk writing could cause problems
- PC’s disk reader has problems with this particular type of media (more frequent with older devices)

Me as well. I tend to avoid Chrome although I will use Edge but FireFox is my daily driver for browsers.

That does look like a nice machine, especially for my kids. I'm currently using an i7-3770 and the i3-10100 appears to be a lot faster as far as benchmarks go.

Comparison: i7-3770 vs. i3-10100

You may be able to plug in what your current processor is and see how it stacks up.

If you used an older GeForce 1050Ti card, which doesn't require supplemental power, upgraded the RAM and the Hard Disk to a SSD it would be a very nice gaming system for games that came out over the last several years.

Dwarf Hoarding. So sad what TLC has become.