naxxfish @naxxfish@mastodon.technology
death
Sad to hear that one of the cornerstone long-term members of the London 2600 group - The Reverend Rat - passed away suddenly this August. He was quite the character - I have fond memories of building ever weirder WiFi antennas with him (back when the Pringles tube "cantenna" was all the rage) - he had a range of ghetto but surprisingly effective designs.
Anyway, I've got my test in a couple of hours, wish me luck 🤞😂
Yesterday, he decided to mansplain (can a man mansplain to another man? It certainly felt like it ...) how the engine worked whilst we were doing the "Show me" under the bonnet questions. "Here's the spark plugs - you'll probably need to replace them every 4-5 years. Here's the air filter, you'll need to replace that occasionally too, and the .... " etc etc. Yeah, OK ... you know how many components under the bonnet need regular replacement in an EV? Few to none.
And also, sure, there are some types of vehicle which are impractical to be powered by existing battery technology. But that doesn't mean that *all* vehicles have to continue to be petrol powered.
I agree in some respects: it wouldn't be great to scrap a whole bunch of perfectly servicable cars all at once and replace them with EVs. But surely, that's not a reason to *continue manufacturing petrol cars*.
Driving instructor on climate change, take 2: "We shouldn't replace all our cars with electric cars: just keep the petrol cars we have going for longer, that way we don't have to make so many new cars!" It's an interesting argument, but neglects the fact that running a petrol car for 4 years has the same carbon footprint as manufacturing a (modest) new EV.
Although, it turns out he is part of a local NIMBY movement to protest against building new blocks of (energy efficient and dense) flats in the area. So, who knows. Either way, I'm glad he's able to let me drive with him this week, but I'll not be going back to him XD
I can only imagine that he was trying to see if my driving got worse when I was annoyed. Which it didn't, so ... I guess that's something.
"Last year I was part of a volunteer operation to evacuate 4,000 pensioners stranded in flooded care homes - can't do that with an electric car, can you?" "Possibly not, but I wasn't planning on becoming an emergency service?"
"See that, that's my Land Rover Defender - it's much more eco friendly than an electric car! Think of all the emissions and toxic chemicals that go into manufacturing lithium ion batteries!" - "And all the toxic chemicals and emissions needed to produce and then burn diesel.."
"Once you've passed your test you'll want to go all sorts of places!" he says, "I've driven most of the way to the outer hebredes, and all sorts of other remote places - can't do that on a battery can you!". "No", I say, trying to have a driving lesson, "but I don't want to go to the Outer Hebredes. I want to go to Whitstable".
Had a driving lesson with a new instructor (my usual one is self isolating and my test is on Friday 😲). He asked whether I was planning on getting a car. I, reluctantly, said "uh, a Renault Zoe...", "Ah, electric vehicles, the biggest scam running!". Oh god...
I don’t trust drinking straws. If I can use it to suck liquid out of a glass, then surely the liquid can suck me into a glass too.
"Airtag moving with you" notification: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227 - what happens if I'm on a bus or train with someone who forgot their phone?
I didn't link to it in the first place because it wasn't even especially relevant! Only when I got asked did I link to it. It's not even that good! Like, it's fine, it holds my knives - but going by the Amazon reviews (which I didn't read because I bought it elsewhere) are awful!
Today, I mostly created a trashy /r/AskReddit thread and accidentally caused a run on a perfectly mediocre knife block https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/mtz977/millennials_what_was_the_most_middle_aged_thing/gv2mrcy
Turns out I had a lot to say about the crowdfunding project witch hunt for "fake" projects that aren't fake, going on on /r/shittykickstarters - so I proper-blogged https://naxxfish.net/posts/2021-04-18-crowdfunding-witchhunt/
None of this sounds especially outlandish, does it? And yet, it has been greeted with pitchforks by /r/shittykickstarters because it bears a resemblence to that old fradulent project.
Also, that metal nubbin also happens to be a NFC reader! You can attach a NFC sticker to the bottom of your jars, and it can tell what jar you've got out. Huh, neat.
