Regarding pedestrian infrastructure. That is just outright false, at least for Austria. Pedestrian infrastructure in big cities has improved substantially and even in rural regions many communities have made improvements. Many of these projects happened also after 2009.

That said, the rise of oversized trucks is likely the bigger factor here. When I was visiting the US in 2010, it was not half as bad as it appears to be now.

Celcius is Kelvin, just with a different base because absolute zero is not terribly practical.

Not much that clothing can do when the air is excessively dry due to excessive air conditioning, also not much it helps against headache inducing constant air flow.

Hot office suck, a/c sucks. I am lucky we have a heat exchanger ceiling in the office and it is set to comfortable temperatures not fridge settings. I necer quite understood why some seem to insidt a room hast to be colder in summer than in winter.

I thought that water cooled server gpus have been around for a while now, maybe I am mistaken.

That I can agree to.

Wow, they invented closed loop cooling.

I guess they will be completely blown away when they find out, that one can actually link data centers to distributed heating networks and thereby actually use the primary output of those premium priced electrical heating plants, instead of just wasting it and lots of water while doing so. Of course, for doing so one would have to properly plan those data centers and need more time developing them etc. And then it would take longer than this bubble might last so that is not an option.

Not gonna argue about the lobbying. That doesn’t change though that emission laws were bad, they were needed but obviously terribly implemented, not because they demanded unreasonable things but because they allowed loopholes so huge, you could drive the entire car industry through it.

There are studies that link hood height to higher threat to pedestrians. But honestly, how could it not be that way. If you are hit by a vertical wall or by something at the height of your knees that throws you onto a hood, those two scenarios are not the same. Try it out some day, it really isn’t. Add to that that high hoods negatively impact visibility, substantially and I don’t need a study for simple facts of geometry.

Halari et al., 2026 (doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2025.2516717): “Compared to car impacts, pedestrians struck by high hood edge vehicles were more likely to be runover.”

It is straining for everyone but yes, some can handle the strain better than others. It just takes so much more mental energy to handle. Most can’t handle it well though, which is why those technologies never manage to break out of their niche.

I do agree however that it is quite different from NFT and other scams. It is a really fascinating technology with real use cases but just some foundational issues that prevent it from leaving their niche.

Big Trucks and SUVs are much deadlier than proper cars in case of accidents. Pedestrian infrastructure does not exist in most parts of the US or is very dangerous to use and those parts of the US that do are often unaffordable for regular people to live in. People also do not expect pedestrians even if there is infrastructure of that kind. Roads in the US are designed to maximise the danger to pedestrians even if there is pedestrian infrastructure because of car first regulations …

Yes, mass production feature phones. This won’t be a mass production product. You’d be surprised how much that increases costs. The question is of course, if one can make a product under those circumstances that people are still ready to buy. In other words, it has to offer something (can also be non-material) that differentiates it from those mass production feature phones.

That I can agree with. But in this concrete case, the regulation on cars was not what was off, it was the lack of extension of that regulation on oversized personal vehicles, ie private SUVs and pickup trucks. That is a key difference.

3D stuff has the fundamental issue that VR and 3D views are just incredibly straining on the human user. Folding phones have no such issue and their durability is also good enough to be competitive (yet clearly worse than regular smart phones). They are really not comparable to 3D monitors and VR.

I don’t think they are for me but I honestly would not include them in that list above. First of all, there is no investment bubble around them and secondly some people seem to like them and are ready to pay for them. They also do have legitimate benefits (but also downsides)

No That is like saying that outlawing a cancerous die in fruit juice but not in lemonade lead to unhealthier diet because lemonades were exempted and remained exempted even when it became obvious that there was a huge loophole.

You say, the problem was that they outlawed that cancerous substance in fruit juice, rather than that the problem was that authorities failed to include lemonades in that ban and insisted on not expanding it either. That is not the same because your position implies one should not ban that cancerous substance because that only pushes lemonade sales.

The problem is not too much regulation it is deleberitely or by incompetence, too little regulation (vast exemptions)

The problem are not the emission standards, the problem is that authorities allowed the huge loophole which allowed to ignore them but only if the vehicle is extra large, wasteful and dangerous.

Low hood regular cars make people fall unto the hood. Tall, vertical SUV hoods rather lead to people being pushed under the car in case of a front collision. The latter is much more deadly.

Metal spikes or other stuff extending sideways outwards is obviously a danger towards others and wildly illegal in civilised countries for a reason.

It is a lot milder in key aspects. In Germany it is way less common that people go bankrupt over health issues. People can usually stay home when sick, paid, and those days aren’t deducted from holidays either or similar nonsense. Of course there are problems and things are moving rather in the wrong direction but things are not almost the same (“slightly better”). If you think the social system is almost as bad in Germany I doubt you have experienced how things are for the poor in the US. It is not just a little bit worse. And lets not even start about the privatised prison system and laws designed to fill those privatised prisons instead of reducing crime. Then there are laws deliberately designed to prevent poor people from voting etc.

Interesting vehicle. The Telo M1 still has a very tall “hood”, but given incredibly short it is (on the brink of not existing) Sight lines appear to be good. That thing also packs a lot more usable space than the Slate car. This is what a no BS pickup truck should look like and all within the size limitations of a Mini (or close to that). I can’t really get behind the look, but then also the Fiat Multipla was … unique, in its looks yet a damn impressive car.