impulse

I certainly understand the numbers, whether I agree with the policy or not. A GBP sent to a UK resident probably circulates through the economy several times, with taxes and salaries being paid each time it changes hands. A GBP sent to a resident of Thailand is lost to the UK economy. Fortunately, I don't have to form an opinion, agree or disagree. Sure sucks for someone who's been here for 10+ years, though.

Do you think for a moment that, if the USA were 110% consumed with a hot war in Ukraine, and too broke and militarily engaged to back up Israel, that the surrounding Muslim countries wouldn't band together and get rid of the Jewish state in their midst? Then they'd turn on each other, sure. It's US money and US military support that keep that from happening, with help from the UK (out of historic guilt). If the USA and UK get dragged into WW3 surrounding Ukraine, all bets are off for Israel (and some other places around the world).

Yeah. It looks like the even hose Ireland, shifting their profits to Bermuda. https://www.itpro.com/business/361667/google-settles-tax-payment-in-ireland

For some reason, a lot of the brands seemed to standardize on a white wire. I've been to about a dozen e-scooter factories in China, and quite a few trade shows where they sell all the components you'd need to start your own e-scooter company. Pick the components and just do assembly. The internal parts for most of them are pretty much standard. I decided against getting into the biz when the battery fires hit the news. Too much liability for this boy, though the margins could be great. Among the electric scooters you can remove the speed limiter by cutting the limiting wires is the Joyor brand scooters, Zero 8, Zero 9, and Zero 10X electric scooters. After you open up the deck casing, simply get a pincer and cut the white cables. You can also remove the speed limiter on the Speedway Mini 4 Pro electric scooter by unplugging the white cable from the controller. https://www.ridester.com/how-to-remove-speed-limiter-on-electric-scooter/ If the white (or whatever color) wire on the OP scooter is cut or unplugged, that tells a story.

I've seen some of the shops where they take a 50+ year old chassis and add a plywood shell with tinfoil skin to make it look newer. I'm appalled at how flimsy the bodies are built.

Yeah. It all looks great, until the AI displaces 10x as many workers with robots. Edit: Then they cook the books to shift all the profit to Ireland, to avoid paying local taxes.

Genius. I'd be curious whether the control unit was modified to make it go faster. On a couple of my e-scooters, all that required was snipping one white wire.

They make a lot of sense if you expect to be digging up the sidewalk next year for bigger pipe, then the year after to bury the power lines, then the next year to bury the fiber optic cables. The photo in the OP sure doesn't look like a final product. Just a temporary fix to allow pedestrians to walk until they finish whatever that opening leads to, then they'll install the less temporary brick pavers. Which will be dug up soon anyway for the next project.

So the driver is basically a scapegoat.

I was thinking more like 5 years in TH, then 180 days in the PH to do the reset. Then back to TH at the new and improved rate. And that's without doing anything dodgy like getting a visa and an apartment, but not living there...

If you move to the Philippines (or any other country with a social security agreement with the UK), then your pension will jump up to the current value paid out to UK pensioners and increase each year. Good info. Another hypothetical... Would it stay at that higher rate if you moved back to TH after some time, or would it get knocked back?

Question... If one moves to the PH, are the increases backdated, or do you start out at the number you had when you left TH?

You can educate the beejeezus out of people and they'll still misbehave if they can get away with it. When I was a kid, I was more afraid of the cops than dying in a fiery crash. So I practiced driving to avoid tickets. Not so coincidentally, that was good practice to avoid fiery wrecks. They need to send some Thai cops to California to ride around with CHIPs for a few weeks, then buy them some of those Dodge Challenger chase vehicles. (Better yet, send them to ride with that cop that does all the PIT maneuver YouTubes, Kentucky, I think?) The only answer is to make it too expensive to drive like an idiot. That means enforcement, not more wienie education.

Just $4,000? That's not much. She could get 10x that much for a signed bra. God only knows how much for a pair of....

3 words. Judge Joe Brown. Edit: And the accurate term is malinformation. Not misinformation.

If they don't work, why is FEMA making such a big deal out of sending a couple of dozen of them? Meanwhile, Musk has donated 500 units, sending them to a deplorable (a NASCAR driver, even. Yuck), who is going to distribute them using his own helicopter. https://www.pcmag.com/news/elon-musk-uses-starlink-access-in-north-carolina-to-slam-fcc-support-trump https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/10/500-starlink-kits-donated-for-post-hurricane-north-carolina-communications.html

Exactly. Approved under Trump. Rescinded under Harris/Biden. And now, lives are being lost because they're not available. And FEMA is boasting about providing a few dozen, against the 20,000 that should be available.

Dozens? They're going to need thousands. Which were requested and approved in 2020, but cancelled by the FCC in 2023. The cynic in me says they were cancelled because the Dems are mad at Elon... https://spacenews.com/fcc-upholds-denial-of-starlinks-900-million-rural-broadband-subsidies/

Bet'cha Israelis are praying that the US and UK don't get into a hot war in Ukraine... I shudder to think how long Israel would last if they didn't have the US at their back, and bribing and threatening all their Muslim neighbors to play nice.

I miss mean tweets and relative peace.

On that, we agree. The Carnot cycle shows that the theoretical best efficiency of an ICE stinks. Electric motors are much more efficient. The issue becomes how you make the electricity to charge the batteries. If it's by combustion, the efficiency stinks. If it's by running a gasoline or diesel powered generator, it stinks even worse. They haven't been engineered to be nearly as efficient as a modern auto engine. And that's what this little sub-topic is about. A guy claimed that charging an EV with a genset is more efficient than operating an ICEV. That is wrong.

Kudos to the guy. A great, moral man. I hope that's how he's remembered. Not such a great presidency, though.

I miss the days when comedians were funny. You know, when they realized that their job was to entertain us.

I'm a mechanical engineer by degree and experience. And I guaranty you that a Honda V6 is more efficient than a Honda lawn mower engine.

It says that EVs are great for some lifestyles, not so ideal for others. If I ever become a 2 car family again (of me, myself and I), my primary car will be an EV. Because they're ideal for 80% of my usage. But totally unsuited for that other 20%, based on current infrastructure and my occasional road trips to the boondocks. Until the infrastructure matures, I'll stick with ICE because it meets 99% of my needs. I still need to occasionally hire a big truck for moving stuff, even with a van in the USA and a pickup in Thailand. But I don't hate EVs. I'm cheering them on, and hoping the technologies catch on for other uses. Like (for example) charging the car at night when the electricity is cheap, and using it to power the house when rates skyrocket during peak times. That could save a lot of us $100's on electricity every month, even if it seldom leaves the driveway. For others, it's not a benefit.