Posts by vtcodger

No BS*: BT is hooking up with OneWeb to tackle UK notspots

Sincerely, Good Luck

I really hope that this will result in adequate internet connections for rural Britons. But I have to say that if US experience is any guide, the most likely result is that vast sums of money will be disappeared from the public coffers and those in the countryside will mostly experience no improvement whatsoever in their dismal internet connections.

The wild card in all this is Starlink. I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk. He seems more than a bit unstable, and is not overly devoted to truthtelling, and is prone to wildly overpromise. But he does have remarkable organizational skills. And SpaceX is throwing a LOT of money at the project. And as far as I can see, there's nothing Starlink is trying to do that couldn't be and surely was costed out with fair precision on a cocktail napkin before work began. So it seems possible that he and his company will come to the rescue of those of us who don't live in big cities.

Dell SupportAssist contained RCE flaw allowing miscreants to remotely reflash your BIOS with code of their creation

Oooopsie

The only road to a truly secure BIOS probably goes back to the 1980s when BIOSes were compact, tightly coded and burned into a chip by physically blowing internal fuses, They were not alterable except by replacing the chip.

Perhaps we need to go back to BIOSes that are not field upgradable. Of course that would require BIOS code that contains no vulnerabilities. And we don't actually know how to write that.

Seems that we're kinda, sorta -- Screwed.

Dozens of Iranian media websites devoured by the Great Satan, apparently

Re: You just can't get quality staff nowadays so be prepared for second best helpings

You misread -- or perhaps I expressed myself poorly. It's the Iranian president who has less authority than people assume. Much/most of the power one assumes presidents should have is actually in the domain of the Supreme Leader. The president does have some power. The president can veto legislation for example. But he can't do anything much the Supreme Leader doesn't agree with whereas the Supreme Leader appoints many key officials, is the commander in chief of the military, appoints half the Guardian Council, and can even unilaterally declare war.

Re: You just can't get quality staff nowadays so be prepared for second best helpings

"How can that be of great help to any Supreme Leader?"

Iran's Supreme Leader seems to be the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei His role seems to be more or less "President for life". It's not an elected office. There is also an Iranian President who is elected every four years from a slate of right thinking candidates but it's not all that powerful a job apparently.

It's confusing. But perhaps no more so than monarchies where the "monarch" has little or no power.

(Almost) for sure

One thing is (almost) for sure. This seizure will be cited for years by India, China, North Korea etc when the US whinges about internet censorship. Unless there is some well hidden justification beyond "the Iranians are liars" this will probably turn out to have been a dumb idea.

Re: Surreal

Downvoted because I can't find any source -- much less a credible source -- for the claim that "weapons inspectors reporting from the very first visit that they were kept away from every site they wanted to inspect" and I very much doubt that you can.

As far as I can tell, Iran allowed inspections from 2015 until 2018 when Donald J Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal on the basis of no public evidence whatsoever. Iran did block inspections of two sites used for nuclear work around the turn of the century for most of 2020, but did finally agree to the inspections. See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-iaea.html

Now that China has all but banned cryptocurrencies, GPU prices are falling like Bitcoin

Re: I am no lover of the Chinese political system

"There's nothing that needs a dedicated digital currency."

Agreed. No one actually needs a digital currency for any reason I can think of. But digital transactions are convenient. And they don't require wandering around with a pocket full of change. I usually use a credit card at the grocery store just because it gets me out of the way of the way of whoever is in back of me in line more quickly than tying up the cashier with counting and sorting a handful of banknotes. (I do sometimes wish that the lady in front of me with seven credit cards, most of which are expired and the remainder of which have PINs she can't keep straight and eventually ends up writing a check would pay cash).

"neither cyptocurrencies or gold have any intrinsic value"

Commodities like Gold, Silver, Copper,etc have an underlying value set by their actual usage in business and industry. For most of them, the underlying value is (probably) very close to the market price. Gold is an exception because it is extraordinarily subject to speculation, government manipulation, etc, etc, etc. But still, it's almost always worth something if for nothing other than melt value.

The consequence. If things get tough, you'll probably be able to hock your grandmother's Gold ring in order to buy food. My guess is that in tough times, trying to hock your Bitcoin Wallet will get you laughed at.

Re: I am no lover of the Chinese political system

"The Chinese Governement will only tolerate digital coins whose supply they can control, the same way as that of ordinary money."

Not that it matters to your argument, but neither China nor any other country can actually control their money supply. The vast majority of the money supply is private debt, not government IOUs. About the best the government can do is try to influence the money supply by tinkering with interest rates, forbidding or impeding some types of transactions, taxing some transactions and maybe throwing some folks who have annoyed the regulators or the public sufficiently into jail.

I doubt the Chinese actually much care one way or the other about crytocurrencies except to the extent that their energy usage and risk of collapse are potentially destabilizing. Crypto's problem in China is probably that it has grown or is growing too large.

Re: I am no lover of the Chinese political system

I haven't given much thought to government backed digital currency other than that it sort of sounds like a good idea. Off the top of my head it seems like the overriding requirements might be that it is impossible to counterfit with any technology we have or can envision, and that it is easily verifiable by pretty much anyone as genuine. It'd also be good if it didn't require functioning digital infrastructure for transactions. Which is to say that I might like to transfer $10 to the little girl selling Girl Scout Cookies door to door even if some company's latest poorly tested update has crippled half of North America or my cell phone needs charging.

Is any of that even possible?

Re: Phew that was close!

Downvoted because it expresses a dubious -- if not uncommon -- viewpoint.

A "currency" that isn't either an IOU or a share of some commodity is a currency backed only by happy thoughts. From tulips to The South Seas Company to phony gold mines to Credit Default Swaps, in the past people have invariably stopped thinking happy thoughts sooner or later. Of course, things might truly be different this time. But that's really not a good bet.

If nothing else, you can use government IOUs to pay taxes. You do plan to pay your taxes ... right?

Hubble Space Telescope sails serenely on in safe mode after efforts to switch to backup memory modules fail

Power Off

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

I've been told by folks that actually command satellites that power cycling and switching to backup components that affect command/control are last resorts only to be tried after everything else has failed. Makes sense. What's the fallback if you power down and the satellite or its communications system fails to come back up????

Toshiba engulfed by scandal again — and the prime minister is implicated

Re: Wow...

"A government being Big Business puppet?"

Probably more like a partner than a puppet. In many ways Japan operates more like a family with 126,000,00 members than like western countries. And I wouldn't have too much faith in the legal system fixing things. Conflicts in Japan rarely get hashed out in court. There are only 14000 lawyers in the whole country -- about the same as Alabama or Puerto Rico.

FYI: There's a human-less, AI robot Mayflower ship sailing from the UK to US right now

Re: The

"This is a sail boat, ..."

That's what you'd expect. But I can't see any sign of (a) mast(s)/sail(s) in the pictures of the thing or in the drawings on the website. And it does have a rather conspicuous propeller. So I think it's probably a solar powered electric boat rather than a sailboat.

Re: Off Air!

Well, it's solar powered. Including the propulsion apparently. And it's night in the Eastern North Atlantic. And www.ventusky.com indicates a large area of rain S of Iceland and W of Ireland in the general area they might be traversing. Even when the sun comes up, they may not be generating a lot of power. Perhaps they have fallen back to a power saving mode.

Chrome 'Conformance' for JavaScript frameworks says: If you don't follow our rules, your project won't build

Re: Locations On By Default

"And all privacy safeguards turned off."

What are these "privacy safeguards" you speak of? We're talking Google and Javascript here. If you're interested in privacy you've clearly navigated to the wrong port.

Toyota reveals its work on an honest-to-goodness cloak of invisibility

Re: Interesting

Follow-up: I got to wondering about WHY it's so hard to see behind the passenger side doorpost on our cars. So I went out and sat in one of them for a while. Turns out that the driver's side doorpost is pretty close to the driver and seeing objects behind it only requires moving one's head maybe 10 cm or less -- which is something we humans do routinely to see around posts and supports in shops and such. The passenger side doorpost is maybe six times as far away. Which means I'd have to move my head six times as far to see objects beyond it. Not so easy. Plus which on that particular vehicle -- a Kia Soul -- the passenger side outside mirror also blocks visibility of many objects and vehicles on the passenger side.

Re: Interesting

"the driver could just move their head"

That works fine for the driver side door post. Sadly, it's pretty much impossible for a human driver with the normal number of eyes deployed in the usual location (2 eyes relatively close to each other --above the nose -- below the forehead) to see around the forward passenger side door post in many modern vehicles even after twisting forward/backward/sideways as far as the seatback and steering wheel allow.

For some reason -- thinner doorposts? bigger interiors? -- There was much less problem prior to about 2010

Re: Interesting

Given that it's only "targets" in two relatively narrow regions that need to be revealed and the observer is a driver who can't move too far from a fixed location if they plan to control the vehicle (assuming that we aren't talking about a Tesla owner who thinks that back seat driving is a real, feasible thing) This just might be doable someday. Maybe even sometime soon. But a bit later than that would be my bet.

In the meantime can we have two cameras aimed at the areas obscured by posts, and a button on the steering wheel that will temporarily put the images they are capturing onto the display used by the backup camera/entertainment system/GPS readout?

SpaceX spat with Viasat: Rival accused of abusing legislation to halt Elon's Starlink expansion

Re: Viasat

But can they really reliably monitor such a vast fleet in real time? Or is a lot of the monitoring "AI", or Tesla "Autopilot" grade stuff?

Satellite orbit analysis and prediction is pretty straightforward. The satellites obey Newton's Laws of motion and the position and velocity are knowable. Unlike that old rusty Buick in the right hand lane, they pretty much can't suddenly speed up and cut you off while signaling for a right turn. I imagine that keeping track of 10000 satellites is non-trivial, but it should be doable and shouldn't require stuff like AI that will likely never work reliably..

Heck, the software should even be testable.

I think Elon should pull on his red boots, click his heels together, turn three times widdershins and shout "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome competitor?"

Hey. It's a cheap option. I don't think it is illegal. Something along that line reportedly worked for Henry II. And I doubt anyone outside a small circle of friends is really all that attached to Viasat and their lawyers. (To judge Viasat's popularity, read the comments at https://www.whistleout.com/Internet/Guides/viasat-internet-review-how-good-is-it)

China's latest online crackdown targets mean girl online fan clubs that turn toxic

Re: But it will eventually rise again...

Downvoted because you clearly don't know much about Karl Marx or what he thought. Here's a link to some quotes that might give you some insight into the man and his thinking. https://yourstory.com/2017/05/quotes-by-karl-marx/amp e.g. “Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.”

You might actually have liked Marx if you had an opportunity to have a few beers with him.

Problem is that taking the means of production away from greedy capitalists may sound like a good idea. But it doesn't seem to work very well in practice. I imagine that if Marx were alive today (he died in 1888) his views on Capitalism might not have changed much. But I doubt he'd embrace 20th century Communism.

BTW, although nominally communist, China switched its economic system to capitalism forty years ago after the disastrous "Cultural Revolution". Turns out that they're rather good at capitalism.

Anyway, capitalism does seem possibly to have a few flaws. As they say in Russia Everything Marx told us about communism was wrong. Unfortunately, everything he told us about capitalism was right. The US and friends like to pretend that Capitalism is self-governing. The Chinese try to limit its excesses. It remains to be seen which approach works better.

What Microsoft's Windows 11 will probably look like

Should I care?

Windows 11 appearance? Do I care? Should I care?

My opinion. A quarter of a century has done little or nothing to improve on the mundane, but serviceable UI of Windows 95. In fact, I find Windows 10 to be a confused shambles if you are forced by circumstance to burrow deeper than left-clicking on a handful of desktop icons. Sort of like trying to find a book in a library organized by the library of congress system which nobody except (possibly) a few librarians understands.

Why not just go back to the Windows 95 UI by default and get on with life? Everyone from kids who haven't quite mastered this alphabet thingee to the very elderly seemed to be able to master Windows 9 without much difficulty. Add an optional workspace/desktop capability for advanced users who want to multitask. Let those who want something different bring their own UI.

Zoll Defibrillator Dashboard would execute contents of random Excel files ordinary users could import

Going home

I'm having a bit of trouble with the concept of fleets of defibrillators controlled by Excel spreadsheets. Am I misreading something? No?

Look, I wasn't all that wild about the parallel universe I was living in. In fact, it looked to be wall-to-wall crackpots back there. But I'm clearly not cut out for this one. Can anyone provide me with instructions for returning home where my biggest worry was whether Covid vaccine would magnetize me?

Indian government reverts to manual tax filings as new e-tax portal remains badly borked a week after launch

Why?

Software is tough. GUI software is even harder because users can break threads and start doing something else pretty much at will. Web facing software is even tougher because it's GUI done on a limited, unreliable and obtuse framework often with ridiculous latency issues. Moreover simple designs that might work someday are almost always rejected in favor of glitzy stuff that all to often doesn't really work very well ever. And we haven't addressed security/privacy which makes things orders of magnitude harder and might be a significant issue in tax software.

But doesn't anybody test anything anymore?

Projects being months or years late is pretty much the norm. And has been ever since the dawn of the computer age. But why is so much stuff released when it's clearly broken?

EA Games looted by intruders: Publisher says 'no player data accessed' after reported theft of FIFA 21, Frostbite source

Catastrophe

I guess I'm willing to believe that video game source code is worth marginally more than an invisible sculpture. https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/06/07/invisible_sculpture_is_a_must/

So, EA must be out of pocket ... hmmm ... somewhere around €15,001? However will they survive?

There are a lot of people out there who'd like to fire Jeff Bezos into space – but he's doing the honours himself

Re: Over to you, Jeff

I'm not especially a fan of Bezos. And it wouldn't bother me much if he didn't make it back from space intact. But I do feel compelled to point out that if you set up an Amazon Smile account Amazon diverts 0.5% of your order price to the charity of your choice. It's not a lot, but it's 0.5% more than most of the alternatives divert to charity.

Remember Anonymous? It/they might be back, and it/they are angry with Elon Musk

400 miles from ... ?

You often drive 400 miles without stopping to discharge/recharge occupants?

Clearly, you have never driven across Kansas. Where, exactly, would you stop? ... And why would you want to? Nothing against Kansas, but there is WAY more of it than seems necessary. 50 or 60 miles would seem to be quite sufficient.

Sold: €15k invisible sculpture that's a must-see for art lovers

Re: A suggestion

Or Jack and the Beanstalk. AFAICS, paying €15k for an invisible sculpture doesn't differ a lot from trading the family cow for a hand full of magic beans. ... Except for being able to plant the beans of course.

Taiwan’s top chip tester, King Yuan, shuts down production and quarantines workers

Why?

A serious question if I may. My understanding is that semiconductor fabrication focuses heavily on controlling/preventing contamination of the product. Therefore the facilities are climate controlled with a high degree of atmospheric filtering and a clean-room or near clean-room environment. That would seem to me to be about the last place where transmission of an airborne disease should be a problem. I must be missing something here. Why are they shutting down production?

Now that Trump is useless to Zuckerberg, ex-president is exiled from Facebook for two years, possibly indefinitely

Punishment?

Is being banned from Facebook supposed to be some sort of punishment? If one continues to misbehave do they escalate to more severe measures such as force feeding the miscreant ice cream sundaes?

Report commissioned by Google says Google isn't to blame for the death of print news

Lots of reasons to drop the newspaper subsciption

True story. We subscribed to the local newspaper for the local news. Then, about 15 years ago, they switched to a tabloid format -- presumably to save money on newsprint. Unfortunately, the dogs couldn't adjust to the new smaller page format and sometimes pooped next to the newspaper. We got tired of cleaning up after them, dropped the newspaper subscription and used the money to buy puppy pads which are quite a lot bigger than newspapers.

Chalk it up to failure to understand customer needs.

Android banking malware sharply increased in the first chunk of 2021, reckons ESET

Re: How many Android devices are secure in any case?

By the time a vendor has identified a vulnerability, crafted a patch, tested the fix, crafted a further patch because the first was incorrect or incomplete, tested that, and eventually distributed an update, the malware folks have probably moved on to exploiting a different vulnerability. In the current vernacular, the malware people are more agile. And they can afford to be. If their current product works poorly, there's always tomorrow. The same, unfortunately does not apply to you.

Given the current state of internet security, it appears to me that frantically patching your software is the "Pearl Harbor" defense -- protecting yourself from the last war's technology. Not totally useless probably, but likely not very effective.

So, what to do? AFAICS at present and for the immediate future, I'd suggest keeping your financial affairs off the internet to the greatest extent possible. Use paper and the postal service where possible. Bank physically, not electronically. If your country's consumer legal protections are weak, consider using cash or prepaid debit cards. Yes, that's inconvenient. Extremely so. But, as we say here in the states "It is what it is."

Apple to summon staff back to the office in September

Alternate uses for a large shiny glass building

You don't spend $5bn on a shiny glass Ive-designed HQ and leave it empty

Maybe Amazon could use it for a warehouse? Or Elon could manufacture hi-tech goldfish bowls -- or something we all need at least two or three of -- there?

Amazon warehouse workers are seriously injured more frequently than those at similar companies – unions

Re: Then Bezos can get rid of all the staff, close down Amazon.

It wasn't too difficult to find this story which indicates that while most charitable giving declined last year, our good ol' buddy Jeff made the largest charitable donation of the year. Damn him!

Which is fine. I guess. But the story got me wondering about whether the contribution was from Bezos or his (ex)wife who has been giving away a lot of money of late. Turns out it was from Bezos. Fine. But Gates and Buffett were missing too -- which seems odd. So I actually read the link and found this.

Two billionaires who donated heavily to charity last year — MacKenzie Scott, Bezos' former wife, and Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter — did not make the Chronicle's list because no single donation of theirs was large enough to qualify. Rather than give billions to just one charity, both billionaires opted to make large donations to numerous causes.

My take -- nothing actually wrong with the story. But it seems very far from being complete and comprehensive survey of charitable giving last year.

Vietnam asks Samsung to find it some COVID-19 vaccines

You have something against Goldfish?

Sir or madam as the case may be

Your post contains insulting remarks about goldfish. We find that extremely disturbing. Goldfish are conscious entities -- with feelings.

We demand that you withdraw your comments. Otherwise our attorneys will be contacting you.

signed -- The Piscean anti-defamatory society.

P.S. If you wish to modify your posting to criticize capitalist practices, feel free. Just leave fish of any sort out of it. But if you don't mind some friendly advice. Capitalists are quite powerful and they do not take criticism well.

Apple sued in nightmare case involving teen wrongly accused of shoplifting, driver's permit used by impostor, and unreliable facial-rec tech

Re: Justice

"He will just have to work hard."

Since the imposter's trade seems to be shoplifting hi-tech equipment using phony IDs, having him work harder may be a suboptimal solution.

Refurb your enthusiasm: Apple is selling an 8-year-old desktop for over £5k

Ah ... Come On

"Name 1 thing better about a "modern" USA vehicle that's better than just about any 1980's vehicle, just one. Now, if you don't mind just throwing money away on the repairs/warranties of modern cars, have at it."

Sorry, But here in North America, our local vehicles prior to the introduction of the 1984 Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable were disgracefully bad. Huge. Overpowered.. Terrible fuel economy. Unable to turn corners safely at anything much greater than walking speed. Rust started immediately in areas that use road salt in Winter. Metal lasted only a bit longer in the rest of the country. My dad's Ford pickup rusted out in Southern California for heaven's sake. Legendarily bad build quality -- claims were that new vehicles often arrived at the dealer with parts that had fallen off or never been attached at the factory in the back seat. Safety equipment? What safety equipment? By reputation, British cars of that era (other than Bentley/Rolls Royce) were even worse. And the few that made it across the pond -- mostly sports cars -- were cute but certainly left a lot to be desired if you were also interested in transportation. At least we colonials were spared the joys of Lucas electrical systems -- https://www.mez.co.uk/lucas.html

I'll give you that Japanese cars of the 1980s -- especially Honda and Toyota but also Mazda and Datsun (aka Nissan) -- did compare pretty well to what we routinely expect from modern motor vehicles other than the lack of a few things like GPS and rear cameras that simply weren't available back then.

Also, I don't think most early 1980s cars came with trouble free ABS and electronic ignition systems -- at least I know that my 1979 Mazda GLC didn't have ABS and had a carburetor that I eventually had to rebuild. Getting 1980 and older cars to start on a cold morning in the thin air of high altitudes was often a considerable effort and sometimes required the help of a mechanic.

Re: This has happened before

Sure. But can you use the Mac mini to heat your living room?

Boeing fined $17m after fitting uncertified sensors to 737 Max and NG airliners for 4 years

Re: That’s justice!

My GUESS would be that fitting uncertified sensors was a screwup, not deliberate malfeasance. Incredibly complex product. Tens of thousands of workers. Unnumerable individual parts. Misunderstandings are going to happen.

Still, though. It's Boeing's responsibility to make sure mistakes are detected and rectified before their aircraft get into the air. $17m seems to me to be entirely too low a fine unless there were very strong mitigating circumstances.

Microsoft releases command-line package manager for Windows (there are snags)

There are snags

A "snag" is what? A bug after application of a lot of lipstick?

Unfixable Apple M1 chip bug enables cross-process chatter, breaking OS security model

Re: T1 - anyone?

Are you suggesting, sir, that I confused Mega-bits per second with Mega Bytes per second? You're correct. I did exactly that. T1 is 1.544 megaBITS per second. Not MegaBYTES per second.

And in response to a question down thread. Do people still use T1 in North America? I would imagine that some do. It's not like there are a lot of choices. Various forms of DSL may be able to deliver a fair number of MBPS at a reasonable cost -- if you are located within a few km of a phone company Central Office. Most rural users aren't. If you're further out and are beyond the reach of cable TV, your choices would seem to be whatever you can get from the phone company at probably extortionate prices, possibly wireless at probably extortionate pricing after you get by the dubiously honest advertising, high latency satellite. And Starlink once it gets going.

T1 - anyone?

"The cross-talk isn't particularly fast – data transfer rate is said to be a bit more than 1MB/s."

By way of comparison, if I am to believe the all knowing internet, a T1 line from your local phone company will deliver about 1.544MB/s (and -- in the US -- cost about $200 a month). Two thirds of a T1 doesn't sound all that slow to me. And I suspect that many rural users here in North America still don't have connection speeds anywhere near that fast once they try to connect to the world at large.

If this channel is an actual security threat, I should think that the OS would have little trouble monitoring it and screaming should the bits involved start changing. But maybe I'm overlooking something. I often don't do all that well with complexity.

Apple's iPad Pro on a stick, um, we mean M1 iMac scores 2 out of 10 for repairability

You can never be too rich or too thin

but did anyone really need a thinner all-in-one desktop?

I could use a sturdier place-marking bookmark for the paperback I'm reading. Would an iPad Pro be suitable? Or is it too thick?

Microsoft: Behold, at some later date, the next generation of Windows

next generation?

the next generation Windows

My God. They're letting the damn thing breed?

Tesla owners win legal fight after software update crippled older Model S batteries

Re: Fuel is the least of the cost in the total life of the car

Shouldn't you be using the sheep to pull the vehicle rather than the vehicle towing the sheep? Time to think sustainably man.

Re: ICE - still the way to go

Not a lot to dislike about Ethanol as a motor vehicle fuel.

True enough. But as I understand it, ethanol is (universally?) produced by fermenting sugars/starches. Fine. But fermentation produces a water-ethanol mixture (e.g. "beer") that won't burn. You need to separate the water and the ethanol to get a usable fuel. How to do that? Distillation. Where does the energy for distillation come from? In the US, we use cheap natural gas. Which is fine. But why not just use the natural gas to power cars and let the farmers find another crop -- carrots or hemp or opium poppies or some such?

(Cars run fine on natural gas. Some fleet vehicles in the US use it. I'm told that there are millions of natural gas fueled vehicles on the road in, of all places, Iran and Pakistan).

Re: Carbon neutral

... and there is a huge amount of room underneath the floor and in front of the driver.

OK for a commuter vehicle (Why would any sane individual purchase a truck for commuting?) and probably OK for urban repair/service vehicles. Not so OK for rural roads and off road. There's a reason for all that empty space under pickup trucks. I invite you to visit us here in Vermont for "mud season" Mud season -- which the tourist bureau does not want to talk about -- is a period in mid Spring when unpaved roads thaw from the top down. Until the thawing reaches the frost line, the newly released water representing four or five months of precipitation has no place to go. The resulting sea of mud isn't actually bottomless. But it can seem so. Same thing happens in the fields BTW.

EVs are the future

You left out the key word -- distant EVs certainly can replace many ICE vehicles. For example, the postal service likely will find them more cost effective than their current vehicles. OTOH, fire engines and most military combat vehicles are terrible candidates for electric propulsion. They need the capability of refueling quickly in difficult circumstances.

There's also an economic problem. A Nissan Leaf might make a fine second or third car for suburban families. But it lists for over $30,000 new. A decade old Honda or Toyota would be an order of magnitude cheaper and won't require all that much maintenance and fuel if just used for short local trips.

(Aside from which -- what provision is being made for the large percentage of car owners who have no way to charge an EV?)

Man found dead inside model dinosaur after climbing in to retrieve phone

Re: Sleeping with the stegosaurus

"stegosaurus was a herbivore"

Or so we thought.

China's Digital Yuan not aimed at challenging US dollar, says former People’s Bank governor

Re: I wonder if the Digital Yuan is based on blockchain by any chance...

Based on blockchain? Probably not? It looks like it might be much easier and far less resource intensive to manage a digital currency through a "trusted authority" like the People's Bank of China than through a blockchain protected distributed ledger.

Who's going to trust the PBC? Well, yes, that might well be a problem. Outside of the 18% of humanity that lives in China and presumably wouldn't have all that much choice.

Something to ponder. Which would you trust most -- the PBC, the US Federal Reserve System, Big Tech(e.g. PayPal), or a fancy technology touted by clever but somewhat flawed folks whose mantra is "move fast, break things"?

On the other hand I know very little about either cryptography or economics. Which I suspect puts me one step ahead of experts in those fields. At least I know I'm ignorant.