• 5 Posts
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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: January 10th, 2024

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  • I had to look it up; the Charge Station Pro is the one that allows bidirectional charging where the F-150 Lightning can serve as a backup to the home when plugged in, a great feature. The Mach E doesn’t have that capability, though, so it’s a wasted feature with that car.

    I really liked the F-150 Lightning, but a full-size pickup with a crew cab doesn’t fit in my garage. I would have room to park outside in the driveway (and charger installation would be easier), but I don’t want to do that unless I have to.

    The Mach E was nice, but I found the seats uncomfortable after about 30 minutes (the only part of the car I felt really was like a Mustang).

    In any case I’m not in the market for a new car right now and don’t think I could afford a new electric vehicle with my current work situation.




  • It did take forever. Rotary phones work by sending clicks down the phone line that automation equipment listens to. If clicks came too fast the equipment wouldn’t understand it correctly. This was one of the big improvements the touch tone phone brought: it was much faster to dial. Instead of clicks each button generated a tone at a specific frequency and the automated switching equipment could interpret it much faster. At least some of the early phones had a switch to make them send clicks instead, in case the local phone company didn’t support tones yet.



  • You also need to keep in mind that there were not nearly as many phone numbers back then. While today a family of 4 might have a cell phone for each person (especially by the time the kids are teenagers), in the 20th century most families just had one number for the whole household (and the earlier you go there might have even been just one actual phone in the house).



  • His real innovation was a less expensive method to produce milk chocolate (although this process seems to produce butyric acid which is an unpleasant taste in chocolate if you’re not used to it) and becoming the first mass-produced chocolate in the US. The Hershey Kiss was just one of many products he made.


  • No, do it sequentially. To dial 515-2400 you put your finger in the 5, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 1, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 5, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 2, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 4, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 0, drag it to the stop, then release. Finally put your finger in the 0 again, drag it to the stop, then release.



  • Are you able to charge at home? What are the costs to charge, especially at home vs at a public charger?

    I guess there’s no real point to charging at home when your employer pays for it to be charged at a public charger, other than convenience.

    Last year I was in a rental Chevy Bolt EUV for about 6 weeks that Kia paid for while replacing the engine in my wife’s Soul. I was really impressed with how inexpensive charging at home made it compared to paying for gasoline, but DC fast charging was actually more expensive than gasoline when looking at cost per mile.





  • I think in the US I’ve heard ETF/ACH transaction fees are usually around $2.50? It might be possible to have that apply across a batch, though, as in if you submit 10 payments to 10 different people as a single transaction it’s still just $2.50, or 25¢ per person. I’m only getting this from hearing accountants complain at companies I’ve worked with, so I don’t understand the details. But I’ve seen it pretty common with companies doing payouts to want to see a minimum amount before they actually send the payment, otherwise it’s not worth doing.



  • “I agree that this is a vital mission, and I think SpaceX has been a very innovative company, but I think they’re also a mature company,” Whitaker replied. "They’ve been around 20 years, and I think they need to operate at the highest level of safety. That includes adopting an SMS (Safety Management System) program, and it includes having a whistleblower program.”

    Asked what SpaceX could do to shorten the delay in the next Starship test flight, Whitaker replied: “Complying with the regulations would be the best path.”