In Europe, Tesla generally has a single-digit EV marketshare, so over 90% of consumers don't care about or use the Supercharger network, and are obviously demanding charging locations.
Two years ago in Sweden I rented a random Chinese EV , a NIO ET7, and its onboard navigation system was fully connected to all the major charging networks, so I could see charging stations, their speeds, and open stalls directly in the car navigation, no external apps needed. So there's a whole perfectly functioning non-Tesla ecosystem, and pretty much everything is tap-to-pay, so no apps, no registrations, no memberships, no nothing. And no lock-in.
Kinda ironic that Teslas big start and Supercharger buildout is now holding the US back compared to the rest of the world.
Nevertheless, there seems to be zero buy-in from commercial players in the US. It's such a weird uphill battle.
I live in the US, but every summer I spend a month in Sweden, and the past two years I've rented EVs for the entire stay, and the buildout of chargers these past 4-5 years has been astonishing. It's gone from crap to fantastic in a very short time, and that's without massive government intervention or subsidies or screaming and cajoling.
Because in Sweden, the primary driver of charging stops along highways and in the cities are gas stations.
They already make all their profit from incidental purchases and not the gas itself, so them pivoting to EV charging stops makes perfect sense. They already have the infrastructure in place to sell you overpriced hotdogs and coffee and snacks for your road trip, they already have restrooms in place.
But they also do the same in the cities, it seems like every city gas station has also put up a couple of 350W charging stations. It's not half-assed, they mean business. They all see the writing on the wall, in neighbouring Norway EV's are 90+% of all new car sales, Sweden is at ~30% right now, and climbing, so gas stations will go out of business if they don't pivot to EV charging.
It's fundamental market economy forces at work, the kind of stuff that the US normally prides itself of.
Or Anthropic is full of TESCREAL morons who think they're assisting the birth of some digital god, and that this stage of development is a necessary evil on that path, and that, surely, Roko's basilisk will understand and not eat them first.
Watching otherwise intelligent people succumb to AI psychosis has been wild.
No, it's not hyperbole. 5 weeks vacation is the legal minimum, this also includes the right to take 4 contiguous weeks in the summer.
At my last employer, I had 6 weeks paid vacation per year, that's 4 in the summer, 1-2 weeks around the Christmas holidays, and a couple of extra days here and there if needed. Most people spent their vacations like that.
There's also something called the "industrial vacation", where related manufacturing industries coordinate the 4-week legal right, which typically results in everyone in that sector taking July off.
In Southern Europe, the same thing happens in August, it's very common that people simply take the entire month off.
> I don't know anyone who's been on leave for more than 3 weeks as a single block.
> Your take is spot on, and it’s incredibly sad the number of people we’ve created whose only source of meaning or joy in their life is their desk job.
I worked for a silicon valley company that graciously offered its employees a month or two of unpaid vacation every five years. And people who had worked there a long while agonized over it, if they should take it, and whatever should they do with all that free time??!?
Meanwhile, my European ass and my European colleagues were so incredibly bewildered by it, because we were used to 5-6 weeks of paid vacation per year, and being used to that means you have no issues finding stuff to do outside of work.
Corporate American produces the weirdest drones ever, people are so incredibly conditioned to work work work.
> Giving employees 1 week of free time? That's nothing, and nothing will change too as a result. Give them a whole month of free time? I bet they will make some small, short term projects, even doing hobbies like gaming, fishing, cooking or golfing where it wasn't available before.
*confused in European, again*
Hey, if only there was an entire continent of hundreds of millions of people who typically have 5 weeks of paid vacation per year or more so that we could check this and see what happens?
> As far as non-parties to the conflict are concerned, Iran's toll is literal highway robbery.
Yes.
But before the US started this stupid war, everyone knew that Iran had strategic control over the strait, and Iran reasoned that if they were to impose a toll on ships passing the strait, the rest of the world would gang up and bomb the shit out of them, removing their strategic control of the strait. So it was kept open.
But now the US went in and bombed the shit out of them anyway, whereupon Iran discovered that despite that, the US wasn't able to secure the strait. What they previously feared turned out to be manageable. They can close the strait, and the cost of stopping them is much, much higher than the US, or any other country wants to bear.
So the rest of the world is choosing between joining the US' illegal fiasco of a war in Iran to help open the strait, or simply paying the comparably tiny toll the Iranians are asking for, in return for oil shipments resuming immediately. So far, everyone is choosing #2.
As a bonus, Iran has also discovered that they can break through the defences of the other gulf states and legitimately threaten their oil facilities, desalination plants, and other infrastructure. Previously, the mostly US-supplied missile defences they had was assumed to be 100% effective, but by testing it, Iran now knows that they're not.
And all of this because the US, in its hubris and arrogance, assumed Iran was as defenceless and vulnerable as Venezuela, and that it would work out splendidly like that time. Idiocy.
The reason for daylight savings, as batshit insane as it sounds, is that it's easier to authoritatively tell people what time it is, with a one-hour jump twice a year, than to tell people to change business hours twice a year for a better experience around daylight.
It's absolutely fascinating from a psychology standpoint.
My one big hope for when countries now stop doing the stupid clock change thing, is that people become a lot more flexible around business hours and school hours, and adapt a schedule that fits people.
> that sweet old lady from Minnesota who's done rose painting (a national romantic fad around the time her ancestors immigrated) for 20 years is part of a living culture, which isn't simply "American"
What's wrong with you, you're responding to literally the opposite of what I said? You are free to connect, to seek your roots, figure out weird quirky things from the culture of your ancestors, and nurture as much fondness for Ireland and Irishness as you please. No-one in Ireland (Note, I'm not Irish!!) is gonna object to any of that.
The one thing, the ONE FUCKING THING we're asking you not to do is to call yourself Irish, because that will guaranteed piss off everyone you meet in Ireland.
How is this difficult to do or understand? We're asking one thing.
Everything else is up for grabs. You can appropriate as much culture as you please, real, fake, stereotypical, exaggerated, whatever. Grab it, use it, do it, perform it, that's fine. You don't need to excuse yourself or justify yourself or claim ancestry or heritage or anything. Absolutely no-one will gatekeep the culture. Enjoy it, all of it! Do this one thing, and real Irish people will be super happy to share their culture with you.
Stop straw-manning, no-one is denying your heritage or your connections. Your grandmothers were Irish.
But you're not. You're American, with Irish heritage. You were born in America to American parents. You are super welcome to learn about Irish culture, about your heritage. You are super welcome to visit Ireland, visit the place of your fore-mothers and other ancestors. You can enjoy Irish culture as much as you want. Learn riverdancing and blast Michael Flatley all day long. You can even enjoy the bastardised commercialised version that is the totally fake US retail holiday "St Patrick's day". Wear some tacky green beads, put on a green hat, drink fifteen pints of Guiness! Sláinte! Have fun!
The one thing we're specifically asking you not to do, is to call yourself Irish. That's the only thing we're gatekeeping. You're Irish-American. You have Irish heritage. You have Irish ancestors. You have Irish family heirlooms. But you're not Irish.
> those Europeans gatekeeping European ethnic identity
No no no, no-one is gatekeeping ethnicity. If you have Irish heritage, you have Irish heritage. That's a fact.
We're gatekeeping cultural identity and nationality, because these cosplaying Americans seem to think that their ethnicity confers culture and nationality by weird blood magic or something, and that's not how it works.
> if we ask them if an African who has been there for 5 years is English or German.
Someone who is not ethnically German, but has immigrated to Germany and speaks the language, is way more German than a cosplaying American whose parents and grandparents were all Americans, doesn't speak German, knows nothing about German culture, has never lived in Germany, but who has one ancestor who came from Germany.
If you're a first-generation immigrant, you get to choose what you identify as. If you speak the language of your new country and if you've become a citizen, sure, you can call yourself that. I don't think a lot of people will object to that.
Because, and this is the fuel for this clash, we care the most about culture and nationality, instead of heritage and ethnicity.
> Basically, if an American is claiming to be whatever
Because they're not, their culture is American, their nationality is American, they're American.
> But an Indian or African who arrived 5 years ago is a true blood Aussie mate, because saying anything else would be doing a racism.
No they're not, no it's not, and my what a lovely strawman you made up there.
The weirdest part is that they stop tracing back the second they hit someone interesting, as if nothing interesting happened before that person. If their great-great-grandfather was Scottish, they then assume everyone before him was 100% super duper Scottish, and that that has conferred "cultural traits" through some weird-ass blood magic or something.
But Europeans are diverse mutts as well.
I'm Swedish. But my last name is 100% German, easily recognisable as a German name, super common. Because my paternal ancestor immigrated from Germany in the 1600's and brought the name with him. My mother's maiden name was Czech, also very easily recognisable as such, and my uncle and my cousins have that name as well.
But I would never in a million years call myself German. I am not German. I am not Czech. My cousins aren't Czech. All of our parents were born in Sweden. All of our grandparents were born in Sweden. The vast majority of our great-grandparents were born in Sweden. We are all 100% Swedish.
The idea that I would call myself German because of my last name is completely ridiculous, but that is exactly what these cosplaying Americans are doing, even though they don't speak German, and I do. My dad speaks fluent German. My maternal grandfather spoke fluent German. I have so much more claim to "German-ness", whatever that is, than these cosplayers, and I wouldn't dream of doing it.
And then they bleat about how their great-great-whtaever was German, and because of that they "feel so connected to the Alps".
I think the explanation is much simpler, we know the Norse were a bit afraid of the Sami. They viewed them as a weird non-threatening neighbour people who had a weird language and weird magic. So you traded with them, you respected them, you said please and thank you, and then you were happy to see them gone because you didn't want them to curse you. (And I would assume the Sami were very happy to foster this belief since they were much weaker militarily)
Unlike the fat and rich continental Europeans that the Norse viewed as ripe for plunder, they did not fear them at all.
In Europe, Tesla generally has a single-digit EV marketshare, so over 90% of consumers don't care about or use the Supercharger network, and are obviously demanding charging locations.
Two years ago in Sweden I rented a random Chinese EV , a NIO ET7, and its onboard navigation system was fully connected to all the major charging networks, so I could see charging stations, their speeds, and open stalls directly in the car navigation, no external apps needed. So there's a whole perfectly functioning non-Tesla ecosystem, and pretty much everything is tap-to-pay, so no apps, no registrations, no memberships, no nothing. And no lock-in.
Kinda ironic that Teslas big start and Supercharger buildout is now holding the US back compared to the rest of the world.