Have you bought any gas lately?

[Durian Fiend]

Sell them for cheap to someone who will use them much more often than you do, then buy battery powered replacements.  

That doesn't seem like a solution to a problem as much as the creation of one.

The stuff I have works, is in good order, and if I sell them for cheap I then have to spend more than I get for them to buy others. The math doesn't add up. After all, doing nothing is so much easier... and cheaper.

And, besides, I'm not a big fan of batteries. I have always had a relationship with them.. large banks of them for a solar house, all the batteries that are a part of the equipment HVO has deployed in the field, the UPS system my work station current is protected by. But all told I don't believe getting rid of an already existing well working and not all that often used piece of gas powered equipment so as to require the planet to cough up the materials needed to make a battery powered replacement makes any sense at all.

And, besides, even with a long history of a relationship with them.. I am not a fan of batteries. and don't believe the current craze is anymore than four track tape players were.. a passing fad. I am not a fan of EV either... again.. I ain't into batteries, especially on that level. And, of course, until we create the electricity with clean sources what's the difference? Create the CO2 out the tailpipe or the smokestack, and add the toxic crap that goes into making a battery too?

We could split hairs, and I am sure there's reasons to go one way or another, but as long as it works.. why try and fix it?

I’m on the same page as you, and thought my statement was absurd enough to indicate it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.

[MyManao]

I’m on the same page as you, and thought my statement was absurd enough to indicate it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.

Great! 

It's already been a long day.. a lot of wrangling with lawyers. Ones that are on my side! So bear with me.

Thx.

[Punatang]

Edge posted: Hele-On bus trip as imagined by ChatGPT.


Clearly Hele-On works much better than your AI.  Seriously, the kids know all of the drivers by name.  If you're trying to insinuate that we don't use Hele-On, just because you, yourself, can't imagine using it,  then it is reasonable to wonder if that mentality might be the root of so many of your misunderstandings.

[punikahakaiferret]

I have ridden the Hele-on occasionally for the past few years. Never as a necessity, but as a convenience to get to Pahoa town when my significant otter has our only car for getting to work and we meet up there to run errands. It has always been a pleasant experience. Generally not at all crowded, the buses are cool, comfortable. Occasionally it has run late, but again, that hasn't been a big problem for me. The one wahine driver likes to sing along with her music and is a joy to hear. Be nice to keep it free after this year, but still, a buck or so to ride will still be a deal.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

If you're trying… insinuate… you, yourself…  then it is reasonable …. that mentality might be …

id est etc etc

If you're trying to insinuate that we don't use Hele-On

No I wasn’t.  You described your use of Hele-On, I just wanted to see what the AI thought about it.  I was saying AI wasn’t on the bus.  Obviously.  By the way, there’s no need to put words in my mouth as you so often try, I’ve got plenty. Thanks anyway.

[Punatang]

I’ve got plenty around here.

My apologies.  It must be difficult speaking for all of the people you represent.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

It must be difficult speaking

Only when I claim someone else proved my point.

[MyManao]

So, imagine a sunny morning in Hilo. You step onto the Hele-On bus, a little turquoise shuttle, and as it pulls away from the station, you catch glimpses of lush rainforest. The bus winds along the Hamakua Coast...

Sounds nice until you go down to Volcano from Pahoa..

Wait a minute. I'm still having a hard time cruising along the Hamakua coast to Pahoa.. it really is a scene out of Sense8. Wham bam and bingo you're.. as you say.. on your way down to Volcano!

I suspect AI's failure will be its inability to discern truth from fiction, right from wrong. And without that simple human trait all the words in the world don't add up to anymore than a bunch of data centers that will never be completed. The entire house of cards is predicated on ROI (return on investment). Elon's fortunes are all based on his pie in the sky promises of make believe ROI. But with AI there is no pie, no sky, and nobody can point to a penny of a ROI. But hell, we'll all be happily tooling down that highway towards Volcano! LOL!

Thanks for pointing all that out Edge.. I needed a laugh.

[Durian Fiend]

There's a global shortage of refining capacity, so that will likely keep gas prices up for quite sometime. If you track the price of a barrel of crude, it's not "accurately" reflecting the price of gasoline due to this shortage. As Paul Krugman recently noted in his column "Quagmire of the Vanities" dated July 24,

"...The overall “crack spread” — the difference in price between a barrel of crude oil and the price of the products into which that barrel is refined — has exploded, from around $25 a barrel before the war to more than $65 now..."

[terracore]

China, the world's largest oil importer, cut their oil imports by roughly 40% or more after the Iran war started. The result was a 5M barrel/day global shortage instead of 13M-20M. So oddly, we have China to thank for not having an oil shock on the economy. Nobody knows why for sure they quietly did this, but it's known that they have more strategic reserves than anybody else, and China has large-scale industrial capacity to produce both fertilizer and plastics from coal instead of oil or natural gas. They also stopped exporting refined fuels, so while their actions were good for the price of oil, it has an inverse effect on the price of refined products, but has mostly impacted countries in SE Asia that were their main customers of refinery products.

China's economy has been decelerating, so some of this could be demand destruction, or it could simply be they have enough reserves they can wait it out until the price comes back down. But if they decide to turn their import spigots back on full blast, you can expect to see some of that reflected at the pump eventually.