New brilliancy from the Orange one's mouth: Windmills cause cancer

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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
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Your medical degree is from where?

I'm a bit uncertain about conditions like ADD/ADHD myself. It seems strange to me how things get recatagorised as medical conditions to be treeated with medication. Time will tell whether that's a genuine advance in knowledge.

For most of my life the predominant commentary here was to point at the US and express amazement at how such a vast number of children were diagnosed with those labels and put on drugs, when it was almost unknown in Europe. That itself was taken as evidence it was over-diagnosed in the US. But in recent years the UK has gotten closer to US levels of those conditions. So have we just become better at diagnosiing a real condition or is there some sociological trend towards medicalising things?

I'm suspicious of the over-prescribing of psychological medication myself. I think there's a tendency to downplay sociological and political factors in favour of seeing everything as medical dysfunctions of individuals. (See also the bizarre attempts to prove there's a biological basis for being a Republican or a Democrat - I'm guessing motivated by a desperate desire to ignore that people do actually have different material interests and positions in society.)

But clearly panic-attacks are a real thing (I've known people who had them), and its silly to want to abolish the term in favour of terms with different nauances of meaning like 'nervous' or 'frightened'. The word panic has existed for a long time and we have a distinct word for it for a reason.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,077
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I wasn't aware of that price drop. It's very good news. But we still need a battery with higher energy density than lithium ion. The cheaper batteries will make electric cars cheaper, but they won't extend their range. With this price drop, it will also make it tougher for superior battery technologies to enter the market.

Ranges on existing lithium technology are more than sufficient for the overwhelming majority of trips. Everybody thinks they must have a vehicle that will go 500 miles on a change when every trip they take on a routine basis is more like 20-30 miles at most. Even a cost effective PHEV with a 50 mile electric range would burn an astonishingly small amount of fuel over its lifetime in regular use.

Also increasingly lithium ion batteries are entering the grid as prices have dropped. That's an application that doesn't need crazy high energy density to work well. It could use even lower prices to expand though.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,336
136
They also say that Trump shows all the symptoms of suffering from untreated tertiary syphilis.
 

Stryke1983

Member
Jan 1, 2016
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I do believe in those. However those conditions are way over diagnosed IMO much as ADHD / ADD.

If you think panic disorders aren't real then you should go and educate yourself on the topic so you get at least a basic understanding of it before commenting any further on it. Your current stance is about as ill informed as the people who dismissed WW1 soldiers suffering from shell shock as just overly nervous and weak minded.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
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Ranges on existing lithium technology are more than sufficient for the overwhelming majority of trips. Everybody thinks they must have a vehicle that will go 500 miles on a change when every trip they take on a routine basis is more like 20-30 miles at most. Even a cost effective PHEV with a 50 mile electric range would burn an astonishingly small amount of fuel over its lifetime in regular use.

Also increasingly lithium ion batteries are entering the grid as prices have dropped. That's an application that doesn't need crazy high energy density to work well. It could use even lower prices to expand though.

Yes I agree with your reasoning on vehicle range, but I think having ranges like 200 miles or less is an impediment to the adoption of electrics cars because when consumers are considering a car purchase, they see the range limitation and think, what happens when I decide to take a long car trip, like a family vacation? I suppose if the whole nation had widespread charging stations like we're getting now in CA, it wouldn't matter as much. That is another piece of infrastructure we need to put in place.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
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If they're superior they'll make their way to the market where their superiority will let them command premium pricing. They'll go in Ferraris, Rolls Royces, and similar. Heck even the cell phone market might enable it. The aviation market is looking to electrify more as well (and so were already looking at alternatives to lithium ion). Military for drones (and subs, and plenty of other uses). Commercial shipping. Those quadrocopter taxis, and delivery services (like Amazon's) would want lighter more dense energy storage.

Point being there's a lot of demand that would be seeking that type of stuff, so I doubt falling lithium ion battery prices is going to prevent that battery tech from the market. Plus growing overall demand for electrification will push for the infrastructure to support it which pushes us in general towards electrification. There's a lot of research into getting beyond lithium ion too because its just too volatile, too costly (still), and relies on too much rare earth minerals (cobalt). Quite a bit of those superior battery technologies should be cheaper than lithium ion once they mature.

Yes that is all true. But the lower prices will significantly delay widespread use of the new technologies.

I do hope they adopt denser batteries soon for mobile computing devices. An Apple Watch with a denser battery would be nice. A great piece of hardware currently hamstrung by short battery life.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,336
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I do believe in those. However those conditions are way over diagnosed IMO much as ADHD / ADD.
They say that no gives a flying fuck what you believe, as your beliefs have no effect over whether something is real or not.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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Yes that is all true. But the lower prices will significantly delay widespread use of the new technologies.

I do hope they adopt denser batteries soon for mobile computing devices. An Apple Watch with a denser battery would be nice. A great piece of hardware currently hamstrung by short battery life.
I'm sure they won't, basically all manufacturers have insisted on continuing to make things smaller, rather than maintain size and increase battery life.

Thankfully, expansion batteries are incredibly inexpensive and hold an enormous amount of energy. I got a ~100Wh battery with multiple USB3 ports from Amazon for like 80 bucks, I use it constantly.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,077
37,268
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Yes I agree with your reasoning on vehicle range, but I think having ranges like 200 miles or less is an impediment to the adoption of electrics cars because when consumers are considering a car purchase, they see the range limitation and think, what happens when I decide to take a long car trip, like a family vacation? I suppose if the whole nation had widespread charging stations like we're getting now in CA, it wouldn't matter as much. That is another piece of infrastructure we need to put in place.

If you keep at least one PHEV in the family vehicle mix then family trips should be no problem.

Most people would be able to charge at home, even off regular 110v. Multi-unit buildings are a bit tricker but the infrastructure is largely there after all it's not like you've got to lay gasoline pipeline from the refinery to your apartment building. Electricity is already on site.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
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If you keep at least one PHEV in the family vehicle mix then family trips should be no problem.

Most people would be able to charge at home, even off regular 110v. Multi-unit buildings are a bit tricker but the infrastructure is largely there after all it's not like you've got to lay gasoline pipeline from the refinery to your apartment building. Electricity is already on site.

There are lots of neighborhoods in this country where off street parking is a luxury & not the norm.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
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If you keep at least one PHEV in the family vehicle mix then family trips should be no problem.

Most people would be able to charge at home, even off regular 110v. Multi-unit buildings are a bit tricker but the infrastructure is largely there after all it's not like you've got to lay gasoline pipeline from the refinery to your apartment building. Electricity is already on site.

True, assuming you can afford more than one car. Lower income people tend to own only one.

I have a client who was telling me about his plug-in hybrid. Among other things, he says he charges it at home every night and his power bill only went up by about $5 per month. With gas approaching $4 per gallon, I'll sign up for that once they can get these cars below $30K. For now, my Prius which costs ~$23K new and gets 50 MPG is fine.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,077
37,268
136
True, assuming you can afford more than one car. Lower income people tend to own only one.

I have a client who was telling me about his plug-in hybrid. Among other things, he says he charges it at home every night and his power bill only went up by about $5 per month. With gas approaching $4 per gallon, I'll sign up for that once they can get these cars below $30K.

That's true but also a lot of lower income people tend to buy used. I'm not saying this will or should happen for every person overnight but pushing the new car market into this direction is the place to start. Cheap used PHEVs would eventually filter down.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,133
30,084
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I would prefer the common terms that they are afraid and nervous. Call it whatever you like.

the holy fuck are you talking about? it has a specific medical diagnoses related to observable physical symptoms.

you might as well also not believe that the cartilage in your knee was fucked to the point that it needed surgery, but you did it anyway, right? You do understand that stress leads to very real and very serious physical responses, right? Do you honestly not subscribe to the idea of medical treatment?
 

pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
21,632
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...you "don't believe" in panic attacks?

lol, really?

what else don't you believe in? strokes? cancer? urinating? oxygen?

I guess I could or should have said that I believe that "panic attacks" are way overplayed in todays society. Very much like ADHD and loading kids up with drugs so the parents don't have to bother with them.