perestroika

If the approximate weight of an 18650 cell is 50 grams, 8000 of them would indeed be 400 kg. Probably more, since they must be packaged somehow. But the pack can be split into modules which a one person can haul around somehow.

Myself, I went for 45 km/h officially (unoffially, on a flat road, I could reach 53 km/h). While turning, for safety reasons, I limited myself to far lower speeds (25 km/h).

Designing a car suspension system for reasonably high speed seems hard, I have never tried, instead choosing the robust and crude solutions to get a reasonable assurance of strength.

Motorcycles seem easier. Especially since most of factory-made motorcycles use a sprocket and chain - a very flexible system for dropping in other power sources. I imagine that with enough know-how to get through type certification, a lot of combustion bikes could become e-bikes with excellent riding characteristics. :)

Yep. I've done an L2e, and some day I will manage an L7e. :)

Interference testing was not needed. The motor wattage and motor controller wattage labels were examined. I could have dropped in more power in a mood for forgery, but I was in an honest mood. :)

What I see on his photos are at least 2 (third one likely in reverse, where his finger is pointing) reasonably powerful electric motors on a ~~single toothed belt~~ pair of toothed belts.

image

I think there's no combustion engine left in that car. I suspect he combined them because the van wouldn't ride well with only 10 KW.

I would have loved to have / build something like this but in my well regulated european country it’s near impossible to get this street legal certification.

Yep. :( The certification manual here, in a moderately regulated European country, is about 250 pages long. Fortunately, not all chapters apply to moped-cars. If one really really wants, moped-cars are the way to break through the barrier.

It seems like he used the engines of electric "raiders" (ride-on lawnmowers, that is - small tractors). I cannot fathom why and how he used 3, but the tools in his shed suggest he can build anything. That's one impressive shed.

You're correct. Only the roof is likely to give significant power. Been there and done that, on the opposite side of the planet though. :)

The "something" on the picture I attach... was built in some squat in Eastern Europe. It had a flat roof of approximately 2 x 1.5 m, all of it solar panel. Solar panels weren't great back then. Typically it charged its 4 KWh battery in a few days of sunshine. Only during midsummer (18-hour days) was there any chance of a full charge in a single day.

Unlike the van, the "something" required a smaller inventory of tools to build. Instead of lawnmower motors, a Chinese electric motorcycle motor was used. Sadly it's now retired due to metal fatigue. :( Lesson: never build a structure that flexes out of aluminum - aluminum has no fatigue limit, any flexing will lead to cracking.

The majority of both younger and older adults initially opted to choose cards represented by trustworthy faces. But when they started losing with the supposedly trustworthy cards, younger adults were much quicker to learn and tried switching to another deck of cards in hopes of stemming their losses.

It took elderly adults most of the game before they started performing well, as they seemingly favored their first impressions of trust, which obscured that the cards were bad. The younger group had an average age in their early 20s, while the older cohort averaged between 70 and 75 years old.

Interesting. Less exploratory behaviour and a lower tendency to re-evaluate situations seems like something that comes with two things:

• experience that previously served one well (and made one confident)
• a less flexible neural system (making it burdensome and hard to re-evaluate viewpoints and beliefs)

Part of the remedy could probably be self-criticism (awareness of one's weaknesses) and part could be medical interventions to give the flexibility back.

Some quite interesting articles, thank you - I read two and quick-scanned some more.

Formal verification seems the way to go if you do build a system top down.

What tends to ruin the day is when you need to use components of somewhat random origin. In addition to the OS, you have device drivers, often supplied by vendors who cannot be bothered to go beyond the minimum, you have applications, some of which are legacy and some poorly maintained, written in 12 different programming languages and using 12 different network protocols, some having great traction (thus being necessary) but designed as they were in those days...

...in a chaotic environment, formal verification seems like a big burden to carry. It therefore seems like a method which a rich organization can afford, but not something a small or poor organization can use.

For smaller players, I think minimizing and simplifying their tools may be more accessible. If one can throw out most components, limit the contact surface to something small, use the simplest tools on that surface and make their review easier - I think one can get reasonably high assurance without all-encompassing verification...

...but then again, if you build a manned aircraft, spacecraft or submersible, or a medical apparatus or life support system, then I think formal verification would be a really good idea. :)

These projects are so incomprehensibly vast that no human mind can comprehend even one small isolated subset of the entire thing.

Which means - no human mind can trust them either, and no human programmer alone can conduct a security review.

Which means they should not be trusted, and should be considered insecure - unless they can be carefully isolated from the environment so that only a trusted surface is exposed.

My ideal project size: something that an average coder can read in a week or two, and come back to their (possibly anarchist) colleagues saying: "this code looks reliable and won't be leaking buckets".

I wasn't one of the downvoters, but I am one of the not-engagers.

It's not a text, it's a YouTube video... I don't prefer videos as a source of information, they cannot be quoted, they cannot be scanned quickly. A video demands you to go all in.

Regarding voting: it's what the current political systems in most countries use to determine which party gets to govern. Some notes:

• a population not using their right to vote will soon see a worse future
• a population only using their right to vote will not see a better future
• improving voting (e.g dropping "first past the post" and going proportional) may improve the political process
• an important political right is the ability to create a party and gain representation
• "first past the post" systems essentially deny people this right under all but the most dire circumstances
• but countries with a proportional multiparty system are still capable of failing
• replacing voting (e.g. with sortition) may bring additional improvements
• removing single person offices of great power (e.g. presidents) may further improve things
• decentralizing more aspects of power may further improve things
• regardless, sometimes a group of people will want to vote on a matter

Interesting article, thanks for sharing.

Upon reading, I came across some statements that I'd like to improve or alter, if it was me writing the text.

Each successive world system has a leading state

Here, I would say: there can be many. Multiple centers of power can exist and persist for long periods of time.

After World War II, the US took over from the UK and became the architect of the next world system, centered around a putatively universal order of states governed by the UN

The author has mis-stated the nature of the UN - it has no capability to govern. It's a sofa corner where states chat through their delegates - and proceed to do what they really want. Only a small state takes a resolution of the UN seriously.

The US and its closest allies are no longer the main motors of economic growth, and the share of new investments they capture is diminishing.

Almost correct. China is on equal footing in terms of economic output, and still growing faster -> thus, likely to surpass the US. However, the "US and its closest allies" is a term that makes further comparison impossible - it could be right or wrong depending on how one charts alliances.

Politically, the NATO bloc had been expanding its web of alliances into territory that had long belonged in the Russian sphere of influence. Russia is pushing back in Ukraine

This sentence irritates me - a lot. Countries aren't forced to join NATO, they choose to join NATO - Finland joined last year, Sweden will join this year, most of Eastern Europe joined when they could. Ukraine never joined and never seriously had a chance before the Russian invasion.

Russia's "push-back" in Ukraine however, is not something Ukraine chose - it's a full-scale war. NATO didn't get Poland or Hungary or Estonia to join by waging a full-scale war against them. They just left the door open - the countries applied, nobody vetoed, they became members. A direct comparison between NATO expansion and Russia's actions in Ukraine on such simple terms is highly inadequate, unless one's trying to fool the reader.

divisions within NATO and the EU have recently immobilized those alliances

That would be false. The EU recently passed its 50 billion euros of aid to Ukraine. Member states continue to send armaments. Finland shipped its 22-nd armaments package to Ukraine, the Netherlands and Denmark have probably already handed over F-16 fighters (there have been photos of an F-16 in Ukrainian colors). France continues to supply artillery to Ukraine, Germany continues to supply air defense. Greece is negotiating the handing over of Soviet-made weapons. Bulgaria is supplying considerable amounts of ammunition and also giving away its Soviet-made war machines.

The sore thumb at the moment is the US - for several months in a row, the parliament of the US has been deadlocked, and 90% of the blame seems to be on Trumpist Republicans. About 60 billion of aid stands behind the deadlock - about as much as the EU gave, but this package of aid has higher percentage of critcally important weapons. Thus the fuss.

Elsewhere, Russia has suffered humiliating defeats, as in its inability to support Armenia against the expansionism of Azerbaijan

I would agree with this assessment, but I'd note that both Armenian and Azerbaijan are allies of Russia. It was supposed to mediate between them - in more direct terms, to play them against each other so they can be ruled over - but it failed due to being drawn out in Ukraine.

Turkey is acting on a strategic level like a non-aligned country, even as it continues to wield the ability to block consensus within NATO

Yes, it behaves like on. However, the blocking of Sweden's NATO accession was overcome by US foreign policy - Turkey needed weapons systems which the Congress would not permit giving, unless Turkey would permit Sweden to join NATO. So recently, Turkey ratified the deal (Hungary still blocks at the moment).

In the US, the political elite already consider China an adversary worthy of a new Cold War, whereas in Europe, China is considered a partially reliable strategic partner. If something does not change quickly, the US will be relegated to the same status.

This assessment seems accurate, but I'd like to quote the EU on this. Their position is more complex:

"The EU sees China as a partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival" -- EU-China Relations factsheet

the US would need to make grand gestures in order to expiate their rotten brand: /.../ normalizing relations with China and Iran

Iran is actively supplying armaments to Russia for its war in Ukraine. China meanwhile has not excluded conducting a violent invasion of Taiwan, and drills their military for this course of action on regular basis. How does one normalize relations with an ally of an agressor, or a party preparing for agression?

...I actually liked the rest of the article.

P.S. As for legitimacy: yes, there are horrors in the behaviour of past US administrations. States get away with violating international law if they are powerful enough. :( The US has done to South America what the USSR did to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and various places it occupied. The USSR has crumbled (apparently, one of its successor states has the same habits). The US - has it reformed itself? I can only say "maybe", "hopefully" but there's no certainty. The system doesn't look particularly different, people might have higher awareness and standards but the sprockets and wheels are the same.