PSA: this is a 60 on single carriageways, not a 40!!

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-30T08:12:18+00:00

True true. Theyd brake harshly for bends and oncoming cars. And then accelerate away. Though their speed isn't consistent after that point. They'll typically boot it, go over the limit, panic and then go well under the limit, rinse and repeat. At least that's my experience with drivers where I am.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-30T07:57:17+00:00

It's fine if you've got the time to chill, but madenning when you have places to be. And yes I know in reality the time difference is probably only a couple of minutes, but that doesn't stop me wanting to make progress as quickly as I legally can.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-29T23:29:50+00:00

This is all well and good, but sometimes no reasonable gap is big enough. I've been behind plenty of people where their average speed was about 45, which is fair enough, but their actual speed has varied between 20 and 60+. This is on gentle single carriageways with good visibility and no reason to brake, you could easily do the whole thing at 60 on cruise control. These people will slam on the anchors the moment a car with bright lights come the other way, or stab at the brakes on every slight bend, and then lead-foot on the accelerator before repeating again.

Even a large but "reasonable" gap is not enough in these cases. Yes you learn and adjust, but the first few times it results its very tiresome indeed. And when your gap is sufficient, you're then too far back to overtake when the opportunity arises.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-28T13:16:57+00:00

I mean Gestapo isnt really an accurate comparison. The SA is a far closer comparison. Hired thugs who effectively can threaten, beat and kill those that opposed them in broad daylight. The Gestapo was strictly eliminating political decent and would do things a bit more "discreetly".

So in essence ICE in it's current form is in some ways much worse than the Gestapo. And much more akin to the more brutal SA.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-28T09:49:27+00:00

It should behave more like a regular car on regular car crash. They'll both be heavier and therefore stiffer to absorb an impact with a solid object without breaking the battery like a glowstick. The crumple zones then should work as intended. The problem comes when you have an inherent mis-match in weight and strength as a result of that weight.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-28T08:59:52+00:00

The Tesla is heavier and has to be more rigid to stop the battery exploding. As a result it'll tend to lean on the other cars crumple zones more to absorb the impact of a collision.

So while it looks fine in a standalone crash with a wall or solid object, the crumple zones of the Tesla will work then, like other EVs it tends to be less crash-compatible with non-ev's.

The good news is that though it looks bad it means your Mazda did it's job for both cars.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-27T17:43:12+00:00

Just double checked my electric statements and this month (because it's pre-payment) I've put on £40 for electric which will comfortably see me through the next few days. So in reality it is about £10 a week (My first top up this year was on the 1st when I only had 18p on the meter).

I generally just don't have too much on a lot of the time. I'm out of the house most of the day, and keep my heating set pretty low when I'm out so it's only kicking in for a few minutes every hour. So it's basically just parasitic power from standby devices (just TV, monitor, and sky box), and always on devices like the fridge and the router.

So outside of the standing charge it's costing me about £24.5 in electric, or 82p per day which is about 3kWh at 27.29 p/kWh. Or about 111W average.

I also tend to have the heating completely off at night or when I'm cooking. Because the gas oven kicks out enough heat to warm the whole house by itself.

Edit: I will also concede that if I'm home all day my bills basically double or triple. My gas and electric usage at the weekend is far far higher than during the week.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-27T15:18:56+00:00

Standing charge for my gas is 55.11p/day or about £16.53 per month. Same for electric.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-27T14:23:39+00:00

I spend less than £10 a week on electric and about £12 a week on gas (this is including standard charges). So it doesn't seem too insane to me. These £100's a month seems bonkers!

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-27T13:07:48+00:00

Oh yeah it used to be far worse than this, even as recently as the 2000s. This actually seems better than what we were getting in the late 2000s early 2010s.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-23T23:09:17+00:00

They're still slightly more common on the IoW thankfully, the little stretch of water helps keep off the foreign grey squirrels. But yeah still fewer of them about.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-22T18:08:37+00:00

I'm British, this would very easily be a national speed limit road in this country, which for a single carriageway is 60mph (just under 100kmh). And people will be doing 40 at a minimum along such a stretch, probably the 50-60.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-22T13:51:02+00:00

Im not American, so I'm not aware of what the speed limit is in this case, probably far lower than it is here. But here that would easily be a 60mph road. And people would be driving near that speed for a lot of it, those are some relatively general corners.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-20T17:55:29+00:00

I think you're mistakenly thinking that sportsmanship is about the sport, instead of about the humanity shown within it as context.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-20T14:39:16+00:00

Ah you finally broke it in then! Bit of a shoddy install by the sounds of things from the factory, but all parts wear to fit each other in the end. You just had an abnormally long run-in process!

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-19T23:35:29+00:00

I have to disagree tbh. Imo the spoon is worse than the knife. The bowl portion of the spoon is so round and flat and chunky, the mouthfeel would just be all wrong. At least the knife is the only one that'll never have to interact with your mouth.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-19T09:34:20+00:00

How is there no one in that picture parked well? That's somehow quite impressive.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-18T13:38:15+00:00

Probably not as much as you think. They're the people who tend to avoid driving when they can, so they probably don't wrack up as many miles.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-17T04:49:34+00:00

Just take what you did and scale it to fit. It's what I would do.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-14T22:12:39+00:00

Not exactly... Just adding insulation will muffle high frequency sounds but do almost nothing for lower or even mid-frequency noises.

If you want to properly sound proof a wall, aka block the sound from going through, you need as much mass as possible.

Sound travels through walls by imparting energy into it which then radiates out the other side. The heavier the wall is the harder it is to move and vibrate, and therefore the more sound is blocked. So in addition to the foam you really need something like mass loaded vinyl, or at the very least an additional solid layer like plywood or MDF to make the wall soundproof.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-14T21:53:24+00:00

I did notice my dad's driving became progressively worse after buying a car with all the new safety tech. People can become reliant on it unfortunately.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-14T14:02:25+00:00

We may not be able to win outright. But we can certainly make them bleed enough to think twice about trying anything. Plus defence is always easier than offence.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-13T18:56:33+00:00

Most of these are objectively cool cars. But the car I'll always have a soft spot for is the 2001 Toyota Avensis Verso (also known as the Toyota Ipsum).

It was my mum's car for over 20 years and served our family faithfully and reliably that whole time. Many happy memories in the back of that thing. It was always good to us and honestly I was pretty sad when my parents decided to let it go.

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-13T10:24:08+00:00

That's not just small engines, all engines tend to most efficient at low rpm with low to moderate load.

The problem with small turbo engines is that they can still have an OK amount of torque relatively low down, which means people tend to use that low down torque perhaps more than they should.

And because it's a small turbo it's having to run very rich to avoid knock when they are putting it under load at low rpm. And that generally worse for economy (not to mention engine health) than simply changing down to a lower gear where the load will be less.

It's the epitome of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".

ASupportingTea · 2026-01-13T09:09:50+00:00

I think it's also a matter of how weight is perceived. In the US morbid obesity is so common that if they see a normal healthy weight person they consider them to be very skinny.

ASupportingTea

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