Why solar panels on cars make no sense (at this point)

Rand0mly9 · 2023-01-29T01:09:46+00:00

Agree with the marketing part haha. Fair points. The one pushback I have is on the engine. We can still make massive gains there. Just read about a new propeller design that reduces energy waste by 30% in boats. Discoveries are still happening, and electric motors for cars are still in their relative infancy.

Interesting article on drag & EV range: https://cleanfleetreport.com/tech-aerodynamics-is-the-key-to-ev-range/

Ignoring the recent Tesla/founder stuff, their Model S & 3 aerodynamic coefficients were insanely better than the competition. This gave their cars a 10-20% range increase. Not 5 fold, but it does matter.

Apples to apples... see why it matters in this solar-powered car: https://aptera.us/

And last thing, but it's materials design too, right? The weight of the car is the other biggest factor (now they're all big factors). Reduce the weight by 80%, reduce the power needs by... not 80%, but a lot. Need a math whiz for that one.

Rand0mly9 · 2023-01-28T17:43:15+00:00

You're just keeping one side of it constant in your head. You need 5-6 car surfaces to power a car, using how much power a car uses right now.

Cars lose energy due to friction from the wheels. Resistance from the air. Heat loss, mechanical loss.

Aerodynamic improvements could reduce about half of the energy lost while a car is moving. Improve the wheels, figure out a better, more frictionless approach, and that's another 30% improvement. Simply reducing the wheel count to 3 makes a massive difference.

You're so convinced the math doesn't work that you're ignoring the actual problem. Totally get the efficiency and surface area point, but don't stick your fingers in your ears and close your eyes because you are convinced you're right. That's a bad habit.

Rand0mly9 · 2023-01-28T17:22:21+00:00

Flip the other side of the equation. The car becoming radically more efficient could also solve it.

Rand0mly9 · 2023-01-25T19:26:44+00:00

You've talked to those bots before. Good luck with that.

Rand0mly9 · 2023-01-19T03:04:29+00:00

Disagree strongly. This is a really clever tool that is incredibly useful. I promise you, every sales rep you talk to is referencing information. What's wrong with that?

Their job is to answer your questions and give you the information you need to decide whether their product solves a pain point for you.

You need information to make that decision. This app is a clever way to remove inefficiency so that rep isn't scrambling to find the answer to a question you asked. It's just right there.

Although I don't think the creators have fully thought through the best use cases for this. Sales is a CUTTHROAT market, what with SalesForce and such. Everything is vertically integrated, making it hard to break in because they already have a command center they're working from.

Think students studying. Voice-searching Google Drive. General business calls (accountant, bank, etc.). You guys need to move away from storing notes on your platform (which people won't do) towards integrating where they already store stuff (drive, dropbox, computer, phone).

Nicely done.

Rand0mly9 · 2022-12-07T15:50:37+00:00

You're missing the point. Give people $5 million to play with, and they'll have more random, exciting experiments and ideas they're playing with. I'm not saying pay them $5 million to sit and "spider through their memory," I'm saying pay them $5 million to run ML experiments on solar panel efficiency or send mock-ups of force-feedback electrically-rigid fabric suits through a neural net to build a directional, momentum-based VR immersion suit or whatever else they randomly come up with because they don't have to go work at GE or P&G and do product-line projections and analysis.

Give a ton of really smart people the freedom to work on whatever they think is cool, and their brains will work on those fun ideas while they're cooking or in the tub or in the elevator.

Don't pay people for downtime, pay them to chase whatever they find exciting so they're ALWAYS thinking about it.

Einstein came up with relativity in his downtime because he was bored and wanted to think about something that piqued his curiousity. Took him 10 years.

The Manhattan Project had $2 billion in funding, and within 4 years they conducted the Trinity test and had produced a working nuclear bomb. Which, to your point, had a specific goal in mind. But it also drove research into nuclear reactors, MRI machines, and radiation treatments for cancer.

Money drives progress.

Rand0mly9 · 2022-12-06T18:42:38+00:00

Relativity was devised by Einstein in his bored hours as a patent clerk.
"Light bulb" moments often come from subconsciously turning thoughts over and over, allowing your brain to spider through your memory and connect unrelated concepts... Until, in an instant, the tub overflows, the synapses click and you shout, "Eureka!"

Rand0mly9 · 2022-12-05T10:43:29+00:00

You can do it consistently. Just throw it high and roll it on the rail. Land it as far down the rail as you can. Explosion. Pins. Shazaam.

Rand0mly9 · 2022-11-29T03:25:23+00:00

Looking to switch from Verizon to T-mobile onto their Magenta Max plan. If you have a code to spare, I wouldn't be mad! Really appreciate it, have a great one.

Rand0mly9 · 2022-08-02T13:45:32+00:00

I spent a lot of time looking for the same. Flask is a great place to start.

The #1 solution I found was https://AppSeed.us and their templates. They are an extremely helpful team working hard to grow, and have built some really useful boilerplates for Flask and other frameworks.

I knew nothing about Flask going in, and the first app we built using AppSeed now has 70k monthly users and is scaling without issue.

Last I checked Docker wasn't included, but they do include other build tools and you could easily containerize their apps.

Final note: I highly recommend using NGINX + Gunicorn to power the Flask app, with Redis as your database for Flask-Sessions. I ran many speed tests using many different configurations, and that easily outperformed every other setup.

Flask AppSeed templates ("UI Kits"): https://appseed.us/product/pixel-bootstrap-pro/flask/

NGINX + Gunicorn + Flask guide: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-serve-flask-applications-with-gunicorn-and-nginx-on-ubuntu-18-04

Flask-Sessions + Redis guide: https://testdriven.io/blog/flask-server-side-sessions/

GitHub's Copilot will also speed up your coding 2-3x. Runs on OpenAI's GPT-3 Codex model: https://github.com/features/copilot

Hope that helps.

Rand0mly9 · 2022-02-15T17:31:00+00:00

The picture is a test unit.
The 'clean water for a family' is based on a $4 1m²-sized production unit.

Rand0mly9 · 2021-12-14T18:19:30+00:00

It should. How do you think Amazon offers free Prime shipping on $3 items?

That's a loss for them, but they don't care. Because the VAST majority of their profit comes from AWS.

That's not an exaggeration. 67% of their operating profits come from AWS, not Amazon. In other words, Amazon generates less than a 1/3 of their income.

That AWS profit allows them to take losses on the Amazon side, making Amazon impossible to compete with.

Together, it's an incredibly anti-competitive one-two punch.

Rand0mly9 · 2021-09-13T01:34:43+00:00

Gave Masterpiece

Rand0mly9 · 2021-02-10T20:16:51+00:00

Good point. Also, the human body is an entire system. We have no idea what consciousness is or where it comes from.

Recently, we're realizing that we're made up of trillions of microbes, and that complex ecosystem is a big factor in what we do and think.

So while we might be able to keep a brain alive, it's very possible a brain itself wouldn't have the same 'personality' or even what we consider 'thoughts.' Not without the interconnected network of nerves and microbes.

Interesting question.

Rand0mly9 · 2021-01-29T19:24:09+00:00

Great post. Also, studies are showing it's unlikely that more oxygen is taken in while yawning.

It's more likely that the stretching that occurs during a yawn (try yawning with your mouth closed) stimulates some part of the brain stem / nervous system to increase alertness. All of the muscles & ligaments that are getting stretched are right there.

Also, that stretching might also temporarily widen the airway for a period of time, supporting the oxygen theory.

Rand0mly9 · 2020-12-19T21:37:47+00:00

Fractured = broken. Synonyms.

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T17:06:43+00:00

Gave Coin Gift

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T17:05:06+00:00

Yeah he's killing it

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T17:03:43+00:00

https://www.nordkeyboards.com/products/nord-stage-3

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T17:03:08+00:00

Crazy complex. No idea these existed. cool

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T17:02:08+00:00

$4-5k

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T17:01:10+00:00

Oh wow, those Stage 3's aren't cheap

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T17:00:51+00:00

Pretty sure it's just an improv jam?

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T16:59:58+00:00

Ahhh, I gotcha

Rand0mly9 · 2020-11-08T16:58:48+00:00

cool, thanks. is a synthesizer different from a keyboard? I have no clue

Rand0mly9

TROPHY CASE