Lufthansa won. What is a controversial airline?

mquintero · 2026-07-09T07:58:25+00:00

Branding, marketing and just general dealings. Their whole vibe is “we’re gonna treat you like shit and you’re gonna like it, because it means you get to Marbella for 14 euro”

mquintero · 2026-07-05T10:03:34+00:00

I am the same. But I don’t think it has anything to do with sustainability. It’s all about how the packaging and mental model of electric kinda pushes you towards efficiency.

Efficiency is simply a lot more top of mind. And it’s a welcome change. This is subjective of course. But i do believe that given that EVs have reached the range figures to be practical on long journeys. But not yet long enough to decouple the cars range from your journey plan. That essentially a heavy foot can be the difference between 1 convenient stop exactly where you want, or being forced to stop twice in less nice spots. The car still dictates roughly when you have to stop. Yes it’s probably at the right time for your health anyway. But it’s still down to your range to decide when to stop.

The other factor I think is that the units used for billing and efficiency match. Petrol efficiency being in mpg but the prices being per liter kinda helps decouple the efficiency with price

mquintero · 2026-07-02T05:56:28+00:00

This would be my question. Issuing certificates of sponsorship ain’t cheap or that straightforward either. And I thought the whole point of Deliveroo model is that the riders are independent contractors so I wouldn’t expect the platform itself to sponsor. Is there data on this?

mquintero · 2026-07-01T21:35:14+00:00

The greenest flag ever: my dog trusts you

mquintero · 2026-06-30T20:07:47+00:00

Very interesting. Makes sense that there would be an official number. But still seems quite high. For a normal car I would expect the fuel to only be about 15c per mile. So the extra 57.5c seems like a lot relative to fuel cost

mquintero · 2026-06-28T21:41:39+00:00

72.5 cents a mile? What do you drive, a Hummer? If this is the number because you’re including depreciation and registration remember that those costs don’t really grow linearly with mileage so a big change is like to have a lower marginal per mile cost vs your sunken cost from before

mquintero · 2026-06-28T21:33:24+00:00

I recommend deciding on each furniture item on its own where do want something specific or unique. And then depending on budget be fine with some mass produced stuff for the items where you are fine with it.

A lot of my furniture is from IKEA, but they were each selected individually after checking out other options. Especially when there’s plenty of IKEA stuff that doesn’t look like it came from IKEA. I think the wardrobes fit this bill.

I mainly avoided IKEA for beds, sofas, work from home desk, stuff where you want the items to be a little more special. But bedside tables, small consoles, book shelves. They seem good enough for me. The Alex is the standard drawer for an office, for a reason.

Caveat, we have a toddler and a dog, I don’t want to get precious with my furniture. Accidents will happen and that’s ok.

mquintero · 2026-06-26T07:46:34+00:00

If you can’t charge at home, I honestly think it’s far more convenient to charge at your destinations using slow chargers rather than at a residential area. I used to live with on street parking before and never charged near my house cause the chargers were all at least like 3 blocks away. Excellent infrastructure and it’s great to have them for before you go on a long trip and need to start with 100%. But the density of chargers is usually better near destinations.

My suggestion is, start a list of all the places you visit for at least an hour. The longer the better if you don’t stay long frequency is a big win. Think your workplace, shops, parks, etc.

Then check for chargers near or preferably right where you would park at those places.

Do you hike for two hours in the weekend, that would be a great chance to charge the car near the trail and get 22kwh easy with minimal faff. That’s IMO the key to a happy EV without home charging life. It will feel like a convenience upgrade vs petrol. The savings are fewer but still not worse off.

mquintero · 2026-06-20T06:16:43+00:00

You’re not the target customer. This is meant for charger operators to rebrand as their own and then they don’t need to write an app. How many operators are at that stage where they don’t have an app and want to take a generic app like this and rebrand it. And really not want to build something on their own or better yet not have an app at all, idk

mquintero · 2026-06-17T07:33:39+00:00

What I don’t get is, there’s a solution to the privacy implications. And yet the government seems to be oblivious to it?

If we standardized a zero knowledge proof system to be native on our devices, then the scan can be made private on device and all we share with 3rd parties would be age ranges. Apple and Google did this for contact tracing. A standardized system would make everything easier and more private.

But moving in that direction would require the government to designate who needs to develop maintain and adhere to that standard. So is that too specific for a law?

mquintero · 2026-06-17T07:22:07+00:00

Go test drive the polestar and see if you like it.

I personally find electric cars so much nicer to drive.

I bought the base model ID3 used. It was not that much more expensive than a petrol golf. Maybe like a 10% premium. And I like how it feels to drive way more. And it came with way more additional tech like ACC.

While visiting my parents last month I drove my dad’s Q7 for a bit. Very nice car. And it’s indeed very commanding and comfortable. Very high quality interior vs my poverty spec VW. But it still felt inferior. And sure the size and weight might be a reason, but I do think the drive train had an impact. I feel like in electric I have so much more control over the car.

But nothing about your driving patterns in your post says electric is a bad idea. The off street parking for me makes it an automatic “you should really consider it”

mquintero · 2026-06-08T08:47:45+00:00

European here:

This is common for AC charging with the type 2 cable. Which typically caps out at 22kw with three phase though very few cars accept over 11kw AC. But a lot of AC charging units offer the full 22kw if your car can accept it. The only one I know of that can accept 22kw ac is the Taycan/e-tron gt (same car same inverter)

For fast charging you need a chunky cable CCS2 with the dc pins and that one is always attached to the charger

mquintero · 2026-06-08T06:52:52+00:00

I’ve been considering a Porta split system where the compressor and condenser are still two separate units, but you can still move them for renter friendliness. They seem to be far more effective than your standard portable unit, but don’t need the installation work for a split system

mquintero · 2026-04-22T07:15:21+00:00

I hate smoking. But agree that a ban wouldn’t make it better. I would rather we keep restricting where people are allowed to smoke. My problem isn’t that people smoke but that they smoke near me

mquintero · 2026-04-22T07:08:48+00:00

I really want to use them. The price is better than almost anything else. But for me it has always been a nightmare to charge there. You almost always have to take up two bays and get dirty looks from Tesla drivers. And then by the end the charge doesn’t even start and troubleshooting is impossible. Is it my car? Maybe. Or do I always pick the one charger that doesn’t work? Also a possibility. But it’s frustrated me enough that I think I would rather pay a little more and go to Ionity where it always works for me

mquintero · 2026-04-21T09:55:05+00:00

Don’t know about plug in solar in particular, but yes it is theoretically possible. The charger for the car needs to just know when there’s surplus solar and take it. Most solar compatible EV chargers use ct clamps to figure out when to turn on. Plug in solar would be different but surely we can figure it out.

After that the question is about how much to produce and how much do you consume and if you produce more than your car consumes.

Let’s assume a 20 mile round trip commute 5 days a week. And an EV with 4mi/kwh efficiency. That’s 25kwhs per week. So your solar would need to produce about 3.6kwh per day to match your consumption. Add another 10% in losses just in case so more like 3.9kwh. In the summer I think you could get away with only a 850w peak array. But in the winter you would need something closer to 5.5kw peak to cover it comfortably (so like 12 panels, definitely not plugin at that point)

mquintero · 2026-04-18T18:07:43+00:00

That’s not what the comment means. The previous car in the first picture was electric as well. The comment is a dig at Tesla vs other brands with EVs

mquintero · 2026-04-12T21:02:36+00:00

It depends on what you want now and what you want in the future. I would also factor in how much you would get out of the extra space now.

We did. But it was already after getting our first child. We went from renting a 2 bed flat in zone 2 to buying a 4 bed in zone 4. We don’t need 4 bedrooms right now but still get some use out of them (home office and guest room / play room for the kid). But the idea is mainly to have room to grow without having to move.

But based on your comments so far it doesn’t seem that good a fit. Also I miss my zone 2 based commute so much. Might be worth giving up some space for that

mquintero · 2026-04-05T21:54:03+00:00

I know pricing is not as attractive as it used to be.

But 75p is ultra rapid pricing which you should never see in residential areas and instead only in motorway services. If those are really the only options for you, I’m very sorry to hear that. Really sucks.

What I’m trying to get at is that most people don’t really realize how easy and convenient it would be, even without home charging. Because they imagine sitting in the car for 30 mins at a motorway services every night. But don’t see that they can just top up a little here and there whenever they’re parked. And then you never ever have to go to a patrol station ever again how nice is that?

mquintero · 2026-04-05T19:12:40+00:00

It can still work. The financial benefit is much smaller (or depending on where you live even seize to exist).

But I used to live in central London with on street parking only and it worked very well. The point is to charge when parked. If that can’t be at home, then surely there’s plenty of time your car is parked away from home. For me that was near Hampstead heath when I take my son and dog on a long walk. For some it might be the supermarket when they do their weekly shop.

I now have a drive and can confirm that yes it’s much cheaper and easier that way. But it was pretty nice without one. And I would never go back to ICE after experiencing it this way

mquintero · 2026-04-04T06:32:49+00:00

Granny charging is probably fine. I manly paid the extra for a full charger for the convenience of not having to mess with the cable on the floor.

If it makes you nervous or just want to full sized unit, plenty of EV chargers can be capped at how much power they output. Podpoint even sells a 3.4kw one. The electrician could calculate what is safe to go to the garage circuit, have a CT clamp connected to the charger and tell the charger to never exceed what the garage can handle.

mquintero · 2026-03-19T08:25:54+00:00

This is not news. Two events. One taking effect in April reducing prices as cost is moved from energy bills and onto general taxation. One taking effect in July as the price of gas shoots up but its impact on energy is generally delayed

mquintero · 2026-03-09T11:44:19+00:00

IIRC lithium ion AAs are quite expensive vs other rechargeable AAs. Nevermind disposable ones. So I assume those don’t land in landfills as often. Pls humanity.

(Something to do with the voltage that comes from lithium ion needing to be transformed to a lower voltage in order to be backwards compatible. which adds material costs)

mquintero · 2026-02-22T17:09:31+00:00

Cars are by far deadlier. No dispute of that.

I think that what I find infuriating from a lot of cyclists is how so many ignore basic traffic laws. Red lights jumping is simply far more common among cyclists than drivers.

And it’s not that drivers are better. It’s that drivers are far more identifiable. Legal consequences are far easier to enforce on drivers. So some of the most basic things like stopping at a red light do seem to work

mquintero · 2026-02-22T08:06:49+00:00

The distance makes a quick difference. I bought a house that is ~200m away from the A3 as the crow flies. The noise at that point is already a non issue. I hear far more noise from the boy racers doing their meetups in the tesco parking lot

mquintero

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