Almost a decade ago I saw the price curves for EV batteries (and wind and solar power).  It was a no-brainer.  Technology advances were going to make EVs cheaper than gas cars and they would take over.

My thinking was based on a lifetime in the tech world where such shifts happen quickly and regularly.  Anyone selling old expensive stuff will quickly be put out of business.

I figure EVs have been cheaper (and less hassle) to operate for years now.  Electricity (at home) is cheap.  I spend less than $5 to “fill up” a car that would cost many times that at a gas station. Plus I don’t have to go to gas stations.  Or get oil changes.  Or radiator flushes.  Of new mufflers and exhausts. Brakes even last longer.

EVs are cheap, clean, quiet, fast and less work than old gas cars.  So what’s taking so long?  I sometimes forget the Real World isn’t the Tech World.  Things move slower, for all sorts of reasons.  But the advantages of EVs (and solar and wind power) keep compounding.  It seems a tipping point has been reached, at least in large parts of the world.  From The Guardian.

Electric cars go mainstream as adoption surges across rich and developing nations

The Lazaroffs are family friends from our daughter’s years in College Station.  Good to see Leibel doing so well after his terrible injuries.  Watch this video.

Musical Performance with Bondi Hero Leibel Lazaroff

I started this posting a while back and have wanted to do it for months.  I felt a little funny though, like I was doing a product promotion, even if it was a very good product that I actually enjoy myself. But after the recent events in Minneapolis, what could be better than supporting the arts in that town?  Especially perhaps the only original American art from, born of America’s cultural struggles.

Below is a link to the Spotify of Steve Kenny Quintet‘s latest one, Blue Chunks.  I’ve listened to Steve Kenny in various bands (Illicit Sextet, Group 47, Steve Kenny Quartet) for decades now.  Steve is a fixture, if not a pillar, of the Twin Cities jazz scene these days.

I’m not a guy to do a music review, especially a jazz album, but I like this one enough to give it a mention.  A bit lighter than their previous albums, but it just sounds like Steve and his friends are having fun and want us in on it too.

I lived in Minneapolis in the early 1990s, going to school at UMinn and working at Honeywell.  I still have a few old friends up there.  One sent me this. Passing it on.  Pass it on.

https://youtu.be/uozLlmUhzZY?si=pYLLe21xhtaNG_RV

I’ve always liked the EFF.  This article is pretty disturbing.  From EFF.ORG

Beware: Government Using Image Manipulation for Propaganda

This hasn’t gotten much attention.  But markets and gold are up!  From The Guardian.

US dollar sinks to its lowest level in four years

Noam Chomsky once said (and I paraphrase) “the media can’t tell you what to think, but it can tell you what to think about”.  Today most news, and information in general, is filtered by two major tech companies, Google and Facebook.  This gives these firms unprecedented power.  Today they appear to be more or less benignly run, but there are less scrupulous people trying to gain control of these entities, or at least of their algorithms.  A recent (2021) paper gives a very good overview of the situation.

What to do?  Dump social media!  It’s the ultimate protest.  And you might just end up happier, too.

From Harvard Law Today, Nov. 18, 2021.

Google and Facebook have more power over the information ecosystem than any institution since the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. Their algorithms and their content moderation policies are taking the form of law.

–Stanford Law School Professor Nate Persily, co-editor of “Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform”

‘The algorithm has primacy over media … over each of us, and it controls what we do’

I’m sure they are “investigating”.  Yet another reason to dump social media.  From NPR.

TikTok is investigating why some users can’t write ‘Epstein’ in messages

One of my favorite books is The Leopard by Guiseppe Lampedusa.   It was made into a great movie in 1963 and more recently a series on Netflix.  It is all about the previous century’s transition from monarchy to democracy, specifically in Italy.  Always a good read, but maybe especially good in times of change like today.  A good article from The Guardian that applies the situation and lessons of The Leopard to Europe today.

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa , The Leopard

Europe is at a turning point. Timid EU elites should take lessons from The Leopard

Protests in France over an expensive system of reservoirs that benefits big agribusiness.  From The Baffler.

Reservoir Hogs