Nextcloud self-hosted to replace Google Drive.

I’m really reluctant to recommend Nextcloud. The software is buggy, it’s not e2e encrypted, and you’re liable to data less if your VPS goes down unless you’re good at managing cloud resources.

For most people, a service is better.

If you’re on Android, that’s probably the most important thing to consider first. Just using a phone with Google Play Services gives up a great deal of privacy, even if you think you’ve turned all that off.

So, consider either an iPhone or if you’re really serious about this shit, GrapheneOS. The iPhone is easier for average people, but GrapheneOS is more private and you have more control. Both are better than Googled Android.

For a Google Drive alternative, that’s simple. If you’re already using Proton, get ProtonDrive.

For Google Docs alternative, that’s a bit more challenging. There aren’t any direct competitors with full end-to-end encryption that are any good and also cross-platform.

Speaking as someone who lives in the US, the reason why people “prefer” it is because it’s embedded into the culture that public transportation is for poor people- temporarily embarrassed millionaires and all that

It’s really not that different from anywhere else. Almost anywhere in the world, people who can afford cars usually buy cars.

Public transit is almost never the fastest option. Even when I lived in New York City, it wasn’t the fastest option. If you were running late, you’d spend the extra money on a taxi to get to the airport or to get across town and except for the very peak of rush hour, it was faster. That’s broadly been true in my travels in Europe, as well: taxis are almost always faster, from London to Rome.

Add to that, in the US, the actual experience of using public transit is often quite bad. Public transit is, well, public. You share a limited space, sometimes a very limited space, with literally anyone. Women are groped. The smell of urine is common. The seats are sticky. It’s just gross, even in wealthy areas.

In contrast, with a car, you have a private, controlled environment. The temperature is what you want it to be. There’s music. You can have a private conversation with your spouse. The chair is comfortable. Maybe you even have heated seats with a massage function. But whatever car you have, it’s probably more luxurious than even a great public transit option.

So:

• Faster
• More personal space
• More private
• No perverts, no bodily fluids, no body odor, no one on the way home from the fish market

Public transit is almost never the fastest option. Even when I lived in New York City, it wasn’t the fastest option. If you were running late, you’d spend the extra money on a taxi to get to the airport or to get across town and except for the very peak of rush hour, it was faster. That’s broadly been true in my travels in Europe, as well: taxis are almost always faster, from London to Rome.

Add to that, in the US, the actual experience of using public transit is often quite bad. Public transit is, well, public. You share a limited space, sometimes a very limited space, with literally anyone. Women are groped. The smell of urine is common. The seats are sticky. It’s just gross, even in wealthy areas.

In contrast, with a car, you have a private, controlled environment. The temperature is what you want it to be. There’s music. You can have a private conversation with your spouse. The chair is comfortable. Maybe you even have heated seats with a massage function. But whatever car you have, it’s probably more luxurious than even a great public transit option.

So:

• Faster
• More personal space
• More private
• No perverts, no bodily fluids, no body odor, no one on the way home from the fish market

This is why, isn’t it?

Regular old cars use weak starter motors from the 12V battery. They’ve gotten better, but it’s still just a small part used only to start the car, so it only turns over the engine fast enough to get it going.

A car like a Prius will put the car’s big, beefy generator in “reverse” to start the motor at whatever RPM the computer wants it at, and since it has abundant power from the synergy drive batteries, it can start the engine at whatever RPM the computer deems appropriate.

Many new cars have start/stop features builtin. If the computer controller detects that the engine may have trouble starting (low temperature, low battery, starter motor failure, whatever), it won’t stop the engine for you.

Or that’s the theory.

It’s not necessarily an issue of fuel, but the overall wear on the components and engine when you start a car. A starter motor only has so many “starts” it can do before dying. The battery too.

Starter motors have gotten a lot better since the “bad old days” and engines start more smoothly thanks to fuel injection and computer control systems, so manufacturers have decided that it’s ok to start/stop engines as needed, but the reason for not doing it was never a matter of fuel savings.

I was wondering about games during the announcement — they didn’t really announce much with regard to games at all, except that you can run chess or iPad apps and the like.

I figured that at $3,500, they probably avoided gaming because they aren’t “magic” enough to justify the price point, so why talk about them?