„A specific technique on how to achieve it“, it usually a process patent. This can be circumvented and erases the protection. If the defined process is A>B>C>D and your process is A>E>C>D, then this does not touch the patent as it’s a different process.

Also I second your comments that patents often block innovation if not used or licensed too expensive, imI would like to share a different perspective on this.

In pharmacy, the research, development and testing of new medication takes years and costs tons of money. If a drug is out of patent, generic drugs made in India for a fraction of the costs in developed countries. Typically the original producer stops the production as they can’t succeed the race down.

If there won’t be patents that protect inventions, there won’t be medical research in developed countries. Antibiotics is one example where the broken incentive for medical industry to invent already became obvious. There are no new antibiotics anymore. Since years.

Imho, it’s not this good/bad thing with patents. It’s rather a „how you use it“

Probably it’s both: the low industry production and the successful switch of power creation towards renewables

https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?c=EU&l=de&interval=year&year=-1&stacking=stacked_grouped

They didn’t expect it that horrible. Same as the German disaster, close by my region, they didn’t expect it. It’s the fcking new reality.

I wish the best for the Spanish people. Hope the next days weather won’t be this hard.

Indeed an official app would ease the user on-boarding.

I had to read through some articles first to get the concept of the fediverse first and the look out for my home instance. That’s way too techy

I can‘t wait for it. In general, for the price of a home batterie you get double the amount of Watt plus 4 wheels from automotive industry. Even if you don’t drive it, it’s way cheaper.

Take this and mix it with the new regulation for flexible power prices starting in January. We have negative prices in Europe thanks to nuclear plants that are always on. You load your car and get money for it. You unload in the evening and get money for it.

Sure, there‘ll be some barriers to prevent ordinary people playing the power-money-game. However, power will become fck cheap for the lucky with electric cars.

Good points. Im not sure if social progress is bound to technological progress but think it’s interlinked somehow. Our social progress is worth the overall progress, to be honest.

I’m entering the 50 soon - grown up with C64 - and thinking a lot about my kids and my childhood. It’s so much better for kids nowadays.

All the brutality and all the loneliness has gone. Thanks to Me-Too. Still so many kids at my age have been beaten, so many young girls abused in my generation. I’m talking with my friends about this nowadays. The generation of my parents are even worse. Still trying to talk with them about their childhood. Remember this was the generation grown up by facists&racists after the WW2.

No backbone those flappers

I second your proposal. Just call them all „Bart“ and „ Maggie“ if female

I‘m the one with that rope. A Lemmnja.

Oh Gott, die Chinesen kommen. Und bringen CO2 freundliche Autos zu konsumentenfreundlichen Preisen. Hiiiiiilfe. Baut eine Mauer. Das wollen wir nicht. Oder?

Edit: Ih sorry, English thread. I was writing that for German consumers that must be the hell: CO2 friendly cars at affordable prices. Stop that now. We need a new wall. Do we?

Okay, I might sound too negative. After WW2 car culture took off in Germany and Japan as well. May be a bit later due to overall wealth.

However, the OT asked how it comes that both countries have different urban planning - not building the city around cars despite having big car manufacturers.

My point is simply that the structure of German and Japanese cities were already shaped when cars were invented. Sure, there were bigger „modernizations“ with big streets cutting some cities in halves. But that’s more a niche.

The US had a population boom after WW2 and so the cities start to spread. Build car-friendly. https://marketsize.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/USPop.jpg

As the engine car was invented in 1886, I would say trains and trams were already there. Way before the car entered the scene. Just later at 1908 with Ford T cars became affordable for the non-rich.

People at that time hadn’t a huge radius of movement. There wasn’t simply not much need.

That is a bit how humans always explained human experiences - by explaining it through how modern technology works.

Years ago it were mechanical mechanisms that explained how we think. Before that it was a pinhole camera. Today it is information technology.

But that‘s not how humans think, interact, and live in the world. You’re model doesn’t explain why some people are boring and some are meszmerising. Some spoken words can resonate with your body and emotion (think of songs) some not. Some people such as Italians speak with hands and gestures as well and need it to understand the other.

That‘s why for me web calls are okay for just some information sharing but when it comes to even more intense and effective exchange, humans have to be in one room - to be in wave.

With just showing an idea, the problem is that humans aren’t in your head and see the world through the windows of the eyes (pinhole camera concept). Humans interact and move and see the world. That’s btw one of the breakthroughs in robotics - moving robots can much better interact with the world.

I don’t think this is the cause of it though: No money for buying cars. My guess is, it’s because there were more alternatives such as trains and public trams and cities are more densely build out of history.

Despite the US, Germany(& Europe) and Japan had a huge railway network spanning all cities and even smaller cities. The area I lived in Germany had the first railway 1840. Japan 1872. US 1827. However, if you look into the network expansion the US never reached the density and complexity of both others due to it’s sheer size.

With the advent of trains all bigger European and Japanese cities began to build public tram systems. To such an extent that it spans most of the citied nowadays. This is still not the state in US. One can literally see the difference when visiting US, German, and Japanese cities todays.

Moreover, US hadn’t cities that grow organically throughout the centuries. And there is much space available. No dense historic city centers, no growing city rings. E.g. you can easily cross an one million city such as Cologne by bike in 1-1,5 hour. (And adding traffic jams and parking lot search time, bike is more efficient and easy)

Interactive map railway network Germany: https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/bahn-schienennetz-deutschland-1835-bis-heute/

Video railway network Japan https://jref.com/threads/video-150-years-of-japan-railway-network.504981/

Video railway network US https://youtu.be/a8lX5A2q-Eo?si=-zjdLE1Wz8TlyCbt. Wiki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transportation_in_the_United_States

Public tram systems in US https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_streetcar_systems_in_the_United_States

Still those are much smaller than in some US cities.

I love the design of those cars. It looks like future so much.

One of my first games. I stared at those moving lines for a long time.

Ok fair enough.

Battery costs are going down rapidly. And just see LithiumNatrium-Solid state batteries next years. (I‘m not saying Lithium-Ion that we use in our electronics nowadays) LithiumNatrium is fck cheap, doesn’t burn fast, low loss at winter.

Germany shut down nuclear last year entirely and is closing coal mines very soon (by 2030). That is an adventurous path for sure. Fall back is gas only.

However, I see France has serious issues with nuclear in summer time (too hot rivers - nuclear plants need to stop & too costly - power company was bankrupt and bailed off/ socialized by government).

I see our strategic dependency on Russian gas, which makes us attackable.

In my opinion, renewables in a decentralized manner with many local storages will make your economy more robust and energy cheap. Technically this is a challenge, but which engineers can solve that if not German engineers?

Edit: And this decentralized production will be an advantage when your heating and transportation move to electric as well. In this case Germany, that hasn’t oil, gas, and uranium is more self-reliant and independent.