azertyfun

For Ukraine yes, but as far as Ukraine's allies go? Only in principle. In reality we help Ukraine because it fucks up Russia, but we don't give Ukraine the support it really needs or asks for because of [insert litany of excuses for years of delay on new weapons systems].

Proxy wars are nasty business, and Ukraine has precious little say in any of the macro decisions. Russia and Russia's ennemies collectively hold all the negociation leverage.
Zelenskyy's only hope is that domestic pressure will force the West to make a genuine effort at preserving as much of Ukraine's sovereignty as possible, hence this media intervention.

And he's right to be worried, because the situation in Palestine shows, again, that most Western governments only stick to their stated principles when it's politically convenient and shrug at literal genocide when it's not. And the Russian propaganda machine is going to work overtime to make us think that any Russian concession to Ukraine would be against European interests.

From "missile" (me-sigh-lll) to "messuhl" to "m-ssl". Then Americans will make fun of the Brits for dropping vowels from town names.

English has clearly evolved beyond the need for its vowels, and certainly beyond the intended goals of the Latin alphabet. How about we settle on a variant of Hangul, and as a bonus we can probably simplify it by replacing all vowels with a generic placeholder because English clearly doesn't respect them anyway what with consistently dropping them or replacing them with schwa; when they're actually there it's almost systematically accent-dependent which vowel actually gets used.

So you could write missile "me sel" and then everybody would be free to drop as many or as little vowels as they want when reading it.

Sweden has some of the cheapest electricity in all of Europe thanks to all that hydro.

This year my final electric bill was ~ 25 c/kWh. Gas was ~ 8c/kWh (both after distribution costs, and funnily enough for electricity I pay amongst other things a fee to subsidize other people's solar panels' negative impact on the grid).

Not "comically expensive" but to be cost-effective a heat pump must average a COP of at least 3.1 (which is possible in most climates with a decent enough HP), so it's not yet a "jump on it first chance you get" kinda deal because it will take many years to recoup the initial investment. And people remember last year's winter where the electric costs were more than doubled; gas prices tend to fluctuate much less. This makes heat pumps even more of a very long term investment for people who can afford very large surprises in their power bill... Or who have excess PV generation capacity in the winter (that requires a very large house).

Gas is on the way out but all the political sabotage of electricity prices in Europe (nuclear phaseout, asinine financial regulations and fake competition with useless middlemen, misfiring PV legislation meaning PV owners are being subsidized by everyone else, etc.) means it will take a very long time before HP costs drop enough for people flock to replace their existing gas heater with a heat pump.

For hex yes, for Torx no. Your smartphone's itty bitty screws are quite possibly T4 or similar.

Torx > Hex > Robertson > Pozidriv > Phillips > Slot.

This is not (just) the ramblings of a mad nerd, but objective fact derived from contact area between screwdriver and screw.

In practice hex does have one situational advantage over Torx, namely that they are almost always tightened with Allen keys which are more torque-y and can be used in tight spaces. For every other application Torx wins. Every other head type is strictly inferior and only exists for legacy or penny-saving reasons.

Entirely orthogonal to the discussion. These countries are wealthy and do have lots of suburban and rural areas where families are likely to have one or multiple cars.

That doesn't in any way contradict the fact that many people in Copenhagen and Stockholm cycle daily, regardless of the season. And in case you haven't been: there's regularly rain and/or snow.

I don't understand where this idea comes from that spending 15 minutes outside when it's barely freezing is some kind of superhuman feat. Like, bruh, it's chilly, put on a coat and get over it.

... What exactly do you think the economic situation is in Copenhagen or Stockholm?

Yeah so my point stands, you need a car. Have you seen an Ami in person? It's a glorified electric scooter. Think of the tiniest car you've ever seen in your life and make it 3x smaller. No way I'm driving that on a US road with trucks overtaking me at 90 km/h, and I say that as an habitual cyclist and motorcycle rider.

If you're in North America, I'm sorry but that's just not relevant because North Americans decided the only transportation one is allowed to get is a car and the Ami doesn't sell there because it's not a car.

If you're in a North-American style suburb elsewhere in the world, then yeah I get it it sucks. But the Ami isn't even a pragmatic solution there, because such suburbs tend to be surrounded with roads with 70+ kph speed limits which is much faster than the Ami can even go so you won't be safe there either. If you can't get a car and can't ride a bike or use public transit, the only pragmatic solution is to not live in a car-dependent suburban hellscape.

The Ami is designed for inner city driving where 45 km/h keeps up with the flow of traffic. But where you can comfortably drive an AMI at 45 km/h without holding up traffic, you can also ride a bicycle at 30 km/h, or walk, and there's probably public transit unless you live in an unusually terrible city (and I say that as someone who lives in a well below-average city).

Uh, yeah, no. Copenhagen and Stockholm are cycling capitals. SE Asia literally gets a monsoon and everyone still rides a motorcycle.

"It's wet/cold outside" is nothing more than a paltry excuse. There's a whole NJB video on the subject if you want.

Then get a small car like a VW Up. It will be cheaper, will be more practical in literally every way, and will have a lot more range. It's also not limited to 45 km/h, which you will quickly find is painful on the kinds of semi-rural roads that separate your hypothetical village from the city.

With a 75 km announced range and no fast charging (!) your best bet for a weekend getaway is to use the Ami to get to the nearest train station. Hell, if you can't charge at work it might even struggle to get you back home.

The Ami is simply a terrible value proposition if it's your only mode of transportation. And if it's your secondary mode of transportation, then its carbon footprint skyrockets as all the lithium that makes up its battery will hardly be used over its lifetime.

One can always make up a scenario where someone, somewhere, somehow has the exact situation to justify such a purchase, but it is very niche. What Citroen really tries to market it as is a "city car", which is anything but a green concept but also the only way a 45 km/h car with 75 km of range actually makes sense.

They're cute but very niche. They're very expensive for what they are, those weird plastic folding windows are not fully waterproof, and the ami generally inferior to a scooter in every way except safety kinda. It's not like it can carry more than a large grocery bag anyway.

Owning that car really tells a complete story: "I am a 16/17 yo suburbanite so I can't get my license yet, daddy/mommy is tired of driving me to school, my wealthy parents won't let me ride a moped because it's too dangerous, and riding a bicycle or the bus isn't even an option for someone of my social standing".

Unsurprisingly, it's not been selling particularly well. Which is a good thing, because what cities need is more micromobility solutions not cars cosplaying as micromobility.