Patch

joined 1 year ago
[–] Patch@feddit.uk 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

An EULA is nominally a binding contract, in the sense that it is presented as such. No court has ever ruled and given precedent to the effect that EULAs are universally non-binding (because companies have always settled out of court for cases where it looks like they're going to lose).

It is well understood that the arguments against EULAs being binding are solid ones, and that the reason why so many cases settle is because companies are not confident of winning cases on the strength of EULA terms, but you still need to go through the rigmarole of attending court and presenting your defence case. That's how court cases work.

Edit: And perhaps more to the point of the OP, if you want to sue a company over some defect or service failure, it'll be them who introduce the EULA as a defence, and it'll be for you/your lawyers to argue against it. Which adds complexity and time to what might otherwise have been a straightforward claim, even if you win.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

If a company takes you to court, you can't just decide to ignore them. Either you/your representative turns up on the designated court dates and presents a case, or you'll most likely lose by default.

If it was possible to make a court case go away just by ignoring it then everyone would just do that.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 40 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It probably isn't legal most places. EULAs are already considered fairly flimsy in terms of enforcement, but changing an EULA after you've already bought a device, in such a way as to reduce your statutory rights, is almost certainly a complete non-starter.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I used to be a bit iffy on Dell years past when their reputation was largely as commodity shovelware and overpriced premium kit. But honestly, they've evolved over the years into by far my favourite of the big mass manufacturers. Not only is their hardware generally solid for the price point (with a few exceptions), but their customer service is absolutely second to none. I've never had such smooth and helpful customer support from any other hardware manufacturer, big or small.

That alone puts them leagues ahead of HP and Lenovo for me.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 7 points 8 months ago

Everyone loves Brother for good reason.

I've had a decent experience with my Xerox too.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Different countries and states obviously have different electricity source mixes.

Here in the UK, coal accounts for around 1% of electricity. Natural gas is about 35%, biomass about 5%, and the rest is various clean renewables (wind, solar, hydro) or nuclear.

So although charging an EV is by no means fossil-fuel-free, it's considerably less fossil-fuel than an ICE car.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 2 points 8 months ago

For comparison, grey hydrogen currently costs around $2 per kg, and green hydrogen costs around $12 per kg. Filling a Toyota Mirai tank with green hydrogen would cost you about $70. That's production at today's electricity prices. The cost to fully charge a Tesla is about $15, same rates.

So for green hydrogen to beat grey hydrogen on the open market, costs need to drop by a factor of 6. And because it can only do this if electricity prices drop off a cliff, it'd be doing this in an environment where you can fully charge a luxury BEV for $3...

Hydrogen is also not the only game in town in terms of competitors with BEV. For those niches where fully battery-operated vehicles aren't practical, there are also biofuels, which are (from a climate change point of view) greener than green hydrogen anyway (although they have their own controversies).

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 2 points 8 months ago

1 - renewable surpluses. As wind and solar keep ramping , hydrogen is a fantastic way to store that energy. Sure, there are efficiency losses but it's transportable, able to be stored long term, and able to be used from small scale to grid scale applications

Grid storage is a genuine problem that needs solving, but there's no particular reason to believe hydrogen is going to be the technology to fill that niche. There are much simpler and more efficient competitors, not least of which being pumped hydroelectricity, but also including exotic technologies like molten salt thermal plants or compressed air mineshafts. And batteries, for that matter; once portability stops being a concern, other battery chemistries start to be an option which don't include lithium at all, like sodium-sulfur.

And even if hydrogen electrolysis does make sense as a grid storage medium, there's no particular reason to think it's a good idea to package up this hydrogen, transport it, and stick it in vehicles to convert into electricity through their own mini power plants. The alternative, where hydrogen is simply stored and converted back into grid electricity on site to meet demand leveling requirements seems far more likely.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 1 points 8 months ago

Biogasoline is a thing, although I'm not aware of anyone really pushing it as viable fuel above biodiesel, ethanol, and bioLPG.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Currently literally 99% of the world supply of hydrogen is fossil fuels. Yes, in the "future centuries" sense of the long term things might be different, but in the "we need to stop climate change in the next decade or so" sense it's a non-starter. If you banned companies from making hydrogen from fossil fuels, the world simply wouldn't have enough hydrogen.

It's basically not possible to make electrolysis more efficient; the energy requirements are simple physics. The only way that technology can make green hydrogen cheaper is to reduce the capital cost of building an electrolysis plant, and to make enough surplus electricity that the cost to ring it comes down. Although as the latter also makes recharging a BEV cheaper too, that doesn't necessarily get hydrogen anywhere closer to being competitive.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 2 points 8 months ago

We had one in my town until it closed down 3 years ago. Now the nearest one to me is a 90 mile round trip away.

Hydrogen definitely feels like a fad which has had its moment.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 51 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

It's also loud.

I don't need or want everyone sat in the same room as me to know every little thing I do on my phone. Leaving aside things that are actually private, that's just a level of inane garbage that we all don't need to know about each other.

Sometimes I just want to glance at the football scores without announcing to everyone: "OK Google, what is the current score for the football match between Swindon Town and Harrogate?".

Edit: It's currently nil-nil, if you're wondering.

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