Still running a Samsung note 8, probably the biggest thing I dislike is kinda wish it was a little smaller. It might fit in my pocket better, would probably be easier to hold, and I would be fine having other devices for stuff where I need a bigger screen. Not a huge deal, but I do kinda miss having a medium sized smartphone.

I remember playing Rollercoaster tycoon on windows 95.

Which is a repackaging of the red panic.

My father has had two heart attacks. The first was a pretty standard one by heart attack standards, required a stint to be put in and two days at the hospital. The cost was ~$40k and after insurance we were left with I think a $4-5k deductible (pretty good county employee insurance). His second one luckily (ha) happened while on the job and required another stint to be put in (he got amazingly lucky, as it was a widow maker of a heart attack) and was covered under his works insurance.

For reference, I’m healthy and in my late 20s, I pay ~$250 a month through my employer’s health plan, $25 for an office visit, $500 to walk through the doors of the ER, with a $3k in network deductible ($6k out of network). Believe me when I say you are amazingly lucky to have the NHS.

I read your argument as being that since we aren’t quantum leaping ahead with technology, it’s a bit of a wash with the pushes for future battery standards. But my point is that this battery update, while not being a 10x in performance, is more likely a 2x and will be viable to scale with pricing decreases as time progresses. I’m in the trucking sector, and one of the things I have noticed about transitioning to electric heavy duties is that a lot of the issues aren’t completely on battery density, but rather that there isn’t an infrastructure that can charge the batteries at high voltage without beefing up the power grid around stations. If you could instead give a cheap enough battery backup to create a buffer that fills up during lower use hours, then a lot more of the solutions for that could charge ev trucks quickly would make more sense (it’s actually what has made the Tesla Semi have such good numbers). It’s stuff like this that actually might push the transition, which has to happen, not waiting for next quantum leap.

I mean, lithium cells were used for fringe use cases 20 years ago, now they are seemingly everywhere. The difference with this tech is that they know it’s currently expensive, so are aiming for use cases where the added cost is justifed. Give it 5 years and the tech will more than likely become easier to produce, lowering costs. That and sodium batteries are probably going to dramatically lower cost for grid storage, which should make it easier to have consistent power delivery.