You might like this YouTube channel:

https://youtube.com/@edisonmotors

Canadian trucker with a mindset like your friends dad, but also is building trucks that is in my opinion the way forward for the trucking industry. Got to bounce, load to move.

The trucking industry has a very long tail when it comes to equipment. Big trucking companies (100 plus trucks) generally replace their equipment every 3 to 5 years. Smaller companies (10 to 100 trucks) often buy a mix of new and used equipment with an average age somewhere in the 5 to 10 year old range. Then you have the majority of the trucking industry who buy whatever makes financial sense to them at that moment in time and then run it till they can no longer get parts or they hang up the keys. The latter being more common.

As I was writing this a cab over Kenworth drove by the dock I’m currently parked at. They haven’t been made since the late 80’s, I think. Once the tech is available, then a 10 to 20 year time frame makes sense and will see some 90% to 98% of the old trucks replaced.

I can’t believe I saying something nice about CARB, but they don’t usually operate like that. They were given the mandate of making California’s air clean again. They have their lane and they stick to it and fuck all what anyone else thinks of it or the consequences. I have had major bones to pick with them over the years I’ve been driving professionally, but that’s not one of them.

It’s not so much that we don’t want to as much as it is that the equipment needed doesn’t exist and neither does the required infrastructure, which is the bigger problem. Add to that the fact that most truck “companies” in the US have less than 10 truck and they were usually bought used…
That said their is one company I’m watching that does seem to actually understand the problem, but they are mostly focusing on heavy haul and logging trucks. https://www.edisonmotors.ca/ Their trucks are going to be hybrid diesel electric which helps with the infra problem as opposed to Tesla’s all electric solution which requires an entire new infrastucture to be built when there isn’t enough truck parking as is in many places.

If anyone is interested what the owner/operator side of the trucking industry is saying about this, Land Line Now recently did an update piece on this. https://landlinenow.libsyn.com/land-line-now-dec-5-2024 The TL/DL is that the required tech just doesn’t really exist in a usable format to continue operating same as before. Folks in areas affected by CARB should expect significantly higher prices for goods and much slower shipping times, and a lot of small businesses will be forced out of business as a result of the new rules. Upside is that freight rates will likely shoot through the roof, which will be great for anyone that has the compliant equipment to take advantage of it.

The last one that I can think of is probably Gundum Wing, although I watched a lot of Flinstones reruns growing up as well. Almost everything in both of them went way over my head as a kid.

More than a little older than 5 years, but this is probably my favorite “new” Christmas song.

https://youtu.be/qTx-sdR6Yzk

And yet most of them are public companies. Who file annual reports. Which names the top executives. /facepalm

what do you use that aloe vera for?

Same as you would use store bought aloe vera gel. When applied to the skin, assuming you are not allergic, it can sooth minor burns and scrapes. As a last resort you can also use it as a laxative by ingesting it. Seriously, don’t eat it, it caused me to vomit as well as loosening my bowels the one time I did that. Normal store bought laxatives are far more “pleasant” to take.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe_vera

Depends on the issue. For relatively minor burns I have an Aloe Vera plant, for example. I’m not against pharmaceuticals, or doctors, but for most of my life doctors have been prohibitively expensive or simply not available depending on where I was working at that moment so you learn how to treat most things yourself using whats handy. Giving yourself stitches fucking hurts worse than the original injury by the by.

I have a good paying job now with good insurance and there are multiple medical facilities nearby, but the old habits remain.

Fastest? Moving to a Spanish speaking country. Total immersion is how the French Foreign Legion teaches French from my understanding.

I would probably do a mix of a language program, say Duolingo, Pimsler tapes or Rosetta Stone, and asking a few of your Spanish speaking friends to speak primarily Spanish to you, switching to English only when you are completely lost on a concept. Between the two you should pickup Spanish or rather, their dialect of Spanish, fairly quickly.

You’ve certainly shown the diversity of the word.

I’ve been going through the Messenger Series by J.N. Chaney. It’s trash sci-fi, more than a little contrived in spots, and you really don’t want to go digging into, well anything about it, too hard. That said, it’s what I’ve been in the mood for, for the last little while and it’s often quite funny. Basic plot of the series is that an idiot finds an ancient jaeger, left behind by a long dead race, and must now face off against that race’s mortal enemy to save all life in the galaxy.

Yes, but it’s in TestFlight, and still needs a good bit of work.

https://testflight.apple.com/join/62UabDFz

Don’t quote me on it, but I believe that the emissions tech is efficient enough that even with the increased fuel consumption there is an overall reduction in emissions across the board. That was my understanding when the tech was first being fazed in back in the mid to late ‘00’s. Whether that was true or just propaganda, don’t know. I just knew that full compliance was required to run in California and a few other states.

The EGR and DPF systems used in diesel trucks cause (or caused, it’s been a while since I last looked it up) a big reduction in fuel mileage. I think it was a 2 or 3 MPG reduction.Doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up when you are running 200,000+ miles a year per truck. With the system running I believe the average fuel mileage for the trucks in our company is around 6 to 8 MPG depending on the route.

Additionally the systems are expensive as all get out to repair and maintain. When the DPF and DEF systems on my truck went out, the truck was down for 3 months waiting on parts, and from what I heard from our mechanic, the final repair bill was around $15,000USD.

That said, the fines for bypassing the emission systems are big enough that it’s really not worth it, but some owner operators don’t realize it as many don’t run their trucks like the businesses they are. They just know this is expensive as hell and they can reduce the cost by bypassing them.

That Putin has threatened to end the world? It’s in the 20’s at least, but I lost count a while ago.

Part of me wishes he’d go ahead and pull the pin. Dealing with the consequences would probably distract Trump and his cronies for his entire term and would reduce the head count of his supporters, giving the sane folks in the US a chance to regroup.

To add to this, you might check out some of the free Hugo themes here: https://themes.gohugo.io/tags/portfolio/

since I don’t want to pay for SSL certificates to setup https.

You don’t need to pay for SSL certs anymore, most of the time. You can get them for free from a bunch of different places now. I use Let’s Encrypt. The web server/reverse proxy I use, Caddy is able to automatically get a cert for you, install it, and keep it renewed. The only time you need to pay for a cert is if you are handling financial transactions.

Are there security issues I should address preemptively?

WordPress itself has a generally good reputation for security, though depending on how the current drama goes, that may change. WordPress security problems have almost always stemmed from plugins or poor password hygiene. Remove any plugins you are not actively using, keep the ones you are using updated, and use a good password that you don’t use anywhere else. A password wallet like Bit Warden can generate and store such passwords for you.

Better on the security front would be to evaluate whether you actually need something like WordPress at all. A static site would likely be far more secure. There’s less moving parts that might be vulnerable.

While you could program a static site yourself, it’s more common nowadays to use a static site generator like Hugo to build the site. You set it up once for how you want the site to look and then you write your posts in markdown or whatever your particular generator uses.

I don’t have anything to manage my dynamic IP

Most domain name providers have some sort of setup for dealing with dynamic IP addresses, a program called ddclient is pretty common and is available in most repos.

TLDR: Vote anyways, and make your voice heard.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, > or to the people. - US Constitution, 10th Amendment

The way that the US is setup, actual power and authority, does not actually exist at the Federal level. Not really. Not over you as an individual. And your individual vote at the Federal level will not really move the needle.

The actual authority and power over your life exists at the State and local levels. And this is where your vote can actually make a real difference as well, because elections at these levels are often decided by mere hundreds of votes. Your local elections are often decided by mere 10’s of votes.

The most powerful of all, however, are the local school boards, which are often elected positions. However, decisions made by school boards don’t make changes to your community over night, however. It takes years for the children they teach to grow up and begin exerting their control over the system.

What if we vote and the problem continues?

That will happen. I’m sorry that’s not the answer you want. It is difficult to make large changes to society or governments in a hurry. You can think of society and governments like large boulders. The larger the society or government, the larger the boulder.

Newton’s First Law of Motion, also known as the Law of Inertia, states that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. This law, originally formulated by Galileo, is fundamental to understanding motion and forces.

A handful of people might move that boulder slowly over time, more people though, can move that boulder more quickly. And of course, a much faster or larger boulder could always strike it and move it quickly, though not necessarily predicably.

What if voting gives us the illusion of control?

Sticking with the physics frame of reference, as an individual person, you have all the control you could ever want. You just don’t have enough power or “force” to make much happen at larger scales. The physics frame of reference breaks down somewhat, though, as a single voice, well spoken and well presented, at the right time, can not only move all the smaller pebbles (people) and the boulder (society or governments), but an entire damned mountain and can move it precisely.