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>Regionalverkehr Köln (RVK) has become the largest operator of hydrogen fuel cell buses in Europe, with a fleet that reached 101 vehicles by late 2024 and is expected to grow to 160 by the end of 2025.

I mean, right from the second section of the article.


Pretty sure your source is wrong. And that helium is 10_$_ a liter not 10¢. As helium is much, much more expensive than argon.


Perhaps the helium price is right, but argon is certainly much cheaper.

That price of argon might be per cubic meter, not per liter.

The price of argon is essentially zero for the argon itself, which forms one percent of the air. What you pay is only the energy required to separate it from dioxygen and dinitrogen, e.g. by liquefaction and distillation.

EDIT: Googling now, I see prices for argon around half of dollar per kilogram.

A cubic meter of argon has slightly less than 1.8 kg, so the price of argon is at most 1 $ per cubic meter.

A liter is one thousand times less than a cubic meter, so the price per liter is one tenth of a cent.


You likely meant to write 'xenon' there, not 'helium'. FWIW, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon has

> Because of its scarcity, xenon is much more expensive than the lighter noble gases—approximate prices for the purchase of small quantities in Europe in 1999 were 10 €/L (=~€1.7/g) for xenon, 1 €/L (=~€0.27/g) for krypton, and 0.20 €/L (=~€0.22/g) for neon,


I buy a big tank of argon periodically for TIG welding. I don't remember what I last paid but it was cheap. Decades ago I used helium but it's much too expensive for hobby welding now.


Not much different than everyday on sites everywhere with boom cranes. Which are arguably much more dangerous due to being less dexterous and no video. Notably 1:23 where it's similar to working with a crane.


The old 'Plebs are needed' from Caesar II still burnt into my brain.

The amount of detail and information thrown into the game and the manual.


I am haunted by the of things that caught fire and as a 8-9 year old I didn’t understand why. I don’t think I generally made it far enough that the plebs were in need because the whole city had burned.


Yeah 10 yr old me burnt a dozen or so cities before deciding the point of the game is humiliating me by burning my granaries/gymnasiums etc and moved on to Czar and ultimately Age of Empires 2.


Oh yes the dreaded “(There is) Fire in the city!”

I really liked Caesar III but I never seemed to be able to get service reach a reasonable amount of real-estate, presumably due to the left turn mentioned in another branch. So I ended up plopping way more temples and engineers/prefects than strictly required.


> The old 'Plebs are needed' from Caesar II still burnt into my brain.

That would drive me nuts. Plebs is not a plural noun.


Came here to say “need more plebs” lol!


One has to think of the overhead.

Cutting and stacking(or picking up/delivered), the space to store it, having to carry it into the house, emptying your ashbox, having to actual start the fire, etc.


But man oh man it is hard to beat the ambiance. I have heated exclusively with wood for the last two winters and completely agree with your comments but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.


Heats thrice


Four.

Cut/haul, split/stack, move to stove, burn.

I move two cords - about four tons - a year through that cycle - into my house and stuff it into a one foot square hole in the stove. Love it.


At least four, and the hard labour is usually in summer for me, when the heat is a negative.


Always just saw their power tools as 'better' ryobi stuff. But with Ryobi's draw being cheapness, battery compatibility and unique tools.

However they're the defacto when it comes to pipe. Real quality heavy rigid stuff.


IIRC RIGID batteries are guaranteed, e.g. come into HD and swap the failed battery for a new one. AFAIK no one else offers that. If that’s still true, I’d make different decisions than I did previously.



Reminds me of the Suzuki Jimny we don't get stateside.


While the website seems very fluff, the concept of hand health can't be overstressed.

Keep care of your hands and wrists. If you feel pain or discomfort, stiffness etc figure out why and fix it. Whether it's keyboard/desk etc change. Or taking breaks and stretching.

Those suffering later stages of hand/wrist strain or wear... look into: wrist straps, wax baths, heated 'wax gloves'


I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that, in late and just post college, my wrist pain was so bad that I used to have to ice my wrists at night and take ibuprofen to be able to sleep. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I needed to do anything about it.

Eventually a colleague noticed and took me aside and gave my a clue-by-four to the head. 30 years later, pain-free and still in the industry, due in no small part to a Kinesis keyboard.


I credit the Kinesis keyboard for saving my career. I still have wrist and hand issues but nothing as bad as the years before Kinesis.


Haven't heard anyone or news mention the fact Young tried to start his own music service a while back. And that his catalogue was a selling point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pono_(digital_music_service)


Oh, golly, the Pono. That's $400 I won't get back, so don't get me started. Oh, wait.

http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2015/01/and-now-for-something...


Heh, I had one of those players as well. A coworker of mine purchased it, didn't use it often and when he decided to use it for biking, it stopped working. In the meantime the company went out of business and he couldn't even get it serviced. So he gave it to me. I did manage to fix it after waiting for spare parts for many weeks.

The reason why it looks like a Toblerone bar is because they decided to use through-hole electrolytic capacitors (because audiophile reasons) and the battery was round too (an 18650 IIRC): http://mikebeauchamp.com/wp-content/gallery/pono-teardown/ca...

The triangular shape and inability to carry it comfortably in jeans pants pockets doomed it from day one. I'm amazed something like this passed the design stage. And first encounter with user testing would have made it crystal clear that the shape was a no-go. Yet it not only got funded but was also mass-produced. It was a massive waste of money.


I mean, it plays, and the audio quality was good (doubtful it was due to the reasons they claim, but it was good). But I hated the screen and you're right, the form factor would have never passed a focus group that tried to actually use it.


Discontinued April 2017

Must not've been that great of a selling point


It was expensive compared to spotify and the file sizes where way larger, since the files where in loseless format, something that is very niche, since most people cant tell the diference beetween a good quality mp3 and other formats.


It went a little further than that. IIRC it was specifically higher quality than the human ear could possibly hear. Young's response to this rational, science-based criticism was just pathetic; actual fact-based reasoning had no chance against his ego.

Excuse me if this latest drama of his makes me roll my eyes.


Let's not forget the hiper expensive player that came together, the Pono. How the Hell was you suposed to put that thing in your pocket with that triangular shape?


Yeah, that's all I immediately think of when I think of Neil Young. Griping about mp3 quality and nonsense no average listener cared about. He's probably very pleased to be off some streaming mumbojumbo site he already hates, and got to put out some positive PR about his 'principles' at the same time. Whatever. Anyone who cares about his music either owns hard copies or finds it on other things like youtube heh


I wonder if the Pono was the inspiration for the pyramid from the Office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZBVnjXp7GQ.


The Pyramid predates the Pono by half a decade.


Funny to see the man who tried to sell a high-definition audio snakeoil music player deciding to suddenly listen to scientists.


Most likely it was Babbit. Which is... possibly feasible for someone to be carrying back then. As it could have been used(in a pinch) to repour bearings in the field. Or maybe he was simply just carrying lead for weights used for getting lines up into trees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbitt_(alloy)


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