I visited Greenland for 6 weeks in 1998 (youth expedition with BSES) and it's surprisingly green in the summer, with thick foliage at the lower altitudes. And the midges, oh my! They sure had a taste for visitors.
It's also owning lower quality goods, that plague you by breaking all the time. So the maintenance cost (time and energy) is quite high. It's almost better not to have things when you're poor, because the things you have are just a big headache.
I think it's also that increasingly working people are living in old houses that were never built properly, and now have lots of problems. And even new things you buy, are just kind of annoying. I have an LG electric stove. Instead of modulating heat, it pulses the burner top. So you can't effectively lower the heat, just extend the time it takes to cook. The oven timer doesn't turn off, it tries to keep the food warm, and plays chime every minute. Exactly opposite of what I want, since I cook food for my dog and want the food to cool off. And it's stuff like that, the constant annoyance of dealing with badly designed products, and things breaking. I had 2 driers break (all plastic parts), and a washing machine that started leaking oil inside that damaged the clothes in the last year. It's the cumulative effect of dealign with lower quality things.
I've heard it described that being poor is expensive. The poorer you are the more expensive it is. Being poor in a poor country is the most expensive. You can't just buy coffee, you can only afford a sachet of coffee. So per gram you're paying double. You can't afford medical care, so the condition gets worse and thus more expensive to do something about. You're in debt most of the time, which is expensive. You have to travel for work, again expensive. You rent, expensive. It must be awful.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.
When I think of so many people who can least afford to do so buying everyday items at dollar stores, CVS, gas stations, and other convenience stores with such high unit prices it bums me out.
I think its some sort of decline thats happening
Some of is dumb environmental policy. Showerheads that don't spray enough water. Dishwashers that don't wash properly so you need to wash dishes before you put them in and after you take them out. Time of use pricing that means you need to cook at inconvenient times, and even still most of the bill is fixed charges. It's just going on. The decline in Canada seems like its mostly targeted towards poor people. I know a family friend that has a broken bone leg is waiting months for a specialist when anytime he could get an infection and die from infection. Totally preventable even in a third world country, yet it is what it is. My mom also know somone thats waiting for a proecdure too, and they asked hime multiple times if he wants to do Maid. It's almost cynical.
How much would you save yearly if you didn't have a dog?
A few accumulated years of those savings would let you buy a better-quality drier or washing machine - saving you from replacing them regularly, or replacing your damaged clothes.
Pets are a choice that's fairly high up the Maslow hierarchy. Get rid of them, get into a better position, build up some reserves, and leave your family in a better place than you started.
Also raise your family so they have the same mindset - they need to leave their children in a better place than they started.
$1,360 a year. Use it to buy higher quality goods that will save you more in the long run. Use the ongoing $1,360 a year PLUS the accumulating savings gained from the higher quality goods to repeat at higher levels.
A lot of the discourse about poverty reminds me of this:
> I do occasional work for my hospital’s Addiction Medicine service, and a lot of our conversations go the same way.
> My attending tells a patient trying to quit that she must take a certain pill that will decrease her drug cravings. He says it is mostly covered by insurance, but that there will be a copay of about one hundred dollars a week.
> The patient freaks out. “A hundred dollars a week? There’s no way I can get that much money!”
> My attending asks the patient how much she spends on heroin.
> The patient gives a number like thirty or forty dollars a day, every day.
> My attending notes that this comes out to $210 to $280 dollars a week, and suggests that she quit heroin, take the anti-addiction pill, and make a “profit” of $110.
> At this point the patient always shoots my attending an incredibly dirty look. Like he’s cheating somehow. Just because she has $210 a week to spend on heroin doesn’t mean that after getting rid of that she’d have $210 to spend on medication. Sure, these fancy doctors think they’re so smart, what with their “mathematics” and their “subtracting numbers from other numbers”, but they’re not going to fool her.
> At this point I accept this as a fact of life. Whatever my patients do to get money for drugs – and I don’t want to know – it’s not something they can do to get money to pay for medication, or rehab programs, or whatever else. I don’t even think it’s consciously about them caring less about medication than about drugs, I think that they would be literally unable to summon the motivation necessary to get that kind of cash if it were for anything less desperate than feeding an addiction.
> A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
Poor people also can use a washboard and line dry their clothing. Not as convenient as having machines but just about everyone did it like this till the ‘40s & ‘50s.
I remember an interview with some billionaire talking about how people should grow their own food. He underpays his workers. One the surface great idea. Aside for the fact that it's hugely inefficient and why we have massive farms to take care of the inefficiency problem. Innovation was supposed to take care of this so poor people don't have to substance farm in cities. I mean by all means do that as a hobby. But keep im mind many cities have contaminated soil. People doing their own laundry also had a stay at home parent back than yo do these chores. Now 2 people need to work jobs to pay a mortgage. So don't feel its really a viable alternative
When I was a broke college student I don’t have access to a washer and dryer, so I either went to a laundromat or on occasion just washed clothing in a tub and put them up to dry. Wear jeans; they don’t need frequent washing -some manufacturers indeed recommend very infrequent washing.
It’s totally doable. Growing your own fruits and veggies is out of the question. It’s stupid -the only ones that make sense are herbs and only because when fresh they are better.
Sorry I don't. Guy looked kind of like Dan Gilbert but somewhat like a Bill O Riley personality. Maybe 2012 or 2013 interview. Possibly 60 minutes. It was in major network. I tried searching it too but couldn't find it. I remember watching an interview about an attractive female pilot that was flying to Epstain Island and can't find that interview now either. So I'm thinking maybe it got scrubbed
I have in fact when I was a student. Granted they were only my clothes and I tried not to dirty them but also used a laundromat in most instances. Sometimes would ask a friend for access to a machine.
I have had to do actual loads of laundry (for a household, and not just clothes - towels, beddings, and more), entirely by hand, no laundromat or friend with access to a machine, which is why I ask.
It is both back-breaking and time-intensive especially if you are trying to get clean laundry not just "smells of detergent" laundry. And especially if there's someone who does manual labour in the household - getting heavy stains out effectively doubles your workload. There are many people who cannot just "try not to dirty" their clothes.
I am not trying to downplay your experience. But student poverty and poverty in the adult world without all the cushioning of a campus are very different kettles of fish.
It is —but there are also the Amish and others like them who do lots of things manually and try to avoid many modern conveniences. I don’t think they live poor lives. Definitely better than the poor in the countryside who don’t have the same ingrained customs who often need government help.
That is higher than I thought --however, they are not using modern ones, they use the wringer type where you have to wring the water from the washed clothes a couple of times.
“A touch! A distinct touch!” cried Holmes. "You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself".
-- from "The Valley of Fear" by Arthur Conan Doyle.
A lot of cities are in the process of replacing lead pipes with plastic. Replacing them again is going to be a huge burden, especially with an increasingly aging population and fewer people to do manual labor unless we have some sort of good automation for manual labor.
I always wondered why Western democracies want carbon taxes, when just reverting more land back to managed forests, seems like a much more reasoned solution. It would trap carbon, help wild life, and provide fresh air, and jobs in forestry, and renewable resources like wood. Seems to me Carbon Taxes primarily benefit the banks, and grow bureaucracy.
Seems like the market is going the hybrid route. It's kind of easy to see why, best of both worlds. Some BYD hybrids have crazy ranges like 1500 km on a tank of gas. The more practical car is winning. They put in a much small battery in these for fast charge, and the daily commute range. And you have gas, for longer trips. Maybe smaller batteries would be better for grid-scale storage too. If they're lighter and easier to handle.
I don't have first-hand experience, but these guys have an EV repair shop for a while and do also hybrids, their articles always offer lots of insight.
Short run down:
- micro/mild hybrids are useless: batteries too small, engines too small to be the sole source of power, so contribution to emission reduction is very small, batteries tend to fail early because they're very small
- full hybrids have bigger batteries and engines large enough to run pure EV, but you still rely on ICE engine for everything, so there's no ability to charge at home or save on gas
- plug-in hybrids are full hybrids, but you can charge them externally; according to many studies the estimated emissions are much higher than declared, because people simply don't charge them at home and run on ICE the whole time
In all these types of hybrids the batteries are smaller than pure EVs, so they cycle faster and degrade faster. You're carrying two drivetrains all the time with added weight, one of which has plenty of maintenance items. So they're not drop-in replacements.
From what I've seen from EVClinic above, many manufacturers use custom pouch cells, not cylindrical modules like the more advanced pure EVs, so you can't repair an individual failed cell. That means full pack replacement. For many manufacturers you can't order replacement parts of the electric drivetrain, and if you do, they cost a huge chunk of the car.
So all in all if everything's well, you're good. If something goes wrong, be prepared to spend the same as you would spend for a battery replacement of a pure EV, or even more.
No, hybrid is just a temporary solution until the charging infrastructure becomes good enough. And depending where you live, it's already there.
Hybrid is the worse of both worlds in a way. You have a combustion engine to maintain, that is useless when using electricity. You have a heavy battery useless when using your combustion engine.
You don't get all the benefits of electric, and you don't get all the benefits of ICE.
Exactly this. Here in Denmark, 48k plug-in hybrids were sold in 2020, falling to 4k in 2025. The same numbers for fully electric cars were 38k in 2020 and 144k in 2025. Once the public charging infrastructure was here, the change was dramatic. I bought my first electric car this year and I haven't had trouble finding a public AC charger when I needed to, which is often since I live in a condo.
It's possible it might actually be more reliable long term, once the technology matures. For example, in cold weather the gas engine might heat the battery for better battery performance, maybe even extend its life if it prevents it from being drawn down too much. The gas engine, would also likely last longer since its not used for daily commutes.
"In many PHEV systems, there are different modes:
Electric mode (EV mode): The vehicle runs purely on the electric motor(s) and battery until the battery depletes to some extent.
Hybrid/Parallel mode: Both the petrol engine and electric motor(s) work together to drive the wheels, especially under high load, higher speeds or when battery is low.
Ithy
Series mode (in some designs): The petrol engine acts only as a generator to charge the battery or power the electric motor(s), and the wheels are driven by the electric motor(s).
For the BYD Leopard 5 (and many BYD PHEVs) the petrol engine can drive the wheels (i.e., it is not purely a generator). It is part of the drive system, especially when high power or long range is needed.
At the same time, it likely can assist with charging the battery or maintaining battery state of charge (SOC) when needed (for example, to keep the battery at some reserve level or in “save” mode). User-reports show that the petrol engine will kick in to support the electric system, charge the battery, or assist the drive under certain conditions" -
It's not like reliable gas cars ever had substantial maintenance problem in the gas part. So removing the gas part didn't do much in practice.
People do/did have frustrations with gas car mannerisms and mental approachability, like, everything was written in a mix of translated foreign language documents and borderline insane gearhead languages. That lead them to imagine that removing the gas part would drastically change the industry, in their favor.
But, in the end, gas cars are good with regular maintenance for something like 100k miles over 8 years, so, I wouldn't know what consumer product were more reliable than a gas car in the first place.
And this is what I'm referring to by approachability issues. Even HNers can't correctly enumerate maintenance items for a car.
If I said iPads are better than laptops because there's no need to regularly replace soft drive Window and repaste NPUs every 2000 hours, everyone knows what kind of person I would be. Yet, that just casually happen all the time when it comes to EVs.
Not that I'm aware of. I've heard that many hybrids actually require less maintenance - for instance, the car can use electric power for hard acceleration instead of stressing the engine, so oil tends to last longer, and regenerative braking causes the friction brakes to wear out more slowly.
Eh, my PHEV has a 2 year oil change interval, which is longer than my ICE only cars. You should probably bring in your EV every 2 years to get things looked at too.
The engine in a hybrid should live an easier life compared to an ICE. No extended idle, mostly running in the power band, etc. There are lots of different ways to setup the hybrid system, but typically, rather than a small stater motor, you have a larger motor/generator that also starts the engine; it's less likely to get worn out, because it's built for continuous use.
In my PHEV, it has a 'toyota synergy' style 'e-CVT' which eliminates gear selection and should be very low maintenance (although mine had to be replaced under a service bulletin due to bearing failure because of manufacturing error) again nicer than an ICE. But some hybrids have a more traditional transmission.
Certainly, you can do ICE only or EV only, but there's a lot of room to use the ICE for things it's good for, and the EV for things it's good for, and blend where there's overlap.
Ford Escape? I have a friend that needed the transmission on his 2023 PHEV replaced under warranty... no service bulletin, but mechanics caught a manufacturing error at a regular service. Hopeful my hybrid Maverick doesn't have similar problems.
2014? Ford C-MAX energi TSB 16-0105 [1] (although there's a similar TSB 22-2396 [2] with a wider range)
I'd just say, if it starts making bearing noises (loudest around 15mph), check in and get yelly. Cause apparently they keep screwing them up. HF35 is designed and built by Ford for Ford, so they really should have everything they need to do it right. sigh
I saw a picture somewhere where they had an extra hole carved through the casing from this, worked fine until it breached and the fluid came out, then it died pretty quick.
That two year oil change cycle is the minumum required to not void the warranty.
It shouldn’t be taken as the optimal interval to maximise engine life.
Of course, modern fully synthetic engine oils are longer lasting, and I believe the newer Toyotas, at least the hybrids anyway, have electric oil pumps, and use very thin engine oil to make sure the engine is well lubricated at startup.
I'm not sure I follow.
Every knot is defined as if you close the ends it cannot be unravelled without cutting the ends again.
So the trifoil knot is included in this... but so is almost if not every other knot aren't they? Do we have "knots" that aren't mathematical? I feel like if you tie any "knot" then fix the ends together most or all of them would not be possible to untangle.
Maybe property taxes. Cities keep bumping these up. But also the intersection of people that neet multiple sets of requirements approaches zero pretty quickly. I watched a guy that's a professional filmer, and he explained that actually the circle he's in is pretty small. So while the set of people that want to do his career is fairly large. That people that jumped through all the requirmeny hoops is like filter. So he has no problems finding work because of it
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