Clearing The Way For Drones

The Rules They Are A Changing

I do love it when I get it right. I made what I thought was a bold prediction last week - that  cities would soon be changing regulations to make way for autonomous vehicles - and then read this. I also mentioned that autonomous transport would start doing the longer logistics runs to warehouses - and yep, TNW had that too.

And I got nothing else so - have a graphic I made with help from several AI image generators.

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Let's Have Delivery Drones Delivered

Pros, Cons, And Why Aren't They Everywhere Already?

Delivery drones have been talked about for over a decade. Not just flying buzzsaw-o-death type drones but also cutesie-wutesie little wheeled boxes with smiley faces painted on them, and autonomous trucks. They all still fail sometimes. (BTW: This isn't what aerial delivery drones are like - that video has to be a setup for the lulz.) 

But also, they are doing vital jobs already, and aside from dashing drug delivery drones, the largest slice of the delivery drone market will be food. (I bet you thought I was going to say "pizza," didn't you?)But there are going to be pros and cons, supporters and detractors. I'm hoping I can take a balanced look at some of the most obvious factors in the equation. 

The players:

Companies like Wing, Amazon Prime Delivery, and hundreds of food and parcel delivery companies would like to make those last-half-mile deliveries without the expense of courier delivery.

People like you and me whose places will be overflown by drones - and which are for the time being flown by human operators - are going to complain about privacy.

People who are going to be sharing roads and footpaths with cutesie-wutesie little wheeled boxes with smiley faces painted on them will take a while to get used to the idea that you have to share.

The relevant airspace and town planning and maintenance bodies don't really want to have to make arrangements to share  that space among all the contenders somehow, they don't want or need another raft of changes to the rules  to account for public safety. 

A new crop of drone-based aerial taxi services that want the same airspace that the drones want to operate in. These types of aerial vehicles will be carrying lives, not just dinners. 

And then there are millions of people who want their goods delivered ASAP and who will otherwise have to use a delivery service which uses large vehicles and drivers to do so, or else have to drive to the place themselves, creating road traffic and congestion around peak delivery times. 

Busy skies and busy roads

The basic pros and cons:

Ground and aerial delivery drones are a way to get products to the consumer. At the moment aerial drones require an operator, and require that operator to have Visual Line Of Sight over the route from pickup to delivery. They may not rely solely on FPV video cameras on the drone. Rules may change in the future, to allow the operator to fly by video. 

Either way, the drones already have cameras mounted so they in effect can see everything along the route, and so can the operators.That includes backyards rooftops swimming pools and fields and yards along the route. Therefore there's a privacy issue.

The rules also may change to allow autonomous drone deliveries. (Cutesie-wutesie little wheeled boxes with smiley faces painted on them already drive some routes autonomously but they do. . . have - some - issues, as the videos show.) Aerial drones seem to still have a ways to go but - as the article mentions - there has been a huge shift in the use of AI to allow drones to change their routes to avoid collisions and bottlenecks so we may well see this tech both rolled out to both kinds of drones, and also legal to operate. 

There will still have to be video retained for a certain length of time in case of incidents and disputes though and that video will still be accessible to human operators so the privacy issues still remain. The use of drones will lead to smol cute drone congestion on the ground and in the air, but also reduce the need for delivery trucks and vans and the resulting much larger problems of pollution and just the fact that larger vehicles are deadlier than the cute kind. 

Small delivery drones are also more flexible. Instead of having to operate a scheduled route with fixed stops along the way - and some out of the way places - being very difficult to reach by conventional means - wouldn't have been able to be serviced by couriers at all. With small drones ALL endpoints can be covered with equal service levels, including (in Wing's case) small hospitals all over the country.

The airspace above urban and suburban zones would become very crowded. Therefore drones would have to have AI that absolutely enforces avoidance of all other traffic including other drones.

Push and shove:

There are so many views about this. 

"Let the lazy so-n-sos go get their stuff from the shop!" vs "What? And drive there from sixteen rings of suburbs out, crowd roads and cause pollution?" There's something to be said for either point of view. If there's a good food outlet within a few blocks of home I prefer to walk there despite my mobility issues. 

But if the weather's bad or my back's bad or it's too far away, forget it, I'm either driving there guiltily or getting it delivered, depending on my state of finances. And besides we both prefer home-cooked from-scratch meals. But then if I could get my groceries delivered without breaking the bank - hmmm... 

And then again there's also choosing the ingredients - harder vegetables for a stew, slightly softer for a soup, and ripe for stir-fry or an omelette - and so, often a personal visit seems better. You get the idea though - if a good F&V was close enough for me to bike or walk it, I'd prefer that to delivery or going there by car. 

Then too there are going to be, as I said, people who want to move up into the air around cities using small personal aerial transports. To clear traffic congestion, this makes perfect sense. But - see last few paragraphs of this section - cities are likely to change drastically in the next few years and make such transport seem silly.

There is going to be an inevitable push&shove over the use of roads for self-driving traffic of all sorts vs larger ICEVs and transports bringing goods and food into cities. Once again, there will be changes that fix that.

Currently, cities cluster around the Central Business Districts and Industrial Districts, with IDs usually being the entry and exit points, for goods and food both incoming and being manufactured and being exported.

But again, see these Last Few Paragraphs:

The Last Few Paragraphs

Or the inevitable competition for public space. However you look at it, the CBD with half a million office workers commuting in and out has suffered a fatal blow from the work from home moves recently. 

Hopefully this will lead to some sanity in the way Zone planning currently is, and allow low, medium, and high density housing to share the Zone, along with retail and restaurant premises, that will take away some of the need for instant delivery anyway. 

The payoffs:

A return to walkable living seems to be making the news, and it would mean far less vehicular traffic would be needed in cities. Combined with more efficient and clean public transport, that would take pressure off roads and remove the need for thousands of acres of car parking in CBDs and suburbs where currently millions of cars spend 90% of their lives. 

If you add to that perhaps underground routes for delivery drones and larger scale automated logistics so that the surface remains clear and the transports are electric and standardised, you've created so much aboveground space that can be used for other purposes.

Everything from inexpensive small living spaces to parks and public facilities, and the aboveground will hardly ever see a vehicle that isn't electric, publicly owned and operated, or a delivery drone. Also, let's face this, energy will become VERY cheap or even free. 

It would be cheaper to create small living spaces for homeless people that are complete with climate control, lighting, and cooking facilities, than to have to destroy cityscapes with antipersonnel benches and sleep prevention studs and have the constant threat to those people's lives. 

If you clearly separate manufacturing and stevedoring areas from the city, you have a situation where ONLY public transport and logistics need to enter and exit those areas. Large intrastate and interstate infrastructure will terminate in those zones, leading to most of the remaining ICEV transport not polluting the cities.

The drones (now encompassing everything from passenger trains to cargo trains to people movers to the tiniest drone) will move much more efficiently along fewer roads and subways, and anyone with a self-driving EV will be able to take advantage of the logistics scheduling and control system to move around.

But the urgent need to own a private EV will be reduced. If you can walk to anything you need daily, and anything else can be brought to you in less time than it would take you to find parking, and you could lease a vehicle for days/weeks/months for almost nothing when you wanted to road trip, why would you want to take up your driveway space and have all the maintenance bills? 

If you could walk out your front door and find a public transport vehicle already waiting for you, you get on and it takes you trouble-free and twice as fast as you'd be driving yourself, you get out at the manufacturing facility and do your four hour shift then just step outside and get another ride already waiting for you to take you to the gym or a nature hike afternoon where it patiently waits for you to take you home again and it's all included in your work conditions and salary then why wouldn't you want to have all that? 

I don't think these changes are decades away. Many local authorities are already aware of them, and making changes or planning for such changes. I think you'll start seeing these start to happen now, and in a year to five years, imperceptibly at first and then snowballing.

It'll create jobs re-structuring urban/suburban areas, it'll create more jobs manufacturing and maintaining the new transport systems, managing imports and exports to the locality, and more. 

The energy companies that are at the moment fully exploiting their status as sole energy providers will find themselves increasingly sidelined and irrelevant as small-scale energy grids coalesce and set their own prices, making the present exploitative prices painfully obvious, and all of these things will together turn cities from carbon wellsprings to firstly neutral and later carbon sinks as they manage their mini-ecosystems better and better. 

The fightbacks:

We currently have some very "well-connected" people in urban planning and management who are also not willing to change things that they've made a living from promulgating. But public opinion is shifting, public pressure is mounting. 

Large corporations will feel their way of existing is being threatened and try and act to prevent many of these changes. In fact, they're doing it now: 

Legislating to prevent unmanned autonomous drone deliveries to protect their logistics chains.

Fighting tooth and nail as they are to prevent legislation that will make ICEVs irrelevant compared to EVs and H2Vs. 

Stirring up public sentiment against wind and solar power, against battery storage, gravity storage, and new alternatives being taken up.

Resisting to the last, the concession that they should take back all the plastics they produce and recycle that (at some tiny cost to their much-vaunted "bottom line") it rather than make new plastics, resisting legislation that will require them to repair ecological damage their greed has created.

Resisting to the last that their focus needs to change from digging resources out of the ground and instead recycling what they've already littered aboveground with.

My Advice:

Resist.

Apply pressure, ask everyone you know to apply pressure, to tell your government to change those things. 

Make it public knowledge among your friends. Tell them, send them to articles like this one, get them to start becoming activists too. Activism doesn't have to mean hurling stones in the street, good general pressure and showing others this way of doing things achieves just as much.

Take a look around you. It's too late to stop what's already happened but it's not too late to stop the next bit of pollution, the next bit of graft and corruption, the next environmental disaster.

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When The Test Is Never Done

This Tester Didn't Know 

.. the software they were testing. This "test driver" didn't know he had NOT engaged self-driving mode and allowed the car to crash into dummies time after time. You'd think they might have checked after the first few times, but nope - they were so determined to prove that Tesla FSD was dangerous that they refused to acknowledge the evidence of their own cameras.

This is why shit gets delayed time after time after time, because some effwit neolib wannabe gets in beyond their capabilities and then can't accept that they plain and simple didn't know how to activate it.

Oh wells. Maybe they were born with it, maybe it's propaganda.

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The Arms Race

The Ultimate Freedom Factory - But For Whom?

It's been a while since 3D printed guns ("3DPW" 3D Printed Weapons) first got the media in a froth of apprehension and consternation. But it's also been a bit quiet since then. What's the state of play these days? Should we be worried? 

The Liberator was the first such weapon, I seem to remember that it was a hit and miss affair and failed after just a few rounds, often catastrophically. But its purpose was probably in the name. A thing you might print if the Horde was flowing over the country pillaging and murdering, you wanted to Get Out Of Dodge (="GOOD", a lovely old prepper acronym if ever there was one) and just needed maybe one or two shots just in case. 

I'd almost class it as an improvised weapon (much like the many martial arts weapons that were made from whatever was to hand, a scythe or a hay fork) of necessity and last resort. But it has to be made with forethought, unlike picking up a spade, realising the edge is sharp, and swinging it at that pesky intruder.

It turns out, someone should be worried. Not sure if that includes the majority of us or just law enforcement, but the state of play has changed quite a bit. The flavour of the month appears to be the FGC-9, but it's not the only kid on the block. 

One worrying thing about 3DPW is that they don't have to look like a weapon - take a look at this news clipping of an FGC-9 seized by police in Western Australia. I've legit had Nerf blasters that looked more real than this. Now look at the toy pistol that got Tamir Rice shot. Compare the pair, as it were. 

I'd be inclined to be more scared of the latter than the former, that's for sure. Now for something more worrying - 3DPW factories. All you need is a 3D printer, a few other tools, and you have a side hustle. . .

The most recent designs have been thought out by gunsmiths and engineers, and use bits you can buy at Bunnings or Mitre10 with a few plumbing supplies thrown in. You may need a few specific tools but they're freely obtainable. You either need access to ammunition or a better 3D printer and some explosive to make some. But it's not a huge stretch, and with seemingly so many people out there willing to risk getting caught, it's just a matter of time before someone gets one and uses it to settle a score.

THAT is a thing I'd worry about. But - and this is just a random shower thought - why do spammers and phishers not bother to make something convincing? 

"My Dear, I am write this to you because am an executive of the last will of Prince RajaBigButt . . ." sound exactly like what it is, a person in a country that doesn't speak English using random phrases they've picked up and trusting that syntax and grammar won't be as important to you as the $64 million dollars that they're going to give you. 

Or unconvincing, as the case may be? Look at the "NerfFGC-9" [tm:me - obviously😀] found in WA again, then compare to this underground factory product. Those are made to intimidate, so their market is gangs, perhaps. - - - - But if I was printing these, I'd use the bright children's toy colour scheme. And also be designing cartoon-y style covers to put over the damn things, and making them look more like a fanny pack or a kid's Transformers[tm] robot. 

Not Just Pew Pew Pew

And of course, explosives-powered weapons are just one kind. A person can print this crossbow pistol without needing bowyer's skills. Limbs (the springy arms that make the crossbows go) aren't generally prohibited and thus easily obtainable. 

I have a pair of bows, legal here in Victoria. Either one could do damage (they're both commercially-made albeit very inexpensive) but they are legal. But if I used the limbs and pulleys off the compound bow and used a set of plans to 3D print a body, I could turn it into something illegal. And even if the compound bow was made illegal, the limbs would probably still be legal to buy.

Realistically, no legislation is going to stop this tide from rolling. Everyone feels a need to secure themselves. I lock our gates and doors every night because there are people out there that might otherwise walk in and create a dangerous situation. I know that some of them have lockpicks. 

Thirty years ago you'd have been thrown in jail for a period of time just for owning a lockpick set, and it would have been a case of make your own or buy them on the black market. Now, you can openly order them from stores online, just don't get caught with them when you're outside your own home. 

That's the truth of how difficult it is to legislate such things.

This is going to go the same way, there's really no stopping it. Can you imagine? "FBI! Hand over that 3D printer and that Pokemon Charizard model!" It's not going to work. Much like you can't really stop anyone from having a steak knife in the home. What you can do is educate people to just, you know - not print dangerous stuff or use stuff in a dangerous way.

The thin fuzzy line is vague - what about a 3D printed knuckleduster? A 3D printed ring with pointy bits? Or even some longer pointy bits like cosplay swords and spears? 

Also - beep! zzaapp! ka-zing!

And that's of course not all, at all. A cutting laser for your CNC machine can be had for as little as $200-400. It's enough to blind people for miles around you, and can even be lethal under the wrong circumstances. Then there are the people that are building honest-to-dog railguns and similar electric/magnetic launchers. Those devices aren't quite at the point of taking down an aircraft, but are definitely getting to the point of being able to cause injury if aimed at a soft body. 

One can print a matte black stock and barrel for the laser and a pack of 18650 lithium cells, or make it look like a cute yellow duckie for all I know. The point is that it's easy enough to do either, and you should expect to see it happening. I could - right now - draw you a diagram of how it would work at a distance with a lethality that would give smaller pistols a run for their money. But I won't. 

Flying Monkeys With Kaboom

And let's not get into 3D printing and drones . . . The absolutely most horrific scenario I've seen about this was mentioned in something innocuous like TED Talks. The speaker showed a totally theoretically scenario where a tiny little drone with a connection to an AI server was tasked with finding a particular face, getting close to it, and then blowing itself up. 

The speaker then went on to explain that the Military was sponsoring this research with the purpose of making tens of thousands of these devices, flying them into a zone of interest, loading the AI server with a certain - racially derived - set of features, and then airdropping them wholesale out the back of a Hercules . . . Imagine if they preloaded Aryan blond hair blue eyes as the template and unloaded a few hundred thousand in a long sweep along the Rhine river . . . 

And before I get anyone saying that this use of AI puts it beyond the average hobbyist, let me tell you that you can get so-called "edge" AI into a single tiny chip and train it in one download, or a million of those tiny little chips in one download that's no longer than for one device.

I have printable drones, can build them for very little, and they'll carry a camera for first person view (FPV) and a board that'll run that image recognotion is available for under AUD$20, the AI image detection doesn't care what I build or what I do with it. I could print a dozen of these things and asemble them, prime them with the face of my adversary, and release them one by one near that person until one got close enough to their face to blow both up.

Think this is far-fetched? Please - think - again.

Conclusion

Whatever's to hand, someone will find a way to abuse it, use it to abuse another person, or commit some morally reprehensible crime with it. If they're of a mind to, are pushes to their limit, or have really poor impulse control. 

My point in publishing this isn't to give a how-to like Ragnar Benson's extensive bibliography of making things go boom - after all, that's all been done. My point is that there are people out there that are actively engaged in turning The Excellent Daily Doodad into The Evil Doomsday Device, and then capitalising on that person with poor impulse control. 

So what purpose has my article served?

Well, if you hear about or see some unusual criminal activity now, you may be able to connect the dots to something I've mentioned. You may realise that someone's released Flying Monkey Face Exploder Drones, and take evasive action by wearing a cardboard box with a single eyehole on your head so as to not look like a human being. 

You may realise that the green sweepy thing that's making cars crash is being caused by some kid with the ultimate laser pointer blinding people on the freeway, and find the darkest sunnies you can. And that person in the bank pointing a plushie toy looking thing's backside at the teller? Call the cops now and don't go in there!

As with all things of this nature - do not try any of these things at home - because they are dangerous. Also, your mileage may vary with regard to the remedies I've described, and if FMFE drones kill you because the person that made them just hates people with big butts and you're callipygiously blessed that's not my fault. Read the room. 

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It's exhausting, it needs me to use a VPN to gather some of the research materials so that I can put together an article like this for your information and reading pleasure. I do enjoy it but it costs me effort and dosh and sometimes mouse hand cramps.

So please - if you can at all spare some time, take a look at my News Stand where you'll see live updated links to everything I publish; or take a subscription to my weekly newsletter where you'll receive the same information in your inbox for free; Or contact me via the webform or directly email me if you'd like to help; or donate either directly or at my Ko-Fi page for the price of a coffee, or even make a regular monthly donation there. See you in the next article!

The State of AI Writing

Is AI up to the challenge yet? 

Well, I searched around online and tracked down a few AI writing sites that offer a free if limited version of their site's AI to try out. There are a dozen online right now and interestingly most of them focus on writing scripts for movies, novel writing, and writing papers. Only a few seemed to make a first-page fuss about writing articles for publication or blogging. 

Smodim and Copymate were two that offered article writing so I just picked a topic dear to my heart for each of them, and clicked the go button then collected the free output to show what the state of the (freebie) art is. 

Neither offers all the bells and whistles as a freebie, or else limits you to a certain maximum word count and/or number of accesses per day. Leave a comment if you find any others and would like me to check 'em out, and now without further ado, here are the contestants:

Smodim.io

https://smodin.io/writer

Topic: Making Electric vehicles more appealing to people

Electric vehicles are becoming more and more popular, but there is still a lot of public resistance to them. One big reason for this resistance is the high cost of electric cars. Another obstacle is the fact that people don’t think they will be able to use these cars in their everyday lives. To make electric vehicles more palatable, companies need to develop an easy-to-use charging system and make it affordable for consumers.

Electric vehicles have a lot of benefits over their traditional counterparts. They are notably more environmentally friendly, because they don't produce any emissions. They are also cheaper to operate, as there is no need for fuel. In addition, electric vehicles are more agile than traditional vehicles. They can climb slopes and negotiate tight turns better than gasoline-powered vehicles.

To make electric vehicles more popular, it is necessary to change a few things. For example, it is necessary to make them more accessible. Currently, electric vehicles are only available to a niche market, and they are not as affordable as traditional vehicles. It is also important to give people the impression that electric vehicles are safe. This is challenging, because electric vehicles can have a similar appearance to traditional vehicles.

In addition to developing new technology, it is necessary to develop marketing plans. This will help embed the benefits of electric vehicles in people's minds. It is also necessary to create a supportive infrastructure, such as charging stations. This infrastructure will make electric vehicles more appealing to the general public.

Electric vehicles have a lot of benefits over their traditional counterparts. They are notably more environmentally friendly, because they don't produce any emissions. They are also cheaper to operate, as there is no need for fuel. In addition, electric vehicles are more agile than traditional vehicles. They can climb slopes and negotiate tight turns better than gasoline-powered vehicles.

Copymate.ai:

https://copymatic.ai/blog-writer/ 

Topic: How Sustainable Energy Will Save The Planet

The world has been using fossil fuels for hundreds of years and has left a huge carbon footprint on the environment. This article talks about the potential for Renewable Energy to save the planet from climate change.

What is Renewable Energy?

Renewable energy is energy that comes from natural sources that can be replenished. This includes solar, water, wind, and geothermal. Sustainable energy is important because it can help preserve our planet while also providing power to homes and businesses. When we use sustainable energy, we're not depleting the earth's resources, which means we can continue to rely on these sources of power for generations to come.

How are we going to eliminate fossil fuel dependence?

The future of sustainable energy is looking very bright. With technology becoming more and more efficient, and the cost of renewable energy sources dropping, it's only a matter of time until we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels entirely. Here are a few ways that sustainable energy will save the planet:

1. Renewable energy is getting cheaper every year.

As the technology improves and becomes more widespread, the cost of renewable energy sources like solar and wind power continues to drop. At some point, they will be cheaper than fossil fuels, making them the logical choice for both consumers and businesses.

2. Electric cars are becoming more popular.

Electric cars are becoming increasingly popular, as they are much cheaper to operate than gas-powered vehicles. In addition, they emit zero emissions, which is great for the environment. As battery technology continues to improve, electric cars will only become more prevalent in the coming years.

3. Sustainable energy creates jobs.

The renewable energy industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world, creating millions of new jobs in recent years. This is good news for both the economy and the environment, as sustainable energy sources help to reduce pollution and combat climate change.

Conclusion

As the world looks for ways to become more sustainable, it is important to consider all of our options for energy. Sustainable energy is a great way to save the planet and its resources. There are many different types of sustainable energy, so there is sure to be an option that will work well for you and your family. With a little research, you can find the perfect sustainable energy source for your needs.

Conclusion:

Either program shows promise, and of course I'm pretty sure there'd be some other goodies that you could include to let the AI flesh out articles a bit more, like maybe a few URLs to read and include, images, some of your own text, or whatever. 

Both produced readable copy which I've included as is without spellcheck or editing for style or grammar. 

Interestingly, I found that Smodim produced copy that's more in the style I like to write, but it also triggered a number of Grammarly errors. (Is that how Skynet will become self-aware? A grammar flame war between two AI programs? Yeesh.) I did like the natural style. Also, both programs wanted my email address as part of the access process but only Smodim followed up with a couple of emails to offer me a bit of extra copy and seemed more serious about working with me.

Copymate was harder because I had to prompt it to produce each section separately, copy/paste it, click back, and then get it to make the next section. I get that this is to slow down people from holus-bolus slurping up entire blogs' worth of content, but I'd hope that the full version would fix that. Copymate also seemed the more customisable. Copymate didn't follow up, was as I said harder to get free copy from, but seems that it might have more knobs and tweakers once you get inside. 

This Is The End

... of this article. But it's nowhere near the end for me. It takes several days to find a topic to write about, properly research it, and then write and schedule it. I don't have any assistance (yet - hint hint, your patronage could mean I can hire an AI copywriter) and I don't have the kind of income that allows me to use a scheduling service like established writers can. I also spend some of my limited pension on keeping servers and domain names going, more on parts for the R&D I do making the machines for recycling waste. You can help me by sharing this article or the link to the newsletter I put out, or more directly by making a Paypal donation here. Failing that you can also go to my Ko-Fi page and set up a monthly donation. (It's like Patreon without all the bullsh*t.) Everything you can do, will help me keep going.    

You can also take a look at my News Stand where you'll see live updated links to everything I publish and maybe subscribe to the weekly newsletter.

 

A "Roadblock" Removed For Aussie EV Drivers

Ending Range Anxiety

What would you reckon to be the one thing that has been holding people back the most from adopting EVs? Price has often been quoted - but this year onwards, EVs other than the pricey Teslas will be hitting the country's car showrooms in droves. And anyway, it really hasn't been the major stumbling block.

As the heading suggests, no-one wants to be caught with a flat battery halfway to Broken Hill or Alice Springs. But it's been checked out by the ANU who've concluded that with current technology in EVs and no doubt by the distribution of charging points, any population centre with more than 1,000 population is in range.

Even the appearance of EVs has become much more
acceptable, and most pass the "cool looking car" test.

My view:

EVs are getting better and better batteries, smarter and smarter electronics. Their range is already pushing 500km as an attainable standard. 300Km is already a standard most EVs can attain, and it's only going to go up from there. 

Charging infrastructure is going in at an increasing rate. Pretty soon you'll be able to find them closer together than service stations. Things will get better and better. For the people who consider that electric infrastructure will need to be improved (at great expense, mustn't forget the great expense, because after all dollars will survive any climate catastrophe, won't they? No-one around to use them and nothing left to spend them on, but oh think of the piles of dollars that will survive!) there are actually battery-backed charging points in production. 

Battery charges slowly over time to spread out the maximum current they'll draw, and then dump that as fast as possible into the next EV that plugs in. (The URL link above leads to a LinkedIn article, you should be able to see it.) For the power grid in cities and their CBDs, there are robotic chargers in parking lots that you can request on the phone, they'll reserve you a parking spot and wait for you, get out of the way while you park, and then park right up against your bumper and you can plug in and get charged while you go to work or to the shop or whatever. 

One more factor (as if any more were needed!) is that even faster charge points are being developed and EV manufacturers will of course rise to the occasion and their car internal chargers will soon be able to charge your car in 

The Australian government has as of July 1 2022 changed the incentives for EVs to bring prices down. It may be worthwhile to go to a State that has the best overall incentives to actually buy the car and then transfer the registration after you've driven it back home. 

(A NOTE: State governments get a share (or maybe all, I'm not sure) of the tariffs from the sales of vehicles so if we do this, the States with the best incentives will see increased revenue - and your own hold-out State may well be tempted to change their incentives. . . Worth thinking about!)

Some Things That Would Improve Adoption Drastically

So I'm hoping that Federal government will start providing an incentive for scrapping your current ICEV (never to be registered for on-road use again, only for parting out or recycling into an EV or at least a high-conversion plug-in hybrid (PHEV) in order to claim the incentive) and retain existing incentives for purchasing an EV, because then the EV will definitely come out cheaper than an equivalent ICEV. (Are you listening,. Messrs Albanese \ Bowen?)

And one reason that government's been reluctant to champion EVs would have to be the huge loss of revenue from petrol tariffs. The absolutely worst attempt to claw back some of this income has been the Australian States that are insisting on charging a tax per kilometre on EVs. But they also take vast amounts of revenue on toll roads. Let's suppose a scheme...

Less Invasive.

The toll readers (mounted over the toll roads in cities) recognise number plates and read a "toll token" that is attached to the vehicle. If the token is present, it's linked to a financial transaction mechanism. Generally, the owner of the token transfers funds to it to keep it in credit. Tolls are subtracted. If a token isn't present, the number plate is used, and the owner of the number plate must put funds into a similar credit account. And two number plates can be linked to one token, and neither needs to have the token for the linked account to be  used to pay the toll. 

Toll readers are almost an order of magnitude cheaper now. And therein lies a possible solution.

If highway segments between population centres had readers on them, country drivers could pay a toll for using that road on a per day basis. You go between Yourtown and Anotherplace for school, shopping, or whatever, you pay the toll. You go back and forth in that 24hr period, you don't get charged again. 

This means that regional drivers do pay a "mileage" fee but they pay far lower fees per kilometre than urban drivers. This is fair because country drivers may need to go ten kilometres to drop the kids off to school and then ten more to pick them up, another ten to go to the shops or medical appointments (and back) etc. In the city, the urban driver has less distance to drive for these amenities and the fees can be balanced in this way to remove the "distance tax" that regional drivers perceive to exist, and which was once addressed by lower fuel tariffs for agricultural and regional fuel.

And Even Less Invasive.

Once upon a time, governments were the main energy providers for the country and each State. The relentless drive for reducing responsibility and the perceived costs of this, led to privatisation of energy generation. But just suppose governments realised that this was a bad decision based on having no vision for the future? What if governments resumed power generation? 

NOW the government is earning income for every kilowatt of charge being put into EVs all over the country, without lifting a finger or antagonising EV owners who perceive themselves being taxed for doing the right thing for the environment and global warming targets. 

Even simpler for the government: INVEST. Invest in renewable energy projects only, in return for a normal share of the income. Once again, the government is making money from EV charging, and this way it can slowly resume energy generation and compete with the other energy providers to keep them in line. That's a win/win right there.

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In addition to writing these articles I'm also experimenting with ways of recycling waste that can be done at the cottage industry or community hub levels, not so much because it'll magically convert 100% of local waste into recycled useful articles, but because people who are doing these sorts of activities are likely to talk about them to people in their community, and so raise even more awareness of the issues and dangers.

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All donations are put towards keeping these websites online, and for developing devices, machines, and techniques to easily and safely recycle materials on a tiny scale.

Ban Fossil Fuel Advertising

Fossil Fuel Is Next

Tobacco and alcohol advertising have been banned in Australia, just as they should throughout the civilised world. But Fossil Ad Ban argue that fossil fuels are every bit as harmful and should also be banned in Australia. 

Rationale

Indeed, the fossil fuel industry is the next tobacco, the next alcohol. Fossil fuels have polluted ground and skies, their addition of lead was done fully well knowing the damage it caused, and the chief evangelist of leaded fuel Thomas Midgely invented three things, each of which caused more damage to the planet in its sphere than anything else. By the way, do follow the "three things" link, it's well worth the 25 minute watch, and shows how the road to hell is paved with good (and not so good) intentions. . . Make sure to give them a like, too. 

The fossil fuel industry - look, really do go and watch that video now. It's jawdropping. "The world is less intelligent today, because of leaded gasoline." - Derek Muller, Veritasium.

The tobacco industry also -they knew that tobacco causes cancer and lung damage (and here I am a result of following the Marlboro Man into Phillip Morris country) and yet the profits... The profits... "Tell you what, why should we care how many people we kill in order to get at their money. People breed, there'll be plenty more cash cows." 

Similarly, alcohol has for almost as long as we've walked upright caused harm and abuse and killing, and yet they too decided they needed to spend billions in order to get their hands on trillions of customer dollars and just get used to a regular and faster-than-normal customer turnover. 

The Australian government put a huge block on tobacco and alcohol advertising, preventing advertising at sporting venues and TV slots where children might be exposed to the torrents of propaganda. And now, FAB want the same done for fossil fuels, and I'm one person who agrees entirely and in fact would like to see EVERY country on Earth introducing the same bans. 

Why Fossil Fuels?

The FFI similarly had warnings about how the use of fossil-carbon-based fuels would increase global warming. Their own scientists and technologists wrote about it. And nothing was done, just kicking the can up the road until, y'know, it hit the wall. We're at that wall now, and we're left with the can. 

All that's necessary for bad things to happen is for good people to ignore it and not call it out. It seems that FAB is one organisation to do this, but it won't be the only one, and - yeah, my hope is that all the fossil fuel companies will be as extinct as the fossils they've exploited and weaponised against common good and decency. 

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I publish several blog posts a week, it's a bit of a hectic pace for a retired old guy but I'm doing this to bring these kinds of news to the surface for as many people as possible, raise awareness, and get people in the mood for action. 

If you'd like to help, share this article, go take a look at my News Stand where you'll see live updated links to everything I publish and maybe take a subscription to my weekly newsletter where you'll receive the same information in your inbox for free. 

Or contact me via the webform or directly email me if you'd like to help; or donate either directly or at my Ko-Fi page for the price of a coffee, or even make a regular monthly donation there.

(Ross, if you made it down to here - welcome to the TEdAMAIL email newsletter! There's a way to contact me up there, if you're bored contact me! Ted aka Prawntech3d)