I was using my phone today, and I realized that I have so many apps for the different charging networks. It's probably a pipe dream, but a federated database of all known charging infrastructure would be great. Each network could still use their own systems, but push out statuses, locations, and details through ActivityPub. It would also mean that folks can build their own apps on top of this data, allowing for some competition against Plugshare and ABRP. I'm sure that scraping and gathering data is a big impediment there.

Anyway, not sure where I'm going with this. But just a shower thought that I had yesterday.

On Sunday, I had some friends over, and we played Heat. It was my first time with the game, and I found it to be a lot of fun.

There's just enough strategy in managing your car's "heat" level. Take on too much, and you'll stall out. Don't take enough risk, and the other players will pull ahead. I accurately captured the tension of racing video games. "Do I floor it and come into the turn quickly, risking spinning out? Or do I brake and take it safely but lose my place?"

This just seems odd to me. I know it’s a competitive game, and most folks will be playing with a mouse and keyboard, but it feels weird for Valve to put out a brand new game (built from scratch, at that) and not plan for this.

If you unzip the fabric lining of your suitcase, there should be some screws that attach the handle to the outside. This will commandeer one of those screws to hide the AirTag beneath the fabric lining (but close to the exterior shell of your luggage). Mine is a Samsonite, but I'm sure it works for others as well!

My friend and I were discussing this over the weekend. Games are inherently different than movies, books, and music. They’re tied to specific hardware and operating systems that may not be available anymore.

I argue that if a game is no longer legally purchasable from the publishers or developer, it should be legally permitted to pirate it. Even EA agrees! They do not pursue copyright claims against LOTR games, as they lost the publishing license from New Line Cinemas years ago.

I really love the original video game. It’s so relaxing and has a great soundtrack. I love playing for a bit on my lunch break or when I need to unwind.

That being said, my main concern is that the management and tracking needed for a tabletop version might take away from that aspect of it. I’m a sucker though, and might get it anyway…

Update: I bought it 🤓

I just wanted to share this since it can sometimes be hard to find communities on other servers. It’s still picking up steam (ha ha), but growing!

I mostly charge up at home (240V receptacle and L2 EVSE), and I limited my charge to stop at 80%. I've heard competing ideas about if that's really necessary, but I usually drive <50mi each day, so I figured I don't need to full range anyway. When we're planning to take a trip or something with the car, I will charge fully the night before.

For those who are interested in building iOS apps for Lemmy, I found really nice package for interfacing with the API. I’ve been playing around with it, and it’s very easy to use!

I took my first road trip with a 2023 Bolt EUV over the weekend and wanted to share my experience.

Basics

• Northeast USA
• Around 100mi (160km) each way
• Overnight stay with charging at destination

Since getting my car, I've been limiting its max charge to around 80%, as I usually don't drive more than 50mi (80km) in a day. Of course the night before this trip, I let it charge to 100% at home.

About 2/3 miles were on the interstate, so traveling around 70-75mph (120 km/h). My main curiosity was around efficiency loss at those speeds. I knew we'd have plenty of range buffer, but I was treating this trip as a trial run before we go for longer distances. We arrived at our destination with about 50% charge remaining, so there was definitely some efficiency loss, but nothing too drastic – my friend has a Nissan Leaf and warned me about highway speeds, but her experience seems more negative than mine was.

We arrived at our museum/destination with several Chargepoint stations, and my inconsiderate/oblivious self picked a bay that already had a car charging at it. As a result, I was charging at half speed for a while (and affect the other driver's charge speed). After about 2 hours, they topped off and my car switched to faster charging. Total cost to charge back to 100% was about $10 - this included energy costs and parking time.

Overall, it was a very stress-free trip, and gave me confidence to try something longer. I also learned a few things for next time (especially about being a good EV citizen). For longer trips, I know that the Bolt has slow DC Fast Charging, so I'm hesitant to rely on that too much (also, the non-Tesla network is sparse), but I might try a few Fast Chargers just to test them out.

Hopefully I'm not breaking any guidelines on self-promotion, but I bet some of y'all have made some really cool things.

Whether it's physical, art, a website, or software -- what is something that you're really proud of creating?

Please remove if this violates any guidelines (I couldn't find anything specific).