Free != paid by taxes

I also think tax funded services are quite regressive as you have to pay for them whether you use them or not, and there are no market forces driving them to be cost competitive.

Most US employees are employed “at will” and don’t have contracts …

Waiting two years before realizing your engine is drinking oil is probably reckless which wouldn’t be covered under any warranty.

If they followed anything like what we did, they would just run load cycles on the engine in a test cell to simulate approximately however many miles of ‘normal’ use they want to validate the engine up to. During the testing the engine would be maintained, fueled, and oiled according to the maintenance schedule and customer guidelines the engine will be sold with.

After the testing, the engine would be completely broken down and analyzed. If there weren’t any signs of abnormal wear then the engine would be considered validated __under those conditions__.

The problem is when real-world use deviates from the testing conditions. Which is pretty much always. Then the manufacturer guidelines no longer apply.

If you run your engine harder than the test cycle load factor, you will need to replace the engine oil more regularly. If your fuel quality is crap, i.e. has any ethanol in it, you will need to replace your oil more regularly as fuel eventually gets into the oil, and ethanol results in high water content in fuels, and hence oil, which will break down seals as well as reduce overall lubrication.

If your engine breaks down due to poor oil quality from lack of regular inspection and replacement, then as a manufacturer I’d be very resistant to paying out on any warranty claim. Even if you followed the “guidelines” for oil changes, you still have a duty to inspect the oil regularly, both as a responsible driver and under the car manual guidelines. Using bad oil and / or fuel is very easy to test for.

Long story short, the oil change intervals guidelines are just that, guidelines, and real-world use dictates the maintenance schedule. Frequent oil changes, before the oil breaks down / becomes crap, is just a quick, cheap way to prolong the life of your engine or any mechanical device with bearings or sliding surfaces for that matter.

The cynical side of me thinks this is just a way to control the after-market and eliminate third party repair shops and mechanics.

A better way would be to design their cars with right to repair in mind, that way the environment and the consumer benefits.

I agree, I just felt that the original article was being disingenuous by stating that power lines are somehow safer than fossil fuel infrastructure just because it’s not fossil fuel. Whereas it is more about your point on safety culture, where both can be equally as safe or dangerous if managed incorrectly.

People have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their own home. In addition, the right to privacy is not limited by arbitrary definitions of shamefulness.

> so... jehovah's witnesses?

That’s a whataboutism logical fallacy. Just because some people do it and get away with it doesn’t make it acceptable.

> How is this any different than going around and recording the coordinates of every street address? You can also make the argument that a street address can be correlated to an individual, and by associating a coordinate with it, you are violating "user’s right to privacy by publishing information about them without their consent"

That’s kind of a straw man IMO. An IP address is public information and is transmitted by every IP packet. You can’t compare it to someone’s home address which is normally private by default. By associating a location with an IP address, you are effectively transmitting your location with every IP packet.

Would you feel any differently if people were recording your activities by pointing a camera at your window from the street? Or even just pressing random doorbells to see if anyone lives there?

Personally I think there is little difference between virtual unwarranted data collection and physical intrusions, and just because there isn’t some kind of barrier doesn’t make it acceptable.

“Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.”

I’d posit that recording the location of every IP address, which in many cases can be directly tied to an individual, violates a user’s right to privacy by publishing information about them without their consent.

Yeah …

California Says PG&E Power Lines Caused Camp Fire That Killed 85 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/business/pge-fire.html

For a higher risk option that’s not been mentioned you could look at peer to peer (p2p) lending.

(0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29831604

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