patrick.net

SunnyvaleCA says

That sounds bad until you learn that diesel is $6.65! Wow!

I wonder if dems have intentionally biased some of the price increase into diesel and away from reg gas. Normal people only look at the price of reg gas, so its better to jack up diesel prices extra if doing so can alleviate some pressure on the reg gas prices they look at. Plus, the manifestations of high dispel prices is a general increase in prices of goods due to shipping and input costs, which plays nicely into the "supply chain causing inflation because covid not because briben"

I dont know much about this industry so not sure if thats realistic for them to do, but its a thought.

US oil rig count peaked in March 2020 at 683

It is now at 602 and has been around 600 since mid July 2020. So its still 10% below 2020 levels.

Its as if they stopped increase in production since July.

https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_oil_rotary_rigs

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SunnyvaleCA says

The line of cars and trucklets often goes through the parking lot and out onto the side road waiting! It seems that saving 30¢/gallon when gas is expensive is more fun than saving 30¢/gallon when gas is cheap?

I'm at a different station in life I guess. 30¢/gal difference is so trivial and I drive a V8 that is 24 gallons I believe. You're talking a $7 savings per fill up. I can make that in the time I'm waiting.

People don't value time like they should. Get the gas and go out and hustle even if you pay more. Or relax and enjoy life. It's no different than coupon clipping. You're wasting time when you can be more productive and earn more.

WookieMan says

30¢/gal difference is so trivial

Yep, must be the thrill of the hunt.

https://www.ntd.com/white-house-confirms-biden-admin-asked-saudis-to-postpone-oil-cuts-until-1-month-after-midterms_855715.html?src_src=newsletter&src_cmp=2022-10-14

The White House just admitted to a crime, asking a foreign country to influence US elections.

Don't get all angry at me, homies, for saying so, -

And no, it's not "my wish".

It's physics.

Even at $20.00 per gallon, which would come out to one dollar per mile in a modest 20 mpg vehicle, gasoline is Super-Cheap for transportation. A bargain of the millenia.

WookieMan says

SunnyvaleCA says

The line of cars and trucklets often goes through the parking lot and out onto the side road waiting! It seems that saving 30¢/gallon when gas is expensive is more fun than saving 30¢/gallon when gas is cheap?

I'm at a different station in life I guess. 30¢/gal difference is so trivial and I drive a V8 that is 24 gallons I believe. You're talking a $7 savings per fill up. I can make that in the time I'm waiting.

People don't value time like they should. Get the gas and go out and hustle even if you pay more. Or relax and enjoy life. It's no different than coupon clipping. You're wasting time when you can be more productive and earn more.

I'm not one that joins the line. I was just mentioning that other people were joining the line and doing so when the actual savings weren't any different than before. An ex-girlfriend once prodded me enough to join the line; I turned off the engine and made her push to move up while waiting and she hasn't had that desire since!

B.A.C.A.H. says

Even at $20.00 per gallon,

I look at it as far as car ownership, just like home ownership, as being a percentage of total income.

Granted the new GMC Sonoma I had in 1995 is a little different than the GMC Canyon now offered in 2022.

But I look at it this way. When I was working in high school at Red Lobster in 1985 making $4.25 an hour, I recall a basic small truck like a Ford Ranger was selling out-the-door for around $4500.

A comparable truck (Ford Maverick) sells for about $25,000 out-the-door compared to the same job paying about $16 an hour.

Pay went up about 4 times, but the price of the vehicle replacement went up about 5.6 times :-(

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B.A.C.A.H. says

Even at $20.00 per gallon, which would come out to one dollar per mile in a modest 20 mpg vehicle, gasoline is Super-Cheap for transportation. A bargain of the millenia.

Haha.

OK, let's say a cashier works at your local supermarket, and they are making $20/hr and can't afford to live in your posh, expensive neighborhood, so they live 30 miles away in a less expensive part of town.

People are so clueless.

richwicks says

People are so clueless.

What is clueless about saying the reality, that safely and reliably moving a one ton vehicle one mile for one dollar, with room for four or five people and a payload of stuff (groceries or whatever), in weather-proof comfort, is a Bargain of the Ages? Which part is clueless? Are you saying I am clueless?

Yes, yes, I know. If or when that happens it's going to be a lot of hardships for a lot of people, including me (doesn't change the physics though). The clerk you mention of whom I've known a few for decades who work here in SJ and commute in from afar would have hardship, no doubt. Of course, they can carpool, "rideshare", but many folks just don't want to share nowadays. That can change.

And our cheapest-in-the-world (franken)food that's farmed with diesel including by some of my relatives will not be so cheap any more.

More for transportation, more for commuting, more costly utilities (also a bargain compared to days before we had them) will leave less for other stuff. Like discretionary fun stuff, and rent, and mortgages.

personal

richwicks says

that's $60 just to get to and from work, in some used junker car that is 20 years old,

Unless you rideshare.

I did ridesharing when I was one of those in the 1980's. Compared to walking, or bicycling, or very long rides on public tranit with three transfers, it wasn't so bad. (The public transit commute took about two hours partly because of long walks to bus stops on each end). I made minimum wage as a parts cleaner in a lab about 25 miles from home, commuting in my old beater 1973 AMC Gremlin. My rideshare partner had a similar kind of Old Beater.

Oh I know it's gonna hurt like hell. Fertilizer, diesel, trucks, commuters, value chain, all of it.

We've built our lives around Cheap Energy. Expressing hostility and anger at the messenger for saying so isn't going to change things, except that your anger may hurt you.

richwicks says

If a carrot cost an extra $0.10 to farm, carrots don't go up by $0.10, they go up by a $1.00 - ten times.

That depends where the cost is along the supply chain. It may be at the end of the chain such as retail outlet (i.e., grocery). It could be that they need to charge an extra 10 cents because of an increase in local tax on businesses, or any other reason that is specific to that store.

But I see your point as far as a process in series or serial process. where each box typically charges an X % based on the origination cost.

So if there are 4 steps of the process and the first step represents $0.50 then each step after charges 20% of the origination cost ($0.50), then the total cost is $0.5 x (1.2)(1.2)(1.2) or $0.86.

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ad says

richwicks says

If a carrot cost an extra $0.10 to farm, carrots don't go up by $0.10, they go up by a $1.00 - ten times.

That depends where the cost is along the supply chain.

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I'm saying at the start. I had this explained to me at RCA.

You add 10cents to a phone's cost, well everybody along the line until you get to the consumer expects to make a PERCENTAGE and that's fixed for them. They have investment capital, somebody up the line (say distributor, salesman, seller - and there are more), aren't going to willing lost $0.10 per phone. It's literally like 10x the cost at the end of it.

This was explained to me when I was bitching about RCA being too cheap on parts of a DSS box. NRE (non recoverable engineering) costs don't get passed up. That's a one time thing. So even though they had to pay me $30,000 to make this piece of shit part work in the system, rather than spend $0.1 to make a better solution, they wouldn't.

Another thing, there's a big difference between selling a product for $199 and $201 dollars. It's only $2 bucks, but its psychological perception. 1 is a LOT less than 2..

ad says

So if there are 4 steps of the process and the first step represents $0.50 then each step after charges 20% of the origination cost ($0.50), then the total cost is $0.5 x (1.2)(1.2)(1.2) or $0.86.

There's a bunch of steps. There's insurance on the product in case it's destroyed, there's storage, which also includes insurance, if you know the whole fucking line to get something from silicon to a product, it's like 40 steps too. It's crazy.

I think Rich is right on his recent comments on this thread. I don't worry about gas as an individual. We expense it to my wife's company. And high oil prices technically help me as long as municipalities are willing to pay, which they are because the alternative is more expensive. Not going to explain, don't want to dox myself. Infrastructure related.

Also, ride sharing generally doesn't work long term. Could for a couple months maybe a couple years. Everyone's life and job changes. Literally sharing a ride could end over night and you're scrambling to get to work. I don't even trust public transportation.

I have trust issues as another layer. I generally don't trust who is operating the bus, train, car or whatever to not get me killed. I'll take care of that myself and just drive. Flight is the only one I trust as I've basically done most of the ground school myself. It's not hard, but it's more intense than people understand.

We have the gas and oil. There's no reason for gas prices to be as high as they are. $20/gal would shoot inflation to the moon. Eventually a new "normal" would be discovered, but it would take probably a decade of suffering and famine.

And I get it's a deal for us here in America, but that's because we have the resources. Europe doesn't and for that reason they'll be in a perpetual state of war in that region. Europe will crumble in our lifetimes. Might be happening now. They've done it twice and they're due at this point. Hopefully we just send weapons.

WookieMan says

ride sharing generally doesn't work long term. Could for a couple months maybe a couple years. Everyone's life and job changes. Literally sharing a ride could end over night and you're scrambling to get to work

Agreed, it doesn't work when fuel is relatively cheap.

But when it becomes expensive and there's no alternatives, people will make it work because they will have to.

And no, richwicks, I am not insensitive to this stuff. My family and others I care about will be hurt when fuel for transportation (and farming, fertilizer, industry) becomes too expensive. I get it. Getting angry about recognizing the physics of this reality, and belittling / lashing out at the messenger does nothing to deal with the situation.

It's something to keep in mind when we make choices about where we live, how we live, where we commute, etc.

I have a friend from college who is a college professor (engineering) in Germany. He "commuted" from his home in Kassel (near old border with East Germany) to his job in Dortmund (far west), with equivalent $9 per gallon petrol price. He carpooled ("rideshared") with another professor who had a similar situation. They shared an apartment in Dortmund, only went home weekends. He was away from his nuclear family during the week. After several years of doing this he swallowed his College Professorship pride for a lower paying, less artsy-fartsy "researchy" ("teaching") gig at a less prestigious college near Kassel. Kept explaining to me to rationalize the move which I totally get but by doing I think he was still rationalizing it to himself.

My inlaws in the Philippines live the reality that petrol prices hit the purchasing power of their wages like $20-$30/gal gasoline would hit us here. Some of them have their own cars, but they don't drive much. There's jeepneys all over the place for rides. People are resilient.

The adjustments will be horribly painful for us who built our lives around abundantly cheap energy. This is already happening in the UK. There's plenty of YouTube videos about folks in Britain struggling with what they call "fuel poverty".

B.A.C.A.H. says

There's jeepneys all over the place for rides.

I was at Clark AFB back in the day and rode the jeepneys. It was fun riding these gaudy decorated jeep-like cars that would take on as many passengers could pile in or hang on.

richwicks says

OK, let's say a cashier works at your local supermarket, and they are making $20/hr and can't afford to live in your posh, expensive neighborhood, so they live 30 miles away in a less expensive part of town.

I thought BACAH's point was that modern transportation is an amazing bargain.

The little towns on the way to Sacramento, Vallejo, Fairfield, Vacaville, Dixon, Davis, are each a day's wagon ride away from each other. Now we can easily transport a truckload of goods across the country in a couple days.

The real tragedy for poor Californians is that there is that public transportation is poorly managed. BART was first envisioned as a comprehensive system that would eventually grow to something like this



I have not traveled by train in Europe this century but when I had a Eurail and a\East Eurail pass back in 1996 It was easy to get between all of the major European cities and most of those cities had good public transportation.

But not in my backyard.

B.A.C.A.H. says

richwicks says

that's $60 just to get to and from work, in some used junker car that is 20 years old,

Unless you rideshare.

I did ridesharing when I was one of those in the 1980's. Compared to walking, or bicycling, or very long rides on public tranit with three transfers, it wasn't so bad. (The public transit commute took about two hours partly because of long walks to bus stops on each end). I made minimum wage as a parts cleaner in a lab about 25 miles from home, commuting in my old beater 1973 AMC Gremlin. My rideshare partner had a similar kind of Old Beater.

Oh I know it's gonna hurt like hell. Fertilizer, diesel, trucks, commuters, value chain, all of it.

We've built our lives around Cheap Energy. Expressing hostility and anger at the messenger for saying so isn't going to change things, except that your anger may hurt you.

You may want to rethink. Energy wasn't cheap by force it was simply following efficient markets before the green crap and high gas taxes arrived. Rich is right in the sense that the entire economy is built on efficient energy, i.e. currently still majorly nuclear and fossil fuels and nat gas as a recently emerging strong contender. If renewables can improve to the point that they could replace em it's fair game, but supporting a policy that makes energy artificially expensive is recipe for disaster. Without oil, nuclear, nat gas, ices and plastics, the world as you know will cease to exist, and the "wealth" will evaporate and impoverish areas like the bay area and plunge them into chaos, part of it has already started. The truck drivers don't depend on is, we depend on them.

One of these plants could power all the Teslas in Texas.

Instinctively, we know we've built our lives around Abundant Cheap Energy. Mainly from fossil fuels.

It's the reason people like richwicks get all angry, attacking the messenger for saying so, when we know it's true, that we've become dependent on Cheap Energy.

First step to dealing with a problem or challenge is to recognize it. (Not to lash out in anger at it). Even if gasoline costed $20 per gallon, or even more, it and other fossil fuels are huge bargains compared to not having them.

Surfing the web you can find different numbers for this, but the one most cited is that we get about 600 man hours worth of work or energy from a gallon of gasoline. At $15/hr, 600 man hours would cost $9000. We pay less than $6. It's freaking cheap energy. Saying so doesn't make me clueless or insensitive or any other name calling (please, Anger Management). I am grateful we have it for $6 and I acknowledge how fortunate we are for that. Same would be true for $20 per gallon, as disruptive as that would be for myself, my family and others.

Onvacation says

richwicks says

OK, let's say a cashier works at your local supermarket, and they are making $20/hr and can't afford to live in your posh, expensive neighborhood, so they live 30 miles away in a less expensive part of town.

I thought BACAH's point was that modern transportation is an amazing bargain.

The little towns on the way to Sacramento, Vallejo, Fairfield, Vacaville, Dixon, Davis, are each a day's wagon ride away from each other. Now we can easily transport a truckload of goods across the country in a couple days.

The real tragedy for poor Californians is that there is that public transportation is poorly managed. BART was first envisioned as a comprehensive system that would eventually grow to something like this



I have not traveled by...

Public transportation is only so advanced in Europe because it's not subsidized for the thugs and hobos, and at least until recently it has been policed enough to guarantee the safety, timely arrival and comfort of its passengers. The Muni price today in SF was the price in Europe 20 years ago, public transportation in Europe is anything but cheap, it's market economics and that's why it provides great comfort and service for the price without having to deal with hobos and thugs. The reason public transportation hasn't worked in CA is because leftoids let hobos, thugs and crazies use it as their battlefields, bedrooms and toilets. People fly because hobos can't and crazies will fail at security and you have to have a minimum amount of coherence, money and IDs in your life, i.e. you have to be somewhat stable and not a career criminal.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Instinctively, we know we've built our lives around Abundant Cheap Energy. Mainly from fossil fuels

What's wrong with that as long as it's not subsidized and is safe? It's literally a staple of quality of life, taxing it, banning it and making it more expensive will result in lower quality of life.

mell says

What's wrong with that as long as it's not subsidized and is safe? It's literally a staple of quality of life, taxing it, banning it and making it more expensive will result in lower quality of life.

I agree. I also appreciate and am grateful for it.

mell says

I thought BACAH's point was that modern transportation is an amazing bargain

Not transportation, homie: energy.

But yes, there's a large energy component in transportation costs.

Onvacation says

BART was first envisioned as a comprehensive system that would eventually grow to something like this

Right, that didn't happen. You just can't get to Marin or the west part of SF by BART even now, for example.

Regular has dipped back under $5 yesterday in the East Bay.

mell says

Public transportation is only so advanced in Europe because it's not subsidized for the thugs and hobos

It's subsidized for everybody while gasoline/diesel is heavily taxed.

mell says

People fly because hobos can't and crazies will fail at security and you have to have a minimum amount of coherence, money and IDs in your life, i.e. you have to be somewhat stable and not a career criminal.

This is true. Flying is no cheap endeavor, though you're usually flying with people that maybe fly once a year, if that depending on airline. That could be a shit show. I'm yet to punch anyone, but there's basic manners that people just don't understand. Something as simple as not running down the aisle once you're at the gate to get off the plane from row 26. Put this way my bag has shifted in flight many times from the overhead bin on those people. Whoops... lol.

Public transit in America is only going to get worse. People are fleeing cities. They're simply not safe anymore. Local news affiliates out of Chicago are interviewing people that are being robbed at gun point in yuppie areas. Kidnapping and robbed in Wrigleyville 5 times in a week. Again yuppie as fuck (and gay). This is a bold statement, but I'm not sure I'll go to Chicago again besides airports. Maybe for my life. I've already skipped out on shows by my favorite band in Chicago. I'm going to Fort Wayne, IN and might do the Madison, WI show. And I'll drive my V-8 Nissan Armada with no one else in it. I don't need to die or get robbed going to see an event.

WookieMan says

Kidnapping and robbed in Wrigleyville 5 times in a week. Again yuppie as fuck (and gay).

That means the criminal elements and gangs are realizing the easier and more wealthy targets are in the white neighborhoods.

Check this out. Its a video of a black male trying to steal a relatively new large Subaru SUV while its white liberal male owner is on the hood.

https://cwbchicago.com/2022/10/crazy-video-shows-man-riding-on-top-of-an-suv-in-edgewater-and-the-driver-running-away-with-an-ankle-monitor-on-his-leg-witness-says.html

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ad says

Check this out. Its a video of a black male trying to steal a relatively new large Subaru SUV while its white liberal male owner is on the hood.

This is how liberals are awakened from wokeness.

mell says

If renewables can improve to the point that they could replace em it's fair game

If renewables could produce more energy than it takes to make that infrastructure, over their lifetime, it would be the cheapest energy available.

They can't.

This drives me crazy, because it's so simple. If a solar cell produces 2x the energy over its lifetime than whatever energy was used to make it, everybody would be buying them because it's 1/2 the cost of conventional energy.

This isn't even a back of the napkin calculation. It makes me fucking crazy that ENGINEERS don't realize this, and people in finance, they don't care, they only follow the money. Government gives subsidies, they don't care that it's pointless and wasteful and leading ALL of society into a dead end.

There's the POTENTIAL for renewable energy to work, and we're actually kind of close, but we're not there. Double the lifetime of a solar panel, and we are. Storage is another problem, but not a huge one. How much energy do you need to run your television and lights at night? It might require a change in behavior - you might have to run your laundry during the daytime, your fridge may only cool during the daytime, you may only be able to heat and cool your home during the day. This isn't as horrible as you think, you just need something with high thermal density in your fridge, and in your home.

You can look at old architecture, they were built to store thermal energy. We'd have to build with a little more intelligence.

My father sold building supplies and I grew up in Northern NY. I look at the SHITBOXES built in California, and I have snicker. Homes built here, are basically, trailers. They are tiny, poorly constructed, under-insulated, and not built to last - BUT they have granite counter-tops, you know granite, some of the most common shit stone that exists, that is easily damaged. It's so weird here. Everything here is cheap poorly made garbage, and it's thought to be the top of the line. I wonder what a well built home in Alaska is like?

WookieMan says

but there's basic manners that people just don't understand. Something as simple as not running down the aisle once you're at the gate to get off the plane from row 26. Put this way my bag has shifted in flight many times from the overhead bin on those people. Whoops... lol.

Haha.

I'm the last to board and leave the flight. While simpletons are fighting to get on first (like that matters, the flight takes off when it takes off) so you can do... whatever (are you looking for overhead storage space? Flight attendants will help with that!) and you're then later fighting to get off to save all of 3 minutes, I'm always sitting down wondering why people can't exercise some very trivial thinking.

Why haven't you figured this out yet? Isn't EVERY flight assigned seats by now anyhow?

There's no fucking little gold star for being first on a flight, in fact, you're punished for it as I squeeze by you to get to the window seat after you sat down 5 minutes ago. Why are you so eager to get into the tube first, and so eager to deboard from it first? Fuck the other passengers, let them scramble, and jostle each other about, I just wait.

I have to laugh, why have so few people figured this out? Are you in first class? Be the LAST to board, not the first.

It's bizarre, bunch of lizard brained people competing over no prize. When I exit the plane, I'm with 1/2 dozen people that have figured it out too. I mean, what are you rushing to? If you've checked on luggage, you have to wait for that anyhow, if you're meeting somebody to pick you up, just tell them to come a full 3 minutes later, if you're on a connection, you always have plenty of time (unless you're in Chicago). What's the rush?

Please explain, because I have no idea.

richwicks says

It makes me fucking crazy that ENGINEERS don't realize this

Energy policy is dictated by politicians, not engineers.

zzyzzx says

richwicks says

It makes me fucking crazy that ENGINEERS don't realize this

Energy policy is dictated by politicians, not engineers.

I think it's more likely determined by people in finance. They create chaos in order to profit from it.

Engineering is slow trudge up a hill. Slow and steady and predictable in improvement, but throw a bump in that road, and you can depress good design and elevate bad design, but good design wins in time, but it may take a LOT of time.

I see this in computer chips. Every computer (nearly) is x86, it's crap, and it's ALWAYS been crap, it will certainly be replaced by simpler, and smaller designs, and smaller is important. You can get 8, maybe 16 processors on a chip today for x86? You can get 64 on an ARM design - it runs at 1/2 the speed, but has 4 times the cores. For tasks that require a single step by step process, it's slower, but when is the last time you thought "god-damned, this computer is too slow"? For me, that was 15 years ago, except when I was purposely doing massive parallel computation or was doing something complex like video transcoding, and even then, I just run it in the background, it doesn't really effect my ability to use the computer when it's running, and it takes hours anyhow, and it's not work related, I'm not waiting on results 99% of the time.

For engineering tasks, nearly everything is done in parallel - more processors = more speed for most of my tasks. A single processor is enough for most people, there's just more because.... cheaper to make that model than it is to make a consumer version versus a professional version, and it's a marketing tick.