I can't be the only one who is seeing this fucking pattern on damn loop every few years. First, leftists managed to clobber together a movement. Lets say Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter. Or we can go more recent and talk about 50501 or TeslaTakedown.

Look, I get it. Its a lot of work and coordination to build up these movements. But time-and-time again, the movement rises up. Then the right attacks it.

Then mysteriously a few very violent actors show up (maybe its far-left. Or maybe its right-wing false flaggers). I dunno, but the violence ALWAYS shows up. BLM had groups trying to take over parts of town. I know Trump agitated the protesters with unwarranted acts of force (see the Laffeyette clearout).

But it doesn't matter "how" the violence begins. The point is some level of damage starts to occur. Its inevitable and we need to not only accept it, but plan for it.

Now what? The violence gets amplified by right-wing media and then... the movement is defeated. I shit you not. Its the death of every leftist movement for the past 15 years. The movements become a symbol of violence in the mainstream's eyes and loses all power.

We're entering the same period right now with 50501 and TeslaTakedown. The violence has begun: lots of Tesla vehicles have been smashed and arsons have started to spread.

What we need is a spokesman, who can navigate and sell the situation to the public. Martin Luther King Jr. was the spokesman of the Civil Rights era, and his "branding" was the most important element of all. If you want a violent movement, that's fine. But create a spokesman. Malcom X, to counter-act and differentiate between philosophies.

Without spokesmen (like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X), we conflate the violence and the messages. And ultimately, that destroys our movements.

Please, for the love of whatever diety you worship. Get a fucking spokesman. Now. Sooner is better. Maybe its too late for TeslaTakedown and 50501, but we need movements that truly are rallied behind a singular face who can serve as the ideological leader to the general public.

• NYC Lower Manhattan: https://www.reddit.com/r/MicromobilityNYC/

• Tucson Arizona: https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3lje4s23tkk2y

• https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-tesla-protests-doge-3b3eba9313074ccf8e959a92486d900f

Just a few protests of note happening around the country. I know there's more but these are the instances I was aware of.

Tesla protests are beginning to get more organized.

https://lemmy.world/post/22892985

/c/technology was the most active by far (more so than /c/cars), so I'll post here again first.

Stats

The following stats are winter tests (10F to 30F. Or -10C to 0C).

• L1 Charger from Home is 2.05 mi/kwhr (12.0 mi/electric-$$. 17.1c per kwhr home costs) in this deep cold.

• L2 Charger from Work is 2.8mi/kwhr (14.0 mi/electric-$$. 20c per kwhr work-charging costs).

• 43 Miles per Gallon gasoline (13.9 mi/gasoline-$. $3.10 gasoline during test).

• L1 Charger is closer to 2.8 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).

• L2 Charger is closer to 3.5 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).

Conclusion: The cold (10F to 30F) has made the Li-ion batteries of this car SIGNIFICANTLY less efficient. We're at the point where L1 chargers are more expensive than gasoline, while L2 chargers are roughly on part with gasoline.

I recommend anyone who gets an EV to get an L2 charger. Not only for the convenience of far faster charges, but also because of the incredible improvements to cold-weather charging efficiency.

There were some pro-EV fans asking me to more carefully test the gasoline usage in the winter. And now you have the stats. I can solidly say that gasoline is worse during the Winter (down from EPA estimated 48), but not dramatically worse like the electric engine gets.

The above gasoline test was done over an entire week of driving to reach the 200+ miles I thought was needed for a solid test. I performed it by running out of electricity (all the way down to 0%), then driving to a gasoline station and filling up. I memorized the exact pump I filled up at.

Then, after 200 miles across a week, I came back to the same pump and filled up exactly the same. I then counted the gallons that came out of the pump and divided out based on my trip odometer. I was 203.5 miles of driving total with 4.734 gallons reported from the pump.

In the other topic, I've brought up the importance to prepare the meme-army to spread word about the Coffee Tariffs / Covfefe Tariffs to make sure we rub the price hikes into Trump supporter's faces.

But we need to seriously consider our strategy of memes and outreach. This is the year 2025, not the year 2015.

• Threads / Facebook / Instagram is suspect as Zuckerberg is bending the knee. Expect memes to be suppressed by Zuckerberg and his minions.

• Twitter / X is also suspect. We likely don't have a fair chance.

• Mainstream media: WashPo has been captured by Jeff Bezos. LA Times was captured by Patrick Soon-Shiong. Gannett (USA Today, and thousands of local papers) also are our political enemy as these papers cut off endorsements days before the election in support of Donald Trump. CNN has been on a rightward shift. We are now the minority and the rebellious underground, we will not get any beneficial press from these papers or media anymore.

• Reddit is suspect. Reddit is a techbro owner. Maybe not as tech-bro as Elon Musk but there's only a matter of time before things get worse.

• TikTok's recent actions have proven them to be pro-Trump as well. We cannot trust their algorithm to help us.

Get it? We're stuck and now the rebellious underground. The few allies we've got are ignorant and terrible at their jobs (I'm looking at you MSNBC). But whatever, it just means its our own damn job to change the politics of the USA for the better.

And how to do that? The power of memes.

Why meme?

Ultimately, memes are fun. Short image macros that should be easy for us to make, and easy for us to copy once made and spread around. While a large number of internet sites are busted, we need

Don't Argue

The opposition did not reach their current viewpoints through thoughtful discussion or arguments. They memed their way and mind-controlled each other into their current predicament. Don't fall into the trap of trying to convince others (or yourself) of facts.

Preach to the Choir

Normally a bad argument, but at this juncture its necessary. The left as a whole is angry, demoralized and beginning to shut off politics. Memes could provide us a way to make our painful politics more pleasant through the power of jokes.

I would argue that memes should be uplifting. Yes, preaching to the choir but is that really a bad thing right now? We need all the encouragement we can get right now. I'm sure you've noticed the chill in the room.

We have literally years to reinvigorate and revitalize our political side. However, you'll find that 2 short years are... much shorter in practice than you'd expect.

Friendly to the Neutrals

The neutrals could be former Trump supporters who are now growing disgust at Trump's actions. Who is, or isn't, neutral will largely be politically chaotic for the near future.

I expect MAGAs to become frustrated at some tariff structures, maybe not racist enough for them or something. I expect TechBros to be harmed by foreign policy and grow disgust. I expect Hawks to fear USA's declining position and reputation in the world. I expect Doves to grow angry at Trumps outbursts and hateful rhetoric.

We need memes that make Trump look dumb or otherwise foolish. But without necessarily attacking the identity of these subgroups. A pro-Muskite will be pro-EV and anti-Climate Change. They're compromising on their values right now because they trust and believe in Musk. But when Trump inevitably cuts Musk out in a few months, we shouldn't push the Muskites back to Trump, we should instead drive them apart from each other. That would mean memes that mostly attack Trump (the big guy), without necessarily attacking subgroups (that may be split off later).

Keep the target in mind and stay focused. I'm not saying "be friends" with the Muskites, I'm saying be a little forward thinking.

Ease off in public

Its not just the left who is tired of Trump, but most people in the USA are tired of politics.

If you have a meme that needs to be made public (ex: I 100% believe we need to start a campaign to distribute coffee tariff notices out and tie the rise in coffee prices to Trump), we need to have simpler language that resonates with people who don't want to hear about politics.

Ex: "Trump's Tariffs" might cause people to stop listening to our signs.

"Tariffs" might be better. Its already a politically charged word.

"Tariffs have caused our coffee prices to go up. We apologize" at least sounds neutral to the less-politically active. And that's the kind of language we want in public to keep people listening to us.

EDIT: Trump and Columbia seems to have come to an agreement where the Tariffs have now been canceled.

I'm leaving this post up for posterity's sake. We just need to wait for the next opportunity to push. I'm still confident that Trump and co will dramatically misstep soon and leave an obvious opening. But for now, we should get our meme-skills up and ready. I'm still supportive of large-scale real-world messages, be they stickers or chalk messages or even simple notifications that point out Trump's political missteps.

First off: condolences to any Colombian who is harmed by these events. We have a Colombian in our family and I certainly fear for her safety and her way of life. She's the nanny to my nephew, and there's a solid chance this shit won't be fixed in time for her Visa renewals, so she'll be effectively deported due to these events. I understand that Trump's latest actions today are frightening, but we need to focus on the political messaging needed to swing the tides back into our favor.

As Donald J. Trump tariffs the USA's #2 trade partner in Coffee (remember, Coffee CANNOT grow in the USA outside of like Hawaii), we can all expect coffee prices to shoot up by 25% in the near future. This is the inflation event we need to begin rubbing shitty marketplace inflation into the MAGAT's faces.

Coffee is one of the most essential of luxury goods consumed in the USA. Everyone drinks it, and we need to be ready to pin the coffee price hikes on Trump's shitty policy.

So, what's the plan people? What's the best meme we can make a sticker and print en masse. Coffee Shops seem like a liberal safe-haven, it shouldn't be too hard to ask Baristas to post up signs (or little protests) indicating that coffee shops are against the Columbian Tariffs.

Like I really think this has real action available. Even a sign that says "Due to recent Tariffs, we have been forced to increase the price of our coffee by 25%", and that's it. We don't need to make it incredibly related to Trump, its implicit in Trump's actions. We need the public to know how Trump is affecting them, but without necessarily rubbing it into their faces.

As Trump signs in his deportation plan, it is becoming evident that Trump is targeting blue states and so called sanctuaries (not just sanctuary cities but the traditional sanctuary of Church, School and Hospitals).

So now it’s time to think and plan the next move and how to protect those in our community. ICE isn’t very big and has no hope of any mass deportations scheme yet. But the deportations they do accomplish will traumatize families and even citizens (as they will obviously target any brown person, even US Citizens like Puerto Ricans).

The plan IMO is for us to make sure that our local schools and Churches collect as little information as possible. ICE will be looking for missing social security numbers for example and may target school and church databases with warrants. Now is the time to consider destroying or deleting that data if you haven’t already.

We don’t necessarily have to directly confront ICE officials to hamper their work. Indirect changes like this might be best especially given how small ICE is.

EDIT: I don't believe there's any good reason for schools to be keeping proofs of citizenship or building up such databases. Nonetheless, teachers and principals may have made that mistake 10 years ago before Trump was a threat or back in the era where ICE was literally not allowed into schools or Churches. Those days are behind us. If you know your school principal is trustworthy, you should campaign on getting unnecessary records deleted ASAP and start building defenses immediately.

Catholics know what I mean: our records on students and parishioners are kept for long periods of time. (Any Catholic knows and expects this, especially because we prioritize Baptism records and other such Church level Sacraments and such). I don't know how all the other Churches do it but if your local church is anywhere on the level of organization of Catholics (I know 7th Day Adventists and Mormons are also "record-keepers"), you will want to check in with your church's offices and maybe ask them to review records in the face of Trump's new executive orders.

This NEEDS to be saved. People will forget if we don't save this.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22892955

The Prius Prime is a dual fuel vehicle, able to run 100% on Electric, or 100% on gasoline, or a computerized blend in-between. This presents me a great opportunity to be able to do a direct comparison with the same car of an EV engine vs an ICE engine.

• Toyota computer claims 3.2mi-per-kwhr.

• Kill-a-watt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt) claims 2.2mi-per-kwhr.

• Additional 1.5% losses should be assumed in the wires if you wish. (120V drops down to 118V during charging, meaning 2V of the energy was lost due to the resistance of my home's wires).

• Level 1 charger at home (known to be less efficient).

• Toyota computer claims 53miles-per-gallon (American Gallon).

• I have not independently verified the gallon usage of my car.

• 295 miles driven total, sometimes EV, sometimes Gasoline, sometimes both.

• 30F to 40F (-1C to 4.5C) in my area this past week.

• Winter-blend fuel.

• 12.5miles per $electricity-dollar (17.1c / kw-hr home charging costs)

• 17.1 miles per $gasoline-dollar ($3.10 per gallon last fillup).

If anyone has questions about my tests. The main takeaway is that L1 charging is so low in efficiency that gasoline in my area is cheaper than electricity. Obviously the price of gasoline and electricity varies significantly area-to-area, so feel free to use my numbers to calculate / simulate the costs in your area.

There is also substantial losses of efficiency due to cold weather, that is well acknowledged by the EV community. The Prius Prime (and most other EVs) will turn on a heater to keep the battery conditioned in the winter, spending precious electricity on battery-conditioning rather than miles. Gasoline engines do not have this problem and remain as efficient in the winter.

I originally wrote this post for /c/cars, but I feel like EVs come up often enough here on /c/technology that maybe you all would be interested in my tests as well.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22892955

The Prius Prime is a dual fuel vehicle, able to run 100% on Electric, or 100% on gasoline, or a computerized blend in-between. This presents me a great opportunity to be able to do a direct comparison with the same car of an EV engine vs an ICE engine.

• Toyota computer claims 3.2mi-per-kwhr.

• Kill-a-watt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt) claims 2.2mi-per-kwhr.

• Additional 1.5% losses should be assumed in the wires if you wish. (120V drops down to 118V during charging, meaning 2V of the energy was lost due to the resistance of my home's wires).

• Level 1 charger at home (known to be less efficient).

• Toyota computer claims 53miles-per-gallon (American Gallon).

• I have not independently verified the gallon usage of my car.

• 295 miles driven total, sometimes EV, sometimes Gasoline, sometimes both.

• 30F to 40F (-1C to 4.5C) in my area this past week.

• Winter-blend fuel.

• 12.5miles per $electricity-dollar (17.1c / kw-hr home charging costs)

• 17.1 miles per $gasoline-dollar ($3.10 per gallon last fillup).

If anyone has questions about my tests. The main takeaway is that L1 charging is so low in efficiency that gasoline in my area is cheaper than electricity. Obviously the price of gasoline and electricity varies significantly area-to-area, so feel free to use my numbers to calculate / simulate the costs in your area.

There is also substantial losses of efficiency due to cold weather, that is well acknowledged by the EV community. The Prius Prime (and most other EVs) will turn on a heater to keep the battery conditioned in the winter, spending precious electricity on battery-conditioning rather than miles. Gasoline engines do not have this problem and remain as efficient in the winter.