Newly commenced Explorations from all Topics.
Use this page to also see all major updates.
This web page holds the scripts and notes on videos posted on the onefiniteplanet YouTube channel, and mostly provides an alternate way to view the same content.
From the youtube description: Self-driving cars rely on more than just hype — they need sensors that can actually “see” the road. In this video, we break down the four key sensor types: LIDAR, radar, cameras, and sonar. You’ll learn the pros and cons of each technology, the myths surrounding LIDAR, and how these sensors shape the future of AI, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.
Whether you’re curious about Tesla’s approach, Waymo’s choices, or the broader race toward full autonomy, this guide gives you the foundation to understand what’s really going on behind the buzzwords.
This page (and the video) look at key questions on the future of cars & EVs:
This is just the introduction, and a series of pages/videos will follow on will AI & robots exterminate us, updates on technical progress and breakthroughs, and on how, whether, as technology as done in past, AI & Robots, driven increases productivity will result in more jobs becoming viable.
But this page/video prefixes those points with a look at the long term goal: where are we heading, and concludes and we are headed for a revolution with who benefits from that revolution not yet clear.
The climate is always changing.
The good news has been that Earth’s surface went from molten rock to now supporting the bloom of visible life we see today as the Phanerozoic Eon, but the bad news is the bloom, and current wonderful conditions are just a brief moment, as the surface will naturally return to being too hot for any life to survive. Plus, as watching a volcano shows, things have cooled little inside Earth and while Earth currently has a relatively cool thin crust, relatively no thicker than an eggshell, it is still almost entirely a very hot planet.
This is a look at the V2-GHL technologies, how they work, and how they are going to impact EVs & future energy and energy prices for not just EV, EV-PHEV EV-Hybrid owners, but for everyone. Its 3 years since the March 2022 “The electrical grid, V2G and EV Home Charging” web page was published on OneFinitePlanet.org website, and now in 2025 its all happening.
Although, while in the midst of it all, it is easy to miss the real impact, we are experiencing what we may soon see as the greatest political upheaval since at least the collapse of the soviet union.
To many people, both those within the US as well as perhaps most outside the US, a vote for Trump is seen as something hard to understand and even seen as the uneducated or the domain “others”: people seen as are very different from “normal people”. Yet 50% Americans are not radically different “others”, nor uneducated, nor stupid, even though around 50% will vote for trump.
With around 80% of Americans believing the country is on the “wrong track”, is it any surprise a large number feel if trends continue, they risk being disenfranchised by that “wrong track” and are desperate to believe only a big change can protect their rights?
And yes, environment and climate are always changing.
Even though we are creating quite a mess right now, realistically it’s nature and natural environment and climate changes, not us humans, that will end all life one Earth. This look at the big picture of the history of environment and climate reveals while “Mother Earth” does seem quite nurturing right now, this planet is normally hostile to all life beyond “just slime” made up of microbes like those we kill we must kill to sterilize medical equipment. What we are enjoying is the equivalent of the brief bloom of life in the desert after rain.
Yes, our technology brings risks and may “poke the bear“, but without technology, when that “grizzly bear of natural climate change” wakes from its current short hibernation, we, and the species we cherish could perish. Following “the flip” not just us but all other complex life and even the microbes, eventually are doomed. For us humans, the threat is real and immediate.
Or is it that, natural changes to climate, like “bears”, are part of nature and nature would never harm us?
George Washington was elected unanimously by the 69 electors from the 10 participating states in the in augural election of a US president in 1788. In practice how the system works in the 21st century’s USA of over 330 million people is very different from in the USA of 1788 with less than 4 million people, the underlying principle is still that the states each choose electors to an electoral college who together determine who is to be the president, but in practice today the people of each state get to vote for how their states electors will vote.
This is how it works, and a look at what could possibly stop it working as expected.
Fairytales often contain significant element of danger, and with the label “Goldilocks zone”, the danger is the concept can be dangerously misleading.
Stars change from a faint young sun through their lifespan until they explode and die as a “nova“, and this continual change means the temperature at any distance from a star will change dramatically over time, and it who or what it must be not too hot and not too cold for can also be very misleading.
Following the shooting at the rally on July 13, 2024, Elon Musk endorsed Trump and announced Musk would become potentially the largest donor to the Trump political cause.
Speculation on why ranges from the shooting event motivated Musk to support Trump, to that Musk saw the shooting event as making a Trump victory inevitable and providing support is Musk’s first step in managing an outcome he now sees as either inevitable, an opportunity, or both. All theories so far highlight problems with democracy in the US, and miss the reality that Elon Musk is now focused on agenda for a post-car future and craves having influence.
Like many others, back in February 2024 I wrote that A Biden-Harris ticket would not cut it for the 2024 election. The debate highlighted the problems of US voters again being faced with Biden and Trump: almost no one sees this as a choice between two good options.
The Biden problem will be resolved, but no, it was not just about losing a debate, it was about his inability to maintain his train of thought during the debate, and the risk that presents for another full term in office. Arguably, the focus has all along been only on polarisation and wins for political parties, rather than visions for the future.
Democracy should offer the people choices of a say in their future, but under current systems becomes more about personalities. Looking deeper reveals even without the current issues, it is unclear the US voters get a real choice and real say in what elections should determine.
draft. The problem: Additional grid connections for renewables. New grid connections are needed for renewables, largely because the right location for wind and solar is
While Tesla becoming the world leader in self-driving cars is still part of the dream, the US$30-trillion-dollar future is based on being the “Apple” of humanoid robots which will cost 10x what an iPhone does in the future be just as prevalent.
Sadly, the dream no longer seems to contemplate being the global leader in EV sales, but does that matter? Surely if Elon can turn this dream into reality, he is worth that huge multi-billion dollar pay packet shareholders just voted to support.
Problem is, everything has a limit, and even if Tesla overcomes all the risks to the plan, it still doesn’t add up. Consider, how will everyone buy robots from Tesla if the robots take all their jobs?
This page is updated to track BYD plans, and upcoming models, set for widespread release in “the rest”: the markets beyond China, USA and Europe.
In 2024, EV marketing data still entirely focuses on 3 regions: China, the USA, and Europe, which so far account for 95% of EV sales. The remaining 5%, “the rest” is a huge over 2/3 of the world market of Oceana including Australia & New Zealand, Latin America including Brazil and, Mexico, the Middle East, Africa and Asian including India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
While one strategy does not apply the same for the entire “the rest” market, there is enough in common between many markets to make this 2/3rd of the world a much greater prospect than the 5% suggests. In 2022, before BYD even became sales leader in China, BYD began to get serious about exports, and the export strategy continues to evolve and become more purposeful and includes plans for “the rest”.
The first pickup or Ute from BYD, and apparently not the last.
BYD is starting with the same strategy as with their first ever production EV, starting with a range extended EV, with differs from typical plug-in hybrids in the main power is the 320kW from the electric motors, with the internal combustion engine there to extend the range to 840km and make a vehicle as capable for towing as the Ford Ranger Raptor.
The BYD Seal was very much a Tesla Model 3 rival, and soon the BYD Sealion 7 will be a Tesla Model Y rival.
This is a charge time calculator, which can be set to the charge curve of any car, but defaults to the values for the Atto 3.
Its the economy stupid. Voters want the best economic outcome, but by measuring the economy using ‘Economic Activity’, governments can effectively cheat the public.
In many western societies, instead of maximum prosperity, governments often pursue maximum economic activity, which benefits big business and governments, but can result in an economy which in theory is going well, while at the same time individuals fall behind. This is the kind of economic policy makes frustrated voters turn to Trump and Brexit.
At least, not a direct substitute. Solar and Wind have proven to be successful partial cost-effective substitutes for fossil fuels, but fossil fuels are stored energy, and solar and wind are not. Renewables are a disruption, and disruptions are usually not one-for-one substitutions.
There are two strategies for replacing fossil fuels in the grid, and they can be used together:
Without such strategies, it is impossible to reach the goal of removing reliance on fossil fuels. With the right strategy, it is possible to realise benefits go far beyond just replacement.
Warnings of overpopulation often focus on the eventual starvation that could occur following environmental collapse, rather than the time bomb of declining living conditions for multiple species.
Although such a substantial human population existing unsustainably wreaks havoc on the planet, borrowing from the future though unsustainable agriculture can delay any starvation for decades.
However, as those who profit from overpopulation are sufficiently rich that they can improve their living conditions even as average resources per person declines, the wealthy will keep advocating “population growth is the path to prosperity”. But can we risk becoming an Easter Island story by prioritising population growth to please the billionaires over a return to sustainability?
Humanity has just experienced a population explosion. Whether you study population or believe we are overpopulated or not, the facts are that we have just had a population explosion.
Over two centuries of population reaching 50x higher than the historical long-term population growth, and even peaking at 100x higher than historical averages.
Yet thought explosion including during the baby boom, women were having less babies than ever before, and as the number keeps falling the boom is ending.
So, what caused the boom, why was there a population explosion even when birth rates were falling? Could our population grow until we are living life like battery hens, or birth-rates keep falling leading to population collapse?
Augmented reality was seen as potentially the way of the future when introduced in 2013. So far, augmented reality through sight has never delivered and people wearing augmented reality glasses are not a common sight. In contrast, people wearing headphones and earphones are everywhere. Augmented sound reality is here (or hear?) and if anything, is growing in significance. This page looks at the topic overall but also includes some specific reviews.
Globally, peak child arrived just a few years after this was first published, although this global picture is not experience at every individual location.
Data now clearly confirms that globally, the world has returned to ‘peak child’, ending of three centuries of a population explosion, and perhaps even millennia of more gradual growth prior to the explosion.
Return to peak child means we could either return to the gradual growth levels of prior to the industrial revolution or become a mature species and exist in balance with nature and other living things. Perhaps even stop displacing other species?