At the very best there are design choices here that are limiting its overall performance in order to make it cheaper and less invasive to install. Similar to a BRT.

It is possible that there is a use case for lower density areas where the lower costs could help make or break a business case.

To my mind though a city or large town is not the use case we know the answer for that and its regular light rail done consistently and coherently across the country to achieve economies of scale (as they have done in France). Sadly, the UK can't get past its ideology that money spent on public transport infrastructure is a waste whereas it is an investment in functioning economies.

They've been saying this for a while and nothing has come of it.

Conventry is big enough to warrant at least a full light railway but the UK constantly tries to cheap out on public transport.

To my mind the interest in this technology should he targeted on how much viability it opens up for small towns/villages

The article suggests that they have not decided whether to support new models of Pixel but will support current models until EOL

Estimating and including carbon footprint of recipes would be great though challenging

I am for free public transport from taxation there are some important caveats that would need to be worked out though:

• We currently have low capacity relative to latent deamnd capacity (mostly at peak times) and at the moment that is managed through fares. We would need a system that manages demand in another way.

• Our transport system is in large need of upfront investment to stop the current managed decline so you'd want a way of making sure that making it free doesn't mean the government is now more limited

Its also worth noting that its unlikely to be a direct swap in of current revenues with additionally required taxes as there are projects that are very costly that could be redirected and any successful mode shift away from cars would also carry a net positive economic effect on the whole treasury.

Potentially in the short term what could help is a 'sunk-cost' ticket similar to the bahnpass where you still pay but do so yearly and get access to any trip anywhere. It makes it more competitive with cars which have massive sunk cost effects which make every trip seem cheaper.

It will keep happening until we recognise that public transport is public good that pays for itself by existing and not something that should self fund.

London is incredibly unusual in international cities where central funding is not the dominant source of funds.

My comment was tongue in cheek. Solar and AC are a good combo.

I'd argue there's still a energy+climate reckoning coming where energy won't be as abundant as it has been and high energy use activities (like AC) will be more challenging. the EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) of renewables/low-carbon are much lower than peak fossil fuels.

Incidentally I'm the same as you I'm so socialised on sleeping under something I do it regardless of temperature

cries in climate crisis

Take the point about causality direction but it is about the broader impact of the fact that the policy of the last decades towards the railway has been somewhere between managed decline and life support. An industrial strategy that recognised rail for its primary role in decarbonisation and the future of transport (rather than false horizons and gadgets) would have reduced the cost of maintainance and storage as well as eased the capacity issues that make it logistically and economically hard for its use (which I believe has also been an issue).

Can't comment on support for monarchy and ERII death. I imagine that most people fail to see it as an issue that materially affects them with the governance issues being largely hidden from view.

To be replaced by helicopters. I despair

I was thinking more booting to a few from a usb and playing around.

I think the usual consensus is Linux Mint (and its a solid distro) but I think the best advice is not to be afraid of trying different ones and finding out what works best for you.