OT: Gas Craziness 2021

[Polyglot]

Originally Posted by Red Tornado

Used to work for an Italian company. Last time I was over there (mid-2003) IIRC fuel was 1,25 Euros per litre. So, in today's money, roughly $6 per gallon. I'd bet the "per litre" price has gone up since then, though.

The US dollar has dropped by about 5% against the Canadian dollar in the last two months, I haven't been following the Euro of late.

Originally Posted by ERK55

Gas price in Italy was ~ $5/gallon when I lived there in 1978. That’s 43 years ago.

Back then as a non-resident foreigner you could get gas coupons that gave you a discount on the cost of gasoline. The coupons lasted into the 90's. It was intended to entice foreign tourists.

Originally Posted by tuscanyswe

Here in sweden gas is around 1.5 euro per litre. I think italy has very similar pricing.

The average price of gasoline in Italy over the last week was US$7,33

[unterhausen]

If it makes anyone feel any better, a lot of the pictures/videos we have been seeing were from previous crises. So people are just as silly now as they have been in the past.

[steveoz]

I'm in S Fla, we had lines at the gas pumps.......our gas doesn't come from the pipeline - it comes through Port Everglades....

[JewrDiddy]

Originally Posted by Louis

Better stock up for the coming Fed Govt ban on hamburger...

No ban on hamburger, but think protein will be harder to get because of packaging availability. Supposedly raw materials for packaging are in short supply. Think some items will get harder to find --- no worries though, people will be calm and just take what they need!

[Germany_chris]

Originally Posted by Red Tornado

Used to work for an Italian company. Last time I was over there (mid-2003) IIRC fuel was 1,25 Euros per litre. So, in today's money, roughly $6 per gallon. I'd bet the "per litre" price has gone up since then, though.

I pay 1,25 a liter for diesel
==
these threads always turn into "well europeans pay X for for gas" the counter argument is always "well Europeans have magical public transport". If you live in a city whether in the states or in Europe your public transport system is pretty good, if I live in Berlin, Munich, Paris, NY, Chicago, or SF I wouldn't own a car but I don't.

[benb]

Lack of public transportation mass transit is our own fault in the US though.. we can't fault the Europeans or Asians for being smart enough and committed enough to build it.

Even in most big cities in the US mass transit is pretty terrible compared to European cities or even European suburbs.

Just cause NYC and DC have a decent system doesn't mean US cities have decent mass transit.

I've only visited rural Germany... even the rural areas were better than most suburbs in the US and probably some major metro areas!

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by benb

Lack of public transportation mass transit is our own fault in the US though.. we can't fault the Europeans or Asians for being smart enough and committed enough to build it.

Even in most big cities in the US mass transit is pretty terrible compared to European cities or even European suburbs.

Just cause NYC and DC have a decent system doesn't mean US cities have decent mass transit.

I've only visited rural Germany... even the rural areas were better than most suburbs in the US and probably some major metro areas!

agree. any major metro city where the majority of workers get to their jobs via personal car is a big fail.

[Germany_chris]

Originally Posted by benb

Lack of public transportation mass transit is our own fault in the US though.. we can't fault the Europeans or Asians for being smart enough and committed enough to build it.

Even in most big cities in the US mass transit is pretty terrible compared to European cities or even European suburbs.

Just cause NYC and DC have a decent system doesn't mean US cities have decent mass transit.

I've only visited rural Germany... even the rural areas were better than most suburbs in the US and probably some major metro areas!

I live in rural Germany and it's and the public transport is not better than suburb *pick a place*

[benb]

I didn't say Flachslanden would have better mass transit than a German suburb, I meant in comparison to a US suburb. Do you have *any* public transport?

Flachlanden looks to have about 2500 people population. A town/village that size in the US will generally have 0 options. Maybe the ability for the elderly or disabled to call for a publicly subsidized car to pick them up and take them to the doctor. But absolutely zero trains or busses.

Things are extremely bad in most of the US with zero options if you don't have a car, and distances that are far enough to make cycling quite difficult for utility uses.

I live in a suburb with about 14k people. We have a single bus line that basically only covers the immediate center of town and the Veterans Administration hospital, most residents in town would have to walk 2+ miles to get to a bus stop. Every year the state tries to cut the bus line and the VA stops them from doing so. That bus line is spotty and doesn't have much service coverage. It takes about 1 hour to travel 5 miles away. And it only goes one direction, towards Boston. There are days if you took it to work you can't use it to go home, because it doesn't necessarily return to our town every night of the week.

[9tubes]

Originally Posted by 9tubes

Nah, the most vulnerable thing in America are home internet routers.

Originally Posted by 54ny77

solution?

1. The gov't needs to make it a priority. The tension is that on one hand the nation needs security to avoid a nightmare from hackers. OTOH, the gov't wants to be able to access everything, anywhere, anytime.

2. My guess is that there will be a major crisis before Congress wakes up. That has been the pattern.



On the personal level, it seems really tough. We can step up to commercial equipment but the learning curve is nuts. I'm technically proficient but network routing/switching/security is a world of its own and I'm not willing to spend 20 hours learning how to set up and manage something like a Cisco or Microtik router.

Michael Horowitz wrote a column for InfoWorld for a long time and he recommends PepLink. That's the best, most informed recommendation I've seen, and I've followed this topic for years. (I'm amazed. It's like the mfg selling cars whose wheels fall off but the auto magazines won't write about it.)

[Tickdoc]

Small price to pay?

https://www.cnet.com/news/colonial-p...mware-payment/

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by 9tubes

1. The gov't needs to make it a priority. The tension is that on one hand the nation needs security to avoid a nightmare from hackers. OTOH, the gov't wants to be able to access everything, anywhere, anytime.

2. My guess is that there will be a major crisis before Congress wakes up. That has been the pattern.

Good luck with that. There have been more than a few 'major crisis' lately and congress is still mired in back biting, rudeness, partisan BS, 'my number one job'..crappola....Not sure what it will take to get congress to get their collective heads outta their collective backsides.