Sad to see them go, happy user for a long time as well -- anyone know what went wrong? Why did they sell to BBVA / is it just financially infeasible to run a web-based bank?
I don’t know why they sold to BBVA a while ago, but BBVA’s US operations just got sold to PNC a couple months ago. I’m guessing that simple is closing because there isn’t space for it at PNC.
Agree. I've been dealing with Python rules for Bazel at work and the default implementation of re-downloading everything with pip became a real pain real fast. Decided to generate the third party py_library with a separate tool instead and much happier for it. As an aside for those looking to start with Bazel, it's worth checking out the BazelBuild Slack -- https://slack.bazel.build/
One of the key pieces that we've been missing is an HA setup for Jenkins. We use JJB to automatically create jobs, have everything set up with configuration management, so that works but we still have some downtime if our master loses connectivity etc.
I built a nasty "HA" solution for Jenkins out of Ansible, JJB, and Consul/Vault once.
Basically, Consul would monitor the Jenkins master for liveness. If it discovered that the master had gone down, it would spin up the cold standby machine, first attempting to use a recent disk snapshot and then by re-running plugin installation, JJB, and copying in a secrets store file from Vault (and essentially starting the server fresh again). Then all the slaves would self-configure using Consul to figure out which "master" node was actually master.
It was gross, and I hated it, but it gave us Jenkins failover in under a minute in most cases. We only lost all our job history once in a year and a half, and this was in a flaky-ass openstack environment.
It may have also been what your friend said — French people are quite formal compared to Canadians and Americans — I know some French and was corrected a couple of times based on how I started the conversation: “Good evening” first, then start... most Americans at least don’t talk that way
Another 'politeness' example that can often trip people up is 'tu' offending people in France in situations where it would be perfectly normal in Quebec.
Wow just had a facepalm moment realising what you said is spot on. To make matters worse small-engined tools that pollute the environment are used weekly to keep the yard nice... what a waste
"You'd think electric motor yard tools could be common by now ..."
You will be happy to learn that we are just on the cusp ...
Bosch and Dewalt have very high density battery power systems and they are using them for lawn tools - including normal push mowers. Other tool companies are quickly following suit.
Unlike past iterations, these tools really do have the power and longevity to do real work. To wit: my local volunteer fire department now carries a battery powered Dewalt chainsaw in one of our engines.
As for the embedded carbon cost in all of these new tools and batteries and the production pollution that is occurring "somewhere" ... an exercise for the reader.
Their hedge trimmer is quite good and still goes ok after a few years of use. Even works for edges that I would have used the whipper snipper on previously.
I'm just one data point, but we opted to go for a corded mower. Considered a battery one but they're so expensive and we knew it'd run out of juice before we finished the yard. Wrangling the power cord while mowing is a bit annoying but I still vastly prefer it to gas. It's super fast and easy to turn off and on, quieter, and I never have to bother with storing and smelling a can of gasoline in the garage/fill it up at a gas station. Plus the environmental benefits.
I told a couple people in my family about getting a corded mower once and they just scoffed at me and extolled the "virtues" of their gas-powered mowers. I was pretty annoyed at their condescending attitude about it, as if they had the moral high ground on the issue.
As for why I maintain my lawn, well I have dogs, and dogs might enjoy sniffing tall grass, but they run a lot less than they do on short grass. We had both this year because we were too busy to mow for awhile and the difference in their behavior was pretty stark.
Also when you do finally mow it again with thick grass it takes at least twice as long to mow the lawn because the mower can't handle it as easily.
In most cases you don't need a motor at all. Reel mowers are perfectly adequate for most lawns. No air pollution, no noise pollution, plus they're lighter and easier to push.
I use reel mowers too. To add to what you said, you also get a bit of free exercise and time to look around the garden and notice things while doing something useful.
Beware some reel mowers though... they can have plastic gearing inside which wears out pretty quickly.
Also you need to get the hang of adjusting the bar against the cutters "just so" and the height of the reel above the grass depending on how damp and long it is.
Price is obvious, buying a second battery can be a hundred dollar affair and then the confusion sets in as a lot of time the spare batteries are not exactly the same as the original, most manufacturers offer spares in lower amperage to make the price lower. Confusion over volts versus amperage and how it applies to functionality. Performance system because these air cooled solutions will run down faster in tall or wet grass and battery reliability hasn't been great.
anecdotal
I owned a Ryobi 40V mower. Sold with a 5Amp battery. It was around four hundred dollars. A second battery a hundred and fifty dollars. If you had anything beyond a small lawn you need two or more else you just take an hour off. Grass gets tall or wet the motor works harder and battery life takes a hit and worse it got hot. A hot battery will not charge. Needless to say I returned it. the New 56V systems use a completely different batter and the higher amperage batteries are approaching four hundred dollars just for the battery.
I've been using battery-powered yard tools for a few years now. String trimmer, blower, bush trimmer. The brand is Ego, sold at Home Depot. I haven't used their battery mower, as my TH's yard is small enough not to need a mower (just a string trimmer).
That said, I plan to remove the small bit of lawn that I do have and replace it with something of an English-style garden.
In my neighborhood, 80% of the lawns are maintained by landscapers, we need battery powered lawn tools to be commercially viable in order to put a dent in the use of gas tools. I have a commercial grade gas landscaping mower myself. I tried replacing it with the ego battery powered mower, the power was adequate for single use, but the handling was awful compared to my gas mower, and I went back gas within 2 weeks.
When I bought my house last spring, I went for an electric mower. Unfortunately, my spouse's budget for yard tools made me not go for the best, and I got one that doesn't cut evenly(twin blades is a terrible design), and the batteries die too quickly for my 1/3 acre lot. I should have gone with a corded one. Since my neighbors were getting annoyed with how much I neglected my lawn, I bought a used gas mower. I look forward to when I can afford a robotic mower to deal with it, but in the meantime I'm going to turn a large portion of my lawn into garden, and build a fence so my neighbors aren't such busybodies about how long it is getting.
The performance and price of battery powered stuff like that just isn't there yet. All the cordless models are more expensive than economy brand gas equivalents and don't deliver nearly as much performance. It's like how electric cars were in the 90s. Corded stuff is a pain the butt for all non-stationary work and the price advantage isn't hit or miss depending on the tool you're looking for (small corded chainsaws are slightly cheaper than their gas equivalents but the inverse it true for lawmowers)
I once heard a broad transition to electric was tried, but they went back because people perceived the workers were just waving/pushing them around and not doing work without the gas engine noise. Electric tool companies need better sound designers.
> Electric tool companies need better sound designers.
The better alternative would be for society to realize that noise pollution can also be quite an issue, instead of insisting things need to be loud because "we like loud, it projects power!".
The problem is that all the issues you name are only marginally bad for the average consumer — there isn’t much motivation to move when the problem isn’t that bad for most. And most importantly all the issues you mention were already solvable with Bluetooth.
