Suggesting Bitcoin in its current state of evolution as a free and "vastly safer" alternative to carrying cash is CRAZY.
Whereas having the cash on you carries the risk of being mugged (I understood the story that he had the cash directly with him when the police arrived, it wasn't in the checked luggage, therefore the airline risks you mention do not apply), using Bitcoin carries much higher risks of:
- exchange going bust,
- exchange being hacked,
- exchange rate going down violently,
- Bitcoin wallet being stolen from his computer via malware,
- exchange's banking accounts being seized.
To a layperson unskilled with Bitcoin, walking with 11,000 USD in pockets through airport, using taxi/Uber and arriving in front of your door in a non-ghetto neighbourhood compares to Bitcoin as putting that cash into transparent bag, hanging it on your neck and walking through deserted city at night yelling "look, I have cash".
And even when you are skilled or take (a lot of) your time to read about everything starting with comparing various exchanges, securing your computer, using paper wallets, etc., you are dependant on very volatile exchange rate.
I generally support Bitcoin for various purposes (e.g. e-commerce) based on various reasons. But no, it certainly is not "vastly safer" for storing or even merely transferring your life savings, especially for a non-skilled person.
To elaborate more - each and every method of moving money has its own inherent risks. For example, when my father bought a car several times decades apart, he would take the cash both from home and bank, carry it in a jacket in an envelope to a dealer, put it on the table, immediately receive keys and papers for registration and drive away.
Fast forward in time and somebody had a very "clever" idea to outlaw paying more than 5,000 EUR in cash. Now, I have to wire transfer the funds in advance, wait for the transfer to clear and then come in to get the car. I certainly don't risk being mugged on my way to the dealer (in broad daylight, without advertising everyone, e.g. on social networks, that today I am buying a car and waving the wad of cash in a selfie). But if the limited liability company with 6,000 EUR liability deposit bankrupts, I will have neither the money (wire transfer have nothing like cashback on credit cards) nor the car until a lengthy legal process hoping that they have enough funds and property to pay out all creditors... You don't risk mugging but have to do way larger due diligence, check finance health of the company, ask around for customer feedback on the company, etc.
The focus is on being the next immediate crash. If you are asking whether there is a crash on 3 August, it is the unaffected odds of 1/365. But if you are asking whether the (first) next crash after 1 August is on 3 August, both the following must happen:
a) there is no crash on 2 August
b) there is a crash on 3 August
The gambler fallacy would be "I have seen 9 days without crash, on the 10th day there is higher odds of crash". But you are not asking this, you are asking: "What is the chance that in the next 10 days, exactly first 9 days would be no-crash and on the 10th day there is a crash".
EDIT: Also, another view:
If you have seen 9 blacks in a row, there is an even chance 1/2 (roulette without zero) that the next will be black or red. Because in all sequences of length 10 starting with 9 blacks (this is given, you observed this), there is equal number of those with 9 consecutive blacks and a red and of those with 9 consecutive blacks and a black. This is gambler fallacy, believing that after repeated colour, you have higher chance of the other colour.
Here, you are asking: how many of all sequences of length 10 have exactly 9 blacks and 1 red. And there are all kinds of sequences with 1 red in first 9 places, 2 reds, 3 reds, etc., so the odds of observing the 9 blacks in a row in the first place before asking about the 10th spin is lower, but it does not change the odds of the 10th spin itself.
> I wonder how safe the paternoster would be if it had modern safety devices, like a switch to shut it down if someone gets stuck in the parts? But one problem is that then everyone is stuck inside. You can just walk on an escalator when it's off.
Albeit somehow crude with no computers, infrared sensors or whatever, such safety devices are decades old.
For example, before the upward traveling cabin leaves the floor, there is a freely hanging wood panel -- if any part of you is sticking out, instead of being crushed in between the cabin and the next floor, you first hit the panel and lift it up, which trips a safety button shutting the whole elevator off. Or the last few inches of floorboards, both in the cabin and on the individual floors, are hinged.
As for being stuck inside when the safety trips -- having approximately one cabin per floor, each for two occupants at max, you are no worse than having a single cabin with multiple persons stuck in a traditional elevator. You can still walk on the adjacent staircase or use a traditional elevator. These elevators are also required to have a designated attendant (that does not mean a full time person sitting and doing nothing, for example a concierge can be in charge of that) and it is his or her role to immediately free (or call help) stuck people in case of safety cut out or power outage.
Transporting any cargo is usually strictly forbidden. Where I saw this type of elevator, there always was at least one traditional elevator in parallel (probably from the beginning, not only for the disabled, prams, or suitcases, you simply can't move furniture or dolly carts using this elevator).
So, if you are just a person running between departments, you can hop on. If you have luggage, kids, wheelchair, crutches or you are moving stuff between floors, you can use the traditional elevator as always.
I don't know if it is typical or not, but at least some of them have that. I saw one in Prague, Czech Republic (there was an ACM contest hosted on Czech Technical University).
When you look at the frame, where you enter the elevator ("door", "door frame" or however it should be called):
- a part of the floor is on hinges, so if you had your foot stuck between an oncoming floor board and cabin floor while traveling up, it would "open" and trip the safety,
- upper part is actually a freely hanging piece of wood, so if you had your head or limbs sticking out while traveling up, you would lift the piece of wood and trip the safety.
No idea about the actual cabins -- for example if you kept hanging on the floor while the cabin travels down onto you -- but I suspect that the top of the cabin works similarly to the top of the "door frame". If my memory is correct, the cabins also had hinges near the edge of their floorboards (e.g., foot between the floor and the cabin traveling down), but no idea if these also stop the entire system.
Only the visible chain mechanism when overriding top or bottom looked unsafe to me, because I stick my hands everywhere :)
PS: These safety parts looked almost as old as the elevator, so if they weren't a part of the original design, I would guess they were added a long time ago...
EDIT: I actually found a mention of regulation from 1982 stating that the sliding upper parts are mandatory both on the cabin and on the "door frame" and moving them must stop the elevator. The hinged floorboards on cabins and floors are also mandatory, but there is no mention that they should also stop the elevator.
See [1] (in Czech) for pictures.
Can't comment about mopeds, but in car, when your battery nears the end of its life, when you turn the steering wheel (with electric power steering) while stationary, headlights dim for a short moment until the alternator increases its output.
If I understand your description correctly (and it is the way it should be done, whether jumpstarting with external battery dolly or using another vehicle), you had the battery pack connected together with that old monstrosity of lead-acid battery at parallel, which still had some charge left and also acted as a buffer.
It would be completely different story having the lithium battery pack connected as the main and ONLY battery and cranking with it four times a day.
A typical car battery can begin at 55 Ah 12 V, this is for a European downsized petrol engine (larger engine requires more, diesel requires more, electric accessories require more) from before the advent of start-stop systems (start-stop requires better batteries or even two of them).
That is 660 Wh.
I guess the weight and volume of this in li-ion would be similar to or slightly better than lead-acid (imagine roughly 10x laptop battery or 75x 18650 cell), but the cost would be a multiple even at manufacturing prices.
Next, the car battery can sit in freezing cold for several days to weeks at -20 °C and still crank or it can be frying itself all day under direct sunlight. This is deadly for li-ion. Electric cars have heating and cooling systems for the battery packs even when the car sits still in a parking lot.
Also, while driving, the battery sits next to hot engine. You can move the battery elsewhere (driver seat or trunk, like the second battery for start-stop systems), but you need high-energy leads and the engine heat is actually a benefit for recharging the lead-acid in winter.
Compare all these complications to price, simplicity and reliability of nicely recyclable lead-acid box...
I think 55 Ah is a bit large for an econobox. That's about the size in my 6 cylinder volvo and my 6 cylinder pickup. I have seen quite a few small cars with batteries that look to me like they should be for a motorcycle.
I have replaced a few wet Pb batteries in my vehicles during the past couple years and the average lifetime I got from them is 9.5 years.
