560: Lithium Batteries

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Lithium Batteries
I'm normally a pretty frugal person, but I still compulsively buy any R/C aircraft that's less than $30. In the last few years, this has become a problem.
Title text: I'm normally a pretty frugal person, but I still compulsively buy any R/C aircraft that's less than $30. In the last few years, this has become a problem.

Explanation

Randall muses that his life would have been better if he aged in reverse based on a timeline of the usage of lithium-ion batteries. Presumably, the reason is that each of these uses would come to realization when he most needed it (i.e. cheap RC aircraft as a child, a pacemaker when he is old, a phone when he is a rich businessperson, etc.). It might also be a shout-out to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", by F. Scott Fitzgerald or "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White where Merlin is described as a man living backwards through time as shown in this comic: 270: Merlin .

Lithium-ion batteries have one of the best energy densities and are common in most modern electronic devices like laptops, smartphones, and also air-planes like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The batteries have a serious risk of fire and in January 2013 the world wide Boeing 787 fleet was grounded for more than three months after such an incident.

In the title text Randall states that he is a big fan of cheap radio-controlled aircraft (powered by cheap lithium-ion batteries), which he direly wished he would have had as a child (as the main comic expresses). As such, he has an uncontrollable, instinctive urge to make up for his childhood lack of RC aircraft by buying every cheap one he sees, which is becoming a huge financial problem as RC aircraft get cheaper and cheaper.

Transcript

Timeline of Commercial Uses of Lithium Batteries:
[The panel has a timeline that goes from Past to Present. The timeline has 4 notches on it.]
Past
[the first notch, closest to the past side, has a picture of an old man with a walking stick.]
Pacemakers
[The second notch has an image of a man in a car, who is talking on his cell phone.]
Phones for Rich Business People
[The third notch, has a teen taking on his cellphone.]
Phones for Teenagers
[The forth notch, closest to the present on the timeline, and an image of a toy plane box with $10 written on it.]
Really cheap r/c planes and helicopters
Present
[Below the main panel.]
Life would be so much better if I was one of those people who aged backward.


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Discussion

Old pacemakers and phones kinda sucked. Might not be worth. Davidy²²[talk] 20:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

[it] Beanie (talk) 09:40, 19 April 2021 (UTC)