Blooper

I agree with this, but also want to point out that gas stations are a poor substitute for a corner grocer or bodega. They are simply too large and require too much land for the function they are serving. Zoning rightfully mandates that they can’t be on the bottom floor of a larger building due to the dangers posed by gasoline and they require lots of space for cars to park.

Essentially, we have forfeited a lot of valuable space to dispensing gasoline and significantly diminished the best features of corner stores by making them serve both functions. I would be curious to see what would happen if gas stations were forbidden from serving anything other than gas in high density areas. I would assume there would be much fewer of them, and each one would be optimized for efficiency to take up as little space as possible. We would also likely see the reemergence of neighborhood bodegas and corner grocers to fill the gap.

That’s addressed in the article actually. They had to program it so as not to cheat when they found it actually trying to cheat.

What car did you end up getting?

I’ve always said that about one of my big reasons for buying an EV several years ago. By the time I’m in need of a replacement battery, it will be better in virtually every way - safer, faster to charge, higher capacity, lighter, and (potentially) cheaper. The first replacement battery might not be much of an improvement, but my 3rd might be light-years ahead.

They still do! Fastest wireless charge in the West.

It’s different because you seem to be saying “workers should be able to be incredibly vulnerable to the whims of employers because employers should be good people”. The other guy’s response to that is “why would we ever assume employers are going to be good to their employees absent any mechanism to enforce said good behavior?”

Correct. As well as literature and mandatory language detailing how to report fraud, or complain to a specific governing agency if you believe the card issuer is treating you unfairly or not complying with applicable laws. In the US, that would likely be the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau).

“These jackasses over here seem to want to live their lives happier, healthier, and carefree like some utopia or something. Dummies, amirite?”

Yeah I was talking about you.

This is why we don’t feed trolls

“No no, but what if the guy is just, like, at the table because he’s Nazi- curious but kind totally didn’t kill anybody and probably wouldn’t but also the Nazis make good points about stuff so he can totally sit there, but he’s not a Nazi! See? There are exceptions!”

-that guy, probably

I think a large part of the move towards integrated head units had to do with the mandated rear backup camera that necessitates a decent sized screen in the dash in order to use it. The death of CD’s and CD changers also allowed for the screens to grow in size. Lastly, the touchscreens themselves are ever cheaper to manufacture. I love the giant screen in my Chevy Bolt - especially given the Google integration means I don’t have to use the nonsense baked in apps from Chevy.

An anecdote:

My high-paying tech job wants us back 2 days a week. I intentionally bought a house near a train that will get me to the downtown office in about 15 minutes while many of my coworkers live in the distant suburbs where commuting will require a lot more time and effort.

Despite this, I STILL don’t go into the office. The biggest reasons:

1. Nobody is there - it’s a ghost town.
2. I’m far less productive while I’m there because I have to leave early to pick up my kids from school.
3. My boss doesn’t go in at all - ever - due to extremely valid health reasons (his wife is undergoing cancer treatment).
4. His boss moved out of state. Like way, way out of state. He’s got a nice office with a beautiful view. He doesn’t and can’t use it.
5. My boss’s boss’s boss - (the CTO) moved to Florida and, rumor has it, lives full-time on his yacht.

I mean… at some point we just have to acknowledge that our giant, empty office space would be much better suited as housing.

Absolutely fair. But as one of those IT dudes who used to be a contractor but now work for the same megacorp I was contracting for - I wouldn’t bet on it being super menial stuff. I love my job and my employer, but it’s very well understood that the agencies are essentially a cover for some fairly serious labor law violations.

Yes, I think that’s the reasonable argument Google’s lawyers and PR will use - but your example kind of demonstrates why that argument falls flat. The service DHL is providing to Amazon is logistics and shipping. This is an established, well-regulated industry all its own.

Meanwhile, at Google, this contractor’s services are listed in the article:

ensuring music content is available and approved for YouTube Music’s 80 million subscribers worldwide

That sounds an awful lot like running the service to me. These employees perform key YouTube-specific work on an ongoing basis. For all intents and purposes, they work for Google, in Google’s offices, on Google’s systems, but their paycheck comes from Cognizant. The services being rendered aren’t on the level of “you make the widget and we’ll transport it to stores around the country because we’re a shipping company”. This is more like “we employ people for you, but provide a flimsy air gap so you don’t have to treat them like actual employees. We sell legally plausible deniability as a service.”

I agree, but I still get a hard-on for the electric Hummer. Not because of the way it looks, but because of all the crazy shit it can do like crab walk and the huge ass battery it has. It’s actually a pretty amazing piece of tech.

-Bolt owner

I always make sure my logs are covered by Spunk.

Same. Bolt owner checking in. It’s fucking awesome and was - to me and my family- the obvious choice. It’s not for everyone, but if you can afford it and your lifestyle allows for it, it’s an easy decision.

Slowly but surely EV’s will be the default choice. Prices will continue to fall, infrastructure will improve, and gas will get ridiculously expensive. The tide is changing.

I live mostly this way. I have an electric car but I live in a very dense urban area and don’t drive much. Looking to get myself an ebike or scooter to use as my main mode of transportation.