I paid $6000 cash for my current car about eight years ago. I'm retired, so I only drive it about once a week. I've put less than 2000 miles per year on it. Also, no cameras, no screen, no phone app, no nothing I don't need or want.
There's no way I'm buying a $30,000 car, both because I couldn't afford it, and because what I have fits my needs perfectly.
So, are EVs "just better"? For some people, or maybe most, I imagine so. But, no, not for me, not unless the VW boss wants to give me one for free.
I was a graphic designer and department manager for many years. But, the work I there did went far beyond that into product design, and I also had to understand both the offset printing process, and screen printing pretty well. I also set up the shop's first network, because I was the only one who had a clue how to do it.
My first "real" job just out of high school was office machine repair tech, I have a high mechanical aptitude and took apart my toys and put them back together starting when I was a young kid.
A side story: When I was very young, I got both a mechanical toy helicopter that rolled around on the floor with spinning blades and flashing lights, and a tool set. The first thing I did was take apart the helicopter. But, I couldn't put it back together. It was years later that I realized my dad put it back together and saved it to give to me the next Christmas. When, I did exactly the same thing. He said I did that three times before I was able to put it back together again.
I've failed to some degree at every sales job I've tried. I tried more than once because of the potential earnings lure, but I just don't much like talking to random people.
Macadamia nuts. I can't have them in the house anymore. Once I bought a three-pound bag of them, and then I ate a three-pound bag of macadamia nuts. In one day. They're way too fucking expensive for that, and high in calories.
Sounds like an opportunity for workers to sabotage the system by using AI too much without increasing productivity. Let the assholes figure it out for themselves.
Uber caps employee AI spending after blowing through budget in 4 months
AI is getting expensive, and some companies are cutting back on usage in an attempt to moderate costs. That cohort includes Uber, which recently instituted internal usage caps as a way to cut down on its exorbitant AI spend.
Bloomberg reports that the company has instituted a new rule that places a monthly $1,500 cap per employee and per agentic coding tool, including Anthropic’s Claude Code or Cursor. The usage is trackable via an internal dashboard that each employee has access to, although — in certain cases — the caps can be exceeded with permission, the company says.
The news is perhaps not too surprising, since, in April, the company’s CTO revealed that the ridesharing giant had blown through its entire annual AI budget in a matter of four months. That appears to have occurred after Uber encouraged staff to use AI “as much as possible” and even ranked their internal usage competitively on internal leader boards, The Information previously reported.
Uber’s COO, Andrew Macdonald, also recently cast doubt on AI’s productivity impact, noting during a podcast appearance that “it’s very hard to draw a line” between AI usage and new consumer features.
Uber’s cutback raises a broader issue that the tech industry is currently facing: As enterprises pour money into AI, where exactly is the return on investment? Indeed, AI ROI has so far remained a largely theoretical phenomenon that everybody hopes will eventually materialize — although some companies are obviously getting a little restless while they wait.
I'm I missing something? This can't be the actual intent of the law, the actual intent for laws are rarely what they state. What are they really trying to do here? Or, are they really this fucking ignorant?
There's a difference between incest and inbreeding. Opposition to incest, that is sex for pleasure among family members, is a moral position, and apparently unique to humans.
Inbreeding, sex for reproduction, is blocked on a biological level more strongly in some species than others, but it still happens, of course.
In humans, and perhaps other species, there is sometimes sexual disinterest in closely related family members, but this is not "opposition to incest", and certainly is not universal.
Really, it's the sounds and odors I dislike the most. Bathroom stalls do nothing to alleviate those, no matter what they're made of. If they aren't completely walled-in, individual rooms with a fan, then they might as well be made of glass.
It occurs to me now, that the perfect public restroom is an airplane restroom. They're compact which reduces shenanigans-no one wants to spend any more time in there than necessary, made of stainless steel, include everything you need and nothing more, the door locks with an "occupied sign", the light and fan turn on, you do your business, clean up and get out.
I was surprised these things were allowed on public streets without first being certified by some strict regulatory body.
I WAS surprised, since I used to suffer under the delusion that someone, somewhere was looking out for public safety, at least on some basic level. Like the FDA, USDA, OSHA, etc. But, these institutions were so easily gutted and pushed aside, and the traffic laws we do have aren't nearly enough for regulating self-driving cars. We've always just allowed shit to happen as long as there are no existing laws to challenge it.
They kicked corporate money out of politics in Hawaii, that can't happen fast enough in every other state. Imagine having common sense measures put before the people, like "should we allow self-driving cars on public streets before there are laws to regulate them?" and NOT having corporate money flow into the state to shift public opinion and buy off local politicians.
Exactly. If the only cost to the company for any death or maiming these things cause is money, then it's just "the cost of doing business". They'll only make the cars as safe as the law says they must, and they'll pay to make those laws as weak as possible, and push the responsibility to anyone else they can.
I paid $6000 cash for my current car about eight years ago. I'm retired, so I only drive it about once a week. I've put less than 2000 miles per year on it. Also, no cameras, no screen, no phone app, no nothing I don't need or want.
There's no way I'm buying a $30,000 car, both because I couldn't afford it, and because what I have fits my needs perfectly.
So, are EVs "just better"? For some people, or maybe most, I imagine so. But, no, not for me, not unless the VW boss wants to give me one for free.