I am all for the oddball BMW machines, as I have a 2007 g650x-challenge, and the G310R is an interesting bike. I have been learning about the G310GS, as I am looking more toward the dual sport, ADV bike side of riding, but the G310R is pretty similar.
I think if I were looking for a road machine, I'd be looking for something with more engine than the G310, because when I'm on the road, rather than offroad, I want to feel that speed, and I'm not sure the G310 has the guts for that.
As a 6'2", 200lb rider, I might need a 600cc engine to get that pull I want. There must be some graph to say 300cc is good for 120lb people, 500 is fine for 170lb people, etc.
I do hear good things about the G310R and G310GS. I have swung a leg over the GS, but I haven't ridden one.
I think it really depends on how much high-speed highway riding, if any, you want to do and gearing. Almost all the reviews say that the 310R can do highway (official top speed 88 mph), and it's fine for a few exits during a commute, but buzzy for long highway trips. But are 500 mile Interstate rides what you really want to do on a bike?
Unless you've tried don't be so certain. I'm also pretty sure I prefer innies over outies but I've never given an outie a go so I don't speak in absolutes. A wise man once told me that you get 3 tries before it's official.
the most hilarious thing about this is the the guys that would buy something like this arent going to try to simulate a california 6 but more likely sally from cars
and that is the most tame thing i can think of because the reality is far weirder
Who are these 17% of dealers who do want the Feds to mandate EVs? I figure they’re either (1) lying because they want to be politically correct or (2) they sunk a bunch of money into EV charging infrastructure, etc. at their dealerships and their competitors did not, so they want an EV mandate to drive up costs for competing dealerships. Maybe a few of them are in extremely wealthy lefty locations where it’s easy to sell everyone an EV.
The 17% were corporate managers filling the survey out on behalf of the corporate dealership owners, as opposed to dealer principals who have their own name on the roadside sign. Depend on it.
I just listened to a rousing episode of the inEVitable podcast with Ed Loh and Jonny Blubberman in which they interviewed a woman in STEM who got very close to saying that the government must mandate EVs.
At least for GM dealers, GM was having to offer to pay to put in charging systems at dealers in the mid-south where my buddy reps 15-20 different dealers across southern IL, IN, KY, and western TN. The dealers know they can't sell the volume of EV's to justify the cost of installing the infrastructure. My buddy has been in the GM world since 2020 and it is humbling seeing his about-face from drinking the Bara kool-aid to listening to his dealers that make the company money.
The overall infrastructure is what really gets me about these morons. Everyone is talking about last mile and proprietary chargers, meanwhile California already has rolling brownouts and wild fires caused by bad powerlines. I saw a possibly exaggerated but not by much estimate that Northern Virginia would need something like 13 new nuclear plants just for the planned data centers. Rich NIMBYs don't want more lines run. And assuming global warming is real we are all going to have to turn up the AC.
Most people cannot solve Partial Differential Equations or convert between Lagrangian, Hamiltonian, and Koopman-von Neumann formulations of classical mechanics in their heads, and that's OK.
But this kind of GROSS INNUMERACY, not even understanding the difference between the weight of an ant and the weight of all the world's elephants combined, is ruining society. It's the same "idea" that drives immigration "policy": "a nation of immigrants," "no human is illegal," "migration is a human right" and then they're shocked when 6 BILLION people show up at the homeless shelter.
I'm beyond ready for the EV wave to die, but there's too much money behind it. The govt will force whatever it wants, whenever it wants to whomever it wants. Even if it kills themselves in the process. Every new vehicle release anymore that I manage to get excited about is either ungodly butchered (Bronco) or is set to release as EV only (Jeep Recon). All I want to do is replace this stupid Escape with something less pleb that hopefully wont rust as bad and has a touch of "fun" sprinkled in.
Apple watches really accentuate arm fat like a rubber band over a sausage. Its an extra feature that makes me hate seeing them more. Not only do you look like a nerd but you look like an out of shape one to boot. My wife has one. I call her "Lames Bond" when she's wearing it.
Looking forward to more of the guest articles. Its always fun to read and you can never have too much content.
When Bugatti first announced they would not have screens because they wouldn’t age well and Bugattis must be timeless, that made a real impression on me. I hate the screens beyond a basic Satnav/radio interface.
Also, on things I hate- automatic climate control. I love reading when an auto- journo whines about a vehicle not having automatic climate controls. I prefer to chose my fan speed and temp. Simple tech is all I need. Along with low weight and lots of horsepower. The basics only please.
I don’t think I’ve ever used automatic climate control on a car, just don’t see the need for it. It’s the obtrusive tech that’s the problem. I hope there’s a car one of these days where they make the tech disappear, or at least have a goal of nothing but simple tech.
This. Most of my cars that have had it were set it 70 and forget about it for the duration of ownership. Never even have to mess with the defroster, because the windows never fog up.
The exceptions were a 4th gen 4Runner that was too dumb to toggle the AC on/off on its own and would blast hot air in your face. And an Outback that had wildly inaccurate temprature settings and would lose all adjustability every time the giant touchscreen would shit the bed and take 10 minutes to finally reboot, which happened at least once a week.
I’ve had four Accords with automatic climate control, and they’re great; Honda does it right!
I set mine to 68 degrees when I have the furnace on in the house, 70 during the spring and fall, and 72 when the normal high temperature in my area is at or above 72 degrees, so the fan doesn’t run as high. I hit AUTO in the summer to run the A/C, and keep the A/C off the rest of the time. (Except I’ll run it occasionally during the colder months, and it’ll kick on automatically when I hit defrost, at least if the OAT is above freezing.)
In any car with manual controls, I’d be constantly, CONSTANTLY fiddling with the fan and mode, plus the temperature during the winter! Despite our lack of snow in Northwest Ohio this past winter, we still got down into the single digits a few times, and all I’d do on those days is set the mode to windshield/floor, and leave everything else alone! Set and forget! 👍
Agreed. We have had various Jeeps, Rams, Chrysler, a Cadillac, and now Ford. The auto climate worked well on all except for my current F-150, although oddly my wife's Escape is pretty good. A quick 2-3 degree adjustment, depending on my feels that day, is all they usually need. My F-150 roasts me in the winter, I don't believe it is set to 70 degrees lol
There's a fundamental flaw with automatic climate control in vehicles. The temperature in the car is controlled, OK fine. But what you feel, to different degrees (no pun intended!) depending on distance to the vents, is the temperature of the air coming out of the vents.
When I had my car into the body shop six weeks or so ago, Enterprise blessed me with a Mitsubishi Outlander which had one of those!
I drove from the Enterprise agency in Bowling Green, OH (after spending 15 minutes in the parking lot trying to figure out all the garbage on the thing), and then when I got to downtown Toledo to go to work, I had passed the entrance to my parking garage (they had switched the lane I usually drive into from entrance to exit), and after I realized that, and pulled over to get my bearings, it literally took me five minutes to figure out how to get the damned shifter into Reverse!
That Mitsu had the same type of shifter as the BMWs and Benzes, and yet every auto reviewer complains to high heaven about the pushbuttons on Honda transmissions, which are mastered in five minutes! Tops!
Many years ago I was glancing in a jewelers window and commented to my Sweet that I really like the looks of old timey rectangular wrist watches with analog faces .
I'm wearing the Breitling (? SP ? spell check says so) she bought me on a whim, when I'm working, riding Motocycles & etc. I wear an old Timex .
It’s not very classy of me, but as long as the phone in my pocket works I see no point in owning a watch aside from the want to wear something with either sentimental value, the idea of having some sort of mechanical failsafe to know time (?), or just wanting to wear jewelry.
I can understand having one from a tactical standpoint etc or situation where you aren’t digging a phone out, but as much as I use my phone as a tool for work it’s second nature to check the time there.
That said I’m not big on jewelry at all so I’m likely an odd man out in general. I don’t like wearing extra things on my body that get in the way / scratch stuff / etc
If you're interested in a fitness watch that's more traditional, look at Withings. Analog face with 2 smaller dials, one tracks steps with a pointer, the other is a screen for additional data - heart rate, step, etc
Look under most if not all Ford Lightnings and you’ll usually find the catalytic converter is missing. Further more, most dealers and auto part retailers can’t even get you one let alone even quote you a price! So with that in mind I’d say 499 to protect such a rare and desirable part is well worth it!
Dealer networks prove their worth. At long last. When I first started reading you, I was selling Nissan, Cadillac, GMC, Buick, Pontiac (briefly), Mitsubishi, Lincoln, and Mercury (briefly) cars and trucks. I really liked teaching normies and the other sales guys about the cars. Those bump stickers always pissed me off. Our store only put them on very rare pieces - EVO, GTR, CTS-V... that kinda thing. Everything else went out the door around invoice.
Seeing catalytic converter etching on a lightning is sad. But often, the folks ordering and pricing the cars know even less about them than the average salesman. I could see customers actually paying that.
On phones - I've developed an unhealthy habit with mine. But I tend not to even touch my work phone over the weekend. I'm trying...
A lot of the non-luxury dealerships around me, as a general rule, apply an ADP sticker (with tint, ceramic coat, and perhaps something else) to all of their inventory. IME, unless it’s something especially rare or fancy, balking and looking incredulous is enough to get the fee removed and at least get back to MSRP.
By contrast, the luxury car dealers do not play that shit. It’s one reason I do like buying cars from premium brands. Having bought both in recent years, I see Toyota’s core brands at the extreme ends of the spectrum. You’ll have the worst-ever experience trying to buy a Grand Highlander from the sleazy Toyota dealer and the best-ever experience trying to buy a TX 350 from the top-notch Lexus dealer.
The only non-luxury brand I’ve dealt with where the experience was straightforward and pleasant was Subaru. I put my name on an incoming unit at MSRP, asked politely to have the doc fee removed (and they obliged), brought a sight draft in from my credit union once the car arrived…and that was that.
I have 2 cars with ceramic coat, and it’s great for cleaning bugs and tar off without much effort, as long as you use the right products. Much easier to keep your car clean and reduce maintenance time. One of my cars has ceramic coat on top of the PPF and nothing sticks to that. The best way to dry that car after a wash is a quick drive at 60 mph.
It makes cleaning so easy that it reduces the turn around time on my rental jeeps. I also tell myself it helps against redneck pinstriping. It probably doesn't.
I did the ceramic coat on the Bullitt, but NOT at the dealer. I found the top exotic car detailer in the area, had him do a bunch of paint correction on the truly shit and riotously poor quality Ford paint. The Dark Highland Green it came with was a truly beautiful colour. It just needed a bunch more coats.
Every once in awhile someone parks a Bullitt on the street in front of my house and every time I have to take a closer look while thinking, "This could be fun..."
I miss my '02 F150 with Metallic Highland Green. Sadly, the 4.6 would never tow my travel trailer with alacrity like my Yukon Denali 6.2 does. Exceedingly boring two blacks and a white in my driveway these days.
I ceramic coated the front of my travel trailer but the corrugated aluminum doesn't seem to make it any easier to remove the bugs.
I’m going to follow your example to the luxury brand store next time. On the other hand my most recent experience with the nearby used Honda dealer was in 2020. When they couldn’t beat the Credit Union rate I had walked in with, the rest didn’t take much time. They even skipped the chat with the “business manager.”
Frankly I was almost insulted, because I assumed that my gray hair was the cause of the omission!
Around here the Toyota dealer experience hits both extremes. A couple of them want to hit you with every fake fee and slimy sales pitch they can come up with. The one we’ve gone with for the last two cars charges MSRP for everything but doesn’t dick around with fake fees or high pressure tactics. On a five figure purchase I’m willing to spend a couple hundred bucks extra for a pleasant experience.
I had good experiences at my local Ford (sales only service has been hot fucking garbage) and Subaru (again issues with service) dealers. My local VW shop did my wife a solid on her (then 1 year old dealer owned loaner) Tiguan when she wrecked her Juke.
*admittedly, the Ford and Subaru are tuned to the nth degree.... but that shouldn't affect things like syncing my remotes. And you shouldn't charge me if you're going to refuse to work on my heaps.
The last brand new car I purchased was a 2014 Charger from Bob Moore on the Northwest Expressway. I ate the window tint and wheel locks because they still gave me a price I couldn't come close to touching near me. Flew into town with a check from the credit union and still had the damn finance guy try to do the hard sell on an extended warranty. Miserable sons of bitches. If I had to purchase a brand new car again I think the pistol would be openly displayed on my hip instead of concealed while my hand continually and enthusiastically checked to make sure it was still present in their presence.
Here in the UK I have noticed that driving has become much more "freeform" in the last 20 years or so; I don't know if this relates to the arrival of many people from countries with a more colourful approach to driver training or the almost complete substitution of cameras for traffic police. The behavioural contrast between the two, slightly divergent motorways out of west London is extreme; the M4 is law abiding (cameras everywhere since they turned the emergency lane into permanent running), the M40 (no cameras, yet) is where the boys go to clear the sleeping bats out of their exhausts - I was passed by someone doing at least 110mph on Saturday night. So one has a choice - take the M4 and hope you don't breakdown or take the M40 and make sure you keep out of the way.
When I bought my Mustang, they tried to sell me paint protection. I told them if the paint was so bad from the factory it NEEDED protection, I didn't want the car.
That’s one of those pages that dealerships have their SEO company build for them to rank higher in Google searches and isn’t really for customers to find. I’m sure the twenty-something who built that page had no idea. They really ought to hide that page.
The CEL just came on in my 2001 Ford Ranger 2.5L, I recently replaced the air idle solenoid and cleaned the intake air sensor, at twenty years and 130,000 miles I plan to replace the N02 sensor soon, clear the codes and see if it's okay or what else (? E.G.R. valve ?) might be bad .
As a second-to-early adopter, I would be interested in purchasing something along the lines of the Rabbit device when i see someone intelligent and capable - someone of Sherman' McCoy's caliber - using one in public.
As a note on the apple watch, most people I have spoken with say it engenders a virtuous cycle where they now use their iPhones LESS after purchasing one. It's somethign they attest to and I can't comment, but it's worth noting.
Also worth noting is that *among all wristwatches*, the most commonly-worn wristwatch among my friends in the 200k-to-1M of W2 or partnership income earning band is the apple watch, and it's not even close. I couldn't hazard a guess but would interest me to know what direction the correlation/causation/??? is flowing here
The most popular watch in my military cohort is usually something garmin. The instinct is extremely popular. Then there are some fenix wearers (myself), a bunch of apple watches, and lastly, a few g-shocks. The "field watch" is pretty rare sadly. I love that style.
Me too. Fenix 7X Pro Sapphire Solar. And a Fenix 5S Sapphire before that. My wife uses that watch now.
I wish I could be a "wears a watch on both wrists" guy. I'd love to wear my g-shocks and seikos and such on my left and my garmin on my right. I just can't do it....
Me and my coworkers - software developers at a non-tech Fortune 500 company in a third-tier American metro - are the persons for whom the Apple Watch is for. Yes, it is a deeply uncool life. It's a life that doesn't necessitate having to project an image that an Apple Watch would work against.
Personally, I can't say that I use my phone any more or less after living with this gadget on my wrist for the last few years. What the Apple Watch does do is a bunch of useful small things that add up to a big hurdle that for me seemingly only an Omega Aqua Terra can jump over. I'd love an Aqua Terra but at this point in my life, I can't fathom spending more money on a watch than my all-cash LASIK surgery.
I would want it for the fitness, but what my friends who lessened their screen time indicate is that it allows them to *change their notifications program entirely*
Obviously one could simply turn one's phone off, but what they describe is more facility with easily setting up a regime that helps them lessen non-critical interruptions while allowing the critical ones through
I've done the math on LASIK, if your vision is still changing you'll be back in glasses or needing to have LASIK again if you can, on average, in 10 years. Unless you need it for your profession, you'll spend less on glasses and or contacts over that 10 years vs the LASIK. I've worn glasses since I was 7, so it might not be as big of a deal for me to continue to wear them but I'd be buying the nicest Aqua Terra well before I coughed up for LASIK.
I admit to being "uncool" and wearing an Apple Watch. And while I still have the urge to buy some old IWCs or maybe that new Tudor Black Bay 58 I wanted to gift myself for my 40th birthday, I would actually never go back.
The mechanical watch is a cool thing and a great status symbol, but it's also totally useless at what it's supposed to do, and wildly expensive.
Apple Watch works much better as watch, it, indeed, makes you look at your iPhone less (because you don't need to check it) and it tells you a bunch of other useful or at least interesting things, from daily number of steps to heart rate to compass to temperature outside (that one I use surprisingly often). Plus it's got it's own copy of eSIM, which is very handy when you let your iPhone run out of battery and need to contact someone (happens to me more often than I would like to admit).
Does it look dorky? Maybe, I don't give a shit. Similar thing to Jack going from leasing Phaetons and thinking about Bentleys to a V6 Accord. I have better things to do with my money than spend $5k on a watch which might've been an appreciating asset in last 10 years, but won't be in another 10 (also, I bought my Apple Watch slightly used or "opened", which meant it cost less then half of the price of new one, while being only the "last years model".
They have been, for some time, but I doubt it at this point. Maybe some ultra-collector pieces, but after period of everything going up in a crazy way, I don't think it will continue.
Plus I'm too poor for the most desirable pieces – and Black Bay 58 can now be used for noticeably less than it sells new, while the IWC I want, the caliber 3706 pilot watch, costs about the same for years now.
The Black Bay is the only relatively expensive watch I own. I do enjoy that it is the Chevy (or Seat or Skoda to you) of the Rolex brand. I got it when they were introduced in the USA for about half of what Tudor charges now. I still find it delightful.
I have long thought that the current social media and app-driven hegemony will persist until the dominant form-factor of the device (i.e., a phone) changes.
A powerful and convincing contention. Props to the Rabbit guys for trying
Still, what a lot of novel personal-AI stuff suggests to me is that anyone handling incoming requests (think small service business) will soon need an "incoming bullshit" filter, similar to Captcha at website logins.
I can send 20+ quote requests to businesses for a bit of home repair work already via Angi, Yelp and others---god knows how good this tech will get with AI.
Imagine the race-to-the-bottom effects of attempting to compete. You need either a dedicated quote runner (remote via facetime or something) or just an AI-response-AI to ignore most and handle some of the requests.
0-I have a cigar friend who is an angel investor. He is in his mid-60s, but very spry (both physically and intellectually). He made his money in the cinema business (he was a co-founder of Regal Cinemas) but has done a number of interesting things over his career. I admire him and would be fortunate to emulate his life.
He sits on the board of a company that offers a “second-screen” experience for sports fans; I have done some consulting work for the company. One thing I have argued is that it is terribly difficult to compete for any consumer’s time / attention with a new product, given the vast possibilities for endless titillation. After 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of work, it’s hard to conquest any of that remaining 8 hours away given people have to eat, commute, perform household chores, and parent before they start doomscrolling on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc., listening to podcasts, watching YouTube or every streaming service under the sun. There’s no time left!
The apple watch is an interesting piece. It is popular with that crowd and it also seems to be popular with the sub100k crowd. The amount of service workers I see wearing Apple watches is concerning given their cost, then again most of them probably have a less than 3 year old iPhone in their pocket too.
I'm pretty sure my 20-something kids use their iPhones (naturally) less than I use my Google Pixel. But neither is a social media kind of guy.
I'm not understanding what those devices you're talking about are supposed to actually do. Are they for wearing so the phone stays home? Or a redundant device?
My lawyer cohort in the 1% earnings level is largely immune to the Apple watch thing. More Rolexy. Associates wear the Apple thingies.
I enjoy Grattan a lot more that WFH, so I’d say go on the 17th. I’ll take turn 11-12 at grattan over swamp turn 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. Envious you get to enjoy both so soon!
It seems EVs are so popular one of my local Ford dealers (Southern Nevada) sent me a letter offering retail for my car in trade and the promise of an additional 7K if my new car choice is a Mach E Mustang. Good luck with that.
Those Mach Es were very visible around here when they first came out. Nowadays, if I see one in a month, it's an event. I suspect they got lured in with the hype and cash bribes on the hood, found out how horrible it was as a transportation device, and dumped it before the lease ended. Lyriq: same story, except I still haven't seen any on the road, just at the dealer. And the dealer is smart, they never had more than 2 or 3 in stock.
My brother recently had to get a new car, and wound up with a bright red CPO Crosstrek. As you know I don't really love the wagons/hatchbacks with SUV Halloween costumes, but it's a pretty versatile model. And my brother and his wife are pretty active people, they far prefer a hatchback to a sedan or truck. It rides pretty nice too.
It's nice to know that normal people can purchase Subie wagons in the rest of the country. In the Centennial State they're the canvas used by the absolute worst people to declare that they are such.
Real "I'm not religious but I find the outdoors very spiritual" types that use their car's hatch to display the sticker of every leftist idea they can get their granola, Australian Shepherd hair, and weed soaked hands on.
I toyed with the sure fire money making idea of creating a stretched Forester limo specifically catering to lesbian weddings in Boulder County. But I don't hate anyone enough in my circle to have them be seen in a Subaru.
And don't forget that the Subaru has single handedly replaced the Camry, Corolla and every Buick in Colorado as the left lane crippler. Foresters are the worst, followed by Outbacks and Crosstreks. WRXs don't count since they're fueled by testosterone and bring their own kind of menace. I do anything I can to get around a Subaru or avoid being behind one at a light in Colorado.
I first complimented the driver on the Bolt, said I had heard good things about them, and he was incredulous. Basically said to me “where did you hear that?” Then he went into a long list of things he hated about it, ending with that he couldn’t wait to get rid of it. Anecdotal, but he drives for a living and I don’t.
Yeah, I can believe a long litany of complaints about the car, especially against something more expensive. The Bolt is basically an economy car. I just have trouble believing it would cost more to charge it than fill it.
If you think of it unscientifically it could make sense to this driver. And this may be the way a general consumer could think of comparing an EV to an ICE vehicle.
“Every time I fill up the Subaru it costs me $50, but every time I charge the Bolt it costs me $60.
Note that there’s no consideration of distance covered, just the cost “every time I…..”
Gianni, you were in two of the highest average income counties in America. Populated by people that draw 6 figure salaries for doing the bidding of the deep state or are the deep state themselves. They excel at making life in the real America as difficult as possible. You saw a lot of Mach-e’a, and Tesela’s and any number of image vehicles. They can afford to drive an EV to the office to communicate their adherence to the Uniparty. But if you caught up with the majority of them in the PA mountains in the summer you would see them driving their Yukon Denali’s or Chevy High Country or camping in their F-450 Phoenix Cruiser….
I thought it was strange compared to Microsoft’s backyard where you see lots of Model X’s, Model S’s, and the other Tesla crap along with the occasional Lucid, Taycan, Rivian, but very rarely a Mach-e.
Checks out. Federal employee relatives in NoVa ordered a Mach-E relatively early and waited nearly a year for it to be built, presumably at full price.
Just to offer a counterpoint: My wife and I bought a Mach-E in September, 2022, and have so far had nothing but a great experience with it. It's quick, comfortable, reliable, and provides ample range. I've found nothing to complain about with the fit and finish. It drove us from Oakland to Tucson and back with zero problems and never more than a 20 minute stop to charge the pack.
Time will tell, of course, but with 30k on the clock, so far it's been a fine transportation device.
Chuck you should do a guest post describing your EV trip from Oakland to Tucson and back. I worked in Tucson in the mid 1990’s and running up to Phoenix in July or August took a toll ion my car and really worked the AC. All the information I have, and I imagine many ACFers have is Jacks description of traveling in the SW in an EV and if you have read it, it was not pretty. A counter opinion would be interesting.
I did write a long post in response to Jack’s admittedly horrible experience with the Tesla.
I am not someone who believes EVs are the answer, nor am I saying anyone who doesn’t want an EV ought to be required to drive one. I understand and appreciate that they don’t work for many people, and I recognize the issues with regard to mining, resources, and the geopolitics of China and Korea providing most of the cells. I also realize public charging is still a shitshow and that I’m fortunate to be able to do most of my charging at home.
I just try to offer an honest assessment of one person’s experience with the technology.
Even in metro-detroit where I live, which is a huge subsidized leasing market, has tons of leftover 2023 Mach-E's. My wife wants one as you can sign and drive a premium (mid level package?) AWD with dual battery for $480/36 months. It is telling that one of the top biggest Ford dealers in the country, down the street from my house, still has several 23's on the lot.
Throwing this up for discussion this week - some people talked to Adweek on background about Hodinkee's post-pandemic slump. Excerpts from the piece:
"Neither Hodinkee nor Crown & Caliber were profitable when they merged in 2021, according to five people familiar with the companies' finances. But the combined operation generated more than $100 million in revenue that year as the new and pre-owned watch markets surged during the pandemic.
Hodinkee brought in money from its affiliate marketing, advertising and insurance operations, but between 50% and 66% of its total revenue came from Crown & Caliber, which had thinner margins, those people said.
[...]
The downturn, in combination with cuts to the overall business, led revenues at the combined company to decline, from around $85 million in 2022 to roughly $60 million in 2023, according to one of those people.
Other expenses further weighed on its balance sheet. In 2019, Hodinkee signed a 10-year lease on a brick-and-mortar outpost in the SoHo neighborhood of New York--the location of the original Supreme store, according to two people familiar with the strategy. But more than five years later, the store has yet to open.
The company was unprofitable in 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to Hodinkee founder and executive chairman Benjamin Clymer."
* It's hard for me to imagine a LARGE NUMBER of people with both the disposable income and the desire to FREQUENTLY TRADE in used luxury watches
* I always hated the name "Hodinkee." Maybe I just don't get it, but I don't want to be associated with either "ho" or "dinky," let alone both...or it sounds like some sort of anti-Asian slur.
Central, sir, central. Wien is to the east of here :) I think the word for "watch" is different in most other Slavic languages. Hodinky (which is diminutive from "hodiny", which means both "hours" and a large clock) is specifically Czech term. Maybe Slovak has similar or identical word.
My distaste for Hodinkee is such that I would be willing to endure a few moments of really sharp personal pain and misery -- let's say, a fingernail removal, or two -- if it ensured that everyone ensured in that enterprise never crossed my vision again. I bought and resold a few of the Sistem51 collabs, and I have the Mayer G-Shock, but in both cases I'd have paid MORE to not have the Hodinkee name.
It's always interesting seeing the differences between a man's wives. My aunt married into NYC area $$, and a friend of my uncle is on his 2nd wife. I feel like he should have been able to do better given his resources.
On the other hand, Dad's buddy's FOURTH wife is a saint. I never knew the other ones but 4 is a wonderful woman
I have an Apple Watch, but I much prefer a 60$ casio g shock, they don’t need to know my heart rate or my ten thousand steps. The government is going to force car buyers into ev’s by mandating insane policies regarding emissions, which won’t do bunk for the actual atmosphere, automakers are already subsidizing the engineering and build costs with pricing their gas equivalents with much higher prices, glad I am old and don’t need to buy anything!
"Those of us who grew up without smartphones likely can’t quite understand the antipathy young people often have to the devices."
I disagree; I feel that those who grew up without them knew what was like before, and somewhat wish that we could go back. I personally hardly use a phone at all, and I remember even the damage to public spaces that happened when most students started carrying around dumb phones, then iPods, so I wish that we could go back before that.
Also, I liked using computers as tools for work, not as an attention-suck and time suck, and try to recreate that as much as possible, e.g., blocking YouTube in /etc/hosts.
Computers are wrenches, hammers and screwdrivers. THEY ARE TOOLS, NOTHING MORE. They are not endlessly fascinating ends in themselves, despite what the geeks will tell you.
(They did another one with a young woman named Allison. Note: part of the effect of inhalants is due to displacing the brain's oxygen supply, but ALSO the chemicals themselves are believed to have have an intoxicating and perhaps neurotoxic effect)
The theory of a cyclical nature of history is emphasized when one clicks a link like this one and finds a young man who looks as if he has just been at a Jethro Tull concert in 1972.
3) Dick Pountain [giggle] writes from London to review the Amstrad CPC 464, admitting that the UK home computing experience is almost exclusively gaming, unlike the US.
4) FORTRAN vs APL vs Pascal vs TKSolver to do engineering p 394 - 396
5) Interview with Woz (typical of more modern content) p.168; discusses riding his motorcycle while having amnesia
6) A printer for banana-eating blondes in bed, p 210 (paging James Lileks!)
7) Some pseudocode for variable-precision mathematical operations in C p. 211
8) Signal analysis hardware and software for evaluating your stereo system (p 223); there is an ad for a circuit layout package elsewhere, and, in general, a surprising amount of hardware/EE content
I was kind of itrigued by that Rabbit R1 thing, then read this on their site:
"rabbit OS operates apps on our secured cloud, so you don’t have to. Log into the apps you’d like rabbit to use on your system through the rabbit hole to relay control. You only need to do this once per app."
This sounds like (to me) that rabbit-corp has the data mining built in. At least with a de-googled phone OS, you can tailor how much or how little you are tracked/etc.
If the user has to log into/access an app on their server, then we can only assume that such actions are all stored/logged/tracked. Whatever rabbit-corp ultimately decides to do with all the data is the 64-bit question. They can be nice and offer some sort of privacy pledge, or sell it down the river to any interested parties at any time, and if the concept/device never takes off and fails, the service/backbone is shuttered, etc. where will all that data end up? It's still an intriguing idea overall, but if the whole cloud/'relay control' is handled like shit, that's a problem.
I personally think any data mining is bad, unfortunately nobody will really be free of it until somebody brings the world wide intertubez down for good. Freeing a whole generation from the screen is good in theory, but it sounds very much along the lines of: 'You will own nothing and be happy.'
any idea on how to cut down on how much of your data gets harvested whithout going so far as to airgap your phone or is that mostly a waste of effort at this point
I get asked this a lot. My first question is how much inconvenience are you willing to live with?
There’s a sliding scale from “I don’t want to be on Facebook” to “I want to live like Uncle Ted”. It depends upon what sacrifices you’re willing to make, what data you don’t want to put out there, and who you’re thing to protect your data from.
Most people recycle passwords and don’t use multi-factor authentication. If you make it that easy for someone to assume your identity, there’s little hope for concealing your identity.
I always tell people to start with some sort of password manager and enable MFA on any account they can. That’ll at least mitigate against an account takeover. If they say that is too much of a pain to deal with, then I suggest that they’re not ready to clean up their digital footprint.
I mean I've been ready to clean my act up and am already somewhat familiar with OSINT and just how easy it really is to find someone, but I still have to maintain an online presence for some things, like this site. It would be nice to remove what's out there, but I'm not sure those paid data-broker removal sites do anything or if I should be using Tor and non-google apps like proton mail or what have you. I bet I can still be found pretty easily. What password account manger do you recommend or is a pen and a pad still the best?
There’s a ton of password managers out there. I usually hesitate to recommend specific products to people, but honestly OnePassword works well enough that I normally point people in that direction. It’s easy to use, integrates well with mobile and the browser extensions make life easy.
KeyPass is Open Source and arguably “better” but is not as consumer-friendly.
I guess technically a pen and pad is most “secure” in theory but I’d never recommend that.
As far as data mining goes, that’s where things get tricky. Lowest hanging fruit but perhaps the most difficult would be to abandon Google if/where possible. Especially Gmail.
This is all kind of moot if you’re using a regular Android phone, IMO. Then again, you other options are Apple and/or some kind of Android fork that may or may not have its own security flaws.
There are guides out there to opt out of various Data Brokers and the like, but you have to do so regularly.
If you’re looking to obfuscate where you live, be aware that many municipalities use BSA Online or similar for various functions and that means your property record is posted publicly. Only way to “fix” that is to have your property in the name of a trust. In that instance, I’d recommend something other than “Speed Family Trust” or similar.
I have two factor an all my financial accounts but dear God I do not need two factor on everything. Our Cloud audit software require two factor to log in, then the software it uses requires two factor to function and then it signs us out in 4 mins and we get to do it all over again.
Burner dumbphone maybe. I've tried a couple of de-googled android OS's on a smartphone and they work OK for the most part. There are also open source apps available that don't track you (Fdroid app store). You can eliminate all of it, but the inconvenience factor increases. Unfortunately my employment requires Micro$oft products, so I've had to make a couple of compromises. I am able to make most tracking software not as shitty, but it stops working if you don't let it communicate with the mothership.
Sounds like a possibility. I suppose I could set up my S6 with some of the apps when I move to my S23FE. Ever tried Graphene OS? My concern with running apps or other software not available is bricking the phone. I'm not terribly proficient with downloading and running programs.
I was interested in Graphene, but the fact that it only runs on Pixel phones is just too much cognitive dissonance for me. Other OS's like Lineage will run on a lot of (older) phones. Installing this stuff is sometimes tricky/annoying, but usually there's decent documentation from the people maintaining the builds.
Burner dumb phone. Burner laptop bought from a pawn shop in cash. Burner credit cards to obfuscate payments.
The problem with this is that the surveillance state is so pervasive that managing it all is like a second job. Even then, one minor slip up and you have to basically start over.
Pretty much. In the last week I simply jumped ship from one de-googled phone OS + their included privacy/whatever email service to another competing OS and a separate/new email provider. Then I had to reauthenticate all the Micro$oft crap I need for work. It's not really that daunting, but there's a definite level of hair-pulling involved, especially when shit don't work right.
I couldn't imagine trying to maintain a full-on scorched-earth invisible-user mode. Might be easier to just rid yourself of all computers, smartphones, technology, etc. You'd basically disappear, but at the same time it would be impossible to do certain things because needing an online presense is so insanely persvasive.
Some local project cut a fiber optic line the othet day. Our phones went down but our internet didnt. The neighbors internet went down and so did my home internet. Our tax software, which isnt on the cloud, still requires the internet to function. All the other tax software is mostly cloud only. So 4 days before the filing deadline we were an inch away from being completely offline. I bill 3-5k a day usually these days. Multiply this by 13 workers and we have no backup plan. We have no backup option. I hate the internet of things.
A large part of my summer internship with Ford was about the dealers and the floorpan financing. The system is so broken, but somehow keeps working! Maybe things have changed, but the dealers couldn't choose their inventory. A truck would show up with mix of crap and they'd prey for pickup trucks and well optioned mustangs depending on the state. The cool part was all the data. I had access to Ford's inventory and it was awesome! But it was pretty obvious that many people I spoke with had ever looked at it or received any reports from it, because I would get questions like "how do you know that?" Well see right here... these are the models on dealer lots that have exceeded their floorpan financing... Which led to us recommending three trim levels because it was a mess! like almost impossible to go through the data there were do many variations on each car. Actually I need to go find our presentation. Im pretty sure we suggested Platinum for one of the trims.. huh. I always wondered if one exec in the huge auditorium was like this makes sense and used our summer road map to guide their career... haha. I doubt it. But our report made a lot of sense. When did ford start using Platinum?
It's also wild how the dealers use different strategies depending on their size and location. Some dump the low profit models as fast as possible and keep the floorpan financing. Others use the time to wait for a higher profit sale. Ohhh I assume it still works this way. Ford sell the car to the dealer at a discount with 6 months(?) of floorplan financing taken off the top. Sell the car day one and thats your profit. Wait 6 months and its financing cost.
The one that was consistent was "no more crown Vics, I have a pile of them in the corner of the lot" I need to find my report, but they stayed on dealers lots for like 9 months on average or something crazy until someone asked about it and they would practically give it away! Soooo I told Ford to stop putting them on the trucks to retail dealers and focus on fleet sales and cashflow until they can't be used anymore. You would suprised how many old Ford guys hated that. I was like its just a shitty old model guys. Your grandfather will find something else to drive.
I wish had taken that job at Ford. Fast track management thing. Guaranteed division head in like 2 years with a $100mm P&L or something(20 years ago). But I was kind of young and didnt get it. I was more excited about a little racetrack I could use at lunch If I wanted. And no one said a word if I wanted to drift a king ranch dually around the thing with the sprinklers on. Although we were interns so maybe that changes when you can get fired fired.
Also more emails please! are there articles I missed? I only read when I get the email..
FORK DROPS, ENTIRE MESS HALL GOES SILENT, ALL EYES ON THE GINGER
(that said, I think I do recall that they were impossible to move without huge incentives; given that they run forever, they might have been more frugal than a Camry)
"remember: life is strange, and life keeps getting stranger day by day" -- New Order, "Procession"
Today on LinkedIn, the founder of prayer.com wrote a post that:
a) was apparently written by his wife, but posted under his account, so that it sounded like he was married to another man
b) showed him driving around with a wounded deer in the passenger seat of his truck
Regarding b), the vet told him that aiding an injured adult deer is illegal in Michigan, but imaging what would happen if the animal revived and started flailing around inside the truck in traffic?
But this guy is a fairly successful company founder (and apparently married to his girlfriend from when he was a USC football player).
I also make mistakes, but this seems like a lot of bad judgment for a single post.
CPU clock speeds aren't the best example because they have for the past few years started increasing again. High-end desktop CPUs are currently at or above 6GHz and high-end mobile CPUs 5GHz.
On an unrelated subject, the upcoming Ram 1500 Ramcharger's gas engine is used solely to power the hybrid system and the wheels are driven entirely by electric motors. Isn't such a system a perfect application for gas turbine power?
Isn't this a solved problem? e.g. a 1300lb empty weight Robinson R66 helicopter is powered by a small 300hp gas turbine. Granted, at a seven-figure price tag.
In addition to the 7 figure price tag, 300 hp is too much for steady state use (except when towing uphill, I suppose), and turbines have much worse part-load efficiency than reciprocating engines.
Granted you're talking about a truck, but I think I remember small cars using about 60 hp. The BMW i3 range extender is a 647cc 2 cylinder rated at 34 hp.
I could not be more out on ever getting in a Robinson helicopter. I've been offered a ride in an R44 but it looks like a cheap toy powered by a lawn mower engine. That's not how I want to die!
I’ve flown on a number of helicopters for work, mainly A-Star 350s and MD 500s (a badass little helicopter), which are both turbine powered.
The R44s are super underpowered and guess what, the blades are driven by V belts! I generally avoid riding in them. The R44 can’t maintain its forward airspeed in a climb, they will be down to 40-50 knots in a climb.
i think the problem is that a turbine engine designed to do the same thing as a small turbo 4 is going to be far more expensive and not as reliable or easy to maintain as the regular piston engine despite a potentially small increase in real world efficiency
would be neat to see one connected to a functional cvt however
"CPU clock speeds aren't the best example because they have for the past few years started increasing again. High-end desktop CPUs are currently at or above 6GHz and high-end mobile CPUs 5GHz."
I don't believe they operate at that speed in sustained fashion, and the die size is highly limited at that speed... electromagnetic waves through copper travel something like 1.3 inches during that clock cycle.
Look up 'diesel electric' it's how all the trains run and a lot of ships. It's actually an old technology and I'm honestly surprised we don't see it more in cars, because at least it's known.
The new Ram Ramcharger basically works on that principle except the generator engine is a gas 3.6 L V6, I’m looking forward to when they are actually released.
Nothing against the Pentastar. I'm glad Stellantis intends to continue producing it for the foreseeable future. But it sure seems oversized for the task in Ramcharger.
Better to have too much engine than not enough? Or maybe it’s cheaper to produce than the alternatives? Or maybe just easier to build? I’d be curious to know the real reason for using it.
Gas turbines are not a good choice for this application.
Choose gas turbine when:
-power density is critical uber alles
-efficiency (mileage) is of little concern [not true apparently]
-reliability (in the sense of "fewer things to go wrong during operation") is a critical concern outweighing purchase price and operational costs reasons
-vibration inherent to reciprocating piston engines is not desirable
So I don't think it is a good choice - but also haven't been keeping up with the tech. Are there efficient turbines out there now?
i mean the steam generators we have now are pretty efficient but thats a driven turbine and not an engine
i think most of the focus and improvement on turbine engines now comes from the high bypass commercial airliner market so theres not a lot relatively speaking for the kind of small generators we would need
A turbine is, in physical principle, the most efficient possible type of engine, in terms of units of kinetic energy produced per unit of thermal energy supplied.
The inherent property (characteristic of all turbine designs, so not things like cost or maintenance requirements that depend on the particular design) of turbines that makes them less suitable and less fuel-efficient than piston engines in automotive applications is that turbines are much slower to respond to throttle inputs than piston engines are. Among other drawbacks, this means considerable fuel is wasted during deceleration. However, in a vehicle without any mechanical connection between the power unit and the wheels, this isn't an issue.
The LX-7 Aircraft (offered in piston and turboprop form; link: https://tinyurl.com/58cejfsv ) claims performance numbers of:
-Piston LX-7: Economy Cruise: 250KTAS at FL250 at 18 GPH
-Turboprop LX-7: Max Cruise: 315 KTAS at FL250 at 40 gallons per hour fuel (the company does not make claims regarding economy cruise numbers on their website unfortunately).
It's possible that for years I've been making an apples/oranges comparison between a turbocharged piston at lower speed and a turboprop at a higher speed.
I would be really interested to know what they both do in the same air at the same altitude at the same true air speed.
However this is, as you point out, apples to oranges; the turboprop version flies at much higher airspeeds than the piston version is able to, and its 750HP turbine is much more powerful than the 350HP piston engine. Edit: Also, the turbine runs on jet fuel while the piston engine runs on 100LL.
OT 1: 2018 G310R, low miles, for sale
OT2: Tonight PBS airs installment #2 of Mr. Bates vs The Post Office (pairs well with this article: https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2024/03/26/fujitsu_id_card_scheme/)
Pinned, so we can get another Harambe rider out of your mini-Beemer!
I am all for the oddball BMW machines, as I have a 2007 g650x-challenge, and the G310R is an interesting bike. I have been learning about the G310GS, as I am looking more toward the dual sport, ADV bike side of riding, but the G310R is pretty similar.
I think if I were looking for a road machine, I'd be looking for something with more engine than the G310, because when I'm on the road, rather than offroad, I want to feel that speed, and I'm not sure the G310 has the guts for that.
As a 6'2", 200lb rider, I might need a 600cc engine to get that pull I want. There must be some graph to say 300cc is good for 120lb people, 500 is fine for 170lb people, etc.
I do hear good things about the G310R and G310GS. I have swung a leg over the GS, but I haven't ridden one.
I think it really depends on how much high-speed highway riding, if any, you want to do and gearing. Almost all the reviews say that the 310R can do highway (official top speed 88 mph), and it's fine for a few exits during a commute, but buzzy for long highway trips. But are 500 mile Interstate rides what you really want to do on a bike?
This guy claims to exceed 96 mph:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d99Rgv5w-wM
I had a preexisting spreadsheet with some comparable figures (bikes are going to have worse aerodynamics at high speed, I would expect):
(2742+200) / 202 = 14.9 lb/hp 2015 FiestaST
(2822+200) / 201 = 15.0 lb/hp 1997 Boxster (996.1)
## (362+200) / 34 = 16.5 lb/hp 2018 G310R ##
(2500+200) / 168 = 16.8 lb/hp 19xx Spec E30
(3310+200) / 203 = 17.3 lb/hp 2024 Camry LE
(2537+200) / 112 = 22.8 lb/hp 2015 Fiesta
(1920+200) / 079 = 27.0 lb/hp 1972 MGB
(1650+200) / 055 = 33.6 lb/hp 1994 Geo Metro
(2024+200) / 046 = 48.3 lb/hp 1974 Super Beetle
(1807+200) / 046 = 43.6 lb/hp 1974 Standard Beetle
Funny, there are not many of them around and I have an XChallenge also.
i like being notified of all acf posts regardless of content
also the electronic fleshlight things terrify me
all it takes is a solar flare to flip a bit and suddenly its jorking your shit like its trying to drive a masonry bolt
i trust the china ev about as much
I too prefer more emails rather than fewer.
In that case -- en garde!
Do your worst, sir!
Get a wife. Bang her. I suggest this
that is the end goal yes
Why not a G.F. or B.F. ? .
I find things done in person are *much* better .
-Nate
no chance of a bf but the idea is to turn a gf into a wife
Unless you've tried don't be so certain. I'm also pretty sure I prefer innies over outies but I've never given an outie a go so I don't speak in absolutes. A wise man once told me that you get 3 tries before it's official.
um
no thanks
speaking of electronic fleshlights, I saw this in my twitter feed this morning. ht to DeliciousTacos
https://twitter.com/prince_of_fakes/status/1779342576925266064
The python(?) code listings in this development video are a hoot.
https://twitter.com/prince_of_fakes/status/1777422801106014480
the most hilarious thing about this is the the guys that would buy something like this arent going to try to simulate a california 6 but more likely sally from cars
and that is the most tame thing i can think of because the reality is far weirder
I'm actually grateful you send the email, it's my primary way of reading new posts.
on the emails, perhaps adopting a standardized content type prefix code might help. E.g., GUEST / HARAMBE / ACF.
Ah, that's a good idea. Let me figure that out. The only issue is that I don't think I can do a different email title from how it posts on the site.
Who are these 17% of dealers who do want the Feds to mandate EVs? I figure they’re either (1) lying because they want to be politically correct or (2) they sunk a bunch of money into EV charging infrastructure, etc. at their dealerships and their competitors did not, so they want an EV mandate to drive up costs for competing dealerships. Maybe a few of them are in extremely wealthy lefty locations where it’s easy to sell everyone an EV.
The 17% were corporate managers filling the survey out on behalf of the corporate dealership owners, as opposed to dealer principals who have their own name on the roadside sign. Depend on it.
So, either lying or breathtakingly stupid.
Not mutually exclusive.
I just listened to a rousing episode of the inEVitable podcast with Ed Loh and Jonny Blubberman in which they interviewed a woman in STEM who got very close to saying that the government must mandate EVs.
i havent seen that vid but im already tired of listening to them
I think the government should mandate that all women have to buy WNBA season tickets. This is fun.
Is that Ed Bloh??!!
I’ll see myself out!
At least for GM dealers, GM was having to offer to pay to put in charging systems at dealers in the mid-south where my buddy reps 15-20 different dealers across southern IL, IN, KY, and western TN. The dealers know they can't sell the volume of EV's to justify the cost of installing the infrastructure. My buddy has been in the GM world since 2020 and it is humbling seeing his about-face from drinking the Bara kool-aid to listening to his dealers that make the company money.
The overall infrastructure is what really gets me about these morons. Everyone is talking about last mile and proprietary chargers, meanwhile California already has rolling brownouts and wild fires caused by bad powerlines. I saw a possibly exaggerated but not by much estimate that Northern Virginia would need something like 13 new nuclear plants just for the planned data centers. Rich NIMBYs don't want more lines run. And assuming global warming is real we are all going to have to turn up the AC.
Most people cannot solve Partial Differential Equations or convert between Lagrangian, Hamiltonian, and Koopman-von Neumann formulations of classical mechanics in their heads, and that's OK.
But this kind of GROSS INNUMERACY, not even understanding the difference between the weight of an ant and the weight of all the world's elephants combined, is ruining society. It's the same "idea" that drives immigration "policy": "a nation of immigrants," "no human is illegal," "migration is a human right" and then they're shocked when 6 BILLION people show up at the homeless shelter.
By "data centers" did they mean bitcoin miners?
Probably more AWS shit!
All your data are belong to Jeff Bezos!
I'm beyond ready for the EV wave to die, but there's too much money behind it. The govt will force whatever it wants, whenever it wants to whomever it wants. Even if it kills themselves in the process. Every new vehicle release anymore that I manage to get excited about is either ungodly butchered (Bronco) or is set to release as EV only (Jeep Recon). All I want to do is replace this stupid Escape with something less pleb that hopefully wont rust as bad and has a touch of "fun" sprinkled in.
Apple watches really accentuate arm fat like a rubber band over a sausage. Its an extra feature that makes me hate seeing them more. Not only do you look like a nerd but you look like an out of shape one to boot. My wife has one. I call her "Lames Bond" when she's wearing it.
Looking forward to more of the guest articles. Its always fun to read and you can never have too much content.
Now kill the screens in the dash. I hate them.
When Bugatti first announced they would not have screens because they wouldn’t age well and Bugattis must be timeless, that made a real impression on me. I hate the screens beyond a basic Satnav/radio interface.
Also, on things I hate- automatic climate control. I love reading when an auto- journo whines about a vehicle not having automatic climate controls. I prefer to chose my fan speed and temp. Simple tech is all I need. Along with low weight and lots of horsepower. The basics only please.
I don’t think I’ve ever used automatic climate control on a car, just don’t see the need for it. It’s the obtrusive tech that’s the problem. I hope there’s a car one of these days where they make the tech disappear, or at least have a goal of nothing but simple tech.
My HVAC is either on Sun or Arctic. Windows regulate the rest.
It's like your house. But there are times when I want a blizzard or a desert wind in my face.
Or, toasty hot air on my feet with (often wet) fresh air blowing in the open window.....
GIVE US CHOICES PLEASE .
-Nate
Exactly!
When it's 28 degrees and frosty and dark at 6 AM, I want jet exhaust. I don't want the car sneaking up on Comfortable.
When automatic climate control is done right, it's a bunch of annoying user input that's you don't need to do.
When it's done wrong, it's annoying.
This. Most of my cars that have had it were set it 70 and forget about it for the duration of ownership. Never even have to mess with the defroster, because the windows never fog up.
The exceptions were a 4th gen 4Runner that was too dumb to toggle the AC on/off on its own and would blast hot air in your face. And an Outback that had wildly inaccurate temprature settings and would lose all adjustability every time the giant touchscreen would shit the bed and take 10 minutes to finally reboot, which happened at least once a week.
I’ve had four Accords with automatic climate control, and they’re great; Honda does it right!
I set mine to 68 degrees when I have the furnace on in the house, 70 during the spring and fall, and 72 when the normal high temperature in my area is at or above 72 degrees, so the fan doesn’t run as high. I hit AUTO in the summer to run the A/C, and keep the A/C off the rest of the time. (Except I’ll run it occasionally during the colder months, and it’ll kick on automatically when I hit defrost, at least if the OAT is above freezing.)
In any car with manual controls, I’d be constantly, CONSTANTLY fiddling with the fan and mode, plus the temperature during the winter! Despite our lack of snow in Northwest Ohio this past winter, we still got down into the single digits a few times, and all I’d do on those days is set the mode to windshield/floor, and leave everything else alone! Set and forget! 👍
Agreed. We have had various Jeeps, Rams, Chrysler, a Cadillac, and now Ford. The auto climate worked well on all except for my current F-150, although oddly my wife's Escape is pretty good. A quick 2-3 degree adjustment, depending on my feels that day, is all they usually need. My F-150 roasts me in the winter, I don't believe it is set to 70 degrees lol
There's a fundamental flaw with automatic climate control in vehicles. The temperature in the car is controlled, OK fine. But what you feel, to different degrees (no pun intended!) depending on distance to the vents, is the temperature of the air coming out of the vents.
I miss the days where you could let outside air through the vents without the HVAC fan on.
Astro Ventilation plus the crotch coolers!
Buttons.
That is all.
I like the rotary dials in my truck and the sliding controls on other oldies.....
-Nate
Rotary's fine, but not for the shifter.
I'll take a rotary over a monostable lever.
Agreed!
When I had my car into the body shop six weeks or so ago, Enterprise blessed me with a Mitsubishi Outlander which had one of those!
I drove from the Enterprise agency in Bowling Green, OH (after spending 15 minutes in the parking lot trying to figure out all the garbage on the thing), and then when I got to downtown Toledo to go to work, I had passed the entrance to my parking garage (they had switched the lane I usually drive into from entrance to exit), and after I realized that, and pulled over to get my bearings, it literally took me five minutes to figure out how to get the damned shifter into Reverse!
That Mitsu had the same type of shifter as the BMWs and Benzes, and yet every auto reviewer complains to high heaven about the pushbuttons on Honda transmissions, which are mastered in five minutes! Tops!
As for watches, I'm sticking with my circa late '50s/early '60s Wyler. Folks got it for me my last birthday. It tells time and looks good, the end.
Many years ago I was glancing in a jewelers window and commented to my Sweet that I really like the looks of old timey rectangular wrist watches with analog faces .
I'm wearing the Breitling (? SP ? spell check says so) she bought me on a whim, when I'm working, riding Motocycles & etc. I wear an old Timex .
-Nate
That spelling is indeed correct! Very nice indeed!
I could probably afford a low-end one, but as stated in the above thread, I rarely ever wear the watches I have!
Thanx .
I wear a watch every day .
To me a $350 watch -IS- 'high end' .
Basically I wear it when I know I won't be working getting it dirty and I'll be with her .
-Nate
It’s not very classy of me, but as long as the phone in my pocket works I see no point in owning a watch aside from the want to wear something with either sentimental value, the idea of having some sort of mechanical failsafe to know time (?), or just wanting to wear jewelry.
I can understand having one from a tactical standpoint etc or situation where you aren’t digging a phone out, but as much as I use my phone as a tool for work it’s second nature to check the time there.
That said I’m not big on jewelry at all so I’m likely an odd man out in general. I don’t like wearing extra things on my body that get in the way / scratch stuff / etc
I’ve got TAG Heuer, Tissot, and Victronox watches that I’ve barely worn since the pandemic! Just got out of the habit!
If you're interested in a fitness watch that's more traditional, look at Withings. Analog face with 2 smaller dials, one tracks steps with a pointer, the other is a screen for additional data - heart rate, step, etc
Is this Bark?
Not at all. I think Bark comments here under his own ID. I'm another Mark
Look under most if not all Ford Lightnings and you’ll usually find the catalytic converter is missing. Further more, most dealers and auto part retailers can’t even get you one let alone even quote you a price! So with that in mind I’d say 499 to protect such a rare and desirable part is well worth it!
Sir, you should be working in General Motors PR.
He has to crash a pace car first, then pretend it didn't happen...
The All-New First-Ever catalytic converter on an EV.
Dealer networks prove their worth. At long last. When I first started reading you, I was selling Nissan, Cadillac, GMC, Buick, Pontiac (briefly), Mitsubishi, Lincoln, and Mercury (briefly) cars and trucks. I really liked teaching normies and the other sales guys about the cars. Those bump stickers always pissed me off. Our store only put them on very rare pieces - EVO, GTR, CTS-V... that kinda thing. Everything else went out the door around invoice.
Seeing catalytic converter etching on a lightning is sad. But often, the folks ordering and pricing the cars know even less about them than the average salesman. I could see customers actually paying that.
On phones - I've developed an unhealthy habit with mine. But I tend not to even touch my work phone over the weekend. I'm trying...
A lot of the non-luxury dealerships around me, as a general rule, apply an ADP sticker (with tint, ceramic coat, and perhaps something else) to all of their inventory. IME, unless it’s something especially rare or fancy, balking and looking incredulous is enough to get the fee removed and at least get back to MSRP.
By contrast, the luxury car dealers do not play that shit. It’s one reason I do like buying cars from premium brands. Having bought both in recent years, I see Toyota’s core brands at the extreme ends of the spectrum. You’ll have the worst-ever experience trying to buy a Grand Highlander from the sleazy Toyota dealer and the best-ever experience trying to buy a TX 350 from the top-notch Lexus dealer.
The only non-luxury brand I’ve dealt with where the experience was straightforward and pleasant was Subaru. I put my name on an incoming unit at MSRP, asked politely to have the doc fee removed (and they obliged), brought a sight draft in from my credit union once the car arrived…and that was that.
ceramic coat, done properly, sounds like it would be actually worthwhile
There's the qualifier.
"DONE PROPERLY."
I have 2 cars with ceramic coat, and it’s great for cleaning bugs and tar off without much effort, as long as you use the right products. Much easier to keep your car clean and reduce maintenance time. One of my cars has ceramic coat on top of the PPF and nothing sticks to that. The best way to dry that car after a wash is a quick drive at 60 mph.
It makes cleaning so easy that it reduces the turn around time on my rental jeeps. I also tell myself it helps against redneck pinstriping. It probably doesn't.
It’s got to help. Considering what paintwork costs, PPF on something like a rear bumper cover is a no brainer.
"it's a Kamala!"
It DOES help with cat and dog scratches, as does Zaino.
Which part of the “system?”
I did the ceramic coat on the Bullitt, but NOT at the dealer. I found the top exotic car detailer in the area, had him do a bunch of paint correction on the truly shit and riotously poor quality Ford paint. The Dark Highland Green it came with was a truly beautiful colour. It just needed a bunch more coats.
Every once in awhile someone parks a Bullitt on the street in front of my house and every time I have to take a closer look while thinking, "This could be fun..."
Ditch the truck/airbag badges and add brown leather. I know that means it wouldn’t be a Bullitt, but it would be a great car.
I miss my '02 F150 with Metallic Highland Green. Sadly, the 4.6 would never tow my travel trailer with alacrity like my Yukon Denali 6.2 does. Exceedingly boring two blacks and a white in my driveway these days.
I ceramic coated the front of my travel trailer but the corrugated aluminum doesn't seem to make it any easier to remove the bugs.
I’m going to follow your example to the luxury brand store next time. On the other hand my most recent experience with the nearby used Honda dealer was in 2020. When they couldn’t beat the Credit Union rate I had walked in with, the rest didn’t take much time. They even skipped the chat with the “business manager.”
Frankly I was almost insulted, because I assumed that my gray hair was the cause of the omission!
Around here the Toyota dealer experience hits both extremes. A couple of them want to hit you with every fake fee and slimy sales pitch they can come up with. The one we’ve gone with for the last two cars charges MSRP for everything but doesn’t dick around with fake fees or high pressure tactics. On a five figure purchase I’m willing to spend a couple hundred bucks extra for a pleasant experience.
I had good experiences at my local Ford (sales only service has been hot fucking garbage) and Subaru (again issues with service) dealers. My local VW shop did my wife a solid on her (then 1 year old dealer owned loaner) Tiguan when she wrecked her Juke.
*admittedly, the Ford and Subaru are tuned to the nth degree.... but that shouldn't affect things like syncing my remotes. And you shouldn't charge me if you're going to refuse to work on my heaps.
The last brand new car I purchased was a 2014 Charger from Bob Moore on the Northwest Expressway. I ate the window tint and wheel locks because they still gave me a price I couldn't come close to touching near me. Flew into town with a check from the credit union and still had the damn finance guy try to do the hard sell on an extended warranty. Miserable sons of bitches. If I had to purchase a brand new car again I think the pistol would be openly displayed on my hip instead of concealed while my hand continually and enthusiastically checked to make sure it was still present in their presence.
The word "trying" in paragraph 2 here is honestly pretty saddening.
TRYING to spend money. Having a HARD TIME making another person rich
The scam around here is the preinstalled blinky brake lights. I hate them.
I put one on my ND after a newcomer rear ended me with his Nissan on 405.
A Nissan? Sounds like bs to me.
It was a beater Maxima with a kid in the back.
At least you know he had car insurance
He did not. My uninsured motorist paid. He was an uninvited guest in our country.
i was already furious
I mean. Some how i knew the guy driving a nissan didnt have insurance or an impeccable credit score.
I'm shocked! Shocked! Well, not that shocked.
NOT any sort of 'guest' ! .
Guests are _INVITED_ and usually know to mind their P'S&Q's .
I have no beef with immigrants (I'm Scots/Irish) but ASSIMILATE or LEAVE you fuckers .
-Nate
A Maxima with car insurance? In California? In this day and age?
If you found one of those, you sound like a guy with the luck necessary to collect that million-dollar bounty on a Sasquatch.
It was on 405 in Bellevue, WA.
I read "the 405" and just assumed Soviet Kalifornistan.
One of the (Wanted for Extralegal Territorial Breach And then eXpulsion) types?
Yep, no driver’s license either.
(Slaps own face in feigned shock).
Here in the UK I have noticed that driving has become much more "freeform" in the last 20 years or so; I don't know if this relates to the arrival of many people from countries with a more colourful approach to driver training or the almost complete substitution of cameras for traffic police. The behavioural contrast between the two, slightly divergent motorways out of west London is extreme; the M4 is law abiding (cameras everywhere since they turned the emergency lane into permanent running), the M40 (no cameras, yet) is where the boys go to clear the sleeping bats out of their exhausts - I was passed by someone doing at least 110mph on Saturday night. So one has a choice - take the M4 and hope you don't breakdown or take the M40 and make sure you keep out of the way.
When I bought my Mustang, they tried to sell me paint protection. I told them if the paint was so bad from the factory it NEEDED protection, I didn't want the car.
They backed off.
Funny thing - I always thought the manufactures were the ones that ran these programs. Turns out they are actually insurance products.
I didn't know THAT, but I wouldn't be surprised. I thought it was a psychological holdover from when cars DID rust out in five years.
https://www.lhmforddraper.com/ford-f-150-lightning-check-engine-light.htm
That’s one of those pages that dealerships have their SEO company build for them to rank higher in Google searches and isn’t really for customers to find. I’m sure the twenty-something who built that page had no idea. They really ought to hide that page.
Love that they also have paragraphs about the catalytic converter in there.
The CEL just came on in my 2001 Ford Ranger 2.5L, I recently replaced the air idle solenoid and cleaned the intake air sensor, at twenty years and 130,000 miles I plan to replace the N02 sensor soon, clear the codes and see if it's okay or what else (? E.G.R. valve ?) might be bad .
-Nate
It’s a pretty good page for a gas powered vehicle but makes the dealership look like doofuses to anyone with a clue about a Lightning.
Probably generated by hallucinating AI.
As a second-to-early adopter, I would be interested in purchasing something along the lines of the Rabbit device when i see someone intelligent and capable - someone of Sherman' McCoy's caliber - using one in public.
As a note on the apple watch, most people I have spoken with say it engenders a virtuous cycle where they now use their iPhones LESS after purchasing one. It's somethign they attest to and I can't comment, but it's worth noting.
Also worth noting is that *among all wristwatches*, the most commonly-worn wristwatch among my friends in the 200k-to-1M of W2 or partnership income earning band is the apple watch, and it's not even close. I couldn't hazard a guess but would interest me to know what direction the correlation/causation/??? is flowing here
The most popular watch in my military cohort is usually something garmin. The instinct is extremely popular. Then there are some fenix wearers (myself), a bunch of apple watches, and lastly, a few g-shocks. The "field watch" is pretty rare sadly. I love that style.
Team Fenix here, at least when outdoors.
Me too. Fenix 7X Pro Sapphire Solar. And a Fenix 5S Sapphire before that. My wife uses that watch now.
I wish I could be a "wears a watch on both wrists" guy. I'd love to wear my g-shocks and seikos and such on my left and my garmin on my right. I just can't do it....
whats the holdup
twin wrist it and unleash your inner schwarzkopf
if anyone says anything just tell them its an army thing
I mostly deal with army people. They'd know it's weird. I'd have to say "it's a real estate investor thing."
That's just not believable. If the garmin was a normal size.... not 51mm, I'd do it.
Normal watch on my left, techno-whizbang future watch on my right.
I wish I could still buy self winders......
-Nate
Me and my coworkers - software developers at a non-tech Fortune 500 company in a third-tier American metro - are the persons for whom the Apple Watch is for. Yes, it is a deeply uncool life. It's a life that doesn't necessitate having to project an image that an Apple Watch would work against.
Personally, I can't say that I use my phone any more or less after living with this gadget on my wrist for the last few years. What the Apple Watch does do is a bunch of useful small things that add up to a big hurdle that for me seemingly only an Omega Aqua Terra can jump over. I'd love an Aqua Terra but at this point in my life, I can't fathom spending more money on a watch than my all-cash LASIK surgery.
Is there a point in your life where you can see yourself doing it?
If so, buy the watch now, for THAT future self.
There needs to be a dislike button on substack too.
hell yeah
need to find out who hates my shitposts
You won't find them Speed (I will take care of them)
i should make it clear that i have zero intentions of stopping unless physically restrained
and i appreciate you homie
LOLed
I apparently HATE my future self.
At least you'd think that if you tracked what I eat during the week.
I’m close enough do what you describe.
For the longest time I wore a Garmin Vivosport and a watch. Always thought the Apple Watch to be too fragile and feminine looking.
I’m genuinely curious, what benefits does the Apple Watch provide beyond fitness tracking?
I would want it for the fitness, but what my friends who lessened their screen time indicate is that it allows them to *change their notifications program entirely*
Obviously one could simply turn one's phone off, but what they describe is more facility with easily setting up a regime that helps them lessen non-critical interruptions while allowing the critical ones through
I've done the math on LASIK, if your vision is still changing you'll be back in glasses or needing to have LASIK again if you can, on average, in 10 years. Unless you need it for your profession, you'll spend less on glasses and or contacts over that 10 years vs the LASIK. I've worn glasses since I was 7, so it might not be as big of a deal for me to continue to wear them but I'd be buying the nicest Aqua Terra well before I coughed up for LASIK.
I admit to being "uncool" and wearing an Apple Watch. And while I still have the urge to buy some old IWCs or maybe that new Tudor Black Bay 58 I wanted to gift myself for my 40th birthday, I would actually never go back.
The mechanical watch is a cool thing and a great status symbol, but it's also totally useless at what it's supposed to do, and wildly expensive.
Apple Watch works much better as watch, it, indeed, makes you look at your iPhone less (because you don't need to check it) and it tells you a bunch of other useful or at least interesting things, from daily number of steps to heart rate to compass to temperature outside (that one I use surprisingly often). Plus it's got it's own copy of eSIM, which is very handy when you let your iPhone run out of battery and need to contact someone (happens to me more often than I would like to admit).
Does it look dorky? Maybe, I don't give a shit. Similar thing to Jack going from leasing Phaetons and thinking about Bentleys to a V6 Accord. I have better things to do with my money than spend $5k on a watch which might've been an appreciating asset in last 10 years, but won't be in another 10 (also, I bought my Apple Watch slightly used or "opened", which meant it cost less then half of the price of new one, while being only the "last years model".
The most desirable watch brands are appreciating assets.
They have been, for some time, but I doubt it at this point. Maybe some ultra-collector pieces, but after period of everything going up in a crazy way, I don't think it will continue.
Plus I'm too poor for the most desirable pieces – and Black Bay 58 can now be used for noticeably less than it sells new, while the IWC I want, the caliber 3706 pilot watch, costs about the same for years now.
The Black Bay is the only relatively expensive watch I own. I do enjoy that it is the Chevy (or Seat or Skoda to you) of the Rolex brand. I got it when they were introduced in the USA for about half of what Tudor charges now. I still find it delightful.
Rolex; AP; Patek; RM.
All are privately owned; all command well north of MSRP for the hottest models; all raise prices every year (faster than the rate of inflation).
Don't forget to elect to capitalize repairs and maintenance on it when you file your taxes so when you sell it for a gain you can increase your basis!
I have long thought that the current social media and app-driven hegemony will persist until the dominant form-factor of the device (i.e., a phone) changes.
A powerful and convincing contention. Props to the Rabbit guys for trying
Still, what a lot of novel personal-AI stuff suggests to me is that anyone handling incoming requests (think small service business) will soon need an "incoming bullshit" filter, similar to Captcha at website logins.
I can send 20+ quote requests to businesses for a bit of home repair work already via Angi, Yelp and others---god knows how good this tech will get with AI.
Imagine the race-to-the-bottom effects of attempting to compete. You need either a dedicated quote runner (remote via facetime or something) or just an AI-response-AI to ignore most and handle some of the requests.
0-I have a cigar friend who is an angel investor. He is in his mid-60s, but very spry (both physically and intellectually). He made his money in the cinema business (he was a co-founder of Regal Cinemas) but has done a number of interesting things over his career. I admire him and would be fortunate to emulate his life.
He sits on the board of a company that offers a “second-screen” experience for sports fans; I have done some consulting work for the company. One thing I have argued is that it is terribly difficult to compete for any consumer’s time / attention with a new product, given the vast possibilities for endless titillation. After 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of work, it’s hard to conquest any of that remaining 8 hours away given people have to eat, commute, perform household chores, and parent before they start doomscrolling on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc., listening to podcasts, watching YouTube or every streaming service under the sun. There’s no time left!
1-https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/apples-jony-ive-and-openais-sam-altman-team-up-for-ai-device-startup/
The apple watch is an interesting piece. It is popular with that crowd and it also seems to be popular with the sub100k crowd. The amount of service workers I see wearing Apple watches is concerning given their cost, then again most of them probably have a less than 3 year old iPhone in their pocket too.
I'm pretty sure my 20-something kids use their iPhones (naturally) less than I use my Google Pixel. But neither is a social media kind of guy.
I'm not understanding what those devices you're talking about are supposed to actually do. Are they for wearing so the phone stays home? Or a redundant device?
My lawyer cohort in the 1% earnings level is largely immune to the Apple watch thing. More Rolexy. Associates wear the Apple thingies.
Sir, your new username is a bold move for someone who, ahem, has not yet scheduled their next HPDE!!!!!
May 14 at Waterford Hills, probably Horst at Grattan on the 17th. Pfft.
had no idea it was that close by
really out to check that out sometime
Close by to where?
Look for the old, distinguished guy with a lime green Cayman.
canadian border
lime green cayman sounds incredibly easy to spot
Well there you go.
I enjoy Grattan a lot more that WFH, so I’d say go on the 17th. I’ll take turn 11-12 at grattan over swamp turn 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. Envious you get to enjoy both so soon!
It's not an either or choice for me but I appreciate the drift.
Hope you have a great time at whatever you end up attending!
"… my 20-something kids use their iPhones (naturally) less…"
I guess after five kids it's hard to even keep track of their names, let alone their birthdays or iPhone habits.
Tell me about it, the 5 wives are also hard to track. I give them numbered aprons to wear around the compound.
5 needy cars might be less maintenance. Just a thought.
It seems EVs are so popular one of my local Ford dealers (Southern Nevada) sent me a letter offering retail for my car in trade and the promise of an additional 7K if my new car choice is a Mach E Mustang. Good luck with that.
Those Mach Es were very visible around here when they first came out. Nowadays, if I see one in a month, it's an event. I suspect they got lured in with the hype and cash bribes on the hood, found out how horrible it was as a transportation device, and dumped it before the lease ended. Lyriq: same story, except I still haven't seen any on the road, just at the dealer. And the dealer is smart, they never had more than 2 or 3 in stock.
Just had an Uber in a Bolt EV and the driver hated it. Said his Subaru is cheaper to fill up than it is to charge the Bolt.
well then whats the point
Compliance, duh.
My brother recently had to get a new car, and wound up with a bright red CPO Crosstrek. As you know I don't really love the wagons/hatchbacks with SUV Halloween costumes, but it's a pretty versatile model. And my brother and his wife are pretty active people, they far prefer a hatchback to a sedan or truck. It rides pretty nice too.
It's nice to know that normal people can purchase Subie wagons in the rest of the country. In the Centennial State they're the canvas used by the absolute worst people to declare that they are such.
Real "I'm not religious but I find the outdoors very spiritual" types that use their car's hatch to display the sticker of every leftist idea they can get their granola, Australian Shepherd hair, and weed soaked hands on.
They're more like 'drive to Savannah from IL for vacation' than hikey, look at me aren't I sporty, LL Bean BS...
YIKES ! .
I like those boxy Subaru wagons ?Forester? but the short cam belt life scares me away .
I hope I don't have to buy a modern car ever .
-Nate
I toyed with the sure fire money making idea of creating a stretched Forester limo specifically catering to lesbian weddings in Boulder County. But I don't hate anyone enough in my circle to have them be seen in a Subaru.
And don't forget that the Subaru has single handedly replaced the Camry, Corolla and every Buick in Colorado as the left lane crippler. Foresters are the worst, followed by Outbacks and Crosstreks. WRXs don't count since they're fueled by testosterone and bring their own kind of menace. I do anything I can to get around a Subaru or avoid being behind one at a light in Colorado.
Oh man, you would clean up like Chazz Reinhold at a widow convention with that idea!
A prominent Fort Collins contractor friend of the family even calls them Lezbarus.
Try spending part of your year in Portland, Maine. I think they just hand the Subarus + stickers out.
I find this damn near impossible to believe, TBH.
I first complimented the driver on the Bolt, said I had heard good things about them, and he was incredulous. Basically said to me “where did you hear that?” Then he went into a long list of things he hated about it, ending with that he couldn’t wait to get rid of it. Anecdotal, but he drives for a living and I don’t.
Yeah, I can believe a long litany of complaints about the car, especially against something more expensive. The Bolt is basically an economy car. I just have trouble believing it would cost more to charge it than fill it.
If you think of it unscientifically it could make sense to this driver. And this may be the way a general consumer could think of comparing an EV to an ICE vehicle.
“Every time I fill up the Subaru it costs me $50, but every time I charge the Bolt it costs me $60.
Note that there’s no consideration of distance covered, just the cost “every time I…..”
I saw a ton of Mach-e’s when I was in Sterling Virginia last week. Really strange to see so many.
Gianni, you were in two of the highest average income counties in America. Populated by people that draw 6 figure salaries for doing the bidding of the deep state or are the deep state themselves. They excel at making life in the real America as difficult as possible. You saw a lot of Mach-e’a, and Tesela’s and any number of image vehicles. They can afford to drive an EV to the office to communicate their adherence to the Uniparty. But if you caught up with the majority of them in the PA mountains in the summer you would see them driving their Yukon Denali’s or Chevy High Country or camping in their F-450 Phoenix Cruiser….
I thought it was strange compared to Microsoft’s backyard where you see lots of Model X’s, Model S’s, and the other Tesla crap along with the occasional Lucid, Taycan, Rivian, but very rarely a Mach-e.
The social stigma of driving a FORD isn't overcome by it being electric.
And outside of those areas, you DON'T see Mach-Es.
Checks out. Federal employee relatives in NoVa ordered a Mach-E relatively early and waited nearly a year for it to be built, presumably at full price.
Just to offer a counterpoint: My wife and I bought a Mach-E in September, 2022, and have so far had nothing but a great experience with it. It's quick, comfortable, reliable, and provides ample range. I've found nothing to complain about with the fit and finish. It drove us from Oakland to Tucson and back with zero problems and never more than a 20 minute stop to charge the pack.
Time will tell, of course, but with 30k on the clock, so far it's been a fine transportation device.
Chuck you should do a guest post describing your EV trip from Oakland to Tucson and back. I worked in Tucson in the mid 1990’s and running up to Phoenix in July or August took a toll ion my car and really worked the AC. All the information I have, and I imagine many ACFers have is Jacks description of traveling in the SW in an EV and if you have read it, it was not pretty. A counter opinion would be interesting.
I did write a long post in response to Jack’s admittedly horrible experience with the Tesla.
I am not someone who believes EVs are the answer, nor am I saying anyone who doesn’t want an EV ought to be required to drive one. I understand and appreciate that they don’t work for many people, and I recognize the issues with regard to mining, resources, and the geopolitics of China and Korea providing most of the cells. I also realize public charging is still a shitshow and that I’m fortunate to be able to do most of my charging at home.
I just try to offer an honest assessment of one person’s experience with the technology.
Thank you!0
Even in metro-detroit where I live, which is a huge subsidized leasing market, has tons of leftover 2023 Mach-E's. My wife wants one as you can sign and drive a premium (mid level package?) AWD with dual battery for $480/36 months. It is telling that one of the top biggest Ford dealers in the country, down the street from my house, still has several 23's on the lot.
Yeah, I think of them as the Nissan of the EV world.
Present and reporting from Oakland County.
Throwing this up for discussion this week - some people talked to Adweek on background about Hodinkee's post-pandemic slump. Excerpts from the piece:
"Neither Hodinkee nor Crown & Caliber were profitable when they merged in 2021, according to five people familiar with the companies' finances. But the combined operation generated more than $100 million in revenue that year as the new and pre-owned watch markets surged during the pandemic.
Hodinkee brought in money from its affiliate marketing, advertising and insurance operations, but between 50% and 66% of its total revenue came from Crown & Caliber, which had thinner margins, those people said.
[...]
The downturn, in combination with cuts to the overall business, led revenues at the combined company to decline, from around $85 million in 2022 to roughly $60 million in 2023, according to one of those people.
Other expenses further weighed on its balance sheet. In 2019, Hodinkee signed a 10-year lease on a brick-and-mortar outpost in the SoHo neighborhood of New York--the location of the original Supreme store, according to two people familiar with the strategy. But more than five years later, the store has yet to open.
The company was unprofitable in 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to Hodinkee founder and executive chairman Benjamin Clymer."
https://www.adweek.com/media/hodinkee-crown-caliber/
My uninformed takes:
* It's hard for me to imagine a LARGE NUMBER of people with both the disposable income and the desire to FREQUENTLY TRADE in used luxury watches
* I always hated the name "Hodinkee." Maybe I just don't get it, but I don't want to be associated with either "ho" or "dinky," let alone both...or it sounds like some sort of anti-Asian slur.
I love the name. But that might be because it's from Czech name for watch... :)
I guess it's clear now that I have not realized my long-held desire to visit Eastern Europe.
Central, sir, central. Wien is to the east of here :) I think the word for "watch" is different in most other Slavic languages. Hodinky (which is diminutive from "hodiny", which means both "hours" and a large clock) is specifically Czech term. Maybe Slovak has similar or identical word.
I just keep digging myself a deeper hole :(
Dig UP, stupid.
Love that I learned something here.
Thank you Vojta!
@Sir Morris Leyland we dig that you are digging.
My distaste for Hodinkee is such that I would be willing to endure a few moments of really sharp personal pain and misery -- let's say, a fingernail removal, or two -- if it ensured that everyone ensured in that enterprise never crossed my vision again. I bought and resold a few of the Sistem51 collabs, and I have the Mayer G-Shock, but in both cases I'd have paid MORE to not have the Hodinkee name.
Read this last week; loved it; sent it to all of my watch friends.
Good for Ben! He executed the playbook perfectly:
Start up
Cash in
Bro down*
Sell out
*Discard your beautiful wife (Lange PR girl) for frumpy Cara Barrett, your co-worker
It's always interesting seeing the differences between a man's wives. My aunt married into NYC area $$, and a friend of my uncle is on his 2nd wife. I feel like he should have been able to do better given his resources.
On the other hand, Dad's buddy's FOURTH wife is a saint. I never knew the other ones but 4 is a wonderful woman
I have an Apple Watch, but I much prefer a 60$ casio g shock, they don’t need to know my heart rate or my ten thousand steps. The government is going to force car buyers into ev’s by mandating insane policies regarding emissions, which won’t do bunk for the actual atmosphere, automakers are already subsidizing the engineering and build costs with pricing their gas equivalents with much higher prices, glad I am old and don’t need to buy anything!
"Those of us who grew up without smartphones likely can’t quite understand the antipathy young people often have to the devices."
I disagree; I feel that those who grew up without them knew what was like before, and somewhat wish that we could go back. I personally hardly use a phone at all, and I remember even the damage to public spaces that happened when most students started carrying around dumb phones, then iPods, so I wish that we could go back before that.
Also, I liked using computers as tools for work, not as an attention-suck and time suck, and try to recreate that as much as possible, e.g., blocking YouTube in /etc/hosts.
Computers are wrenches, hammers and screwdrivers. THEY ARE TOOLS, NOTHING MORE. They are not endlessly fascinating ends in themselves, despite what the geeks will tell you.
They should be tools for science, engineering, accounting, general organization. Just like air duster is a tool.
But they are mostly used as intentionally-addictive attention-sucking personal entertainment devices. In the same way that air duster can be abused:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl1AGs9EDso
(They did another one with a young woman named Allison. Note: part of the effect of inhalants is due to displacing the brain's oxygen supply, but ALSO the chemicals themselves are believed to have have an intoxicating and perhaps neurotoxic effect)
MY GOD that is horrifying.
The theory of a cyclical nature of history is emphasized when one clicks a link like this one and finds a young man who looks as if he has just been at a Jethro Tull concert in 1972.
"I'll tell you one thing that really drives me nuts is people who think that Jethro Tull is just a person in the band."
"Who is Jethro Tull?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMpS352K9C8
I remember neighbors & friends "huffing" gasoline etc. 50 years ago.....
Same as crack : ?WHY? .
-Nate
(who comes from a long line of mean drunks)
wait its not
Sucky movie, but a great line.
Still better than the guy using the propane tank for a hookah.
I wish MY life were that interesting.
The difference is that the computer (phone, whatever) is MARKETED for its abuse. The air duster hasn't gotten to that point. Yet.
It's often remarked that everyday is a school day on ACF. Some days at school you learn things that you wish you just hadn't.
I apologize; my intent was not to traumatize, but I feel like it is an extremely strong analogy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRL-CAD#/media/File:Pdp11,70_640x507.jpg
https://archive.org/details/BYTE_Vol_10-01_1985-01_Through_The_Hourglass/page/161/mode/1up?view=theater
https://archive.org/details/BYTE_Vol_10-01_1985-01_Through_The_Hourglass/page/389/mode/1up?view=theater
https://archive.org/details/BYTE_Vol_10-01_1985-01_Through_The_Hourglass/page/390/mode/2up?view=theater
I am not traumatised, but pretty shocked and saddened. What a tragic waste of a life.
If you look up "Allison," she was almost as disturbing but got clean and got her life together.
In this economy, people can be just as bad without any addictions, it seems.
Other interesting parts of that issue of Byte:
1) Pournelle reviews SICP, mostly negatively (388)
2) Oldsmobile in an Avis ad (p 395)
3) Dick Pountain [giggle] writes from London to review the Amstrad CPC 464, admitting that the UK home computing experience is almost exclusively gaming, unlike the US.
4) FORTRAN vs APL vs Pascal vs TKSolver to do engineering p 394 - 396
5) Interview with Woz (typical of more modern content) p.168; discusses riding his motorcycle while having amnesia
6) A printer for banana-eating blondes in bed, p 210 (paging James Lileks!)
7) Some pseudocode for variable-precision mathematical operations in C p. 211
8) Signal analysis hardware and software for evaluating your stereo system (p 223); there is an ad for a circuit layout package elsewhere, and, in general, a surprising amount of hardware/EE content
9) Microsoft Project; Gantt charts in text mode
I was kind of itrigued by that Rabbit R1 thing, then read this on their site:
"rabbit OS operates apps on our secured cloud, so you don’t have to. Log into the apps you’d like rabbit to use on your system through the rabbit hole to relay control. You only need to do this once per app."
This sounds like (to me) that rabbit-corp has the data mining built in. At least with a de-googled phone OS, you can tailor how much or how little you are tracked/etc.
Arguably, freeing a whole generation from the screen is worth a bit of data mining... but can the Rabbit do that?
If the user has to log into/access an app on their server, then we can only assume that such actions are all stored/logged/tracked. Whatever rabbit-corp ultimately decides to do with all the data is the 64-bit question. They can be nice and offer some sort of privacy pledge, or sell it down the river to any interested parties at any time, and if the concept/device never takes off and fails, the service/backbone is shuttered, etc. where will all that data end up? It's still an intriguing idea overall, but if the whole cloud/'relay control' is handled like shit, that's a problem.
I personally think any data mining is bad, unfortunately nobody will really be free of it until somebody brings the world wide intertubez down for good. Freeing a whole generation from the screen is good in theory, but it sounds very much along the lines of: 'You will own nothing and be happy.'
any idea on how to cut down on how much of your data gets harvested whithout going so far as to airgap your phone or is that mostly a waste of effort at this point
I get asked this a lot. My first question is how much inconvenience are you willing to live with?
There’s a sliding scale from “I don’t want to be on Facebook” to “I want to live like Uncle Ted”. It depends upon what sacrifices you’re willing to make, what data you don’t want to put out there, and who you’re thing to protect your data from.
Most people recycle passwords and don’t use multi-factor authentication. If you make it that easy for someone to assume your identity, there’s little hope for concealing your identity.
I always tell people to start with some sort of password manager and enable MFA on any account they can. That’ll at least mitigate against an account takeover. If they say that is too much of a pain to deal with, then I suggest that they’re not ready to clean up their digital footprint.
I mean I've been ready to clean my act up and am already somewhat familiar with OSINT and just how easy it really is to find someone, but I still have to maintain an online presence for some things, like this site. It would be nice to remove what's out there, but I'm not sure those paid data-broker removal sites do anything or if I should be using Tor and non-google apps like proton mail or what have you. I bet I can still be found pretty easily. What password account manger do you recommend or is a pen and a pad still the best?
No system is better than putting the password on a sticky note under your keyboard.
There’s a ton of password managers out there. I usually hesitate to recommend specific products to people, but honestly OnePassword works well enough that I normally point people in that direction. It’s easy to use, integrates well with mobile and the browser extensions make life easy.
KeyPass is Open Source and arguably “better” but is not as consumer-friendly.
I guess technically a pen and pad is most “secure” in theory but I’d never recommend that.
As far as data mining goes, that’s where things get tricky. Lowest hanging fruit but perhaps the most difficult would be to abandon Google if/where possible. Especially Gmail.
This is all kind of moot if you’re using a regular Android phone, IMO. Then again, you other options are Apple and/or some kind of Android fork that may or may not have its own security flaws.
There are guides out there to opt out of various Data Brokers and the like, but you have to do so regularly.
If you’re looking to obfuscate where you live, be aware that many municipalities use BSA Online or similar for various functions and that means your property record is posted publicly. Only way to “fix” that is to have your property in the name of a trust. In that instance, I’d recommend something other than “Speed Family Trust” or similar.
I have two factor an all my financial accounts but dear God I do not need two factor on everything. Our Cloud audit software require two factor to log in, then the software it uses requires two factor to function and then it signs us out in 4 mins and we get to do it all over again.
Your Identity and Access Management team sucks. There’s few reasons to have to jump through those kinds of hoops in 2024.
Burner dumbphone maybe. I've tried a couple of de-googled android OS's on a smartphone and they work OK for the most part. There are also open source apps available that don't track you (Fdroid app store). You can eliminate all of it, but the inconvenience factor increases. Unfortunately my employment requires Micro$oft products, so I've had to make a couple of compromises. I am able to make most tracking software not as shitty, but it stops working if you don't let it communicate with the mothership.
Sounds like a possibility. I suppose I could set up my S6 with some of the apps when I move to my S23FE. Ever tried Graphene OS? My concern with running apps or other software not available is bricking the phone. I'm not terribly proficient with downloading and running programs.
I was interested in Graphene, but the fact that it only runs on Pixel phones is just too much cognitive dissonance for me. Other OS's like Lineage will run on a lot of (older) phones. Installing this stuff is sometimes tricky/annoying, but usually there's decent documentation from the people maintaining the builds.
Burner dumb phone. Burner laptop bought from a pawn shop in cash. Burner credit cards to obfuscate payments.
The problem with this is that the surveillance state is so pervasive that managing it all is like a second job. Even then, one minor slip up and you have to basically start over.
Pretty much. In the last week I simply jumped ship from one de-googled phone OS + their included privacy/whatever email service to another competing OS and a separate/new email provider. Then I had to reauthenticate all the Micro$oft crap I need for work. It's not really that daunting, but there's a definite level of hair-pulling involved, especially when shit don't work right.
I couldn't imagine trying to maintain a full-on scorched-earth invisible-user mode. Might be easier to just rid yourself of all computers, smartphones, technology, etc. You'd basically disappear, but at the same time it would be impossible to do certain things because needing an online presense is so insanely persvasive.
THIS one could.
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-the-crippled-sr-71-blackbird-that-overflew-hanoi-at-just-mach-1-1-at-just-41000ft-and-got-away-safely/
That story is legit!
Some local project cut a fiber optic line the othet day. Our phones went down but our internet didnt. The neighbors internet went down and so did my home internet. Our tax software, which isnt on the cloud, still requires the internet to function. All the other tax software is mostly cloud only. So 4 days before the filing deadline we were an inch away from being completely offline. I bill 3-5k a day usually these days. Multiply this by 13 workers and we have no backup plan. We have no backup option. I hate the internet of things.
Call before you dig.
A large part of my summer internship with Ford was about the dealers and the floorpan financing. The system is so broken, but somehow keeps working! Maybe things have changed, but the dealers couldn't choose their inventory. A truck would show up with mix of crap and they'd prey for pickup trucks and well optioned mustangs depending on the state. The cool part was all the data. I had access to Ford's inventory and it was awesome! But it was pretty obvious that many people I spoke with had ever looked at it or received any reports from it, because I would get questions like "how do you know that?" Well see right here... these are the models on dealer lots that have exceeded their floorpan financing... Which led to us recommending three trim levels because it was a mess! like almost impossible to go through the data there were do many variations on each car. Actually I need to go find our presentation. Im pretty sure we suggested Platinum for one of the trims.. huh. I always wondered if one exec in the huge auditorium was like this makes sense and used our summer road map to guide their career... haha. I doubt it. But our report made a lot of sense. When did ford start using Platinum?
It's also wild how the dealers use different strategies depending on their size and location. Some dump the low profit models as fast as possible and keep the floorpan financing. Others use the time to wait for a higher profit sale. Ohhh I assume it still works this way. Ford sell the car to the dealer at a discount with 6 months(?) of floorplan financing taken off the top. Sell the car day one and thats your profit. Wait 6 months and its financing cost.
The one that was consistent was "no more crown Vics, I have a pile of them in the corner of the lot" I need to find my report, but they stayed on dealers lots for like 9 months on average or something crazy until someone asked about it and they would practically give it away! Soooo I told Ford to stop putting them on the trucks to retail dealers and focus on fleet sales and cashflow until they can't be used anymore. You would suprised how many old Ford guys hated that. I was like its just a shitty old model guys. Your grandfather will find something else to drive.
I wish had taken that job at Ford. Fast track management thing. Guaranteed division head in like 2 years with a $100mm P&L or something(20 years ago). But I was kind of young and didnt get it. I was more excited about a little racetrack I could use at lunch If I wanted. And no one said a word if I wanted to drift a king ranch dually around the thing with the sprinklers on. Although we were interns so maybe that changes when you can get fired fired.
Also more emails please! are there articles I missed? I only read when I get the email..
"I was like its just a shitty old model guys"
FORK DROPS, ENTIRE MESS HALL GOES SILENT, ALL EYES ON THE GINGER
(that said, I think I do recall that they were impossible to move without huge incentives; given that they run forever, they might have been more frugal than a Camry)
Big Rhonda is just staring in disbelief, lol.
I only sold a few of them. They were ASTOUNDING VALUE. Twenty-two grand for a Vic LX with a couple of options.
really makes you wonder how the company got that big with what sounds like no real conclusive idea on how to optimize the system
management still sounds pretty interesting however
"remember: life is strange, and life keeps getting stranger day by day" -- New Order, "Procession"
Today on LinkedIn, the founder of prayer.com wrote a post that:
a) was apparently written by his wife, but posted under his account, so that it sounded like he was married to another man
b) showed him driving around with a wounded deer in the passenger seat of his truck
Regarding b), the vet told him that aiding an injured adult deer is illegal in Michigan, but imaging what would happen if the animal revived and started flailing around inside the truck in traffic?
But this guy is a fairly successful company founder (and apparently married to his girlfriend from when he was a USC football player).
I also make mistakes, but this seems like a lot of bad judgment for a single post.
i mean it could be worse
good intentions but poor judgement
he's probably a decent person, but that seems like something that would be more excusable in someone who is borderline mentally challenged, not a CEO
is there supposed to be a large difference between the two
Perfect!
His first mistake was logging into LinkedIn.
Everything else is just downstream from that.
OK, Mr. 500+ connections ;)
Those are all just horny MILFs in my area!
I only need the one!
Funny how Ford had trouble selling the best car in their lineup.
It wasn't a stupid combover with TruCoat. Like, soooooo layme! To the cell phone mini-doggo credit buyers anyways...
CPU clock speeds aren't the best example because they have for the past few years started increasing again. High-end desktop CPUs are currently at or above 6GHz and high-end mobile CPUs 5GHz.
On an unrelated subject, the upcoming Ram 1500 Ramcharger's gas engine is used solely to power the hybrid system and the wheels are driven entirely by electric motors. Isn't such a system a perfect application for gas turbine power?
I think the problem is that it's very difficult to scale a turbine down.
Depends on How and What You Need It To Do.
I need it to power a drone with a minigun like in the end of Terminator 3, for, uh, not Terminator related reasons.
🤣
Isn't this a solved problem? e.g. a 1300lb empty weight Robinson R66 helicopter is powered by a small 300hp gas turbine. Granted, at a seven-figure price tag.
In addition to the 7 figure price tag, 300 hp is too much for steady state use (except when towing uphill, I suppose), and turbines have much worse part-load efficiency than reciprocating engines.
Granted you're talking about a truck, but I think I remember small cars using about 60 hp. The BMW i3 range extender is a 647cc 2 cylinder rated at 34 hp.
...and a 2,000 hour overhaul!
I could not be more out on ever getting in a Robinson helicopter. I've been offered a ride in an R44 but it looks like a cheap toy powered by a lawn mower engine. That's not how I want to die!
I’ve flown on a number of helicopters for work, mainly A-Star 350s and MD 500s (a badass little helicopter), which are both turbine powered.
The R44s are super underpowered and guess what, the blades are driven by V belts! I generally avoid riding in them. The R44 can’t maintain its forward airspeed in a climb, they will be down to 40-50 knots in a climb.
i think the problem is that a turbine engine designed to do the same thing as a small turbo 4 is going to be far more expensive and not as reliable or easy to maintain as the regular piston engine despite a potentially small increase in real world efficiency
would be neat to see one connected to a functional cvt however
"CPU clock speeds aren't the best example because they have for the past few years started increasing again. High-end desktop CPUs are currently at or above 6GHz and high-end mobile CPUs 5GHz."
I don't believe they operate at that speed in sustained fashion, and the die size is highly limited at that speed... electromagnetic waves through copper travel something like 1.3 inches during that clock cycle.
The advertised clock speeds are peak (and single-core) values, but AFAIK that's how it's always been in the desktop+mobile space. But there's no reason they can't sustain those speeds given sufficient (i.e. a LOT of) power and cooling. They have quite a bit of overclocking headroom too: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/core-i9-14900ks-overclocked-to-91-ghz-breaking-numerous-world-records
Look up 'diesel electric' it's how all the trains run and a lot of ships. It's actually an old technology and I'm honestly surprised we don't see it more in cars, because at least it's known.
didn't Ferdinand Porsche design the first gas-electric car in 1901?
The new Ram Ramcharger basically works on that principle except the generator engine is a gas 3.6 L V6, I’m looking forward to when they are actually released.
honestly, I think a gas turbine would work better in these situations, because you'd get a more efficient engine. But I could be wrong.
I think I want one mainly so I can play the Das Boot soundtrack in it and every time I hit the gas pedal can yell “More power Chief!”.
Nothing against the Pentastar. I'm glad Stellantis intends to continue producing it for the foreseeable future. But it sure seems oversized for the task in Ramcharger.
Better to have too much engine than not enough? Or maybe it’s cheaper to produce than the alternatives? Or maybe just easier to build? I’d be curious to know the real reason for using it.
Edison is working on a truck like this. Uses a Cat diesel.
[Edit: apparently below text is wrong]
Gas turbines are not a good choice for this application.
Choose gas turbine when:
-power density is critical uber alles
-efficiency (mileage) is of little concern [not true apparently]
-reliability (in the sense of "fewer things to go wrong during operation") is a critical concern outweighing purchase price and operational costs reasons
-vibration inherent to reciprocating piston engines is not desirable
So I don't think it is a good choice - but also haven't been keeping up with the tech. Are there efficient turbines out there now?
i mean the steam generators we have now are pretty efficient but thats a driven turbine and not an engine
i think most of the focus and improvement on turbine engines now comes from the high bypass commercial airliner market so theres not a lot relatively speaking for the kind of small generators we would need
heat-driven steam turbines are a different animal entirely
yup
highest physical efficiency turbine design i could think of though but stationary power generation has its own benefits in terms of design parameters
still might be possible to put one in a car
I think boring old reciprocating ICEs are better than returning to steam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car
Interestingly Donald Healy and SAAB both worked on steam cars in the 1970s
A turbine is, in physical principle, the most efficient possible type of engine, in terms of units of kinetic energy produced per unit of thermal energy supplied.
The inherent property (characteristic of all turbine designs, so not things like cost or maintenance requirements that depend on the particular design) of turbines that makes them less suitable and less fuel-efficient than piston engines in automotive applications is that turbines are much slower to respond to throttle inputs than piston engines are. Among other drawbacks, this means considerable fuel is wasted during deceleration. However, in a vehicle without any mechanical connection between the power unit and the wheels, this isn't an issue.
Ahh! So a constant-RPM turbine ought to be more efficient than a comparable turbocharged piston engine?
Correct, assuming both are equally optimized relative to a theoretical frictionless+zero waste heat engine of that design.
Neat.
The LX-7 Aircraft (offered in piston and turboprop form; link: https://tinyurl.com/58cejfsv ) claims performance numbers of:
-Piston LX-7: Economy Cruise: 250KTAS at FL250 at 18 GPH
-Turboprop LX-7: Max Cruise: 315 KTAS at FL250 at 40 gallons per hour fuel (the company does not make claims regarding economy cruise numbers on their website unfortunately).
It's possible that for years I've been making an apples/oranges comparison between a turbocharged piston at lower speed and a turboprop at a higher speed.
I would be really interested to know what they both do in the same air at the same altitude at the same true air speed.
According to the website:
Piston max cruise: 260 KTAS @ 24 GPH (10.83 KTAPG)
Turboprop efficient cruise: 280 KTAS @ 30 GPH (9.33 KTAPG, 13.85% less efficient)
However this is, as you point out, apples to oranges; the turboprop version flies at much higher airspeeds than the piston version is able to, and its 750HP turbine is much more powerful than the 350HP piston engine. Edit: Also, the turbine runs on jet fuel while the piston engine runs on 100LL.
neatly outlines nearly all of the quoted downsides of the famous chrysler turbine car
but hey you could run it off bourbon
This might be a good application for fuel cells.
hard pass
putting them somewhere is hard and most people dont like having a high pressure tank of volatile (or not) near them
Gasoline or diesel fuel cell, not hydrogen.