We've all been waiting for Marc Marquez to fight his way to first place this entire MotoGP season. This past weekend at Aragon he put on an incredible performance and put himself on pole position.
From that pole he rocketed away in low grip conditions to a dominating win in the sprint. Jorge Martin finished second, unable to keep up with his fellow Spaniard, Pedro Acosta finished third for a strong showing after a lackluster past several races. This placed Martin two points behind Bagnaia in the championship as another poor sprint result, sixth, hurt his lead.
Marquez continued to show his Aragon brilliance in the full race and finished five seconds ahead of second. Finally, after three years and a long road to recovery from injuries and Honda, Marc Marquez won a full length grand prix. Jorge Martin placed second yet again. Further down the ranks Alex Marquez maintained third place for the majority of the race until Bagnaia found late race pace and caught up to him. Then, after a pass to take third, Alex and Pecco tangled up and rolled Bagnaia underneath Alex's motorcycle. Jorge Martin is up 23 points with a bruised Bagnaia going into a home Misano race for the Italian. Pedro Acosta moved into third thanks to the collision.
Bagnaia got impatient, and that move could easily have championship implications. He's being a total baby about it, too. Martin is going to be tough, and I think it'd be hilarious if he takes the number one plate to Aprilia.
as a Brazilian living back in Brazil now, I feel compelled to comment on your topics about our recent happenings... The caveat that "Brazil is the country of the future" remains, on the sense that you'll be living this one day.
On note 0, I'm usually inclined to side with you, but unfortunately, X remains the sole option for the dissenting voice here in Brazil. There's no other open communication channel that openly discusses or highlights the clear and questionable issues we have on our government, the clear conflicts of interest in De Moraes rulings, be them on the topic of election or political battle, or clearing out fines to companies related in the corruption scandals from "operation carwash" a few years ago, companies that are represented by his wife as a lawyer... All other open media, be them the newspapers or the TVs or the radio stations are all FIRMLY controlled by the government or government-aligned companies that do get a lot of money from the government "for the purpose of highlighting the government". So even though I do agree that X per se might not be the best thing since sliced bread, it is what we currently have on our hands that is still not government-abiding. It's relevant to note that all limitations being imposed on them are not actually based in any of our laws, but coming only from the head of said judge.
on note 1, the only thing being used locally to DEFEND De Moraes by the government-backed media is that "the judge represents the law, and law is the most important thing". On this I have to side with the market, there is absolutely no legal connection between Starlink and X, especially in Brazil. Why has "the law" the right to go "above the law" when a company is unwilling to comply with unlawful requests? Seizing Starlink's assets here would be the like imprisoning my brother for crimes I did since we share a father. There is no coverage for this in our decidedly weird laws, and, in fact, most of our complicated laws are written specifically to avoid such issues, and quite honestly, might be the root of our never-ending legal system that never levies guilt on someone with money to pay off lawyers to go through these laws. The judge cannot on his own decide on a "human reality", he's there to work on the "law reality", even if such laws are crap. Also, our supreme court, of which he's a part of, on the basis, only decides on the Constitutionality of a subject. They cannot decide on who's right or wrong, only if against or along the lines of our absurdly long and confusing constitution. They can only decide whether the process was "in the rules of the law" or not. If it was, they confirm the decision of lower courts. If not, it's back to square zero for the discussion.
On note 2, I agree we have no saying on this, and the world will become more and more like this. But coming from a country where a convicted criminal was "unconvicted" to be put into the election and supported by the whole system so he could "come back to the crime scene" and continue as if nothing had happened, I have to tell you, I don't want a vote in this, but I'd surely like to see, as we say it down here in Brazil, "the circus on fire". It's about time someone stands up, even if from abroad, to the craziness of our situation here.
Once the VC money that had kept fares artificially low dried up, Uber raised prices, cut driver pay, and began to suggest tipping, all while service quality declined. But even so, I'd still today rather take an Uber than hail a taxi (9 times out of 10, anyway).
Hailing a cab the old fashioned way, waving an arm on a street corner, is a pain in the ass. And then once a car finally stops, perhaps the driver doesn't feel like going where you're heading. Or his credit card machine is "broken." Or he doesn't know his way around. And then there's the godforsaken video advertisements to listen to, and tight legroom thanks to the partition. Uber really removed a lot of friction from the process, and in the beginning the drivers were eager to please, the cars nice, and the rates impossibly cheap. Today in Boston, Uber rates are about the same as a taxi, and you'll get a 14 year old Rogue that reeks of pot and needs suspension work. But after putting up with taxi bullshit for so many years, I'd need a pretty compelling reason to go back. From what I understand, there are apps to hail taxis now, but it's too little too late as far as I'm concerned.
Nice cars was one of the biggest benefits. It sure beat riding in the back of a clapped-out P71. One time, the cab got a flat and the driver proceeded to dump us on a random street corner at 3AM and said that another would return to pick us up. They eventually came back some 45 minutes later. Even Uber X was was like having a black car at your disposal in comparison. That is, until I was stuck in Downtown Bozeman once and got picked up in a 300,000 mile Dodge Stratus. How that car lasted so long I have no idea.
I believe in U.S., Uber now allows vehicles up to 16 years old for the most basic service level. But I've had clapped out old Tahoes even with Uber Black.
I know when I looked at door dash when they went public they were spending about half their gross profit on advertising. The rest was getting spent on debt pay down, software and server maintenance, and other administrative costs. I think they are still in the red.
I think Uber finally made profit last year. Just looking at their statements, they spent 25 percent of their gross profit and 20 percent on R and D. The rest went to operation and support and administrative.
Out of the 15B in gross profit, they only netted a little over a billion.
Well the bill rate is $200/hour for the Zamboni, but the guy actually writing the code is getting about $50 and sharing a bungalow with five of his friends who are also working for the same staffing agency.
I had a BIL doing both uber and lyft pre-covid. He did OK and I kept reading the headlines that these companies were losing money. Before they went public there wasn't too much insight into their operations.
When they finally did go public I couldn't believe how much they spent on Operations, Marketing, Advertising, and R&D. I guess the R&D though is to improve on the application experience. I also think some are investing into autonomous driving so they don't have to pay drivers.
A few things I first asked myself was, what goes into the "Cost of Revenue"? Since this also has Uber Eats as well does this include Loss Prevention? Does this include when a customer pays and a driver picks up but doesn't deliver? Is this the server costs? I am really unclear.
I'm also scratching my head as to why they spend so much on Marketing and Sales. I think Door Dash actually spends more percentage of their revenue on Marketing. I've never seen an Uber commercial or Ad in my life.
And of course R & D? For what exactly?
I'm convinced that some of these companies purposefully spend loads of cash.
My company apparently has all kinds of problems finding enough capital to build our products and pay our people well - as does every other industry, apparently - even though there's more money today than has ever existed in all of history, and I've figured out why.
Because all that cash and Pretend Internet Money is earmarked for the Global Aristocracy's secret, illegal offshore bank accounts. The rest of civilization will just have to make do with the scraps.
When I was living in LA in 2017 I could take an Uber form Santa Monica to West Hollywood for 7 bucks. Now it’s 30 bucks to go from the Beverly Center to the Sunset Marquis.
There's a special surcharge in the area of JFK and quite a few others. There's ways to cut it down so it doesn't apply to the whole trip. Friend mentioned it, but I never asked for the details. Supposedly a lot of the drivers will tell you if you ask.
I’ll look into that. At least JFK had a great Uber pick up zone, so I was out of the airport in no time. I was picking up a car in NJ and my goal was to get out of NY and NJ as soon as possible mid-day and get to VA to spend the night. Mission accomplished and I missed all the traffic.
I think you can take the not-free AirTrain from terminal to one of the stops where there's a subway station and request Uber there. Because you're no longer on JFK property, the airport surcharge doesn't apply. But that's a lot of hassle, especially for passengers carrying luggage.
John, thanks for the reminder but sadly a fraction too late. My wife dropped my niece at Heathrow on Monday and completely forgot about the £5 charge. The deadline to pay it was yesterday, so that's an £80 fine, unless I can find a way to get the oh so generous 50% discount for paying within 14 days...which itself is going to be tricky as we shall be in Italy. Modern life, eh!
I just booked a black car round trip from JFK to lower Manhattan for just under $350 bucks, and I plan to take cabs while in the city for the weekend. Uber doesn't make sense in a large metro with public transit infrastructure, but in medium and small cities without, it is a necessary evil.
Necessary evil IF you have availability. 8-10 years ago, I could catch a ride home from the bar without issue out here in the suburbs. Now it's difficult to get a ride in the city unless there's a big event happening and/or you don't value your time.
I don't know if I have been lucky, and I do know that I have an extremely small sample size of maybe 30-40 Lyft rides but I think I have had about one than was less than spectacular compared to a yellow cab and even that wasn't too bad.
We have 1 regular Uber driver in my area. If he’s busy, there’s no Uber. But after you use him once, you can just arrange rides directly with him for a flat fee.
I hate using the words "game changer", but that stupid illustration of a car on a map is one of the biggest draws of rideshare apps like this. If some guy is out dicking around, I can cancel the ride and grab another.
Bird scooters provide unintentional comedy. Saw a couple riding together. The guy hit an elevated piece of sidewalk and do a full back landing over the handlebars. They were not going quickly, either.
At work we have a camera pretty well up top that’s usually just tracking clouds. The AV guys saved HD video of a red-tailed hawk dismantling a squirrel on the balustrade 4’ away.
If he comes back with some of that scooter trash or an influencer, I promise to post a link.
When I worked in downtown Chicago I watched a Peregrine Falcon chew on a pigeon on the ledge outside my office. After a while he flew away with the carcass in his talons. He looked like a bird carrying a football when he took flight.
I personally can’t figure WHY anyone would get food delivered! I would occasionally have pizza delivered until the shops started charging delivery fees on top of having to tip the driver! So I don’t get the whole DoorDash/ÜberEats model because of the same principle; you’re probably going to spend almost as much in extra fees and tip as for the food itself, especially if you’re ordering for just yourself.
I especially love all the post-pandemic anti-hygiene stuff that now exists.
Have you noticed how people will now cough and sneeze in public and spew into the air, no matter how many people are close to them? It’s almost like we never learn any lessons from major events :)
When I walk on the sidewalk in downtown Hooterville near my house, the new thing is children with parents who will take up the whole sidewalk and not move out of your way, even when it’s clear that they’ve seen you walking towards them. The kids do it with their parents watching, and there’s never a correction to the kid. And even worse, the adults do it, too, and make no attempt to move. They expect YOU to go around THEM!
Sometimes I really want to move one county over where there’s no real towns, just a bunch of horse farms. It would be less convenient than where I live now, but it would cause me to hate less.
If there were video evidence of this it would have made a perfect helmet PSA. Gut hits a very low profile obstacle. Small-wheeled conveyance stops abruptly. Guy does a near perfect forward 270 over the bars and lands on his back. Somehow gets back up very quickly.
Most people who aren't serious cyclists or skateboarders don't wear their helmets properly. It should sit forward enough to protect you from faceplanting and the straps should be tight enough so that if you open your mouth you can feel the helmet pull down on your head.
Litespeed Catalyst with a mix of Campy Veloce and Record components and about 45,000 miles. I live in a neighborhood with lots of kids. Their parents insist that they wear helmets, which mostly look like they're flopping off the back of their heads.
The helmet thing is a concern over safety but what really bothers me is when I see adults riding bicycles and they aren't centering the ball of their foot right over the pedal spindle for maximum power transfer.
It absolutely blows my mind that people will pay a 50 or 100% premium to have something like McDonald's delivered. Surely it arrives lukewarm at best, isn't suited to reheating, etc. Get off your ass and get your own food.
I held out with ordering delivery until like a year ago. Even now, it's a luxury reserved for days where the two of us want a good meal but are too swamped to even run out to grab something. How/why people use it on a regular basis for trivial things such as fast food I do not understand.
0-Zak and Andrea have turned Ron’s hard-nosed, rational McLaren into some kind of Shiny Happy People McLaren 2.0 that cannot gets it act together to win both titles, despite having the fastest car (at the moment). Or maybe Mark Webber inserted a few crafty clauses into Oscar’s contract… 🤔
1-I am willing to admit, in front of God and everyone else, that I kind of like the Ulysse Nardin (Is Somebody Gonna Match My) Freak (!)
2-X is toast without the Elongated Muskrat’s ability and - crucially - willingness to service the ~$13BN of bank debt that remains hung on a variety of bulge bracket balance sheets nearly two years after the acquisition closed; i.e., the banks that issued the loans are in the moving business, not the storage business. If they could sell them for par, they would have. Clearly, they cannot. If the debt isn’t worth par value, what’s the equity worth? One could argue it’s worth $0. Fidelity marked their own holding of X equity down to 28% of the purchase price on Friday. So that’s ~$31BN of equity (plus the ~$13BN of debt for the ~$44BN enterprise value) that is now worth ~$8BN (plus the ~$13BN of debt, penciling to a ~$21BN enterprise value), at least in Fidelity’s estimation. That’s probably optimistic! What is X worth if it gets banned in the EU (and the UK would likely follow along)? ~450MM people live in the EU, and another ~67MM people live in the UK.
Re: 2, people who ought to know allege that (even beyond the obvious purpose of manufacturing consensus among the cognoscenti) Twitter has always been a spook op. This basically lines up with other things I’ve read, and it raises serious questions/doubts about why X doesn’t have even bigger issues already… the likelihood of a future presidential administration shutting the thing down portends serious future difficulties.
Can we just reverse the clock to 1987 and stay there in the America of cars, stereos, TVs, guns, hot water heaters, skyscrapers, air conditioners and all the other aspects of a world that predated the invention of "technology?"
I disagree. It is no fun to have fast cars in an safety-obsessed (effeminate) environment that aims to monitor and punish our every movement. We are being trapped and mocked.
I suppose it’s interesting that most of the time, the person in the one vehicle in front of me that hews steadfastly to the random numbers on some sign, and creates a line behind me, is usually a woman. As in “suburban!” As in “want the government to wipe their backsides after they use the restroom!” As in “largest Democratic voting bloc!”
In this case, however, I’m talking a wide, two-lane feeder road with a turn lane down the center. It’s a mile end-to-end, and could be posted 35 if they wanted to, but it’s posted 25. So with the sightlines being good, 25 feels like you’re barely moving (and it’s worse in the school zone near the junior high school, posted 20 in Ohio; that’s absolutely interminable)! It sometimes seems like the morality police in front of me are having to expend great deals of energy, mental and otherwise, to keep their car going that slow! (Cruise control would be of some benefit, especially to the poor slobs stuck behind them!)
I go 25-30 in the school zone and almost get run over by people going forty. I just dont want a 20 over in a school zone for teenagers. The limit is a joke. Most of our speed limits are a joke.
Speaking of Suburbans, the Chevy kind, when I lived in a wealthy old suburb, all the anorexic blonde trophy wives drove giant Suburbans. The streets were laid out 100 years ago so they were not wide like modern planned suburbs.
I would be waiting for the rich mom in her Suburban which was diagonally across from me at a four-way stop intersection to turn right so I could then turn left after her. However, all of sudden, there would be a Suburban coming straight at my front bumper from across the intersection, only to then suddenly veer right to make her signaled right-hand turn. What was happening was a 5’5” 100lb woman driver with zero spatial awareness was attempting to steer her luxury liner in tight quarters, which necessitated that crazy jink to the left in order to go right.
The first time it happened to me I seriously thought I was going to get hit, but after seeing it happen every time I just expected it.
The good versions of these women in my hood have 4+ kids. In a past life I made fun, but if they contribute that much of an effort to de-worsening the future, they may drive what they choose
Totally agree. Just wish they would learn how to drive their Suburbans.
There were the normal rich wives who were humble, and other wives who were infected by wealth and status. I used to live in the less wealthy rich suburb next door to the really wealthy rich one. A couple built the largest McManson on our block, but sold it only a couple years later because the wife decided our wealthy suburb was just not as prestigious as the really wealthy adjacent suburb. They ended up buying a much smaller old house in the really rich suburb because that’s all they could afford, even after selling the house on my block for over $1mm. For the record, I owned the worst house on the block, and sold it to a developer who demolished it after I sold it to him so another McMansion could be built.
The Deskpro 386 was released 1986-09-09, but 386BSD, Linux, and FreeBSD were a few years away. Arguably all of that (and later processors) were evolutionary rather than revolutionary from 1987 (GCC March 1987, GNU Screen sometime in 1987, and X11 was released in September 1987, etc.).
So to my other comment, perhaps we could have some evolutionary rather than revolutionary change and popularization of existing technologies rather than the new stuff.
We could even expand it to "flat screen TV's OK; Alexa not OK."
When MB took the CD player out of the dash on the new 2017 E350 wagon, so many owners complained that MB offered a CD player in the glove box dealer install.
I am just trying to change the rules from "1987 exactly" to "1987 technology" with allowances for diffusion and evolution (and ubiquitous CD players would represent "diffusion").
A case could be made for 1995, but then we'd have WWW, and it's hard to argue against WWW diffusing and evolving into dark "tech."
I highly doubt he did. That thing reeks of Elon hubris. Same reason Tesla has a proprietary plug design and the original Model S could seat seven - because Elon said so. (He found the J1772 plug and port ugly, and he had five kids at the time.)
Re: social media. It's not by default a bad thing. If you're a shit person you might have a tendency to engage with it in a shitty way and observe all the shitty aspects of it.
I use it to share things with friends and family. My elderly family members in particular appreciate it. I also use it to connect with people of similar interests which has been a benefit of knowledge and trading.
If I felt compelled to endure in envy and anger, I could find it there too, but I choose not to.
If I chose to use it to share information about my tyrannical government and was actively oppressed, I might feel disenfranchised.
Yeah. Some people are shitty some aren't. Some people are only shitty some of the time. Some are rarely. SM definitely gives a voice for shit people to amplify themselves, however.
The signal to noise ratio of FB in particular is so bad for my particular experience that I access it once a month, tops. The home page is always stuff intended to drive advertising, and I have to search for the actual ‘friend’ posts.
If it weren’t for the many small businesses that use it in place of updating their websites, I’d pull the plug today. It’s past time to “vote with my dollars” and tell these businesses that I don’t FB and so can’t find their information in any case. Since FB is known to be “for boomers” and I have all the gray hair, it might make an impression?
“Can you vote against social media? Against Grubhub? Sorry for being repetitive, but you get the point. The only “vote” you get in the future is expressing approval for imperial bureaucrats when they “arrest the Telegram guy” or “turn off the Starlink” or “remove the disinformation from Facebook”. “
This is the kind of gentle “just the tip” the “We the People” crowd needs to digest to understand that Orange Man 2.0 isn’t going to help
It’s seductive. I think Americans would need to be both a moral and violent people to make a change, and we are sure aren’t either one. I envy my Mennonite neighbors more and more each year
my opinion on who should run either country is largely based on who seems least terrible
its not even trying to find the best candidate ive just accepted that the options are not great but the moral of the story is get trudeau out at any cost
Yes, but to a degree. That one product you don't want to use is part of a huge conglomerate that owns something you can't do with out. Or it is bundled in another way, like CNN or ESPN into your cable bill. Or funded by the government with your taxes in some form, open or not.
This is a point brought up in a book I've been reading on the history of the Scotch-Irish and the independent attitudes they brought with them in settling the Appalachians.
"‘I love Ireland. Ireland is 100% different to back home. It’s peace, calm’ Qareeb Urrahman came to Ireland from Afghanistan in 2021"
"Urrahman is upset by anti-immigrant protests. “You can’t really say to people you’re feeling sad, but deep in your heart you feel sad, because we have come all the way from Afghanistan, been in wars for generation over generation. We come to Ireland and we finally think, ‘I’m gonna make it now’. Then the same thing is happening here. People just don’t want to see you here. They say ‘go back home’.”"
Why might people say that?
“I would love to go back. One of my dreams is to go back home and live there in a peaceful way, with no dramas, no wars, no sanctions. Right now, it doesn’t seem possible. To be honest, I love Ireland. Ireland is 100 per cent different to back home. It’s peace, calm.”
Oh, because they want "peace, calm" not "wars for generation over generation." (granted, Soviet and American involvement probably didn't help matters)
It is bordered by Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, and China. Pakistan does a great job of being "perpetual hellhole" all by itself with minimal Western involvement.
Scotch-Irish: A Social History by James Graham Leyburn
I also highly recommend the mentioned elsewhere Albion's Seed. Anyone with deep WV roots likely has some Quaker mixed in. Boy and girl both those straight laced Quaker kids liked them some freaky dirty Scotch-Irish.
Funny you mention the Fender Rhodes. I don't know nuttin' about keyboards, but just the other night I caught this video by "Five Watt World" on its origins. As Johnny Carson used to say, "I did not know that..."
You can, in fact, vote against social media. And you can litigate against it, especially if you can pry information out of their organizations about deliberately targeting children.
An optimist can say that Musk is a free speech advocate.
A pessimist can say that Musk sees a reckoning coming via populist uprising and wants to ingratiate himself to the forces he sees as ascendant to save his own skin.
In war you form alliances. Sometimes over shared values. Sometimes because you have a common enemy. Sometimes because you can see who is going to be left standing at the end. While in the height of the fight the motivations don't matter as much as shifting the momentum. Once the victory is in sight you can start sifting through the motives.
A realist might have questions. What was Musk’s upbringing truly like and why is his mother always in such strange positions on the covers of magazines?
Why does Musk constantly allege an intention of humans colonizing mars when the difference in gravity would lead to serious osteopenia, that would eventually lead to blood acidosis?
Why does Musk wish to convince people to implant their own brains with computer chips? Given how buggy Twitter is, would it be wise for people to trust Musk with their most precious asset?
Finally, why does Musk appear to be a living, breathing limited hangout? What are his true desires, given colonizing an unbelievably cold, hideously ugly rock-strewn desert planet with osteopenia robots is obviously not something that will work?
Hyperloop has always seemed to me a solution in search of a problem. High-speed rail already exists, uses proven technology, and is capable of carrying more people at lower cost per mile.
Interesting. I’ve never seen figures for the CPM of construction and operation of a hyperloop system. I wonder if these numbers are known? Or if there are high quality estimates?
In a country as large as the US, obviously air travel makes the most sense for most longer journeys. If you remove TSA and security, a hyperloop system would have to move at 700mph to beat air travel. As it is, 500 mph would probably outperform air travel in time to destination for a lot of routes.
Is the hyperloop system better than a SOTA maglev train… that’s unclear to me. If promised performance is achievable, it certainly would be substantially faster. Because maglev trains have massive turning radii at speed, the property purchases/easements to create the rail network makes them unfeasible from the get-go as no one can really recoup either the property purchase or easement + tunneling costs
Musk would hardly be the first rich genius to float some loopy ideas out into the ether. I think he is fundamentally an optimist about the nature of technology and sees mostly the positive side of converting our current meat-bag existence into a symbiotic existence with technology. Chips in people's heads may one day be able to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and mobility to the disabled.
That he can have such views when he's got cold hard documentation of the government trying to use Twitter as a weapon of propaganda to cement political power definitely raises the ol' eyebrow. But like most, he views the entire censorship problem as a problem with specific people moreso than institutions (at least as far as I can see) and isn't really grok-ing (HA!) the potential hazards of integrating technology literally into our brains when the government can't keep it's corrupt claws off of what is merely in front of our eyes.
While I think these are valid questions, my question is why aren't there more people, prominent people, interested in any grand future?
When I grew up as a kid we had shuttle missions and ISS and hubble and all sorts cool things to think about. Why is Musk the only one advocating for reusable rockets? Cool internet sattalite technology. Implants that might allow people to walk again?
In the last 20 years I can't recall anyone outside of Musk really thinking big. Steve Jobs did, but It was more at the consumer level.
We had people thinking big years ago. We need more people thinking big.
As this is a car related forum, I think it goes to show how in the mid nineties when I was first driving we all wanted lots of power. Lots of car culture. Everyone wanting loud stereos in their car. Everyone wanting to do something big. Now kids don't care about cars and want to move to big cities so they all can have public tansit.
Planes flew into buildings. That's what happened. The collective people began to understand that life is fleeting and instead sought short-term pleasure at the cost of all else. This was accelerated by technical advancements that allowed that allowed on-demand access to pretty much anything, including the ability to show the world that you seek pleasure "better" than others.
I would add that to dream big one must have not just in imaginative big-dreaming elite but also a population of contributive workers who sense that their immediate and pressing needs (food, shelter, gas in the fleet, love from the wife & kids ) are beyond being taken away on a whim for wrongthink or for no reason at all (offshoring)
the realist can say Musk is simply interested in maximizing his bottom line and getting as big a return as possible from what was a stupid purchase at an inflated price, and he knows that anger and division are the engine that drives social media.
Excellent observations about alliances. The 2024 version of Elon is on my side. But I can't help remembering 2015 Elon, who wanted Big Brother to outlaw my car.
Of course, our worldviews and political positions change as the scales fall away from our eyes. I choose to believe this is what has happened with Musk.
Oh, and on that watch I'm not sure what the record is for most ludicrously expensive embodiment of small dick energy is, but that has to be at least in the top five...but given that sales seemed to be primarily in China and India with India being one of the rapiest places on the planet, maybe UN just knew their audience.
Honestly no: at one point, I think it was discussed at the World Health Organization, and I would have preferred that link, but it wasn't one of my top search results.
It goes both ways. I'll never make a living in porn but the condom a Chinese girl produced for me one night in Kuala Lumpur was like a compression sock.
ulysse nardin thought it wasnt enough that mechanical watches were poor timekeepers compared to phones and decided to make a watch that showed someone getting piped far worse than what you could see on a phone
everything seems to be getting much worse and rapidly with so many sites getting shut down or sued under the guise of piracy or somesuch
i dont pirate media because i cant pay for it i do so because i dont want to give corporations money
my parents were the opposite of computer literate so i only learned what a torrent was somewhat recently and have little idea how to actually do it without downloading weird shit
my friend got me an account on the iptorrents website just before he died which is supposedly a very secure site but the actual process seems daunting
He's engaged to Courtney Ryan, who has her own YouTube channel that appears to be about giving dating advice. Teddy has fewer affectations than his colleague the Urban Gentry, Tristano Geoffrey Veneto, who reminds me of Standartenführer Hans Landa from Inglorious Bastards.
As the race unfolded I thought of your assessment of Oscar. I would say one can conclude that Lando does not have that raw intelligence it factor to win a contested championship. His team isn't good enough to outsource his brain to.
However if Oscar's long pace tire use had reached an elite level, McClaren would not have called for that pitstop.
So the battle of the not quite ready to win a drivers championship continues.
We've all been waiting for Marc Marquez to fight his way to first place this entire MotoGP season. This past weekend at Aragon he put on an incredible performance and put himself on pole position.
From that pole he rocketed away in low grip conditions to a dominating win in the sprint. Jorge Martin finished second, unable to keep up with his fellow Spaniard, Pedro Acosta finished third for a strong showing after a lackluster past several races. This placed Martin two points behind Bagnaia in the championship as another poor sprint result, sixth, hurt his lead.
Marquez continued to show his Aragon brilliance in the full race and finished five seconds ahead of second. Finally, after three years and a long road to recovery from injuries and Honda, Marc Marquez won a full length grand prix. Jorge Martin placed second yet again. Further down the ranks Alex Marquez maintained third place for the majority of the race until Bagnaia found late race pace and caught up to him. Then, after a pass to take third, Alex and Pecco tangled up and rolled Bagnaia underneath Alex's motorcycle. Jorge Martin is up 23 points with a bruised Bagnaia going into a home Misano race for the Italian. Pedro Acosta moved into third thanks to the collision.
Bagnaia got impatient, and that move could easily have championship implications. He's being a total baby about it, too. Martin is going to be tough, and I think it'd be hilarious if he takes the number one plate to Aprilia.
He apologized in the press conferences before Misano the First Running about his attitude and remarks. In my eyes it was just a racing incident.
Bagnaia is still looking strong through FP1 and Practice - straight to Q2.
I didn't mention it but Zarco had a real showing for Honda in that they weren't DFL in the qualifying or standings!
Yeah, I saw that, and I get it - once he cooled off he backed off the rhetoric. Zarco has been the best Honda all year.
as a Brazilian living back in Brazil now, I feel compelled to comment on your topics about our recent happenings... The caveat that "Brazil is the country of the future" remains, on the sense that you'll be living this one day.
On note 0, I'm usually inclined to side with you, but unfortunately, X remains the sole option for the dissenting voice here in Brazil. There's no other open communication channel that openly discusses or highlights the clear and questionable issues we have on our government, the clear conflicts of interest in De Moraes rulings, be them on the topic of election or political battle, or clearing out fines to companies related in the corruption scandals from "operation carwash" a few years ago, companies that are represented by his wife as a lawyer... All other open media, be them the newspapers or the TVs or the radio stations are all FIRMLY controlled by the government or government-aligned companies that do get a lot of money from the government "for the purpose of highlighting the government". So even though I do agree that X per se might not be the best thing since sliced bread, it is what we currently have on our hands that is still not government-abiding. It's relevant to note that all limitations being imposed on them are not actually based in any of our laws, but coming only from the head of said judge.
on note 1, the only thing being used locally to DEFEND De Moraes by the government-backed media is that "the judge represents the law, and law is the most important thing". On this I have to side with the market, there is absolutely no legal connection between Starlink and X, especially in Brazil. Why has "the law" the right to go "above the law" when a company is unwilling to comply with unlawful requests? Seizing Starlink's assets here would be the like imprisoning my brother for crimes I did since we share a father. There is no coverage for this in our decidedly weird laws, and, in fact, most of our complicated laws are written specifically to avoid such issues, and quite honestly, might be the root of our never-ending legal system that never levies guilt on someone with money to pay off lawyers to go through these laws. The judge cannot on his own decide on a "human reality", he's there to work on the "law reality", even if such laws are crap. Also, our supreme court, of which he's a part of, on the basis, only decides on the Constitutionality of a subject. They cannot decide on who's right or wrong, only if against or along the lines of our absurdly long and confusing constitution. They can only decide whether the process was "in the rules of the law" or not. If it was, they confirm the decision of lower courts. If not, it's back to square zero for the discussion.
On note 2, I agree we have no saying on this, and the world will become more and more like this. But coming from a country where a convicted criminal was "unconvicted" to be put into the election and supported by the whole system so he could "come back to the crime scene" and continue as if nothing had happened, I have to tell you, I don't want a vote in this, but I'd surely like to see, as we say it down here in Brazil, "the circus on fire". It's about time someone stands up, even if from abroad, to the craziness of our situation here.
Pinned. Thank you for this perspective. We are lucky to have you here. BE CAREFUL.
Once the VC money that had kept fares artificially low dried up, Uber raised prices, cut driver pay, and began to suggest tipping, all while service quality declined. But even so, I'd still today rather take an Uber than hail a taxi (9 times out of 10, anyway).
Hailing a cab the old fashioned way, waving an arm on a street corner, is a pain in the ass. And then once a car finally stops, perhaps the driver doesn't feel like going where you're heading. Or his credit card machine is "broken." Or he doesn't know his way around. And then there's the godforsaken video advertisements to listen to, and tight legroom thanks to the partition. Uber really removed a lot of friction from the process, and in the beginning the drivers were eager to please, the cars nice, and the rates impossibly cheap. Today in Boston, Uber rates are about the same as a taxi, and you'll get a 14 year old Rogue that reeks of pot and needs suspension work. But after putting up with taxi bullshit for so many years, I'd need a pretty compelling reason to go back. From what I understand, there are apps to hail taxis now, but it's too little too late as far as I'm concerned.
"a 14 year old Rogue that reeks of pot"
If I want to travel in a car that reeks of pot, I'll drive myself.
Admittedly, that's not the norm. But it never would have been tolerated a decade ago.
Nice cars was one of the biggest benefits. It sure beat riding in the back of a clapped-out P71. One time, the cab got a flat and the driver proceeded to dump us on a random street corner at 3AM and said that another would return to pick us up. They eventually came back some 45 minutes later. Even Uber X was was like having a black car at your disposal in comparison. That is, until I was stuck in Downtown Bozeman once and got picked up in a 300,000 mile Dodge Stratus. How that car lasted so long I have no idea.
I believe in U.S., Uber now allows vehicles up to 16 years old for the most basic service level. But I've had clapped out old Tahoes even with Uber Black.
what I'd like to know is - all of the fare money that does not go to the drivers, where does it go and what is it spent on?
hookers and blow
Charlie Sheen Style!
Shootin' rails of coke off a hooker's ass.
Same as the music industry circa, well, 1980?
I know when I looked at door dash when they went public they were spending about half their gross profit on advertising. The rest was getting spent on debt pay down, software and server maintenance, and other administrative costs. I think they are still in the red.
I think Uber finally made profit last year. Just looking at their statements, they spent 25 percent of their gross profit and 20 percent on R and D. The rest went to operation and support and administrative.
Out of the 15B in gross profit, they only netted a little over a billion.
how are you supposed to spend r and d money on some ethnic delivering you food
didnt think that demanded much development
It’s spent on that little taxi icon that moves around on your phone screen while you wait to be picked up.
ESPN has a little Zamboni icon that moves around on the on-screen hockey rink between periods during NHL games. I can’t imagine what that costs.
Whartever ut custs to have an entire tim of Indian pro-grammer do it!
Well the bill rate is $200/hour for the Zamboni, but the guy actually writing the code is getting about $50 and sharing a bungalow with five of his friends who are also working for the same staffing agency.
I had a BIL doing both uber and lyft pre-covid. He did OK and I kept reading the headlines that these companies were losing money. Before they went public there wasn't too much insight into their operations.
When they finally did go public I couldn't believe how much they spent on Operations, Marketing, Advertising, and R&D. I guess the R&D though is to improve on the application experience. I also think some are investing into autonomous driving so they don't have to pay drivers.
How the hell can they spend 14B on admin and support and ops and random coding R&D???
To be specifically clear, Uber in 2023:
Revenue - 37.3B
Cost of Revenue - (22.5B)
Operation and Support - (2.7B)
Marketing and Advertising - (4.4B)
R and D - (3.2B)
G and A - (2.7B)
Net income - 1.1B.
A few things I first asked myself was, what goes into the "Cost of Revenue"? Since this also has Uber Eats as well does this include Loss Prevention? Does this include when a customer pays and a driver picks up but doesn't deliver? Is this the server costs? I am really unclear.
I'm also scratching my head as to why they spend so much on Marketing and Sales. I think Door Dash actually spends more percentage of their revenue on Marketing. I've never seen an Uber commercial or Ad in my life.
And of course R & D? For what exactly?
I'm convinced that some of these companies purposefully spend loads of cash.
https://s23.q4cdn.com/407969754/files/doc_earnings/2023/q4/earnings-result/Uber-Q4-23-Earnings-Press-Release.pdf
My company apparently has all kinds of problems finding enough capital to build our products and pay our people well - as does every other industry, apparently - even though there's more money today than has ever existed in all of history, and I've figured out why.
Because all that cash and Pretend Internet Money is earmarked for the Global Aristocracy's secret, illegal offshore bank accounts. The rest of civilization will just have to make do with the scraps.
Is there room in those accounts after all the Ukraine War money is stuffed into them?
they will make room
When I was living in LA in 2017 I could take an Uber form Santa Monica to West Hollywood for 7 bucks. Now it’s 30 bucks to go from the Beverly Center to the Sunset Marquis.
I spent more on an Uber to go from JFK Airport to NJ than my flight from NC to NY cost.
Yeah I once spent $300 on an Uber to get from LAX to Hollywood. Took 3 hours.
Sounds like track day club rates.
There's a special surcharge in the area of JFK and quite a few others. There's ways to cut it down so it doesn't apply to the whole trip. Friend mentioned it, but I never asked for the details. Supposedly a lot of the drivers will tell you if you ask.
I’ll look into that. At least JFK had a great Uber pick up zone, so I was out of the airport in no time. I was picking up a car in NJ and my goal was to get out of NY and NJ as soon as possible mid-day and get to VA to spend the night. Mission accomplished and I missed all the traffic.
I think you can take the not-free AirTrain from terminal to one of the stops where there's a subway station and request Uber there. Because you're no longer on JFK property, the airport surcharge doesn't apply. But that's a lot of hassle, especially for passengers carrying luggage.
The AirTrain sucks and blows.
John, thanks for the reminder but sadly a fraction too late. My wife dropped my niece at Heathrow on Monday and completely forgot about the £5 charge. The deadline to pay it was yesterday, so that's an £80 fine, unless I can find a way to get the oh so generous 50% discount for paying within 14 days...which itself is going to be tricky as we shall be in Italy. Modern life, eh!
Update - they're going to extend the £5 payment date, apparently. Must have fined too many MPs...
I just booked a black car round trip from JFK to lower Manhattan for just under $350 bucks, and I plan to take cabs while in the city for the weekend. Uber doesn't make sense in a large metro with public transit infrastructure, but in medium and small cities without, it is a necessary evil.
Necessary evil IF you have availability. 8-10 years ago, I could catch a ride home from the bar without issue out here in the suburbs. Now it's difficult to get a ride in the city unless there's a big event happening and/or you don't value your time.
I don't know if I have been lucky, and I do know that I have an extremely small sample size of maybe 30-40 Lyft rides but I think I have had about one than was less than spectacular compared to a yellow cab and even that wasn't too bad.
Where I live, I can order an Uber and it will, at least, arrive—-eventually… can a taxi dispatch accomplish this?
You’re 100% right about Uber though. Matt Stollers breakdown of the business model is similar
We have 1 regular Uber driver in my area. If he’s busy, there’s no Uber. But after you use him once, you can just arrange rides directly with him for a flat fee.
Hell yeah, man-to-man biz with no corpos involved. Love to see it
The guy is really fun to talk to. Said he once had a trip with a local girl who tried to pay him with online credits to her Only Fans account.
He texts to all his clients on his availability if he’s busy or out of town. I don’t know why more people don’t do what he does.
I hate using the words "game changer", but that stupid illustration of a car on a map is one of the biggest draws of rideshare apps like this. If some guy is out dicking around, I can cancel the ride and grab another.
Well here are my votes on tech:
X.com - don't use it.
Facebook - don't use it and will be the very last person on the planet to use it.
Instagram - don't use it.
Uber - have used it I think twice; experience wasn't all that great; will only use it in rare cases with no other option.
Lyft - haven't used it and probably won't
Bird scooters - don't use them. Stupid things.
Food delivery services - don't use them. Cripe, why?
I do have an iPhone so am not completely anti-tech.
Bird scooters especially. Do YOU know who's touched those handgrips?
I have a pretty good guess. And its gross.
Bird scooters provide unintentional comedy. Saw a couple riding together. The guy hit an elevated piece of sidewalk and do a full back landing over the handlebars. They were not going quickly, either.
I haven't wanted to go back in time and see something this badly since I found out about the XB-70
perpetual surveillance states would be more tolerable if we could watch the screw ups like that
The surveillance outtakes will be shown after the Two Minutes of Hate.
1984 predicted *everything*.
I’m guessing the elites don’t allow 1984 or Animal Farm to be read in high school anymore.
At work we have a camera pretty well up top that’s usually just tracking clouds. The AV guys saved HD video of a red-tailed hawk dismantling a squirrel on the balustrade 4’ away.
If he comes back with some of that scooter trash or an influencer, I promise to post a link.
When I worked in downtown Chicago I watched a Peregrine Falcon chew on a pigeon on the ledge outside my office. After a while he flew away with the carcass in his talons. He looked like a bird carrying a football when he took flight.
Moments like these are the 1 in 1 billion reasons to be a Google Glasshole.
As in a somersault over the thing? Jeebus!
I personally can’t figure WHY anyone would get food delivered! I would occasionally have pizza delivered until the shops started charging delivery fees on top of having to tip the driver! So I don’t get the whole DoorDash/ÜberEats model because of the same principle; you’re probably going to spend almost as much in extra fees and tip as for the food itself, especially if you’re ordering for just yourself.
I especially love all the post-pandemic anti-hygiene stuff that now exists.
Have you noticed how people will now cough and sneeze in public and spew into the air, no matter how many people are close to them? It’s almost like we never learn any lessons from major events :)
That which does not kill me makes me stronger.
Or basic manners and common decency are lost on most of the sludge that makes up a fair portion of humanity!
When I walk on the sidewalk in downtown Hooterville near my house, the new thing is children with parents who will take up the whole sidewalk and not move out of your way, even when it’s clear that they’ve seen you walking towards them. The kids do it with their parents watching, and there’s never a correction to the kid. And even worse, the adults do it, too, and make no attempt to move. They expect YOU to go around THEM!
Sometimes I really want to move one county over where there’s no real towns, just a bunch of horse farms. It would be less convenient than where I live now, but it would cause me to hate less.
I don't permit that. My knees hurt. I weigh 248 pounds. I am walking straight ahead.
"people will now cough and sneeze in public and spew into the air"
Hey ChadGPT, condense that
"Hawk tuah"
We need that to rebuild our immune systems
lick the handles of a bird scooter then
If there were video evidence of this it would have made a perfect helmet PSA. Gut hits a very low profile obstacle. Small-wheeled conveyance stops abruptly. Guy does a near perfect forward 270 over the bars and lands on his back. Somehow gets back up very quickly.
Most people who aren't serious cyclists or skateboarders don't wear their helmets properly. It should sit forward enough to protect you from faceplanting and the straps should be tight enough so that if you open your mouth you can feel the helmet pull down on your head.
Bike shop dork spotted.
Litespeed Catalyst with a mix of Campy Veloce and Record components and about 45,000 miles. I live in a neighborhood with lots of kids. Their parents insist that they wear helmets, which mostly look like they're flopping off the back of their heads.
The helmet thing is a concern over safety but what really bothers me is when I see adults riding bicycles and they aren't centering the ball of their foot right over the pedal spindle for maximum power transfer.
It absolutely blows my mind that people will pay a 50 or 100% premium to have something like McDonald's delivered. Surely it arrives lukewarm at best, isn't suited to reheating, etc. Get off your ass and get your own food.
wait why does my big mac meal cost 30 dollars
Hell, I can get kosher egg fu yung for half that.
Hell, it now costs that much WITHOUT the delivery shenanigans!
You would be especially shocked to see how often I see that type of order sitting untouched on a front stoop. Drunk ordering I imagine.
Saw a Chipotle bag with the telltale safety seal stickers sitting on neighbor's stoop a few weeks ago.
People with cars will order door dash from the McDonald’s 5 minutes away stone cold sober. Drunk, i at least understand.
My kids mini scooters are the only thing im adamant they wear helmets on. Those tiny wheels dont roll over any bumps
I held out with ordering delivery until like a year ago. Even now, it's a luxury reserved for days where the two of us want a good meal but are too swamped to even run out to grab something. How/why people use it on a regular basis for trivial things such as fast food I do not understand.
Read an article in the WSJ that said about one in 7000 rides ends up in the emergency room!
0-Zak and Andrea have turned Ron’s hard-nosed, rational McLaren into some kind of Shiny Happy People McLaren 2.0 that cannot gets it act together to win both titles, despite having the fastest car (at the moment). Or maybe Mark Webber inserted a few crafty clauses into Oscar’s contract… 🤔
1-I am willing to admit, in front of God and everyone else, that I kind of like the Ulysse Nardin (Is Somebody Gonna Match My) Freak (!)
2-X is toast without the Elongated Muskrat’s ability and - crucially - willingness to service the ~$13BN of bank debt that remains hung on a variety of bulge bracket balance sheets nearly two years after the acquisition closed; i.e., the banks that issued the loans are in the moving business, not the storage business. If they could sell them for par, they would have. Clearly, they cannot. If the debt isn’t worth par value, what’s the equity worth? One could argue it’s worth $0. Fidelity marked their own holding of X equity down to 28% of the purchase price on Friday. So that’s ~$31BN of equity (plus the ~$13BN of debt for the ~$44BN enterprise value) that is now worth ~$8BN (plus the ~$13BN of debt, penciling to a ~$21BN enterprise value), at least in Fidelity’s estimation. That’s probably optimistic! What is X worth if it gets banned in the EU (and the UK would likely follow along)? ~450MM people live in the EU, and another ~67MM people live in the UK.
"kind of like the Ulysse Nardin"
bro come on
even for me its far too cringe
https://www.ulysse-nardin.com/usa_en/2303-270-03
infinitely less offensive than that other thing
looks kinda neat
next: make that "hand" look fully like a Ford Edsel grille
Or the grill of the Subaru Tribeca minivan! 😉
The Ulysses Vagin
Do they have a model named Nouveau Riche?
Lamborghini holds the copyright on that name.
Re: 2, people who ought to know allege that (even beyond the obvious purpose of manufacturing consensus among the cognoscenti) Twitter has always been a spook op. This basically lines up with other things I’ve read, and it raises serious questions/doubts about why X doesn’t have even bigger issues already… the likelihood of a future presidential administration shutting the thing down portends serious future difficulties.
Can we just reverse the clock to 1987 and stay there in the America of cars, stereos, TVs, guns, hot water heaters, skyscrapers, air conditioners and all the other aspects of a world that predated the invention of "technology?"
we have batshit fast cars now which is cool
there was a pathway in which we could have all the cool stuff and none of the bad but it wasnt as immediately profitable so they didnt
I disagree. It is no fun to have fast cars in an safety-obsessed (effeminate) environment that aims to monitor and punish our every movement. We are being trapped and mocked.
exactly
theres no real reason that the govt needs to crackdown on us this hard and it is possible to reap the benefits without the downsides
the nanny state is incredibly gay
Yeah there is.
To show us who's in charge.
like i said
very gay
thankfully we always have the Gymkhana-type characters to show us how fun the simulation is. Even with EVs! We are assholes for complaining.
I suppose it’s interesting that most of the time, the person in the one vehicle in front of me that hews steadfastly to the random numbers on some sign, and creates a line behind me, is usually a woman. As in “suburban!” As in “want the government to wipe their backsides after they use the restroom!” As in “largest Democratic voting bloc!”
A woman or a trucker. Move over!
Agreed on both counts!
In this case, however, I’m talking a wide, two-lane feeder road with a turn lane down the center. It’s a mile end-to-end, and could be posted 35 if they wanted to, but it’s posted 25. So with the sightlines being good, 25 feels like you’re barely moving (and it’s worse in the school zone near the junior high school, posted 20 in Ohio; that’s absolutely interminable)! It sometimes seems like the morality police in front of me are having to expend great deals of energy, mental and otherwise, to keep their car going that slow! (Cruise control would be of some benefit, especially to the poor slobs stuck behind them!)
I go 25-30 in the school zone and almost get run over by people going forty. I just dont want a 20 over in a school zone for teenagers. The limit is a joke. Most of our speed limits are a joke.
Speaking of Suburbans, the Chevy kind, when I lived in a wealthy old suburb, all the anorexic blonde trophy wives drove giant Suburbans. The streets were laid out 100 years ago so they were not wide like modern planned suburbs.
I would be waiting for the rich mom in her Suburban which was diagonally across from me at a four-way stop intersection to turn right so I could then turn left after her. However, all of sudden, there would be a Suburban coming straight at my front bumper from across the intersection, only to then suddenly veer right to make her signaled right-hand turn. What was happening was a 5’5” 100lb woman driver with zero spatial awareness was attempting to steer her luxury liner in tight quarters, which necessitated that crazy jink to the left in order to go right.
The first time it happened to me I seriously thought I was going to get hit, but after seeing it happen every time I just expected it.
They are majestic, no?
The good versions of these women in my hood have 4+ kids. In a past life I made fun, but if they contribute that much of an effort to de-worsening the future, they may drive what they choose
Totally agree. Just wish they would learn how to drive their Suburbans.
There were the normal rich wives who were humble, and other wives who were infected by wealth and status. I used to live in the less wealthy rich suburb next door to the really wealthy rich one. A couple built the largest McManson on our block, but sold it only a couple years later because the wife decided our wealthy suburb was just not as prestigious as the really wealthy adjacent suburb. They ended up buying a much smaller old house in the really rich suburb because that’s all they could afford, even after selling the house on my block for over $1mm. For the record, I owned the worst house on the block, and sold it to a developer who demolished it after I sold it to him so another McMansion could be built.
The Deskpro 386 was released 1986-09-09, but 386BSD, Linux, and FreeBSD were a few years away. Arguably all of that (and later processors) were evolutionary rather than revolutionary from 1987 (GCC March 1987, GNU Screen sometime in 1987, and X11 was released in September 1987, etc.).
Can we at least fast forward to when CD players where in every car?
Mercedes-Benz began installing CD players in 1985:
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15128476/the-history-of-car-radios/
So to my other comment, perhaps we could have some evolutionary rather than revolutionary change and popularization of existing technologies rather than the new stuff.
We could even expand it to "flat screen TV's OK; Alexa not OK."
When MB took the CD player out of the dash on the new 2017 E350 wagon, so many owners complained that MB offered a CD player in the glove box dealer install.
Just TVs. That DON’T connect to the Internet!
Regular coax and HDMI-in, no cameras that will snoop on me snoozing in my chair!
Every car?
My folks first car with a CD player was a 1995 or 96 Eddie Bauer edition Explorer they purchased 1 year used.
I am just trying to change the rules from "1987 exactly" to "1987 technology" with allowances for diffusion and evolution (and ubiquitous CD players would represent "diffusion").
A case could be made for 1995, but then we'd have WWW, and it's hard to argue against WWW diffusing and evolving into dark "tech."
Yes except I want a Cybertruck
I saw one today, in camo paint. I have a hard time believing that Franz von Holzhausen signed off on that thing.
I highly doubt he did. That thing reeks of Elon hubris. Same reason Tesla has a proprietary plug design and the original Model S could seat seven - because Elon said so. (He found the J1772 plug and port ugly, and he had five kids at the time.)
We have another car company because of founder hubris, it’s called Ford.
Re: social media. It's not by default a bad thing. If you're a shit person you might have a tendency to engage with it in a shitty way and observe all the shitty aspects of it.
I use it to share things with friends and family. My elderly family members in particular appreciate it. I also use it to connect with people of similar interests which has been a benefit of knowledge and trading.
If I felt compelled to endure in envy and anger, I could find it there too, but I choose not to.
If I chose to use it to share information about my tyrannical government and was actively oppressed, I might feel disenfranchised.
"Re: social media. It's not by default a bad thing."
Yeah, but HUMAN BEINGS are.
See paragraph 1.
Never hurts to drive the point home...
Yeah. Some people are shitty some aren't. Some people are only shitty some of the time. Some are rarely. SM definitely gives a voice for shit people to amplify themselves, however.
“Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.” (Supposedly) Mike Tyson
i personally am thrilled the easily agitated and never accountable retards on the internet cant actually do me harm on a whim
anonymity is great
Jeremiah 17:9.
i use it harass people and look at memes
its great
nobody should take it that seriously
Oh, the Regimes surely do take it seriously. It's a modern and very effective take on propaganda.
It should be like alcohol and cogarettes. Illegal until youre an adult
The signal to noise ratio of FB in particular is so bad for my particular experience that I access it once a month, tops. The home page is always stuff intended to drive advertising, and I have to search for the actual ‘friend’ posts.
If it weren’t for the many small businesses that use it in place of updating their websites, I’d pull the plug today. It’s past time to “vote with my dollars” and tell these businesses that I don’t FB and so can’t find their information in any case. Since FB is known to be “for boomers” and I have all the gray hair, it might make an impression?
I deleted facebook 7 years ago and have not missed it one single moment
You're not wrong.
“Can you vote against social media? Against Grubhub? Sorry for being repetitive, but you get the point. The only “vote” you get in the future is expressing approval for imperial bureaucrats when they “arrest the Telegram guy” or “turn off the Starlink” or “remove the disinformation from Facebook”. “
This is the kind of gentle “just the tip” the “We the People” crowd needs to digest to understand that Orange Man 2.0 isn’t going to help
"Orange Man 2.0 isn’t going to help"
fair point
guess ill vote for the brown communist woman instead
They don’t call that dipshit “Commie-la” for nothing!
Fair play. What Jack wrote is a nice intro to the autistic nihilism of Yarvin in full shitpost mode
I try very hard to not fall into that mindset, and I apologize.
It’s seductive. I think Americans would need to be both a moral and violent people to make a change, and we are sure aren’t either one. I envy my Mennonite neighbors more and more each year
Thanks for the compliment! (probably the only Menno on ACF).
I’m not sure if he was calling you moral and violent, or just wistfully longing for those in the op-out cultures.
You shitpost, but the People’s Tribune is cozying up to all of the wrong sorts of people.
We don’t want Cackling Castro but the Peoples Tribune will not be able to achieve in a potential second term what he only had one to accomplish.
"You shitpost"
i do this almost exclusively
my opinion on who should run either country is largely based on who seems least terrible
its not even trying to find the best candidate ive just accepted that the options are not great but the moral of the story is get trudeau out at any cost
We’re agreed on basically everything bruh
Mustache man it is then!
shit if we could actually vote for uncle adolf something might actually get done properly
you're wrong there!
"Can you vote against social media? Against Grubhub?"
Yes, you can.
You can vote against it by not using it. If enough people did that it would die. Unfortunately lots of people "vote" for it, so it stays.
The choice of how, where, and whether to spend your dollars is even more powerful than casting a vote once every four years. Use it.
Yes, but to a degree. That one product you don't want to use is part of a huge conglomerate that owns something you can't do with out. Or it is bundled in another way, like CNN or ESPN into your cable bill. Or funded by the government with your taxes in some form, open or not.
Also, it is ineffective to boycott something you've shunned in the first place.
There's something to say for a world where the capital can't command the provinces in real time.
There is a LOT to say for it.
Which is why I look forward to the so-called national divorce.
Like most divorces, it’s going to get ugly.
more importantly we get two christmases
This is a point brought up in a book I've been reading on the history of the Scotch-Irish and the independent attitudes they brought with them in settling the Appalachians.
This was also interesting
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2024/07/28/who-are-these-trump-supporters-who-hate-elites-and-love-god-and-the-good-book-theyre-the-ulster-scots/
Excellent link about the persistence of values and culture through generations and reference to _Albion's Seed_.
And one of the suggested articles:
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2024/09/03/i-love-ireland-ireland-is-100-different-to-back-home-its-peace-calm/
https://archive.is/lUXJI
"‘I love Ireland. Ireland is 100% different to back home. It’s peace, calm’ Qareeb Urrahman came to Ireland from Afghanistan in 2021"
"Urrahman is upset by anti-immigrant protests. “You can’t really say to people you’re feeling sad, but deep in your heart you feel sad, because we have come all the way from Afghanistan, been in wars for generation over generation. We come to Ireland and we finally think, ‘I’m gonna make it now’. Then the same thing is happening here. People just don’t want to see you here. They say ‘go back home’.”"
Why might people say that?
“I would love to go back. One of my dreams is to go back home and live there in a peaceful way, with no dramas, no wars, no sanctions. Right now, it doesn’t seem possible. To be honest, I love Ireland. Ireland is 100 per cent different to back home. It’s peace, calm.”
Oh, because they want "peace, calm" not "wars for generation over generation." (granted, Soviet and American involvement probably didn't help matters)
fascinating
and who might be responsible for these wars for generations
In fairness, in this case (unlike some other perpetual hellholes) the Soviets and US played a role due to the region's perceived strategic importance.
That's very charitable of you.
And the English. And the Greeks.
It wouldn't be a hellhole if we left them alone.
I think that assumes facts not in evidence.
It is bordered by Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, and China. Pakistan does a great job of being "perpetual hellhole" all by itself with minimal Western involvement.
As Mr Paisley liked to say, loudly and often..."No surrender!"
Which book? I'm interested.
Sincerely,
A direct descendant of West Virginian moonshine-distilling Irishmen
Scotch-Irish: A Social History by James Graham Leyburn
I also highly recommend the mentioned elsewhere Albion's Seed. Anyone with deep WV roots likely has some Quaker mixed in. Boy and girl both those straight laced Quaker kids liked them some freaky dirty Scotch-Irish.
Funny you mention the Fender Rhodes. I don't know nuttin' about keyboards, but just the other night I caught this video by "Five Watt World" on its origins. As Johnny Carson used to say, "I did not know that..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLcDp1o2GQc
I had a Rhodes but for some reason decided take the Yamaha DS55 and leave the Rhodes to my ex. That was dumb.
Well, they DO require some maintenance so...
Yeah I learned how to do all that. The Jesus battery in the Yamaha died so I can’t save any presets. Fortunately there is FM King.
The Rhodes or the ex?
You can, in fact, vote against social media. And you can litigate against it, especially if you can pry information out of their organizations about deliberately targeting children.
An optimist can say that Musk is a free speech advocate.
A pessimist can say that Musk sees a reckoning coming via populist uprising and wants to ingratiate himself to the forces he sees as ascendant to save his own skin.
In war you form alliances. Sometimes over shared values. Sometimes because you have a common enemy. Sometimes because you can see who is going to be left standing at the end. While in the height of the fight the motivations don't matter as much as shifting the momentum. Once the victory is in sight you can start sifting through the motives.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
But what about a realist?
A realist might have questions. What was Musk’s upbringing truly like and why is his mother always in such strange positions on the covers of magazines?
Why does Musk constantly allege an intention of humans colonizing mars when the difference in gravity would lead to serious osteopenia, that would eventually lead to blood acidosis?
Why does Musk wish to convince people to implant their own brains with computer chips? Given how buggy Twitter is, would it be wise for people to trust Musk with their most precious asset?
Finally, why does Musk appear to be a living, breathing limited hangout? What are his true desires, given colonizing an unbelievably cold, hideously ugly rock-strewn desert planet with osteopenia robots is obviously not something that will work?
because it sounds cool and being cool is what sells
of course its dumb but that never stopped him from trying that hyperloop thing among others
Hilariously, Hyperloop actually almost certainly would work and is one of Musk’s best ideas.
I hope one of the many teams attempting to develop it succeeds however I have not heard of progress being made (not paying attention tho)
Hyperloop has always seemed to me a solution in search of a problem. High-speed rail already exists, uses proven technology, and is capable of carrying more people at lower cost per mile.
Interesting. I’ve never seen figures for the CPM of construction and operation of a hyperloop system. I wonder if these numbers are known? Or if there are high quality estimates?
In a country as large as the US, obviously air travel makes the most sense for most longer journeys. If you remove TSA and security, a hyperloop system would have to move at 700mph to beat air travel. As it is, 500 mph would probably outperform air travel in time to destination for a lot of routes.
Is the hyperloop system better than a SOTA maglev train… that’s unclear to me. If promised performance is achievable, it certainly would be substantially faster. Because maglev trains have massive turning radii at speed, the property purchases/easements to create the rail network makes them unfeasible from the get-go as no one can really recoup either the property purchase or easement + tunneling costs
You should read the Walter Isaacson biography.
Fair!
Musk would hardly be the first rich genius to float some loopy ideas out into the ether. I think he is fundamentally an optimist about the nature of technology and sees mostly the positive side of converting our current meat-bag existence into a symbiotic existence with technology. Chips in people's heads may one day be able to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and mobility to the disabled.
That he can have such views when he's got cold hard documentation of the government trying to use Twitter as a weapon of propaganda to cement political power definitely raises the ol' eyebrow. But like most, he views the entire censorship problem as a problem with specific people moreso than institutions (at least as far as I can see) and isn't really grok-ing (HA!) the potential hazards of integrating technology literally into our brains when the government can't keep it's corrupt claws off of what is merely in front of our eyes.
Mars will be next Siberia or if you're optimistic, Australia.
I disagree. it will be the next Monaco. Those with extreme wealth will flee as this planet burns.
Excellent idea. Empty our prisons into waiting space freighters and shoot them off to colonize Mars.
While I think these are valid questions, my question is why aren't there more people, prominent people, interested in any grand future?
When I grew up as a kid we had shuttle missions and ISS and hubble and all sorts cool things to think about. Why is Musk the only one advocating for reusable rockets? Cool internet sattalite technology. Implants that might allow people to walk again?
In the last 20 years I can't recall anyone outside of Musk really thinking big. Steve Jobs did, but It was more at the consumer level.
We had people thinking big years ago. We need more people thinking big.
As this is a car related forum, I think it goes to show how in the mid nineties when I was first driving we all wanted lots of power. Lots of car culture. Everyone wanting loud stereos in their car. Everyone wanting to do something big. Now kids don't care about cars and want to move to big cities so they all can have public tansit.
What happened to us?
Planes flew into buildings. That's what happened. The collective people began to understand that life is fleeting and instead sought short-term pleasure at the cost of all else. This was accelerated by technical advancements that allowed that allowed on-demand access to pretty much anything, including the ability to show the world that you seek pleasure "better" than others.
Western civilization was conquered.
Both ideologically, economically, _literally_ by hostile outsiders, and even purely cyclically in the Spenglerian sense.
I would add that to dream big one must have not just in imaginative big-dreaming elite but also a population of contributive workers who sense that their immediate and pressing needs (food, shelter, gas in the fleet, love from the wife & kids ) are beyond being taken away on a whim for wrongthink or for no reason at all (offshoring)
Or conversely, have it so bad that you'll risk it all to cross the Atlantic to the New World.
Well said.
Or swim across the Rio Grande.
[Disembarks at Plymouth Rock, immediately signs up for Section 8, food stamps and EBT]
the realist can say Musk is simply interested in maximizing his bottom line and getting as big a return as possible from what was a stupid purchase at an inflated price, and he knows that anger and division are the engine that drives social media.
Excellent observations about alliances. The 2024 version of Elon is on my side. But I can't help remembering 2015 Elon, who wanted Big Brother to outlaw my car.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-cars-with-human-drivers-will-one-day-be-banned-10115706.html
Of course, our worldviews and political positions change as the scales fall away from our eyes. I choose to believe this is what has happened with Musk.
Oh, and on that watch I'm not sure what the record is for most ludicrously expensive embodiment of small dick energy is, but that has to be at least in the top five...but given that sales seemed to be primarily in China and India with India being one of the rapiest places on the planet, maybe UN just knew their audience.
I know you didn't mean it literally, but The Moar You Know:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6161691.stm
https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/speak-up-siryou-need-the-extra-small-condoms-idUSDEL344445/
Good God man! Have you had those links bookmarked for the last 18 years waiting for the right opportunity?
Honestly no: at one point, I think it was discussed at the World Health Organization, and I would have preferred that link, but it wasn't one of my top search results.
It goes both ways. I'll never make a living in porn but the condom a Chinese girl produced for me one night in Kuala Lumpur was like a compression sock.
https://www.amazon.ca/Reusable-Finger-Gloves-Versatile-Coverage/dp/B0002NYPGU
this will make nearly any dude feel huge
I wonder what the Chinese characters for "CONDOM FOR PATERNITY PLAINTIFF" look like.
帮助我陷入血汗工厂
I’m happy to send your resume around to some of my friends in the biz if you want to pivot.
Jack is better looking than *checks notes* ron jeremy
Not when he was in his prime, though.
how do you even have friends in the biz
I wish I could elaborate!
I have a number of friends / acquaintances / clients who own and / or run Onlyfans and various other traditional adult content companies.
i feel like everyone knows an of girl at this point theyre so prevalent
even i do
if it was made for india it would have been a gang rape
probably too hard to mechanically animate though
Just more expensive, if I have learned anything about watches from this site the number of "complications" really winds customers up.
"really winds customers up"
heh
“Complications,” too! 😂😂
Kama sutra watch
i bet they did that for the tourbillion model
I’ll bet Bezos and his woman have matching his & hers Nardin porno watches.
Yeah, the couple on the left is Sanchez and her ex husband, the couple on the right is Bezos and a robot.
https://displate.com/displate/5334028
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG
ulysse nardin thought it wasnt enough that mechanical watches were poor timekeepers compared to phones and decided to make a watch that showed someone getting piped far worse than what you could see on a phone
everything seems to be getting much worse and rapidly with so many sites getting shut down or sued under the guise of piracy or somesuch
i dont pirate media because i cant pay for it i do so because i dont want to give corporations money
fuck em
Spite piracy is the way. I have been teaching my son that recently.
my parents were the opposite of computer literate so i only learned what a torrent was somewhat recently and have little idea how to actually do it without downloading weird shit
my friend got me an account on the iptorrents website just before he died which is supposedly a very secure site but the actual process seems daunting
*glances at wrist*
“Looks like it’s time to fuck again!”
Authentic LOL.
Fuck o’cock!!
(I almost hit the post button on that! Obviously, it’s “o’clock!”)
That prompted a genuine chuckle. 🤣
As I am an idiot, I watched the entire video. Jenni Elle assumed me I would come to a different conclusion at the end.
Neither my prior or end conclusion was sufficiently erotic to produce that result.
If you put Jenni Elle's face on Teddy Balldassarre's girlfriend's body you might have something there.
There's no way Teddy Baldasarre is dating a woman
He's engaged to Courtney Ryan, who has her own YouTube channel that appears to be about giving dating advice. Teddy has fewer affectations than his colleague the Urban Gentry, Tristano Geoffrey Veneto, who reminds me of Standartenführer Hans Landa from Inglorious Bastards.
As the race unfolded I thought of your assessment of Oscar. I would say one can conclude that Lando does not have that raw intelligence it factor to win a contested championship. His team isn't good enough to outsource his brain to.
However if Oscar's long pace tire use had reached an elite level, McClaren would not have called for that pitstop.
So the battle of the not quite ready to win a drivers championship continues.
You're far from wrong on all counts!