m463

The bmw i3 range extender engine only generates 19kw of electricity. It doesn't allow you to "fill up and drive anywhere" like a car. It is more like a bigger battery.

I think the solution is actually what we have now - high-power dc fast chargers spread around the country.

> I used to like hybrids

I think that is a transition issue with most tech.

Like when film cameras were first transitioning to digital there was a lot of reasons you wouldn't just glom onto digital. Early digital cameras had low resolution (or files were huge), bad dynamic range, either terrible lenses or didn't work well with slr lenses, etc.

I remember when tesla came out with the first EVs the batteries had ridiculous/expensive capacity compared to other EVs (compare 90kwh to a leaf with like a leaf was 24kwh). Hybrids made sense because EV range was either poor or expensive or both. And charger infrastructure was barely getting started.

Now it is different.

Ok, so only loosely related - I find new matrix headlamps on cars to be pretty intriguing. Basically they have an array of lights that are focused like pixels, and they can turn off the pixels that would blind others.

Wonder if this kind of stuff can trickle down to bicycles and motorcycles and you only light what's important in front of you. This could be to light more stuff so you can see it, or less stuff and save power while seeing what's important.

Someone has to bring up japanese vending machines. They are sort of amazing.

That said, I've seen more weird giant vending machines in airports nowadays, the memorable ones to me selling all kinds of lego sets.

I knew two engineers, one in the US, one in europe.

The one in the US worked at a chip company and they had gotten a chip back and it worked without any respin.

The one in europe was working with GPS stuff and with a european chip that was on spin 400+. (it's been a while so I don't have more info, but I think maybe it was government subsidized?)

I couldn't help but think something was seriously wrong with european engineering.

I was wondering what this was.

SAVE - Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_Alien_Verification_...

They reference the same site, slightly different article

Berkeley Institute for Young Americans (2023)

what I attached was: "Who Benefits from Proposition 13?" (2023)

Page 2 of what I attached shows the results in a slightly different light.

> laffer optimal

"optimal" is an annoying term here.

That point is the maximum taxation burden possible, but it shouldn't be a target.

"optimal" might actually be a much smaller number, where prosperity what is maximized.

I thought that site used to be ok but then it became over-the-top negative towards tesla.

examples:

- Tesla Semi finally enters volume production, 7 years behind schedule

- Tesla ‘FSD’ sped in 55% of Brussels 30 km/h zones ahead of EU vote

- Tesla Full Self-Driving bug falsely flags dirty cameras, demands service

- Tesla’s active robotaxi fleet in Austin crashes back to 8 vehicles after Cybercab pump

- Tesla’s record month: 4 fatal Autopilot and Full Self-Driving crashes

I'm sort of reminded of Steve Job's retort:

"By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?"

Nowadays I tend to read this site instead:

https://www.notateslaapp.com/

I think the marketing of prop 13 was old people getting kicked out of their houses.

But I think the majority of the tax avoidance goes to not-old-people, like immortal corporations that can own the land forever.

EDIT: random link - it seems like residential owners don't benefit anywhere NEAR as much as commercial, rental and industrial entitites.

https://youngamericans.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/...

I noticed that they are selling RV trailers that help haul themselves, and now electric trailers for semis.

https://electrek.co/2026/03/26/lightship-electric-rv-trailer...

https://electrek.co/2025/06/30/pebble-begins-deliveries-elec...

https://electrek.co/2026/05/08/really-quick-charge-with-rang...

> hardware investment

Isn't it like $2 vs $6?

:)

Not much different from lots of the optional font packages you can install on linux...

:)

EDIT: I think larabie fonts? I do like pupcat though.

I got a balmuda toaster (gimmick?) and I do enjoy sandwiches.

but I've had to explain and defend that toaster.

> and people will start ignoring brands entirely

One problem is that business forces keep turning brands into rugpulls.

After enough of this nonsense, brands are less of a reliable indicator.

Amazon pushed that to its inevitable endgame, where each product is a unique look-at-reviews situation. (and coincidentally the amazon advertising business is there while you run the product choosing guantlet)

leader got engineer to "Then I realised¹"

[1] realized

I agree, but maybe it is not the norm for design folks?

I'm thinking of the movie "Her" where the ai assistant was only ever a voice. And siri, and grok in a tesla, etc. I think we can do non-visual personas.

I don't know, maybe corporate design folks think in trademarks and logos and this is just part of that?

(or what about deaf people? Do they need text, or something amenable to lip reading?)

isn't there vgpu too? (that thing that needs a license?)

I think the big market for this is self-parking.

Telsa's are capable of both self-park and summon, but neither of these can charge the car without manual intervention.

This is why you can't just let the car go in or come out of your garage at home, no charging.

I could see it for restaurants or malls.

(they have a solution for this for the cybercab, but it has a port in a different place and is not wireless)

I remember up to around the time the PC came out, you were billed for computer time.

Later, you were billed for time connected to the "internet" (compuserve or aol or whatever)

Around when the iphone came out, software went from tens or hundreds of dollars to pennies, then free.

On the other hand legal advice has always been expensive, because a good answer is worth it.

Medical advice is worth it. Investing advice is worth it.

(That said, I wonder if with home solar and batteries if electricity will ever "generally" go down in price to normal people)

But grep is just a tool in a pipeline between a question in your brain and an answer you are searching for.

what if an LLM finds the answer early?

grep might continue to read everything, doing the wrong thing correctly.

porsche owners routinely spend > $1k for leather dashboard stitching.

depends on the anaesthesia.

Once fully under. I remember being wheeled down to OR, talking, counting down... then... I was waking up in bed in recovery area.

Once had a colonoscopy, and I was awake during the procedure, but there was a "dropout" in the middle, sort of like I lost track of what people were saying and I was "back" as they were finishing up.

But isn't it simultaneously driving up the price of tech/compute/ram?

Isn't most of the web free¹?

[¹] free as in your privacy is sold

It's like the business model of "make and sell things" has died in my lifetime.

I noticed grok degrades 100% when your free premium connectivity trial ends.

in america, there is right-on-red laws, in russia it is wrong-on-red laws. ;)

Apples sets the example.

a bad example from apple becomes the status quo for other companies.

I liked reading "the rational optimist" by matt ridley

One point I remember is that with trust, trade is infinite.

This completely follows in my life.

I trust costco, and I buy stuff there without doing any calculus.

I don't trust apps on the apple store, I basically don't buy any of them (even/especially the free ones). Even the phone itself has about 10,000 pages of privacy policy.

GOG sells games without DRM that you can download and played offline, forever. I don't worry about buying any game.