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somerandomqaguy

872 karma · joined June 17, 2019

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somerandomqaguy··on Falling panel prices lead to global solar boom, except for the US
Ah, I wasn't aware the Fiesta discontinued outside as well. AFAIK Ford did so to retool Cuautitlán Assembly plant in Mexico from the Fiesta to the Mach-E. Looks like Cologne Body & Assembly is going to be producing Ford's EU electric CUV's instead of the Fiesta.
somerandomqaguy··on Falling panel prices lead to global solar boom, except for the US
There's always option 3.

Keep product lines and factories semi targetted for their individual markets. Ford discontinued the Fiesta in North America but they are still being built in the EU AFAIK. Major car markets product their domestic auto industry anyways so you're probably going to have to setup local production in any case.

somerandomqaguy··on Tesla Recalls Almost 13,000 EVs over Risk of Battery Power Loss
...... Huh? Kia and Hyundai's recalls for the trailer hitch wiring fire recall made national news. Toyota's recall of the rear view camera issue on the 2025 trucks too.

Granted I'm Canadian so that might make a difference, but Tesla recalls aren't the only one making national new. They just don't typically appear on Hacker News.

somerandomqaguy··on Power over Ethernet (PoE) basics and beyond
Doesn't really make any sense to in that example.

Where ever you're putting the TV you have to put in regular power anyways, so it's fairly tidy to just put the device's power cable parallel with the TV's power cable. WiFi will handle communication. On the other hand, NEC and CEC requires minimum of 2 inches gap for communication wiring to electrical so you're now you've got that minor complication.

POE makes sense mostly when it makes sense to combine communication and power cabling. Corded phones, wifi access points, security cameras, small touch screen modules, etc. Not saying what you're doing can't work, but the added expense of installing parallel CAT6 everywhere doesn't seem worth it.

somerandomqaguy··on Most expensive laptops
...these are kind of quaint, honestly.

The FZ-40GZ-0SBM is almost $8000. You get an Intel Core Ultra 7 165H, 32GB of RAM, and 512 GB of SSD space. Intel integrated GPU only.

The Getac X600 Server Laptop be decked out with a Xeon W-11865MRE, 128GB of RAM, and 6TB of storage space (no GPU again), but it'll run you a cool $17,000.

IIRC they weigh 7 to 10 lbs, so not terribly light either.

somerandomqaguy··on Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried
The wealthy are buying larger more expensive vehicles. The poorer are either holding onto their existing cars (the average age of an American car went up from 11 years to 12 years or so) or buying the used larger ones from the wealthy.
somerandomqaguy··on Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
There was a live USB version of windows; Windows to Go. Microsoft stopped supporting it about 6 years ago for some reason.
somerandomqaguy··on I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf
By Canadian law IIRC it's 30 minutes every 8 hours or so. However it can still be split up to 2x 15 minute breaks, and it's only a break from driving; loading/unloading, inspections, hooking up or unhook, paperwork, etc is counted as as taking a break.

The lower provinces allow up to 13 hours per day of driving and a total 14 hours per day on duty time before you're required to take a 10 hour rest in a single 24 hour period. The northern territories I believe legally allow up to 15 hours driving per day.

That's just what I've read so take it for what it's worth.

somerandomqaguy··on F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
There isn't a low pressure braking region in the brakes.

But brakes can get really hot. Passenger brakes can easily get over the boiling point of water. Keep braking long enough and adding enough heat, and they'll get over the boiling point of brake fluid under pressure.

Thing is, brake fluid is incompressible. Brake fluid vapor however is very much so a compressible gas. Even more so: the water in the brake fluid has an even lower boiling point then that.

So stomping on the braking quickly isn't going to cause much of a problem. But if your riding the brakes down hill for a long distance with 12 year old brake fluid in hot Florida summer on very heavily loaded car? That... might get you into a spot of trouble.

somerandomqaguy··on F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
Can't agree at all about a sight glass. The lowest point in nearly every brake system is the brake calipers themselves. Wheels going to make it difficult anyways on a car. Not to mention the risk of a rock striking and damaging rigid glass. Or the old interface that's sealing the glass to the calipers wearing out and causing a leak.

It's not worth the expense to manufacture and it's not worth the risk. Not when a litre of DOT4 is $20 and that only needs replacing every 3 years at an aggressive schedule for passenger cars.

Larger vehicles you can purchase a brake fluid tester, but most of the really large ones I know use air brakes anyways.

somerandomqaguy··on How much do electric car batteries degrade?
I know. Those cable covers are also illegal, something city law enforcement and spokespersons confirmed. Don't ask me why a cover is illegal, it seems strange to me. Maybe it's because of the danger of snow clearing equipment chewing it and the cable to pieces, but I'm just spit balling here.

And it's not like it's a new issue, I've heard public complaints about lack of solutions to this brought city council for years now. Haven't heard anything about the law being changed at this point.

somerandomqaguy··on How much do electric car batteries degrade?
Where I live in Canada, that's illegal. Tripping hazard on the ground, I don't know the exact reason why overhead is also illegal (though I can make a few guesses).
somerandomqaguy··on Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says
I just did some googling around:

> The case also included startling charges by lawyers for the family of the deceased, 22-year-old, Naibel Benavides Leon, and for her injured boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key evidence, including data and video recorded seconds before the accident.

> Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial data by relatives of other victims in Tesla crashes, accusations that the car company has denied. In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a forensic data expert who dug it up. Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn’t thought it was there.

-https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/aug/01/jury-orders-tesla-t...

Nothing enrages a judge faster then an attempt to conceal evidence that a court has ordered be turned over during discovery. If this is then I suspect the punitive damages have to do as much about disregard to the legal process as it is the case itself.

somerandomqaguy··on Itch.io: Update on NSFW Content
Eh, possibly, but I suspect it's not just money.

https://apnews.com/article/gun-violence-shootings-new-york-c...

Visa and Mastercard were getting pressure from New York officials to put firearm purchases into their own category, something that the gun control advocates say could help stop potential mass shooters by red flagging large gun purchases. The initiative was stopped by Republican politicians and other lobbyists.

https://apnews.com/article/mastercard-visa-guns-second-amend...

Paypal IIRC also won't process payments for anything firearm related.

somerandomqaguy··on Kea 3.0, our first LTS version
Next gen reference DHCP server. IIRC it's new thing is IPv6 support.
somerandomqaguy··on What Happens When Hertz's AI Scanner Finds Damage on Your Rental
Chances are it probably won't be repaired though.

I'd bet that the scanner will catch all those damages and any deviation from showroom floor condition will be flagged. But then Hertz will just pocket the fees as profit without actually effecting repairs.

They already accepted little dings and scratches before as regular wear and tear on the vehicles. This just opens up an effectively effort free revenue stream.

somerandomqaguy··on Tesla shows no sign of improvement in May sales data
It's not just that; competition has arrived as well. Mach E, F150 Lightning, Blazer, Equinox, Ariya, Silverado EV, Ioniq 5 and 6, EV6 and EV9. Toyota has announce new BEV models as well.

And that's just North America. BYD and NIO have extremely compelling options outside of this side of the planet.

somerandomqaguy··on AI Won't Kill Junior Devs – But Your Hiring Strategy Might
>As Camille Fournier bluntly put it, many tech managers who shifted to "senior-only" hiring are asking for trouble: "How do people ever become 'senior engineers' if they don't start out as junior ones?"

If I were a betting man, I would wager that those managers either don't care, or are gambling that by the time senior engineers are in short supply, AI will be good enough to replace them as well.

somerandomqaguy··on My quest to make motorcycle riding that tad bit safer
Kinda. Power delivery is wildly different between an ADV and a sports bike.

On a sorta dual sport like a Kawasaki KLR650 you get peak torque from the engine at around 2500 RPM, which is comfortably in school zone speed limit territory.

Something like the Yamaha R6 won't really start feel like it's pulling until you get the engine above 8000 RPM at least and then you getting peak torque until around 12,000 RPM. By then you're doing 70kph to 90kph in first gear.

Sports bikes are more comfortable ridden aggressively. Unfortunately that also gives a lot of riders a false sense of skill; right until they moment run into a situation above their skill level and they crash while panicking.

somerandomqaguy··on My quest to make motorcycle riding that tad bit safer
It's not the first per say. https://admorelighting.com/

Their owners manual for their braking light bar lists Patent # 10,363,865, but I don't know if this applies 1 to 1.

somerandomqaguy··on Assignment 5: Cars and Key Fobs (2021)
Trying to dig your keys out of your pockets when it's extremely cold and having mittens on is not fun. Double the fun if it's night time, because the sun sets at 4:30 on those kinds of days.

Also it not being possible to lock yourself out of your car is neat.

It's not a must have but it's really nice.

Source: Canada

somerandomqaguy··on Googler... ex-Googler
In Canada in general either employer or employee can terminate without having to give reason. Typically it's either a few weeks of notice for termination but the employer can choose to require the employee to depart immediately and instead payout severance for equivalent time instead. There's nuance province to province though.

In the US it's similar but AFAIK it does vary state to state. To my knowledge there isn't any law that requires what you're describing in North America.

somerandomqaguy··on Organised gangs behind rise in QR 'quishing' scams
The parking garage one can be really insidious. The parking apps where I live in Canada have a terrible design; you absolute cannot start parking session without an account that requires you to input name, address, phone number, and then the app itself has other technical glitches that genuinely made me wonder if I had been scammed.

What makes it doubly so is that the parking companies have been removing the parking machine terminals in some locations. The Royal BC Museum in Victoria BC comes to mind last time I was there. I'd be surprised if someone hasn't at least tried a QR code scam on it by now.

somerandomqaguy··on Suspicious Tesla Sales Surge Triggers Canadian Government Investigation
No it's not. I'm not talking about eligibility, that has nothing to do with how the cash flows, because the implication that you were making right at the front was that money goes straight from the government to the buyer. Which is absolutely not the case, Tesla has to file the paperwork and Transport Canadas pays out to Tesla. After that, TC doesn't have any say in where the money goes (also why TC can do this investigation now; they haven't released the money yet to Tesla).

Plus right now that's what Tesla's is one of the more believable scenarios I mentioned: : https://electrek.co/2025/04/09/tesla-canada-says-its-shady-4...

That they were rushing to fill out a backlog from sales from previous months. Not a massive rush of sales.

somerandomqaguy··on Hunt for Red October 1990 (2016)
I wouldn't say it was just that. The Ukrainians realized they were in trouble in 2014 when Russia lopped off Crimea, and ordered a painful introspective to highlight all the weaknesses of their military.

They spent 8 years overhauling their military and learning from invited western forces to prepare for an invasion that they hoping beyond all would never come. And it paid off in spades.

somerandomqaguy··on Suspicious Tesla Sales Surge Triggers Canadian Government Investigation
>"Individuals are eligible", not dealerships. Dealerships collect the reimbursement, but the individuals must qualify. If you qualify and he dealer didn't discount the car, they owe you the rebate:

A difference without distinction. From the financial point of view, the cheque goes from the Government of Canada to the dealership. Whether the dealership then cuts another cheque or simply discounts the vehicle $5000 is irrelevant because in either case the money has to enter the dealership's coffers.

Now AFAIK adding in the rebate directly as a discount into the bill of sale is the modus operandi of Tesla and other dealerships in Canada that were participating in the iZEV. And that's why I don't think it's impossible that this is legitimate.

If Tesla sold inventory for the previous years and applied the discounts on the bills of sale, but then didn't get around to filing the paperwork until now near the end of the rebate... well that would explain why the sudden rush to get the paperwork done when the pause was announced. Other dealerships were doing something similar and are now out of pocket for their procrastination.

Now it's a little odd to me why a company as tech savvy as Tesla wouldn't have automated the filling of the forms. But I could see that just being due to to mismanagement and potentially also why the store managers refused to comment to CTVNews when they came asking about it.

The idea that people were rushing out to Tesla's website to buy isn't impossible either but Tesla's never been shy about bragging about good sales performance. The fact that the storage lots near the Toronto or Montreal are also quite full doesn't exactly help sell that story either.

Now it's also possible that this is borderline fraud. It's only $330 to establish a numbered company in Ontario, so hypothetically if someone had $3 million or so to create 8600 numbered companies, those holding companies could in 'buy' a Tesla that qualifies under the iZEV for a $5000 reimbursement. Technically that is not illegal on it's own, and money doesn't have to flow anywhere. And actual buyers would still be buying a new car.

It's also possible that it's just outright fraud and Tesla just submitted forms for sales that never happened. There's nothing on the Transport Canada forms that require only a name of the purchaser and then a make, model, and year of the vehicle, so it'd be trivial to just put falsified information into the forms.

Whatever the reality is, it's still suspicious, and bears further scrutiny. Especially given how politically delicate government funds flowing to Tesla is right now.

somerandomqaguy··on McDonald's gives its restaurants an AI makeover
Maybe? Supposedly there's a McDonalds out in Denver's that's removed it's inside digital menu boards. Kiosks only.

https://kioskindustry.org/mcdonalds-kiosk-counterless/

Not sure how much of a trend this is though.

somerandomqaguy··on Suspicious Tesla Sales Surge Triggers Canadian Government Investigation
>No, the rebate is paid at point of sale to the purchaser of said vehicle, not to the dealership, and not to Tesla.

https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-techn...

========================================= To get reimbursed:

Log into the ZEV application, select the selling dealership, and go to the “I want to view all iZEV requests submitted for this dealership/authorized seller.” Then search the Service Request ID # of the Eligibility Assessed request and upload the sales/lease agreement and the Incentive Received Form. Make sure that all documents are complete and include all signatures and information required.

[...]

iZEV Online Application: request status

[...]

Rebate Sent

The dealership has been sent a payment, and you'll be notified by email. This email will include the payment amount, the service request ID and the Vehicle Identification Number. Some banks may take up to 5 business days to deposit the funds into your account.

========================================

Straight from the horses mouth; the dealership is reimbursed. The buyer pays a lower out of pocket price. It makes no sense to have the reimbursement go to the owners directly as part of the point of sale. Transport Canada would need have to have electronic payment systems setup for every EV buyer along with all the privacy and financial handling headaches that such a government system entails.

>It's not that much more in price, and it's a much better vehicle than anything Ford or Chevrolet makes.

The Mach E starts at $58,000. The Ioniq 5 at $55,000. The EV6 at $56,000, the Aryia at $52,000, and the ID4 at $44,000.

The Model Y start at $65,000. It's a significant chunk of change even for middle class Canadians.

>Nothing will come up because nothing happened. Consumers went on a buying spree because the rebate was quickly coming to a close.

Maybe, maybe not. There's also ways that I could see this legitimately happening. But at the end of the day it's still highly unusual behaviour that bears further scrutiny. Also known as the being suspicious.

somerandomqaguy··on Suspicious Tesla Sales Surge Triggers Canadian Government Investigation
The iZEV rebate is paid to the the point of sale who in turn is supposed to knock that price down for the owner. So it is a 'dealer' in that Tesla itself is the dealership.

So yes it is suspicious. Especially considering that the Model Y starts much more expensive then it's competitors like the Mach E, the Ioniq 5, the EV6, the Equinox/Blazer, and Prologue. The only main advantage Tesla has is the Supercharger network and better software experience.

Whether anything comes of it or not is an entirely different matter because there are ways of doing this that do not violate the letter of the law.

somerandomqaguy··on Suspicious Tesla Sales Surge Triggers Canadian Government Investigation
We'll have to see. There's ways to pull this off while still operating within the letter of the law. And if they did so, then there's little that can be down to get it back. Worst would happen short of federal tariffs on Tesla products is that if the iZEV resumes, they're taken off the list of illegible vehicles.
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