You’re not agreeing with her, she’s agreeing with you - as it is her world view that’s changed, while yours has remained consistent.

So animal, mineral AND vegetable?

I’m in a similar situation. My workplace has been heavily pushing implanting AI tools into our daily workload, but I’ve struggled to find a more meaningful use beyond a technical search engine: eg. How can I calculate x in the most resource efficient way?

Renault had seemingly given up on hatchbacks for the Aussie market, it feels like only a few years ago the Megane and Clio were all over our roads.

I can’t particularly blame them, though. We have something like ~5% of the population of Europe in about the same landmass, our regulations (ADRs) quite onerous, we drive on the other side of the road compared to continental Europe, and the logistical costs of sending a finished vehicle from Europe to Oceania makes it quite difficult to compete economically against Chinese, Korean and Japanese brands.

I say this as someone heartbroken, who absolutely adores the designs of European marques like Peugeot, Renault, Alfa Romeo, Abarth and Citroen - they are all undeniably cool.

Did you?

Overnight, Ukraine’s military reported that, without explanation, the Starlink satellite communications system, produced by Musk’s SpaceX but managed by the US government, was no longer working at speeds greater than 100mph.

That effectively rendered most of the drones used by Ukraine to strike behind the frontlines inoperable…

Given it’s a game from 2004, it should be relatively easy to decompile, so if you’re the kind of person happy to tinker - it could be a great project to self-host and try to get done yourself?

That way the only cost is time, and a little bit of electricity.

I only just looked up some of the basic requirements, as it’s piqued my interest in trying to decompile something myself over the Christmas break!

Their ability to bomb* the oil depots is probably related to their starlink/starshield access. 🥺

Yes: Doom (2005)

It’s not a great film by* any stretch of imagination, but it is a guilty pleasure of mine.

With Starbucks, they just need a name - not necessarily yours.

My of my uni friends used to pick ever more ridiculous names just to hear them call it out when his drink was ready.

The first company that is able to commodify modular drop-in BEV replacements for ICE vehicles would make a fortune:

Battery packs shaped to slot into engine bays, transmission tunnels and fuel tank cavities.

Individual motors directly into your preferred wheel wells (FWD? RWD? AWD? 4WD? whatever you like).

Drop-in ECU to interface with the existing chassis.

The sort of thing that someone mechanically minded could knock out in their own garage over a weekend or two, or you could get done at a professional shop in a day.

Imagine taking your favourite silhouette, and giving it exactly the range and performance you desire - at the fraction of the cost of a new EV.

Weird, that’s just showing up as ******** to me…

Clearly our company has set their own standards…

…this is also on top of 2FA, Zscaler, and a few other secure network requirements I haven’t fully poked around. 🤷🏻‍♂️

We regularly work with a tonne of sensitive and PII data, such that even one leak would be disastrous.

My work has a mandatory password update every ~3 months, seemingly keeps all previous hashes, and some employees have been around for 20+ years.

I feel for the IT security team.

Pepsi? Partial Credit.

That would be ideal; something of an Open Platform with fully interchangeable parts.

It’s not quite fully everything we’d want, but that Slate truck that was announced (launched?) last year seems like it’s a step in the right direction.

The issue at play largely is that customer demand needs to make such options not only viable for manufacturers - but an outright requirement in order for them to remain competitive and relevant.

Bring on an era where minivans are cool again, SUVs are tacky, and hot hatches + coupes reign supreme.

Actually no; that is both the correct logo for KMart in Australia AND its own internal brand Anko:

https://www.kmart.com.au/search/?searchTerm=Anko

Our configurator (VW AU) must be a bit different; 4WD is only available on the “GTX” variant here, which is priced well over the eligibility threshold for all of our EV tax benefits. Even getting the LWB (without selected options) under that threshold required a bit of cajoling! 😅

Not a fan of all of that tracking, but as I’m doing a novated lease through work (so it comes out of my pre-taxed income) - I’m not sure I’ll have much leeway to figure out how to disable that.

We’re starting off with a level 1 charger, but as we’re in a 230V nation - we’re hoping that 12am - 6am charging (when our rates are ~8c/kWh) will suffice.

Good to know about the charging cable lock, and that does make sense - prevents jokers from randomly unplugging cars from chargers out in public. Can imagine having to explain that one to the missus a couple of times before it clicks though. 😅

It’ll be replacing our ‘16 Honda CR-V; we’re all pretty low-key excited - especially our 3yo.

How do you find the acceleration - any issues getting up to speed from 0 on freeway on-ramps?

In the context of OP, depreciation means that a “$50K when new” car may only be worth ~$35K if you choose to buy it 1-2 years later.

So it’s not so much about it’s residual value at any point in time, but rather how EVs tend to have a steeper depreciation curve at the beginning - making lightly used models a more attractive bargain.