The world is stuck in dongle hell. Every country is different. We haven't quite gotten to USB-C everything for DC power. There are a bunch of EV plug standards.

In the US, Tesla deployed NACS, and since it has like 60+% of the market share, it seems to have won.

I'm happy to have a smaller sized plug, one that supports both AC and DC Fast Charging, and that will over the next 3-5 years unify the EV charging network so we can ideally be rid of the adapters.

The first gas stations also were not standardized either. We will get to a standard soon.

"broken-ass shit." Have you seen the size of the CCS adapter??? It is stupid huge. The NACS can do both AC and DC fast charging without a huge connector. I can confirm that it has worked flawlessly for 4 years now, and I cannot say the same for many other charging networks. The plug really isn't that big a deal, I'm confused why you seem to be so angry about it.

I tend to keep my laptops for about 6 years, like the OP. But since I'm an Apple guy, the lack of upgradeability in Macbook Pros means I'm stuck with how it's made for the entire lifetime.

I usually bump the processor up and double the memory. My Early-2013 Macbook Pro Retina 15" has an Intel Core i7-4850HQ @ 2.30 GHz and 16GB of memory. Those were pretty decent specs for 6 years ago. I probably spent about $2500-2800. Over 6 years, that's $425-$470 per year. It still runs well, even when I don't close all of my Chrome tabs. I don't need a new one, but I'll probably get one in the next year or so.

I'm looking at the Macbook Pro 2019 16" ($2399) with the 2.4GHz 8-core 9th-gen i9 CPU ($300), 32GB RAM ($400) and 1TB SSD ($200) for a total of $3300 plus tax. Over 6 years it will cost me about $550 per year. If I use my Apple Card, I get 3% off ($100), or I could pay over 18 months with no interest (Apple Promo).

I wonder if I could buy it on Amazon with my Amazon Prime Chase card and get 5% off... :-)

Or sometimes B&H has good deals too.

In the end, I could spend $1500 on a laptop that would last me 3 years, another few hundred (thousand?) to upgrade it, but I'd have a PC (Windows or Linux) and, well, I'm kinda enjoying not being the administrator for a Linux Laptop, and there's not a good reason to move to Windows.

Apple Pay already abstracts the payment mechanism from the vendor, so your credit card number and personal info are not provided.

What would be needed is a location anonymization layer. Something where I could generate some one-time-use hash or identifier that I would provide to the vendor to put on the shipping label.

The vendor has the shipper pick up the package. The shipper is able to turn this one-time-use hash into a deliverable address. The software routes it to where it needs to go, providing as little information to the delivery person and anyone who sees the package.

The package arrives at the destination but without a name and address, just information that the shipper and receiver know.

Disposable Email and phone number if required.

It might cost you more to do it by hiding all your information, but there's a path to making it work.

Without the shipping obfuscation, a 3rd party could do freight forwarding.

So, installing malicious software means your information can be accessed? SHOCKING.

Man, here I was hoping helm's deep would reinvigorate LOTRO. And yes, I had even pre-ordered it.

Bwahahaha excellent and epic post!!!

"...you can definitely tell the difference between 92KHz and 192Khz, and even straight CD tracks they were encoded from."

Right, because ultrasonics distort more at 192kHz, thus degrading the quality of the audio reproduction as it reaches your ears.

If you remove the ultrasonics, then you likely cannot. And even if you can, I don't care, because I can't. Feel free to disagree with science to justify your hefty investment and your belief that your ears and equipment are somehow better, that's cool.

Spot on analogy, Tackhead. +1, you.

Hahaha. I had forgotten about the LBs. Hope you are doing well soon.

Thanks man. Advogato 4 lyfe.

Hahahaha -- ah, the ball gag. That brings back memories.

Almost like we planned it that way. Too bad we didn't!