It strikes me that the Chevy Volt is a pretty good compromise. The advantage that it has is that it can be driven as a battery only electric but has the range limits of a gasoline car. The Volt's battery is a lot smaller than the Tesla model S which reduces the battery-only range, but for a lot of short-drive use cases may be adequate.

It'd be interesting to see what it would be like if they could scale the Volt up in terms of battery capacity to push all-electric range closer to 100 miles. That kind of range makes plug-in, all-electric driving viable all for but the most extreme commuting cases. The gas engine covers those as well as long distance driving.

No, fuck you.

I don't know what fantasy land you've shaped in mom's basement, but outside a tiny fraction of the US you need a car to make a living.

I figure the best and most ecological way to do this is to make the car I have last, and one of the way to make it last is to take care of it. Road salt is highly corrosive, the sand they put down turns to dust which in turn can etch the paint. Once rust starts, you can't really stop it and then you need a new car. And salt is corrosive to more than just the finish, it's corrosive to the undercarriage and mechanical systems, too.

But I suppose you think it's more ecological to just make more cars.

It's no different than brushing your teeth or cleaning the dishes. They all get dirty again.

The point isn't to keep it clean, but to at least wash off some of the corrosive salt spray and grime so you don't strip the clearcoat and then the paint off.

My wife never washes her car (or not enough) and it looks like shit, with finish is dull and maybe even faded a little. I wash mine 2-3 times per week, usually before I come home and its maybe half a mile home. In all but the wettest, sloppy weather it makes it into the garage (and thus overnight) clean and not being exposed to corrosive, abrasive gunk. My car still holds a great shine, especially when its waxed.

You don't have to look very hard for a place that does all you can eat car washes and 3 times per week gets my cost down to less than $3 per wash, hand dried. And waxing your car is dead easy with spray wax. I'd guess carnuba might be slightly better, but it's a shit ton of work and spray wax seems to get you most of the way there.

Let's count the ways it could go wrong:

1) Conspiracy to obstruct justice -- I don't know what the exact charge is, but let's just assume it's a Federal felony with a big fine and guaranteed jail time.

2) No-knock raid, search and seizure of your computer equipment. Oh, and it will be held as evidence and likely subject to civil forfeiture. And they'll fucking trash your house while they're at it.

3) What else do you have at home they can use to compound charges? Guns? Well, possession of a firearm while committing a felony is a felony, too. Drugs? Hey, those might have some tasty mandatory minimums.

4) That computer search we did...now, are all those girls in those photos over 18?

5) How about we just get down to brass tacks. The judge thinks you're an asshole, so we're going to throw you into a cell with some thug who will beat the shit out of you and turn you out for loose cigarettes.

Sure, you and your student law clinic counsel might even manage to get a civil suit filed, but Federal Judge is a job for life and takes an act of congress to get rid of them. Exactly 10 have been impeached since 1900. Good luck with that.

Bottom line is, Federal judges? Best not to poke the robe.

You guys obliquely or not so obliquely calling for doxing of a Federal Judge are pretty brave, I must say.

But maybe you'll find out definitively if a U.S. Marshall Service no-knock warrant results in someone like Raylan Givens showing up to execute it, or whether that's just in Harlan County.

Regardless, I'm sure whatever jail you end up in will definitely have someone who resembles Boyd Crowder.

What's really funny is that some people think they are giving technology to the gummit in exchange for the right to probe some of us. As if they would need permission.

At about the peak of analog phones, most would have a dumb message on the screen, usually the maker's name or the carrier name. You could often change this message but almost nobody did, but the displays were so primitive that informational messages usually appeared in the same place and type, like "NO SERVICE".

The fun thing to do was to change the message from "Airtouch Celluar" to "NO SERVICE" and enjoy the hilarity when people picked up their phone and wondered why it wasn't working.

Yes, most phones showed "bars" and there was no reason why someone with half a brain wouldn't sort it out in a second, but it was often funny how many DIDN'T sort it out.

Also, it's easier to hold a shield while operating a javelin.

Hopefully they might have fewer Star Wars prequels.

...is jab in the back with an AK-47.

At this moment of global history, can anyone take a Russian anti-trust probe seriously?

Between Putin's crony capitalism, the sheer amount of corruption in Russia and the geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West there's a whole laundry list of reasons to not believe that an anti-trust probe of Google has is honestly motivated.

And if this works, we might try the metric system.

I'm guessing maybe not even a short distance relationship.

I dated a woman in another city and can remember spending hours on the phone with her and occasionally even watching a TV program with her all while on the phone (and this was 25+ years ago when long distance actually cost money).

For what it's worth, it might be kind of fun to have this kind of real-time social component with Netflix streamed movies, either with people you knew or with other people who liked the same shows or movies.

You must be a web programmer...

Maybe you could use the same process used to create quartz countertops but with a mould with your data in it that could be debossed into the surface as its made.

Probably bonus points if you use the process to deboss your main info into the quartz along with instructions for optically decoding a message optically encoded into the surface.

You'd have to keep it out of the sun to avoid UV discoloration of the resin binders, but I'd guess that wouldn't effect the debossed info.

A lawyer friend of mine once said "if you have to go to trial, you have already lost" because you have failed at every other level of persuasion and leverage and the only thing left is the variable outcome of a trial.