Most hybrid versions of cars which are normally non-hybrid are designed for performance, not efficiency; the hybrid either provides the same mileage as a larger engine with slightly more performance, or just provides the performance model of the car. Whereas, as you have guessed, cars which are designed to be hybrids are more efficient overall. It's mostly just due to the different body design.

Hybrids are dumb because small diesels cost about the same amount, are pretty clean these days, and get the same mileage. EVs are cool, if they fit your needs, because they get rid of a whole lot of moving parts — hundreds to thousands of them.

Because they made a bunch of cars in Mexico and those were crap. And then they brought them back home to Wolfsberg and they were great again. And now they're being made in Mexico again. Oh well.

I long for a diesel Impreza.

It's not really the cost of oil changes, although those are annoying. It's the high chance that an engine or gearbox will go tits up, or just require major maintenance for a re-seal. I'm looking forward to when EVs become cheap in the way that gas cars are cheap... to acquire.

Texas is a big place. If you want to go practically anywhere out of your town and back again in the same day, it will take you a lot longer than four hours.

Where I live, it takes me an hour and change just to drive to some decent shopping, let alone to drive around and get some stuff done.

MY2000+ Chevy Astro EXT AWD FTW. Great in all conditions, and even off-road although ground clearance is not much. Has shockingly good economy, although not as good as a small car. And it doesn't suck the life out of your soul, but it does make people try to cut you off when you pass them.

We just have an LS model. Still has massive nuts.

You can bolt a 350 into these vans...

Dodge made a hybrid Durango. It cost eighty grand.

OK, so what you're saying is, make the SUVs meet the same efficiency and emissions standards as the rest of the vehicles? Sounds good to me.

The government can make necessary laws, and if any asshole can make any vehicle then things go to hell in short order.

Nobody is trying to take it away, just make it conform to the same emissions standards as other passenger vehicles. That seems fairly reasonable. They could do it with a small engine like Ford is offering in the F-150 these days, and some weight reduction like Ford is doing in the F-150 these days. So basically, when GM catches up to Ford (hahaha)

1GB RAM equals fail. If you can slap Linux on the 2GB version of this stick then it's good. It's still around $70 to get a R-Pi with a case, power supply, and HDMI cable. That is substantially more expensive though, so if the Pi will serve your needs, so be it.

And if you had bought a TV without that nonsense inside of it, and got that functionality in a separate device, then if you did wind up having to exchange it, that would be a lot less hassle. Even in countries where there are effective consumer protection laws, smart TVs are still dumb.

Android has the same functionality, and it can be disabled there as well. No reason to believe it would be any different in Windows, at this point.

Now, there is the question of whether some malicious software could reactivate it, railroad it, use it for evil. But that's true of any beneficial functionality in the OS.

I want OSS drivers, but what I pay for is hardware that works. I try AMD every few cards, and they still fail every time I try them, and so I gave up.

nVidia got into bed with Microsoft back in the original Xbox days and now the geforce line is inextricably encumbered by Microsoft. Allegedly their mobile (Tegra) line is freer.

If they based the whole decision on AMD then they deserve to make bad decisions. There's lots of OSS drivers in the kernel already, let alone supplied separately. AMD is just shit at drivers. Their windows drivers are also shit.

Think Johnny Mnemnonic, if you can keep the image of the movie out of your head. The theme crops up again and again, it was mentioned in Hardwired for example.

I've had problems with nVidia drivers on occasion, but not those kinds of problems.

The most important thing to do is research a specific card (or at least chipset) before buying it, especially if it's come out recently. When I got my 240GT (two cards back) it was not well-supported. I had to load a beta driver to get it to work properly, and the driver substantially misreported its characteristics. It's safest to buy a card which has been out for a while, which is also a good way to save money so it's something of a win-win.

I usually try to call the graphics side ATI so that when say something like "fuck ..." it says ATI and not AMD, because I rather like AMD's processors. I'm still rocking a Phenom II X6 1045T and I'm very happy with its performance, considering I paid $120 for it quite a while back and have no plans to upgrade it anytime soon. Maybe another video card next year... I went from 450GT to 750Ti on the advice of Slashdot, and haven't regretted it.