We're on macOS 11.4 now IIRC. Maybe a new logo for the story might be in order?

Flaky mess? What specific problems have you had? I've had zero issues with the UI so kinda wondering what shortcomings you're seeing.

Nope, there's no monthly fee for basic functionality, you can pay for full remote admin (vs dashboarding which is free) and for a protection service which does cloud backups and includes a device replacement service. Neither of those are required, the monthly fee goes to offset their costs for running servers in AWS or whatever cloud they are on and to provide a recurring revenue source plus it's a hardware replacement plan. Personally I've had zero reason to pay for either service, though with the zwave migration service of the protect offering I might do that in the future if my setup becomes complex enough (right now it's 3 zwave devices, so definitely NOT worth the fee).

Um, they did a paper after the Tesla semi was announced and redid their calculations based on the .35Cd that Musk mentioned, suddenly cost was the primary barrier, with a target of $150/kWh for the pack (something Tesla has already achieved based on estimates derived from model differences).

Musk has said recently that the 300 mile semi will have a 500kWh pack, based on the 167.7Wh/kg of the Model 3 that puts the pack weight at ~3.3 tons, the fuel tanks on a typical semi are about that when fueled. Even if you double that pack weight for the 500 mile semi you're still in the same range as the drivetrain with fuel for a long haul semi, I wouldn't expect significant cargo penalties vs traditional tractors.

I get protecting trade secrets and preventing working with existing or prospective clients

Except non-competes don't accomplish either of those. The first is covered by an NDA and the second is covered by a non-solicitation agreement. I will gladly sign either of those if they are correctly crafted, but I will never again sign a non-compete unless it covers 100% of my salary and benefits for the duration of the agreement. Having been screwed by an overly broad agreement and a petty former boss once I will never put myself or my family in that kind of risk.

It's not that I don't expect politicians to be swayed by big corporations, it's just the fact that they're so cheap to buy that bothers me. I mean you're representing several hundred thousand to 10's of millions of people, you should cost more than a couple thousand dollars of schmoozing to have your vote swayed.

How is babby formed?
How girl get pragnent?
For those who don't remember the countless memes

Yup, this sounds even worse than the FCA system that killed Anton Yelchin, we've had systems that are proven, safe, effective, cost efficient, and reliable. Throwing them away to do something cool but less effective at all of the above metrics is simply STUPID.

“This ‘EU’ phone is not one of ours and is not sold by us,” says Jean-François Eap, CEO of SKY ECC. “We know that someone has been passing themselves off as an official reseller of SKY ECC for some time and we have been trying to shut it down through legal channels for almost two years.” SKY ECC points out that the SKYECC.EU reseller is an imposter and not authorized to sell SKY ECC phones. We have reason to believe the website www.skyecc.eu is operated by a disgruntled former SKY ECC reseller whose reseller rights were terminated in September 2019 after repeated violations of SKY ECC reseller policies. SKY ECC recently became aware, through its authorized distributors in Belgium and the Netherlands, of a fake phishing application looking similar to SKY ECC but sold on phones without standard SKY ECC security features. “The Belgian police’s claim that they sent bank accounts details to SKY ECC to claim our “5 Million Dollar Hack” prize is entirely false,” says Eap.

Note: I'm not sure what to make of this claim, other than that the proof is in whether the Dutch authorities were able to compromise the encryption of actual Sky ECC phones. We'll know that from court filings I suppose.

Not really odd to me, at the office I have 3 monitors, full keyboard, trackball, etc. When on the road or at home (pre-Covid) I deal with the limitations of just having the laptop and a power supply. Work isn't going to buy me a desktop for in the office and a laptop for mobile use, so desktop + dock it is.

Thunberbolt dock, one BIG dongle that does everything. Back when I was in the office I got power, audio, 3x monitors, ethernet, USB hub all from 1 cable. It's actually very slick.