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Comment Re:Here we go (Score 1) 21

The M.E. has a way of driving everyone crazy; you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Put HAZMAT tape around the area and warn everybody away. Leave them on their own, giving them no food nor weapons; if they bonk each other to oblivion, it's their problem, not ours. I think it's God's Insane Asylum.

Non-nuts have migrated somewhere quieter, leaving mostly nuts in place, a Sanity Filter. I'm just the messenger.

Comment Re:Those failing engines and transmissions. (Score 1) 247

The direct fuel injection does seem to cause more trouble than it's worth.

Low tension rings cause more trouble than their worth Low viscosity oil causes more trouble than it's worth Stop-start causes more trouble than it's worth Variable displacement causes more trouble than it's worth Integral dual volute turbocharging causes more trouble than it's worth And yes, direct injection causes more trouble than it's worth.

The extreme CAFE mileage requirements have driven manufacturers to make a large number of terrible engineering choices in ICE drive trains. Extreme CAFE mileage requirements have greatly contributed to the excessive cost of vehicles and the excessive cost of repairs.

Yep. CAFE-style regulation is the wrong way to attempt to reduce carbon emissions. The right way is to impose a carbon tax, then let consumers vote with their wallets and engineers work to make the right tradeoffs to meet customer demand. My guess is that consumers would choose to buy the more fuel-efficient vehicles and engineers might make the same tradeoffs... but now it would be clear that those tradeoffs are worthwhile.

Comment Re:This will cost you money (Score 1) 247

Gas is not cheap.

Gas is pretty much exactly at its long-term, inflation-adjusted average price, and right where it was in the 1950s. Since then, it was a little higher in the 70s, a little lower in the 90s, a little higher in the early 2000s, but we're now back at the long-term normal price.

See https://afdc.energy.gov/data/1...

Whether the normal price of gas is "cheap" or "expensive" depends on your income and lifestyle, I'd think.

Comment Re:a much needed move? (Score 1) 247

A "much-needed move" would be to allow BYD cars to be sold here and let the free market economics (that conservatives ostensibly claim to love) sort everything out.

I'm not going to argue about the merit of allowing BYD or not. This is only about free market economics. BYD is heavily subsidized, and their entry in the market would skew any possible free market economics.

This is an appropriate place for tariffs. Not ridiculous, exclusionary tariffs like we have, but tariffs carefully calibrated to offset the subsidies as precisely as possible, putting BYD's cars on a level playing field against US EVs. I have great faith in free market capitalism and dislike anything that distorts the market, but sometimes you need to use regulation to correct for external market distortions.

Comment I have similar problem on my GMC! (Score 4, Insightful) 134

It started 3 years ago. I contacted Sirius two years in a row. The first time they walked me through the menus to turn it off, and it worked. The second year they said it couldn't be turned off and that I'd have to wait for the promotional period to end (see below), so I filed a formal safety notice at nhtsa.gov, but never received feedback.

The alert pop-ups keep blocking part of the navigation map until I press the damned Dismiss button while driving in order to see the full map. Repeatedly pushing the Dismiss button distracts from driving, and so is a safety hazard.

I was told that every November Sirius gave out a few weeks of free service to help promote the service. But that caused the useless and repetitious wind alerts. I live in a naturally windy place such that wind alerts are superfluous; it would be comparable a North Pole freeze alert.

It happened again this year, but I was fortunately able to switch it off via settings menus. I don't know why deactivation is different per year. I suspect they do it to get people to poke around in the menus and see the different genres of music & talk channels they have, hoping to entice sales. It's probably stealth advertising disguised as a defect, or a defect they leave in place that happened to improve sales, so is ignored.

F$CK YOU SIRIUS!

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