Incumbent US-focused auto makers/sellers, whether HQ'd in the US or elsewhere, should be worried about their own collective abandonment of the market for entry-level cars and small cars in general. The idea that young person can jump directly from a bicycle or driving the family junker to buying a $60,000 SUV with no entry point in between is clearly not sustainable, but that's where the current crop of automakers is headed. So yes, if they continue down that path they should be concerned about new competitors who have figured out how to make affordable and regulatory-compliant small cars.

An irregularly shaped chunk of solid Inconel? Sure to tumble as it passes through the atmosphere? I don't think anyone who worked in high temperature industrial process was surprised by this; not sure what NASA was thinking.

And yet the SmartCar (the original one, not the SmartForTwo) was certified in the EU and uncertifiable in the US. We can argue all day as to whose safety and registration regulations are stronger or in some sense better (neither of which was part of my OP), but the fact is they are different. And the PRC EV manufactures have so far not see a positive return in meeting the US/Canada standards and entering the market.

So far the EV autos designed in the PRC have not attempted to meet US/Canada safety and regulatory certification standards. BYD has an engineering and manufacturing center in the US for their EV municipal vehicles so they could certify a car if they thought they had a market for it, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps the US EV makers could concentrate on making their products more price competitive and improving sales and service so they don't have to resort to a trade war to win the market?

That's a symptom, not a cause. EVs are all newer and built with current technology; there are still many ICE vehicles in production based on 2005 designs, technology, and parts. As those age out of the production system - as they are doing now - they are being replaced by new designs (whether ICE, hybrid, or EV) that use extremely expensive and non-repairable modern technology and parts. Have a fender-bender in one of those, EV or ICE, and you will be hit with a $5000 repair bill. The days of "beat to fit; paint to match" are over.

We have created a virtual reality remote control surgeon based on Arthur C Clarke's 1971 story "A Meeting with Medusa, or What Can Go Wrong Using Virtual Reality Remote Control For Precision Operations".

Someone is paying a lot of money to pump these "EV sales are crashing; EVs are FAIL" stories throughout multiple media channels the last six weeks. Reality is that EV sales growth is flattening out a bit from astronomical to just high, and absolute EV sales continue to climb. But when e.g. Norway has had 40%+ EV marketshare for new car sales for 5 years sales increases are eventually going to flatten out. Same thing will take longer in the US but is happening to a certain extent in Southern California, which is a large part of the overall vehicle market in the US.

I have heard of it most often with cornfield subdivisions in older towns becoming exurbs/suburbs: before the house is built the land is technically still a farm and the owner can drill a well, but after the house it built it is a residential property that is served by city water. But there are a lot of weird variations on that kind of thing.

I have had a number of coworkers in different real estate regulation jurisdictions fall into a trap with ground coupled heat pumps: in many jurisdictions a ground-coupled heat pump is classified as a well, and those jurisdictions had regulations saying that in residential areas wells can only be installed on unimproved land. Once the foundation is poured it is no longer unimproved. Check with your builder and building code office to determine if you need to drill the hole first before other construction starts.

As far as US football goes IMHO Mike Ditka of people was right about helmets and concussions: the more advanced helmets get the harder players learn to hit with their heads. Make the helmets 30x more concussion resistant and players will learn to hit things [1] 35x harder. Ditka advocated going back to leather earflap helmets to reduce concussions and while it was said in a "back in the day we were real men" mode I'm not sure he was wrong about that.

[1] yeah, I know, there are rules changes in place to prohibit direct hits with the top of the head. We'll see how that works in the long run [prediction: it won't]

One thing about the FDA is that it uses very specific and, to the untrained reader, peculiar language in letters of this type. Which can lead those without the specific pharmaceutical and legal background to underestimate what is being alleged and what the consequences could be. "Unapproved new drug" and "misbranded", and "adulterated" are as bad as it gets in FDA letters and can lead directly to referral for criminal prosecution of both the organization and its officers as individuals. Civil penalties can include shutdown of the entire business, as well as oversight agreements, massive fines, etc. If you or an organization of which you are an officer or you as named individual [1] ever receives a letter of this type run do not walk to an attorney admitted to the Federal bar for both regulatory and criminal law and do exactly what they say.

[1] the FDA can issue orders barring specific individuals by name from working in the pharmaceutical or food industry for periods from one minute to life - any individual, not just an officer of an incorporated entity

"Ironic that stores get persecuted for finding ways to defend themselves against shoplifters,"

Just a reminder that false accusations of criminal activity and false filing of criminal complaints are themselves crimes. And of course using false information to have even licensed store security personnel detain Citizens is not only a crime but can be prosecuted as abduction.

"Retail Group Retracts Startling Claim About ‘Organized’ Shoplifting

The National Retail Federation had said that nearly half of the industry’s $94.5 billion in missing merchandise in 2021 was the result of organized theft. It was likely closer to 5 percent, experts say."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/1...

I should clarify I searched and found about a dozen articles from various publications discussing this claim. Some are just cribbing from the others, but a few have more in depth discussion. Almost every one of them has that same softening sentence though.

Every one of these article has a softening sentence along the lines that "it is unlikely your devices are listening to you". Why it is 'unlikely'? The technology exists and the PII-stealing data sellers have done worse in the past. Seems like a fairly logical next step attack vector for them.