Hasn't it occurred to anyone that the The Foreign VPS Incentive Act will cause domestic VPS vendors to lose business?

Ford has always been the 'more bling than sense' option, at least as long as I've been alive. Some are very nice vehicles, and their interiors are top notch for an American vehicle (vs like, a Land Rover), and they're often the vehicle most purchased by people who aren't smart enough to connect the dots or pay attention to their environment enough to not buy a vehicle which is obviously not well built. Case in point - middle aged Karens buying gutless Mustangs. Their reliability is even worse than VW.

No, Ford is bad at it. They're bad at it because FOrd isn't good at making reliable vehicles. Ask anyone who's had to get work done on their Ford's, or a Ford mechanic.

The engineering culture at Ford is such taht they design things to be sold, not maintained. This is true for all Fords, with things like having to completely disassemble large parts of the vehicle to do basic maintenance being commonplace, even on ICE. Little things change sometimes multiple times per year on the same model year, so you're never sure if you need parts from one year or the other until you try to fit them. This leads to some really horrible QC, with vehicles often failing straight off the lot. I've known 2 people in the last several years to have their brand new Ford have major mechanical failure, and heard a number of other anecdotal stories from others.

If you need more anecdotes, just hop over to Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist and look at the used price and condition of Fords vs comparable Chevy, etc. vehicles. Pick one - Ford trucks, midsize/small cars, SUVs, hatchbacks. You'll pay significantly less for the Ford, which will likely be in "better condition" with fewer miles, than the comparable vehicle for this very reason. Case in point: old Broncos vs Ramchargers or K5 Blazers, or trucks in general. There's a definite pecking order and it is largely based on the reality of overall vehicle quality. A 25 year old rusted out Toyota with 250k+ would go for 8k, where a similar truck from Chevy S10 $4k, but the Ford Ranger - which may not be rusted out or have any visible issues - sits around at $1500-2000 for months unsold. (I say this as someone who buys, repairs, and flips old vehicles.)

Now imagine those problems when you add software computing parts to every component in the operation of the vehicle...

Economies at scale don't work when you're operating at a loss - as all EV production has until very recently (to the exception of some Tesla models). Every other manufacturer has to subsidize their production with increased costs for their other models.

"New" at it? Do you consider the fact that Ford produced one of the first commercial EVs over 100 years ago, or that they've been in continuous commercial production of EV and hybrid vehicles since 2011 - likely designing them for many years prior to that (probably around 2008, like every other automaker, when the gov't started pushing massive subsidies in that directioN)?

Tell me, do you consider a "tech startup" that's 13 years into funding and on Class K funding to be "new at it"? Come on.

Most of the EV vehicle costs are material costs - the batteries, copper for the motors and wiring, and so on, are a huge part of this cost disparity. The bulk of the vehicle weight is in rare earth minerals, and that weight is not insubstantial.

How many decades does a technology get a free pass for being 'new'? Tesla is 20 years old. There other motor vehicle companies which have come and gone. The industry as a whole (EV vehicles) have massive governmental subsidies at every stage of production, and regulatory burdens are almost completely absent. There is every financial incentive to succeed.

If Ford (5th biggest automaker in the world) can't make it happen, and Toyota can't and won't make it happen (#2), and VW (#1) clearly can't make it happen (link), and the ones who ARE making it happen are still struggling financially even with these subsidies after 20 years, there's either a larger economic problem at play, or the technology simply isn't suitable for mass production of consumer cars.

Can you imagine Chrysler, Ford, Chevy, etc. having these kinds of problems in the 1930s and 1940s, 20+ years after the beginning of mass production of a technology, competing against horse drawn carriages? Just silly.

Fundamentally, EVs won't be cost effective or desirable for most people until they solve the energy efficency problems, the capacity problems, and the endurance problems. That boils down to finding a better energy "source" than lithium charged by diesel-powered Superchargers, at a minimum.

This is like saying that the car that slows down after crossing the finishline first, is slowest.

Apple has US phone market dominance, the only thing that's decreased is the percentage of new activations. That means they're reaching market saturation, if anything.

Add to that the fact that 5-8 year old iPhones are still perfectly functional and useful, in most cases, in contrast to Android devices which are lucky to get updates after the first year or two...

Most of the people protesting technology putting people out of work do so because they know the same people saving big with the tech will fight tooth and nail to make sure we do NOT adapt the economy. They want the displaced to go die quietly somewhere that is not in their back yard. Unless/until that changes, every displaced worker brings us that much closer to an ugly social uprising.

We need to look at UNDER employment as well. Especially on the west coast, a number of the homeless are, in-fact, employed. Some full time. But because our job market is ruled by supply and demand (rather than needs), a glut in supply has resulted in employed people that can't even afford a shitty apartment.

Many of the homeless I see are doing the "thorazine shuffle", a gait that comes from years of treatment with major tranquilizers/antipsychotics. So for those, mental health issues is a good bet.

The last time I needed any sort of "advanced" support from Comcast, the person in India had no way to escalate other than mark it on the ticket and hope someone called me back in 24 hours (they did NOT).

It turned out someone assigned half of my already assigned block of static IPs to another customer.

So step one, give the AI a way to ring tier 2 at least.

Well, when we have headlines from last week like this, I'm ready to give coal a hard deadline and fuck 'em if they can't meet it:

https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/other/west-virginia-says-no-to-biden-s-solar-panel-push-state-s-billionaire-coal-magnate-governor-vetoes-renewable-energy-bill-claiming-it-would-ve-put-miners-out-of-work/ar-BB1kE1oo

There is currenlty enough solar and wind projects queued up to more than double the entire US grid capacity, they're just waiting on interconnections. The processes used in the US for grid upkeep and upgrading are antiquated, laborious, and not geared for growth.

I feel like the auto-makers trying to jump on the EV bandwagon arrogantly assumed, "Tesla is just a n00b at auto manufacturing. We've got over 100 years of experience. As soon as we step into this game, it's all over for them and the rest of the Johnny-Come-Lately brands trying to sell people electric cars!"

They didn't take into account a VERY important factor. Tesla established itself as a "premium/luxury" vehicle pretty quickly. The combination of the instant torque and industry-leading 0-60MPH times, plus advanced tech like the "Autopilot" functionality, not to mention the huge touch-screen panel/infotainment system that was miles ahead of everyone else.. and then the subsequent build-out of the large supercharger network world-wide meant people would pay as much as 6 figures for one of these vehicles, gladly.

All this stuff was AMAZING back in the 2012-2016 time-frame, when traditional auto-makers only dabbled in EVs by essentially tossing a battery pack and motor in an existing vehicle, winding up with poor range and no big advantage for the buyer.

At this point in time? Early adopters of EVs are through. They're just another mainstream option, now. So companies like Ford were fools to expect good sales of anything priced like Tesla asked for a Model S or X. They made vehicles like the Mach-E assuming they'd be profitable asking that kind of money for one. But this is 2024, where people who had that kind of money for an EV already spent it on their Tesla -- and everyone else is only interested in an EV to save money on total cost of ownership. If the car costs 2-3x more than they can get a decent, reliable gas powered one, the ROI isn't there.

But we had Jack back then. The problem with Jack was (and PulseAudio etc) is that it can't do zero-latency routing on a 486. The benefit PulseAudio got was that hardware (overall) got better so inefficiencies were less noticed and people got less picky.

Then why don't you sue, plenty of country lawyers looking for a pay day on easy claims like "forcing disabled person to extend contract without compensation". You won't get much (1 year pay or so), but it will cost the company 5-10x that.

This is actually a reduction of the prior liability which was 300% of any leg of the flight that was cancelled in addition to alternative transportation. This basically guts the FAA's current rules on it and is going to leave a lot more people stranded, because now 'regulations tell us' that you get cash and fuck off.

This has been the law in the US as well, just few people know about it and the airlines still try to wriggle out of it. According ot the FAA previously if any part of your flight was cancelled, you were entitled for an up to 300% refund for the distance that was not covered by the airline on top of vouchers which are a customer retention and settlement tool. These regulations actually reduce the liability.

Then why didnâ(TM)t you negotiate a raise or quit?