Yep. The folks who have the skills we need are always doing fairly well somewhere else at the center of some company's development or operations. They aren't college kids (not that we wouldn't hire college kids, if they could actually code in something helpful, but they typically come out with nothing helpful). Something scared the pants off those kids and they are not interested in C/C++. They basically won't touch anything compiled (they will talk about Rust, but that's about it) these days unless they are from India, which is a shame, the West and especially the US invented most of the technology the Asia is now capitalizing on.

It's so toxic and insufferable I'm hesitant to go there just to get technical info or even super-clinical non-political information. It's like trying to stay clean on the subway. There isn't really going to be any clean way to get in and out short of a space suit. Absolutely everything is bookend'd with some kind of politics-oriented sniping or bias. I wonder if this is what it was like in Europe during the Reformation. Like, did Catholics and Protestants just talk mad shit non-stop and lick shots at each other every so often while discussing farming techniques or animal husbandry ? Reddit is also less effective than sites like Instagram/X/TikTok are in terms of just giving me the content I like/want and filtering the politics out. I advise avoiding Reddit, in general.

Mother fuck XML.

We have more work right now than we can do. We could hire 3x the staff and still not keep up. I'm like 600 hours behind on consulting jobs we're in the middle of. We cannot hire C or ASM programmers to save our lives. I don't know if it's because folks are terrified of being offshored and thus never enroll or study programming or they fear AI will take their jobs, but neither of those "solutions" are really available to us. Sure, AI helps us improve our productivity a little, but nowhere near the levels the hype would imply (yes, we use it). We need real/live US-citizens coding in compiled languages (C, C++, ASM) and "experts" in trendy scripting languages, academic LISP or ML weenies, or hyper-political hornrimed Rust/Go/Swift acolytes fall (very) short in our technical interviews. Laughably short, ya'll, with serious Dunning-Cruger "unskilled and unaware" problems (they don't even know decent algorithms or design patterns, other than the a few of the LISP/ML guys, who cannot actually finish anything). We pay more than other companies in the area and advertise each job's salary and we've been continuously searching for folks for over 7 years.

Bad advice, bad messaging, stupid predictions, ignorant academic advisors, and a terrible media hypo-osphere have made some really dumb predictions. Personally, I'd have been thrilled to make $160k in my 20's as a C coder in this area and I find it hard to believe current folks aren't applying for our C/C++ gigs because they are holding out for that amazing Rust coding job. I think it's because the talent just isn't there anymore. We've ceded it to the Chinese and the LLM bots way before either is ready to take over. At this point we are putting multiple EE students through college and teaching them ASM and other languages ourselves.

My strong suspicion is that the mods here have regular sock puppet accounts they browse with. They see the debate about the EU losing it's technical edge and ceding ground to both the US and China. They see the strong cognitive dissonance that the "europe stands for censorship, regulation, and technical decline" has on the site. They don't get many comments anymore on technical stories because they ran off most of the technical folks years ago. So, they go for divisive shit-flinging political clickbait.

Yeah, nothing waves the white flag in a debate like saying "I've already explained." Good job, here's your participation trophy.

Correct. On the verge of bankruptcy and car parts makers.

HAHAHAHA! I own a fucking Leaf, genius (2016 SV). That vehicle holds a charge that'll let the car go about 60 miles (which really means 40-50 because you'll be pissing down your leg at 10 miles of charge when turtle mode comes on). Nissan quoted me $14,000 for a new battery. Shops in my area can do junkyard swaps for around $8k if I want to go down to a 40KWH battery (from the 60KWH that was stock). That's more than the car's blue book value and if you went with the junkyard swap you'd *start* with a battery at about 80% chargeable capacity in most case.

That's not happening. Why would there need to be a "findmyelectric.com" if people's batteries were outlasting their cars? Sounds like you've never owned one and just have some dreamy ideas.

"likely a replacement for the 60 kWh pack would cost somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000." That's a quote from the link you just posted, genius. You're making this too easy.

Sounds like someone who hasn't actually had to put a Z-rated tire on an EV. Again, you have ideas, but no experience. That's obvious.

You sound offended (good), but since you're lying and crawfishing, I'm not surprised.

Of those about half are on the verge of bankruptcy or have already gone through it multiple times the others are fucking car parts makers and aren't really shit. ASML is your only win and they'd get swapped in about two weeks if/when they get regulated out of existence. Europe is thrashing hard right now and you only have yourselves to blame. Focus on being productive, not on censorship and immigrant coddling. Things might go better.

What would happen if a jurisdiction said "Hey world, we are sovereign. You want to shut down our systems, it's going to require a JDAM." My guess, JDAMs would be forthcoming from all the mercantilists who depend on DRM and friends, but it's worth pondering.

Yep. After my last Thinkpad, I quit needing more. Four CPU threads and 8GB RAM might not be good enough for everyone, but it's good enough for me. Even RPI's come with an option for 16GB these days. I focus more on older systems anyway. The new stuff bores me with all the DRM, binary-blobery, and lock-in. Same with OS "innovation" these days. Upgrading to get "more Rust", "newer Code of Conduct", more bad ideas in System==D isn't appealing. You can keep that shit, ya'll. I'm good.

I've been to enough Def Con's (8) to know. The claim that security is bullshit has been pretty constant. When I watched the EFF crack DES hashes in under a minute it started to sink in: yep, most security is bullshit. The most honest folks are safe-makers who don't claim to create uncrackable or unhackable systems. They just rate their safes in terms of how long it'll take to break in.

Bullshit. It's a glaring and obvious option to have your engine replaced or rebuilt for less cost than an EV battery replacement. It's also quite easy to do, especially in urban areas in the USA and doesn't require more than a web search. Give me a break.

Which is still going to be cheaper in almost all cases than replacing an EV battery. That's ignoring the fact that some mechanics most definitely WILL replace your motor with a used one or rebuild it. They aren't that hard to find here in the US, especially if you forgo a warranty. You're going to have a helluva lot less hassle with finding a mechanic than you are trying to find a cheap 3rd party battery replacement. Even for cars like the Leaf, the battery is just an old junker outta some PoS wrecked Leaf, it's not like you can just call up Duracell. That's the biggest fact that EV cheerleaders overlook.