I will comment that I started taking Semaglutide about 6 months ago, ostensibly out of my own curiosity and because I was having difficulty losing weight. Yes, I dropped weight (around 25 lbs) which now puts me at a healthy weight I haven't seen in years. Worth noting I'm 53 now and so methods to lose weight became more and more difficult as I passed 40. I'm still working out and not relying solely on GLP-1's (just got back from a 4 mile hike) for weight loss but it is remarkable how much that changed.

However, as the article posted noted, I have also noted changes in my own behaviour that are positive. My entire relationship with alcohol in particular has changed radically and I've gone from drinking just a wee bit too much to now consuming alcohol in moderation just as I should. Well, I should probably quit entirely but I do like good whisky and wine. My relationship with food has also changed for the better, making me more likely and willing to eat less, and eat healthier. But it also changed my level of focus on tasks to a place I've not had since my 30's. As I aged I found it more and more difficult to focus, but all of this testing with GLP-1's has shifted my mind back to being able to focus better again.

One more thing I noticed is that I relax easier. I can sit and "smell the roses" without feeling like I need to go do something else. It's brought me back to a place I haven't been in years. I spend this last weekend at a lake and I relaxed more than I have on a vacation in years. It was just two days, but I feel like I appreciated and enjoyed it a ton more.

Are there negative side effects? I don't know to be honest as I've not noticed anything changing in those 6 months that I can't attribute to other factors like being over 50! So far the effects have been positive but I'll also note that unlike a lot of people pursuing GLP-1's for weight loss I'm not continually increasing my dose. I did increase my dose gradually until I got my weight to around where I wanted it then I actually cut myself back to a half-way point between my initial dose and the max dose I was doing. I didn't gain weight back and the other positive side effects remained, and I'm very happy with where I am.

My theory is that our Western culture and our processed food as well as pollutants we in our modern world consume constantly perhaps have us all out of balance to a certain extent, and while I don't think GLP-1's should be the magic bullet they seem to be, the results people are seeing are hard to argue with. This might be the "fluoridated water" of our century, and while I genuinely don't believe it's necessarily how things should be there's no question that we need to find ways to adapt to an increasingly artificial and alien world if we are going to survive as individuals and as a species.

Pizza's not even that hard to make at home. The dough takes a bit of practice but once done a couple of times it's dead easy. There are also really good pre-made and/or frozen pizza crusts you can buy if you don't want to put the work in, then the rest is just spread the marinara, sprinkle cheese and add whatever else you want to it before throwing it in the oven for a few minutes. I can go from zero to burning the roof of my mouth in 30 minutes.

Genuinely the Mach-E is not a terrible EV; it's decidedly average in every metric but it's not bad. I drove one for a couple of weeks on a business trip and it was fine (yes, I drive an EV normally too).

Thing is they completely fucked the marketing on the thing. Calling it a Mustang was ALWAYS going to be a terrible decision because that name alone comes with a metric ton of legacy baggage that the car didn't need. That and the Mach-E name is just awkward as hell and sounds weird to the average consumer. If they really wanted to use a legacy name that doesn't have all the baggage what about the Fairlane? Yeah, there are some who wouldn't like it but it's an easy-sounding name that would've fit quite well and those people who would complain about the nameplate would all be over 60 by now if not over 70 (last Fairlane was produced in 1970). Or heck, the Mainline, Falcon... or hell just own the electric thing and just call the damn thing the Ford Thunderbolt (a sub-model of the Fairlane in fairness).

Or I don't know... maybe make something new up? They pay people to do this shit, I'm amazed they fucked it up so bad.

I'm reminded of all the BMW cars I've previously owned where it was often said "If there's no oil under it, there's no oil in it"...

I grabbed a Lenovo Tab P12 back in May and so far it's been a great companion device for traveling and basic tasks. I got the version bundled with the stylus and the keyboard cover for I think about $350 US.

The only real "issue" is that the stylus being Bluetooth needs to be charged as well but unlike the higher end models of Lenovo Ideapad, it doesn't charge when attached to the back of the tablet. So I have to remember to periodically charge it or it just doesn't work. I don't use the stylus a ton but it is nice for signing documents and the like, or taking notes.

Having said all that, it's been great. I've taken a number of trips and road trips with it and the keyboard is usable for basic email work, the screen is fabulous and the performance is awesome. Somewhat slow to boot from complete power off but the only time it gets shutdown completely is when the battery's dead which hasn't happened very often to me. Most of the time it's ready to go in moments.

Even as much as I love my Polestar 2, I disagree. The simple fact is that Android Automotive (what you used in Volvo) is an operating system that can be locked down by the vendor installing it. GM will almost certainly use Android Automotive but with a locked down app store so that only their apps can get installed... the ones they monetize.

Plus, there's the fact that a car's lifespan should exceed that of a cellphone. This is exactly a problem we're hitting with our Polestar 2's (and Volvo XC40's which are based on the same platform); the CPU is just too old and slow to support newer and better features, and in fact was probably borderline for the apps already released at launch. The CPU in the car isn't easily upgraded (though they are doing an upgrade for the Polestar 3 but that's a completely different computer and car) but you can upgrade your phone whenever and use Android Auto / Carplay with the latest and greatest apps at "full power".

I use Android Auto daily in my Polestar. The only thing I use the integrated system for any more is navigation on long trips due to the integration with the charging. However, with the recent addition of live integration with ABRP on my phone even this might go by the wayside.

This is why you remove it from the heat completely the very moment it starts bubbling.

Also don't press the coffee into the funnel, rather just fill with gravity to the top and then gently brush off any excess with your finger.

I have a Polestar 2... about 4500lbs. My first factory set of tires lasted 30K miles, but got replaced because I got a lag bolt through one of the tires AND the rim right at actually 32K miles, and since it was about to go into winter in the Midwest I felt it safest to have matched wear across all four tires.

I now have over 70K miles on my car and while I'm looking at the tires thinking it might be time soon for some new tires it's more because again it's about to go into winter in the Midwest and I prefer to have good rubber when the snow falls. All-season performance tires, I do NOT drive like a granny and I have the performance software upgrade so I do occasionally enjoy doing the 4 second 0-60 launches for fun.

The weight difference issue is also super overblown. Note that while my car is around 4500lbs, a directly competing car at the same time with similar performance and overall practicality was the Audi RS5 Sportback (2022 model year) which has a listed weight of 4000lbs. So there's a 500lb difference but it's important too to note that car weights are listed as empty weights. 15 gallons of fuel weighs 90lbs, 8 quarts of oil add another 15lbs and so on. The difference in weight is pretty small when you look at directly competing ICE. Yes, there's definitely an issue of tire wear because of the power the cars put down, but I've driven powerful cars since long before I drove an EV and they are all in the 3.5-4.5 second range and had tire wear similar enough that I don't seriously believe it's a factor.

Thank you for making the perilous journey from 2005 in order to make this comment. We here in 2025 appreciate it greatly.

Klendathu are just dialing in their aim...

Seriously; I mean I understand people's desire to understand a thing that affected all our lives so significantly, but I seriously just don't understand why the source of the virus really matters. Whether it leaked from the lab or jumped from a bat in a market, the Covid that affected our lives and continues to affect our lives isn't the same virus. It mutates, has mutated and is now a distinctly different virus than it was when it first arrived. Even if some lab in Wuhan has a sample of the original virus in a freezer it's unlikely that virus would be useful except as an historical footnote.

So again, why exactly do we need to know this and why should any of us care?

Well, first of all think of it as an electric enclosed motorbike, not a car. Then a whole lot of it makes a lot more sense. I too am a bit dubious of their 500 watts of solar power, but there have been some interesting developments in panel tech recently that they could be using that could make it feasible. The proof is in the pudding so to speak.

It almost certainly has turn signals. I don't think that's a question as adding them is cheap, easy and with LED highly efficient.

The side mirrors do seem small, and you're right they could well be cameras. I know that's legal in some countries and they might have applied for some sort of exemption? The footage on their website shows much larger mirrors so I don't know what the status is of those.

The brake lights flickering is super common with video footage shot on a lot of modern cameras. Check any car review and you'll see the lights flickering. It's the nature of LED's and does in no way represent how they look in real life.

I think most of the reason they're not showing it from the rear is because it does look sort of awkward from that angle... the video is all about marketing LOL.

Again, this is a commuter vehicle and can be thought of as more akin to a motorbike than a car. Almost every commuter I know has no real world use case for a rear seat... hell I know I don't. In fairness, I do often commute on my motorbike too. The trunk is a decent size for a backpack and a few grocery bags. This isn't a hauler... again think motorbike but with a much larger storage than most motorbikes offer.

I agree I find this interesting. I already have a perfectly good EV so I'm not looking to make a move to an Aptera, but I could see a world where something like this could replace 99% of my use case, even being a more comfortable commuter than my motorbike now that I'm getting into "getting too old for that shit" territory LOL

People (myself included) ride motorcycles. Yes, we even commute on them. If we stop thinking of the Aptera as an electric car and instead start thinking of it as an enclosed 3-wheeled electric motorbike it suddenly makes a lot more sense and becomes a lot more attractive.

I have a use for AI, specifically OpenAI's. I have a ton of legacy code written in (of all languages) Forth. This is for embedded devices and it's complicated by control loops that are written in machine language in order to keep the performance up on these controllers with low cost industrial grade CPU's. The code is pretty slick all things considered, but it's a really hard to maintain mess mostly because I'm not a Forth programmer, and especially with the machine language stuff in there it's complicated.

About a month ago I embarked on a journey to re-code all our software in C. ChatGPT (paid) has been incredibly useful in both helping me understand what's going on in the Forth code, and helping to translate it into C. The new code usually isn't compile-ready but it's close enough that it just takes a few changes and I can compile and burn to the controller. Yes, I actually can have it translate the code directly into a compile-ready version but learning the process and learning how the code translates has been incredibly useful in helping me with the old Forth code and has also helped me find fixes and optimizations that mean the new C code runs better on the same hardware than the Forth stuff did.

So yeah... one good use for AI. There ARE good uses for it but it's a tool like any other. It's also great for help with writing, especially formal writing.

There's a part of me to this day that's still mad that nobody on CIX (English BBS with early Internet access) told me about Yggdrasil. I downloaded Slackware as my first Linux distro and yes; went through the hell of configuring that bitch.

I mean, I learned a lot too but the pain of that installation set back my Linux usage "in anger" by months. Though once I had it up and running it was a ton better than my Windows installation.

Thanks for unlocking that core memory BTW. I was trying to quit drinking this year... guess that's going out the window now...