I find that removing either USB-C or Lightening connector by pinching down on the hard plastic portion and then detaching the cable from the port seems to extend the life of the cable, whereas pulling on the flexible portion snaps the wires inside prematurely. YMMV.

The people who want to use a stick shift can buy an old ICE car if they want that.

I remember Aldi from my semester studying in Germany. I have an idea about what is meant by your reference to Aldi, but I'm not sure if other people in the USA, and other countries can relate. Maybe, it is similar to the USA convenience stores named 711, pronounced "seven-eleven"?

Maybe, maybe not. Then again, a giant lock under the Golden Gate Bridge wouldn't be too hard to make and could handle the flow of many marine vessels at a time? I am wondering where the Sacamento River would flow then? Eventually the Central Valley of California would fill up and turn into a somewhat fresh water sea, maybe? So many possibilities. Not one of them looking all that great though.

I was hoping for some interesting details in the article and comments, but all I see are bashing of corporations, government policies, and electric cars. Bummer. This is why I don't check /. so often. Non-authorities pushing industry propaganda in what has become an echo chamber, instead of an interesting discussion of the possibilities, and history of the 2 companies.

"however are not always the easiest to get along with"

Does RMS possibly have Aspergers, is he highly functioning Autistic? I wouldn't know how to determine this. If he is, then his honesty and openness about his inter personal challenges would make some sense, if I understand correctly the condition of being on the Autistic Spectrum, then he might only need coaching to interact better with people who are not on that spectrum. He seems to be very valuable in many ways to continuing many technical development efforts. I am only a layman in this discussion, but I know a few people who are highly functioning in this way. They are good people, however but always the easiest to get along with, unless I remind myself that they only need a different kind of explanation for them to move forward in the process of bettering themselves and their own behavior. If he is just socially under developed, then it is good if he get s one help in that area of himself.

Tesla tries to vertically integrate as much as possible. The reason has to do with the necessity to optimize performance and costs for an EV. Tesla must create as much range as possible from their vehicles. This means optimizing all of the systems in their vehicles. Also, they must be able to control and reduce costs as much as possible to make the their vehicles affordable as possible. Using off the shelf parts requires designing around those parts in a less than optimal way. Tesla has designed their vehicles in the most optimized way to be electric. So, borrowing parts and systems designed for other vehicles reduces and degrades optimization for electric vehicles. Tesla have brought in house much of the expertise they need, from seats, electronics design, and several other parts so they can also move quickly to make modifications in house rather than getting in line for OEMS to do the work for them. It is a different approach but it has helped them get to where they want to go sooner. There are several online videos with Taels owners complaining about fit and finish issues, and other failings (like the rear bumper filling up with stuff and falling off). I'm not implying Telsa is superior, but they do improve over time.

After having too much coffee and skimming through the topics on /. , my simple brain pre-concluded that the article explained that there is no AI or even I, as in Intelligence, in White Supremacy. I should slow down my mornings, sorry.

I haven't read all of the comments in this lively discussion yet. I am wondering about how the beneficial strategy of trading with friends abroad helps a country geopolitically?

Does this idea of yours about the costs of government employees and supporting infrastructure include police and fire services, transportation infrastructure maintenance and improvement, agencies for testing and insuring that standards are met, and so on and so on? Military? Scientific research? and so on and so on? These things that don't make a profit, were never meant to profit, but were created to provide a way for businesses and the general population to do more than just subsist? I’m not saying all of these are implemented in the best way, and should be reviewed and improved often, but without them business would have to pay a lot more, and so it follows that the general public would have to as well. The regulations are there because business/industry couldn't do the right thing, they messed up in a big way. Another way to look at it is that all games need rules or they aren't games. I hope you get my drift.

In my house there are 2 toilets that are the same model. Both are dual flush. One toilet the kids use, and rarely flush, the other is the parents toilet. The kids toilet jet hole in the basin accumulates mineral buildup up quicker than the adults toilet. So, I have to manually scrap the mineral buildup every 4-6 months from the jet hole in the kids toilet versus 8 months to a year for the parents toilet. I have in the past repaired or replaced different components on different types of toilets, but this manual scraping mineral build up is annoying. I've never had to do this for other types of toilets. We do have hard water, our pipes are copper, but i don't know about the waste lines. Is there a way to deal with the mineral build up issue? Maybe like a treatment of some kind, hopefully natural or less harsh chemicals for the water treatment facility?

I'm not sure if you know this, Electrical service can be updated, and installed. A gas station would need maybe 2 additional 100 amp, 240 volt circuits on their service from their local utility, or maybe just one larger 200 amp service, like most modern homes these days.

The article is about GERMANY. Why are you using Florida as an equal to GERMANY in your arguments? Several very out dated arguments by the way. This has nothing to do with the US Federal GOVERNMENT or what we have going on in the USA..

There is a way to turn off sharing the Xfinity WIFI hardware from the App/browser. I turned mine off. I was sick of people stopping and parking outside my kitchen window to catch up on their FB drama fix on their phones. It is as if they couldn't wait until they got home to take care of their addiction to Social Media.