That's a spicy meatball!

My Briefcase was like Dropbox for your 3.5" floppy disks. I think I upgraded to a Zip drive around that time. YIPPEE!

On the other Foot:
Microsoft Opens Source to China

Reader NZheretic points out that less than a year ago, Jim Allchin swore under oath that disclosing the Windows operating system source code could damage national security.

Transcript of Internet Caucus Panel Discussion
Re: Administration's new encryption policy. Date: September 28, 1999.
Weldon statement.

Rep. Curt Weldon : Thank you. Let me see if I can liven things up here in the last couple of minutes of the luncheon. First of all, I apologize for being late. And I thank Bob and the members of the caucus for inviting me here.
...
But the point is that when John Hamre briefed me, and gave me the three key points of this change, there are a lot of unanswered questions. He assured me that in discussions that he had had with people like Bill Gates and Gerstner from IBM that there would be, kind of a, I don't know whether it's a, unstated ability to get access to systems if we needed it., Now, I want to know if that is part of the policy, or is that just something that we are being assured of, that needs to be spoke. Because, if there is some kind of a tacit understanding, I would like to know what it is.
Because that is going to be subjected to future administrations, if it is not written down in a clear policy way. I want to know more about this end use certificate. In fact, sitting on the Cox Committee as I did, I saw the fallacy of our end use certificate that we were supposedly getting for HPCs going into China, which didn't work. So, I would like to know what the policies are. So, I guess what I would say is, I am happy that there seems to be a coming together. In fact, when I first got involved with NSA and DOD and CIS, and why can't you sit down with industry, and work this out. In fact, I called Gerstner, and I said, can't you IBM people, and can't you software people get together and find the middle ground, instead of us having to do legislation.

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Compared with all the AI slop that is being trust upon us, It all looks so dated.

I used to screen scrape jail registry records for county jails in my home area. Though the IDs weren't exactly sequential, doing groups of 50 would get hits for two of the local counties.

What I found was that, while the website UI wouldn't show juvenile records, you could access them directly w/the ID. Surfacing it to the county took a day or so to find the right person but they quickly closed that hole, but who knows how many records were handed out to malicious actors over the years before I found it.

Yeah, I have a Windows 10 VM for a couple pieces of software, along with some security testing. Garmin Express is installed on that.

I had this happen this morning to a Forerunner 165. Plug the device in via USB to your computer, then do a hard reset -- select/back/light, push and hold until it beeps then the triangle fades. The watch will reboot.

Not sure what triggered it, but I then used Garmin Express to ensure the watch firmware was up to date. Seems to still be working.

No, it is definitely not "all". There are a lot that don't come with them because they flat out don't need them.

Three nights ago we hit a low of 7.6F (-13.5C). I have two Mr. Cool DIY 4th Gen units, one a single zone 18K ceiling cassette, the other a 3-zone configured 12K ceiling, 9K wall, 9K wall. No issues and everything is warm, but the system has to work. I say that because I live in a 120 year old house and the insulation is terrible to non-existent and the windows are the originals. Always another project...

Take a look over at DIY Solar forums, where people are trying to minimize electricity usage. While some people do have gas/oil, there are many that are 100% electric, including several in Canada and Alaska, and they're all reporting everything is working fine in temps colder than I had. It really depends on the units you buy, but the Mr. Cool DIY 4th Gen mini-splits are rated down to -13F (-25C) for heating. They do make cold weather units that go even lower.

What a steaming pile of made up bullshit.

https://www.monitordaily.com/news-posts/california-dmv-likely-to-deny-thousands-of-commercial-trucks-registration/

That's like describing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as a carpenter having problems with a few big nails! :-)

Some quibbles: IBM prevented 32-bit OS/2 for 80386 not from bad planning, but an internal struggle to keep 32-bit PCs from biting into the AS400 mini computer business, and there were internal wars for the board approvals.

This was the end of the line for Gates's frustration with IBM, as OS/2 took resources from projects he and Balmer were convinced would take off. Publicly claiming that upcoming Windows 3.0 would not be "Presentation Manager Lite", MS still death-marched developers to produce the release, while devs allotted to IBM sat on their hands or did code reviews for IBM managers. Win 3.0 Program Manager kicked ass on Presentation Manager, it was definitely not "lite" - and it ditched all the heavy-baggage of IBM SNA requirements.

"OS/2 NT" is a bit misleading. Late in the endgame of the IBM/MS relationship, Gates discovered that Dave Cutler was being cut away from DEC, with a recalibration of Prism and the future of Alpha. Cutler had begun a 64-bit microkernel evolution of his VMS system. OS/2 3.0 was on the boards, still dragging MS resources and tying up IP. Gates hired Cutler to build an alternative, skunk works kernel from his Prism design work, with the hope of porting the Windows System 32 layer with dependencies etc. When the last bitter contract work was delivered for IBM, Cutler and the Windows team ground out the hard work of delivering their kernel, TCP stack, and Windows 3.11 port —Windows NT.

Most of this stuff is well-covered in Carroll's "Big Blues" along with Zachary's "Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT". I had a small part at the NT launch in Moscone Center, working for a ghost-writer on the Sybex NT book that launched at that event

You're a bleating sheep. From 1990, pretending to be 1955:

Doc Brown: [looking at a tiny circuit under a magnifying glass] Unbelievable that this little piece of junk could be such a big problem. No wonder this circuit failed. It says "Made in Japan".
Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
Young Doc: Unbelievable.

In 2025, just substitute "China" for "Japan". Wake up or get left behind.

EV sales have increased in every major market. Growth rate may have decreased in some countries, but total sales has increased both in unit volume and as a percentage of all auto sales. In the US, EV sales once again set a record at 1.3 million vehicles. For one example, Ford sold more Mustang Mach-E EVs than ICE Mustang models.

In Brazil, despite being at an early stage of transport electrification, Brazil has seen a rapid uptake of passenger EVs. Sales reached nearly 55,000 units in the first half of 2024, or 5.3% of all new car sales during the semester. Thatâ(TM)s more than the number of EVs sold in 2023 in its entirety, and 2023 had already posted a whopping 178% year-on-year growth rate.

In the UK, EV sales set a record again. And, while gas and diesel remain more popular, their 2024 registrations were down -4.4% and -13.6% respectively, while EV registrations were up 9.6%.

Europe as a whole looks to be a mixed bag, with sales being about flat. Germany is desperately trying to protect their auto manufacturing market and Stellantis is...well, no one is really sure what Stellantis is doing. There are EV standouts, like Norway, where 89% of all new cars sales were electric in 2024; and Denmark, where EVs outsold gas an diesel for the first time, reaching 51.5% of sales. And Down Under, Australia is also seeing record increases in EV sales.

The rest of the world is seeing a similar trend, except possibly Japan, because Japan buys Japanese and Toyota is sniffing hydrogen. There is hope with Honda setting records with their Prologue EV. Even Nissan's EV sales are up, YoY. We'll see if being taken over by Honda can keep them more than just a nameplate.

Last year was 2024, not 2023. They're moving in the right direction, but huge and things don't turn on a dime. For example, "China's power firms are on track to cut coal's share of annual electricity generation to below 60% for the first time in 2024, which would mark a major milestone in the country's efforts to transition energy production away from fossil fuels.
Reduced coal reliance by the world's second-largest economy is a rare bright spot this year for climate trackers, who were disappointed by the recent COP29 meetings and are bracing for the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Accord next year."

They're moving to clean energy, leaving the rest of the world behind. From CNN:

It is time to stop making excuses and playing whataboutism with EVs, solar, and overall electrification.

He didn't, but I'll take a shot at it.

According to the most recent (April 2024) data by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 1,346,002,877 trips taken by Americans in that month. Of that, 1,540,204 were longer than 500 miles. That means 0.114% were longer than 500 miles, which describes your trip. So, literally 99.886% of all trips were shorter than your example.

In 2021, 99.2% of all trips were less than 100 miles long, with 99.9% less than 500 miles. Hell, 93.4% were less than 25 miles.

So take the AC comment of you being 0.0002% as it is meant -- a hyperbolic statement meant to convey the obvious fact that you are a statistical outlier to such an extent your needs for vehicle range are not relevant to any discussion other than YOUR needs. They can't be reliably used as an example of what the industry needs to get to for EV adoption to dramatically increase.

There is more of a mental shift needed that is very hard to make without experiencing it. People are conditioned to go to a gas station to fuel up and get in and out as fast as possible. Why not? There's no other reason to be there. But that isn't the EV model or experience.

Ignoring those that can charge at home, I charged my EV up tonight from 17% to 80% in 21 minutes in 35 degree (F) weather. Horrible, right? Who in their right mind would want to wait that long? I certainly don't. Except I didn't, really. The charger was at a Walmart and I needed to do some grocery shopping. I plugged in and did that shopping. It took me 21 minutes to get in, get my stuff, get out, load the groceries in my trunk, unplug and leave.

With a gas car, fueling up is at a dedicated fueling station. That's why you're there. With an EV, fueling up is NOT why you are there, it is an extra -- if you change your mindset. I was there because I had a grocery list. If I finished sooner, I would have left sooner with a slightly lower charge. (Note: I wasn't on the faster charger, either. Normally I can go 20-90% in 15 minutes or less.)

The way EV infrastructure is evolving, charging stations are being placed where people would otherwise go. They're a bonus to what you're doing already -- movie theater, shopping center, etc. Yes, there are big gas-station-like charging centers off of highways for those who need to do it that way. But even then...your claim of an F-150 Lightning turning your one, long 550 towing trip into a 3-day trip sounds like a math error. The long range Lightning gets 320 miles to a charge -- cut than in half for a big tow. Say 160. That would be 3.5 charge cycles, and on a fast DC charger those would be in the neighborhood of 30-minutes each, 10-100%. How does adding 1.5-2.0 total hours to your trip for charging turn it into 3 days?