microwave labotomy ... We just put the machine against your head here for a bit and those bad urges go away, all better.

Another poster mentioned that it's actually focussed ultrasound.

Still sounds like breaking a piece of a system by stirring the brain with a knife (lobotomy) or burning it out with heat (cauterization), electricity (electroshock) or mechanical shock (blow to the head) - just carefully focused without (substantial) damage to other parts of the brain or its casing.

Ultrasonic destruction of a piece of the brain's reward/punishment/desire/avoidance mechanism rather than persistent unwanted fat.

I had one breakthrough DMT experience where I saw 'the machine elves' (I just saw what I describe as fast-moving fractals that I 'felt' were beckoning to me); but, we have matching experiences w/the other primary psychedelics: I only had relatively minor on-top visual distortions with even the largest doses of LSD (1500+ mcg) or mushrooms.

That said, everyone is different. I know that some of my friends absolutely lost their fucking minds on a few tabs of LSD and, purportedly, experienced wild hallucinations that I have to trust were real to them but haven't ever experienced myself.

I certainly find typing stuff out is easier than saying it. Especially as I can edit it before submission

Me too!

I am not American. Most of my friends would probably be prepared to pay extra to NOT have AI on their phone, and only use a camera to scan QR codes.

I do use a Samsung phone with the ability to write dimensions on photos of equipment, but other than that, mostly use it to phone. I am still on the 2022 model, which was bought for me as a present.

What I really want, and would pay a fair price for today, is a properly supported Linux phone. (Hierarchical Drop-down menus, no icons). With the option to run OpenBSD on it.

As a UK Boomer, let me say "We already wanted Starmer out". Now the young ones have good reason to do the job.

You might want to read up on how current hybrid vehicles actually work, 'cause it seems you have more than one misconception going on.

I have. For instance, my latest vehicle is the Ford F-159 XLT,, the full-hybrid model of the F-series pickup truck line. Power train is:
  - 6 cylinder dual-turbo engine. (runs low power but approoximately doubles output when a lot is needed.)
  - 47 HP motor-generator "pancake" on the engine side of the ttransmission, to scavenge / return power to./from a 1.5 kWhr lithium battery.
  - 10-speed automatic transmission, working with the lithium battery;s main alternator to fine-tune match the engine/mogen to the current driving situation. Max power of engine plus hybrid mogen; 430 hp.
  - full four wheel drive.

So it's primarily a gas-engine power train with an electric-car motor mechanically coupled to the engine shaft. Many other hybrids, from the venerable prius onward, are similar, with plug-in variants having a big scavaging/peaking battery good for pure electric operation of tens of miles rather than a minute or so and a wall-powered charger added.

What I'm looking for is essentially a pure electric - totally electronic "transmission" consisting of alternator(s) between the batteries and the motor(s), plus a tiny engine-generator able to burn gas and feed some teens of KW of charging power into the batteries when running down the road or parked near it.
 

Do the Waymo batteries use one of the lithium chemistries including cobalt, or a non-cobalt chemistry such as lithium iron phosphate?

Cobalt chemistries have a higher power/weight and energy/weight ratio, which made them the go-to chemistries for vehicle batteries. But they also produce oxygen when the cells overheat, leading to an unextinguishable runaway fire hazard: A burning cell makes enough heat to ignite the adjacent cells, so the whole assembly of them goes. Bad enough when it's a car's worth, but a disaster if it's a shipping-container sized module of a utility energy storage site. (And even worse when the site is a building full of racks, which someone had "protected" from fire with water-spraying, equipment-shorting system, so the whole site burns up, as happened recently with one in California creating a toxic mess.)

That's why purpose-built stationary lithium energy systems use non-cobalt chemistries - heavier, but a shorted cell just kills itself without getting hot enough to light off its neighbors.

I want to see inexpensive plugin hybrids.

But not like the current ones, which are primarily an engine/tranny powertrain with a motor/generator + small battery for scavenging downhill/braking energy for later accelleration/uphill/cruise/power-boost.

I want ones that are primarily a battery-electric with a small aux engine-generator (say 15-20 HP range), big enough to power crusing with a bit left over for gradually charging. That would let you range-extend by the size of your gas tank plus fillups (i.e. indefinitely if only gas is available) or go from battery empty to back on the road in a couple tens of minutes.

The backup engine would only run at max-efficiency speed and could use an atkins-like cycle (see "liquid piston engine") to get the max power out of the fuel. Most operation would use power-grid charging (when available and cheaper than fuel).

I thought it was Birmingham Small Arms (A UK manufacturer of motorbikes).

You can still opt out of working for meta.

Act now before it becomes illegal!

Bluetooth in the radio

Hell no!

The car should be sold with a (double) DIN standard location where you can fit old or new appliance of your preference.

Using the radio to control the A/C as a means to prevent replacement should be illegal.

I have three different browsers running, and four instances of one of them, Each has on average four windows open.

Plus there is a bunch of other stuff running, and I only have spinning rust (Being old, my brain is not very fast).

Not sure how they will get any useable info out of my PC - other than it is probably not using Windows.

... is European startups.

Europe is Dumping Windows as fast as it can - on security grounds. Europe does not have the American funding model, and many start-ups are individuals with no significant funding.

I have developed many Xilinx projects, and failed to develop many more because I could not afford the development software. Including military applications that could have run to very high volume. At that time, there were no realistic alternatives.

"How did you not build a rat's nest BEFORE AI?"

By employing a load of rats. How did you do it?

Explain to them "If you don't know how to do maths in your head you WILL be robbed every time you buy in a street market" - which will be a few days after Trump has bankrupted the last remaining shop in the mall.