The legacy companies have squandered time and opportunity by making really shitty "compliance" EVs that nobody wants. They have ignored charging infrastructure as if it is somebody else's problem. Nobody should be surprised that nobody wants shitty EVs with no charging network.

I've owned my Tesla Model S for 8 years. In 2015, it was concerning if Tesla was going to survive and if they'd continue to build out their Supercharger network. Now, they are dominating the EV market and running circles around the legacy big auto companies. Every other company realizes that they need access to Tesla's Supercharger network if they're going to have a chance to sell EVs.

However, Tesla needs to fire Musk. He has become their biggest liability.

Their original panoramic sunroof had 2 parts: one over the front seats that could open, and one over the rear seats that was fixed, and there was a separation between the two with an interior piece that went across. They still offer this option, and what is new is that there is an option for a single glass roof that covers both the front and rear seats. It does not open, and it looks like it gives you a more open feeling. And as a Tesla Model S owner in Texas with the original panoramic sunroof, it is not as bad as you think. They have some material in the sunroof & windshield & rear window that blocks out a large amount of the heat while still giving you a good amount of light. It does make garage door openers and toll tags trickier to operate inside the vehicle, but compared to other cars I've owned in Texas, I'll take the reduced heat!

As a Model S owner, should I be upset that Tesla is making more Model S and Model X vehicles today that will be competing with me for Superchargers? Or should I be happy that a portion of the purchase price of every Model S and Model X is for Supercharger access? Tesla is adding new Supercharger locations and is expanding the number stalls at some existing locations. 100 years ago, were there multiple gas stations at every interstate exit like there are today? It took a long time for that infrastructure to build out, and this is the early stages of rolling out a new infrastructure. Each Supercharger costs Tesla a decent chunk of money to install. Supercharging is not free; it is prepaid in the purchase price of the vehicle. If it were pay-as-you-charge, the money coming in to Tesla would be a lot less, and therefore they couldn't afford to install as many Superchargers, and therefore fewer people would be interested in buying a large range electric car that couldn't go anywhere without incredibly long charging stops. There are and will be growing pains, especially on busy travel days in areas with a high Tesla concentration. But getting more Supercharged Teslas on the road is a good thing, and I welcome the large number of Model 3s knowing that this will help Tesla survive and grow and that it is paying for Supercharger network expansions. But Tesla has to ramp up its Supercharger rollout to be successful.

I assume that if you run a native 64 bit web browser, it will avoid this vulnerability. For chrome, on https://www.google.com/chrome/... you can select "Download Chrome for another platform" to get the 64 bit version.

I've used an AT&T MiFi Liberate over the past 2.5 years, and it has met my expectations. However, I'm about to drop them because of their price. Their cheapest package is 5 GB for $50/month. I don't need that much data, and you don't get refunds or rollovers for unused data. If you had an Android, you can define metered Wi-Fi networks by going to Settings -> Data usage -> [vertical 3 dots] -> Network restrictions, and toggle on the Wi-Fi SSIDs that aren't unlimited. I don't know if iOS has anything similar.

After encrypting the phone with a good passwd/pin, go to all apps -> Google Settings app -> Android Device Manager, and enable "Remotely locate this device" and "Allow remote lock and erase". Then if it does get stolen, you can use the Device Manager app or https://www.google.com/android... to find it or remotely wipe it. Then go to your Google account settings at https://security.google.com/se... , select your device and "Revoke Access". If you used an application specific password for your Android device, go to https://accounts.google.com/b/... and revoke it. Change your Google password. If you used 2-step verification, move the Google Authenticator to a different device, and re-seed the keys with a new QR code. It is scary how much important private stuff we keep on these portable smartphones, tablets, etc these days, and how screwed we could be if that falls into the wrong hands.

I bought a Dell Venue 7 for myself a month ago, and so far, I love it. There are lots of choices out there, and therefore the request for advice. The Venue 7 is a cheap but nice Wi-Fi only tablet with 2 GB of RAM, a dual core Intel processor, 16 GB storage + microSDHC slot, and a relatively stock build of Android. The Chrome web browser is one of the best reasons to get a modern Android tablet vs. the others. If the screen size isn't too small, the Venue 7 is extreme overkill for email, web browsing, and watching videos. It doesn't have a microHDMI port, and it doesn't have an indicator light to blink at you when you receive new email; those are the only drawbacks I've noticed. But how easy is Android for an older guy not so familiar with computers? I can't answer that question.

Similar to the carputer, I put together a mount for a Nexus 10 tablet in the dash of my car, and I use an AT&T MiFi Liberate for data access on the go. You just have to resist the urge to touch that beautiful 10" screen while you are in motion. I'm thrilled with the setup, and when I get to my destination, I take the tablet with me. And I threw in a couple of NFC tags for when I enter/exit the car, and it does all my typical setup as I'm putting it into the dashboard mount. I'm embarrassed to say how much I paid for the nav system integrated into my car when I bought it half a decade ago, but I'm glad I didn't buy any overpriced map update discs for it. Google maps and navigation are starting to rock the auto industry.

When doing spice simulations of a circuit many years ago, we ran across one interesting feature. When using the exact same inputs and the exact same executable, the sim would converge and run on one machine, but it would fail to converge on another. It just happened that one of the machines was an Intel server, and the other was an AMD, and we attributed it to ever so slightly different round off errors between the floating point implementation of the two. It didn't help that we were trying to simulate a bad circuit design that was on the hairy edge of convergence, but it was eye opening that you could not guarantee 100% identical results between different hardware platforms.

For a Home Theater PC, Windows 7 is great. I'm always switching between 23.976 and 59.94 Hz refresh rates when I'm playing a Blu-ray disc or watching ATSC. I've setup a shortcut to switch refresh rates in W7. WMC is easy to setup use as a DVR, but there are plenty of things I bitch about in its interface. You can bitstream the audio whether it is Dolby Digital, DD+, DTS, DTS-HDMA,or DTS-HR. Suspend (S3 sleep) and resume work great, and it can even set a timer to wake itself up to record my TV shows. And it rocks if I want to do any gaming. But at the office, all the real work is done on Linux machines. We do have Windows and Office and we have to use Exchange for email (puke), but the serious work is all done in Linux and will never move to Windows.

Correct, 50 Mbps down (don't know up speed, but at least 5 Mbps up) is TWC's top service in Austin at the moment, but they weren't offering any promos with it, so I went for the 30 Mbps service with the promo offer for about half the cost of their 50 Mbps package. 50 Mbps for over $100/month vs 1 Gbps for $70/month is a no brainer. Even if you have to pay a $300 installation fee, you'll make that up in less than a year.

I live in Austin, and about a year ago I switched from AT&T DSL to TWC with a decent promo rate of (with taxes & modem lease) $56.66/month for 30 Mbps down / 5 Mbps up. I was expecting the promo rate to expire and my bill to increase by $25, but the other day, TWC sent me a nice letter stating that they are extending my promo rate for 3 months. That really surprised me. No negotiations or threats to switch or bitching. Maybe they heard that Google Fiber is coming to town, and are trying to take preventative measures. The thought of going from 30 Mbps to 1 Gbps for $70+taxes/month has be excited. Come on in, Google. We've been waiting for you.

With the 3 main credit agencies, definitely put a credit fraud alert on your account, and if you're a little more paranoid and have a few bucks, put a security freeze on your account, too. Hopefully if you have good passwords they'll lose interest and move along. You mentioned your Apple ID. Is there anybody at Apple that you can report the bogus password reset attempts to, and maybe they can trace their IP address?

As a Texas resident, I prefer it this way because, to some extent, you get to choose how nice of a house you want to buy along with how much property tax you are willing to pay. Theoretically, you could make $500k/year and live in a middle class neighborhood paying $5k/year property tax, which could be much less than typical state income tax rates elsewhere. If you want to live in a nicer neighborhood, that's your choice, and the property tax value follows that choice. And back on topic with credit card swipe fees, I love the convenience of swiping a card, but I'd love to have the option to pay less, and I'd love to have complete transparency of exactly how much I'm paying for that convenience. (And thank FSM that Austin is better than a lot of other places in Texas!)

Of course marketing guys are going to be more creative in tracking you. I automatically turn off my WiFi when I hit the road. I use a car dock with my Droid, and I use a simple app that detects when I put it in the car dock. It will turn off WiFi, and turn on Bluetooth. When I remove it from the car dock, I could either restore the previous WiFi setting, or leave it off. I generally leave it off unless I'm going somewhere I trust the WiFi, like home or the office.