You've never used the iDrive scroll wheel/joystick/button controller on the console? Does your vehicle have one?

I've been driving a BMW for about eight years and I love how much I can get done with that thing. Sure it's not as fast as dedicated buttons but I can do most things one handed without my hand leaving the controller. My only complaint is I do need to glance at the screen. So long as I'm not in a rush to finish the operation, it doesn't seem terribly distracting.

It's odd: it sounds like that's the system Mazda is getting rid of. I think BMW is a proof by demonstration you can build a great UI with that type of controller.

I'd be interested in seeing more details. What exactly was that benefit? Hopefully it wasn't "the artist was able to buy more groceries."

I'd also be interested in seeing if the study looked into the ROI of not paying artists anything and letting average citizens keep their tax money.

Good points. My question still stands: anyone know how much did removing lead from plumbing solder reduce typical lead exposure, relative to removing leaded gas and paint?

(Yes, I know, now that AC mentions it, that we no longer use lead in electronic devices. I'd forgotten that. I wonder where that fits in?)

At-will versus contract employment is a tradeoff. Being able to fire workers easily lets companies hire more freely too. The reverse side of at-will employment is I am under no obligation to show up tomorrow, should I find something better.

There's no right or wrong answer there, just preferences. Personally, I'm a huge fan of low-friction environments, even though I got laid off recently and it took a year to find something new.

Uhh, yes, obviously that's a consideration, although I'd use "policy" rather than "purpose". Imagine you were running a business: of course you're trying to minimize your costs and maximize you revenue.

Naturally, some people are more productive than others so the least expensive worker might not be the best buy. Sometimes buying the cheapest labor is penny wise and pound foolish, just like it's sometimes worth it buying a high quality tool versus the Harbor Freight special.

(That said, I'm really warming up to Harbor Freight these days.)

From the fine summary:

UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said,

Designed to encourage consumption, sure. If I were making a food product, of course I want to make something people like to eat. The more they like to eat it, the better I've designed the product. I don't think there's anything nefarious about this.

Addiction is a different story. Is there any evidence producers have conversations of the form "once they start eating this, they'll find it very difficult to stop"? Because that's what "additive" implies to me, that the addict has little to no control over their consumption.

Speaking as someone who routinely used to drink soda, it's not addictive. It's quite easy to give up should one choose to, especially given how many other options there are. Shoot, I have a harder time giving up coffee than I did giving up soda and sugary foods.

I did the same thing at a previous employer. However, I just did it for my own purposes and didn't advertise it. I always thought it a bit silly that there was no announcement of who was let go. The only way you found out was you tried to find Loud Howard and his desk was empty. It seems silly to keep it a secret, it's not like people aren't going to notice.

I also used it to count up how many people still working at the company had a lower employee ID than I did. When I left, I think about a thousand people had been there longer than I had and about 10,000 were hired later.

If that's what you like, you do you. I'm curious though, why is that so important to you? If, for example, your battery is dead, you're not going anywhere regardless of whether the door opens (although, to pop the hood you're going to need the door opened).

I'm curious for people with recessed handles: is there a way to open the door if the battery is dead? There might be different answers for EV and ICE vehicles.

Sure, but we've used lead-acid batteries with screw down connectors for decades. How many times you heard of an ICE car which stopped or refused to start because a battery terminal popped off? I've never ever heard of that happening. Far more common is my key fob runs out of battery and I can't figure out the magic spell to get the car started (that happens at least twice a year).

Here's the thing: I think what y'all are most worried about, but you're just not saying it, is being trapped in the car, unable to open the door, because the door doesn't operate from the inside without a motor. Is that really the problem? If so, it's easy to solve: mandate the inside door handle must mechanically unlatch the door. I don't see what that has to do with flush-mounted exterior handles at all.

I think y'all might be thinking that there's a crash, you're unconscious, the lithium battery is on fire, and rescuers can't open the door. Again, solvable problem. They have window hammers and powered snippers, they'll make an opening right quick. In that case, you should plan for the door frame being jammed so all the motors in the world aren't going to get it open, regardless of whether there's power or not.

Honestly, that's a problem with EVs whether or not they have flush handles. A lady and her kid died five miles from my house not more than three months ago, trapped in a burning EV. It's horrible to contemplate. I don't think different door handles would have saved them.

Please tell me what specifically the problem is. I don't own a car with retracting door handles so I don't understand.

Sure, if the handle motor or battery fails, you might not be able to get in the car. That's bad. Thing is, there are lots of ways a door handle can fail so this isn't unique to recessed handles, and there's a number of ways one could mitigate the issue.

I assume what you're actually worried about is getting out of the car after a crash and/or fire, presumably because you need a motor to open the door. Are you thinking about the driver getting out or a rescuer wanting to open the door from the outside? Again, there are lots of ways doors with conventional handles could fail to open and we have plenty of tricks to mitigate this (mechanical backups, jaws of life, Mark 1 Rock to the window).

Could you provide numbers to that assertion? I heard the same story when power windows became common. "You're going to drive into a lake, sink, and drown because you couldn't roll down the window!" Few people worry about this any more and we don't actually see legions of drowned drivers. I'm sure there are a some cases but believe the numbers are vanishingly small.

Sure, but most of those issues are with EVs in general. What's your specific beef with recessed handles? And if there were open-by-wire protruding handles, would you be OK with them?

The article mentions leaded gasoline, lead paint, and lead plumbing. We've phased out or are phasing out all three.

I wonder which one had the largest impact? I have my assumptions but honestly, have no idea of the magnitudes of each. I do know that modern latex paints kinda suck compared to oil based leaded paints from a finish perspective so I'd like to know what we get for the reduced quality.

I don't see any particular advantage to lead versus copper, iron, or PEX plumbing. Maybe there was a cost difference but I doubt it. And as others have mentioned, modern engines wouldn't really benefit from re-introducing leaded gasoline so that's not really much of a tradeoff any more.

If he's abruptly stepping down as HP CEO, that really upsets the apple cart. And that's gotta be tanking HP stock, at least in the short term.

Seriously, common professional courtesy is to at least offer a few weeks transition. For a CEO, a few months is more typical.

Demonstrably not. Look at car crashes from the '70s and tell me that again. If all cars had automatic breaking, I would have avoided at least two crashes which totaled vehicles.

I'm curious though. Does a car with retractable handles not have a way to open the door from the inside if power is out? The cars I'm familiar with still have mechanical latches in the door in addition to power locks and the like. Are retracting doors fully open-by-wire?

If that's the issue, surely the Chinese government could address that without banning retractable exterior handles. Unless this really was a ploy to ban Tesla vehicles from China.

I'm puzzled: why the hostility to retracting door handles? I mean, I used to be a bit queezy about the idea of having a delicate mechanical system in my door but we seem to be pretty good building robust electric motors these days. (My first new car was an '88 Honda Accord which had pop-up headlights. I fully expected them to be the part which broke. They did not.)

You might or might not like the aesthetics but you do you. You might not like the risk of not being able to open your car if the battery is flat but since I see these mostly on EVs, if your battery is dead you have bigger problems. Other than that's what's bad about them?