Â¥1 trillion is about 6 billion dollars. So not change, but nothing earth-shattering (especially in the AI world)

MG announces 480 Kms on a charge. At best, that translates to around 400 in real life, and slightly above 300 in winter.

As for the "obvious" lower running costs... Per kilometer running cost is lower if you charge at home, otherwise it isn't quite so obvious. And maintenance might be cheaper (emphasis on might) if compared to full dealership maintenance for ICE. But today, there's quite a number of things you can still do at a local garage with ICE. With EV, you essentially don't get that choice.

I wonder how much of that was because of the internet making it easy to become aware about the possibility and to how to do it.

Small mistake on your part here: automakers have long had systems that were only available to you if you paid the extra but were actually installed on ALL cars. Usually, the only thing missing were the appropriate on/off switches or the last 50cms of wiring.

So, no, they didn't really pay extra stock management costs.

The only people who invoque the "nazi means national socialism so Hitler was far left" are far right people trying to deflect what far right really means (hate, predatory policies for the benefit of the few and so on).

I don't feel the need to waste anymore energy than that to try and educate you, if at all necessary.

Ah, right. Hitler was far left. One of the lamest defenses of far right people.

Hint: it's not because the name of a party (or a country for that matter. See the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) includes a word that it in any way subscribes to what that word means.

So, yes, you can throw as many tantrums as you like, being far right means your cozying up with people like Hitler. Suck it up !

It's been around 50 years that lambda-CDM (standard model at the time, I believe) has been tumbling along like a zombie. Put it to rest already!

Except, of course, a lot of people's careers (and prestige) depend on keeping it moving. So a first wave of observations show there's a problem. Let's handwave it through a mathematical construct we'll call dark matter. Then, a few decades later, here we go again. Not a problem, this time it'll be dark energy.

But that's all these are: mathematical construct dreamed up to keep the model alive.

Time to change the model !

I know one that explains all the discrepancies, that has 17 observational evidences. It has simulations that show early galaxies formations AND that explain the spiral structure formation (that mainstream phycisists can't explain).

It's called the Janus model. To keep the explanation short, it posits the existence of a simultaneous antimatter universe (whose interactions with ours is only through gravity). It makes Einstein's equation a special case of its own two modeling equations (the same way Einstein made Newton a special case of his own equation).

You can more about it here: https://januscosmologicalmodel...

The positive outcome is that within the next few years, this can of quality will be available to interested amateurs.

Of there'll be quite a lot of trash (usual proportion of any creative medium, I imagine, so around 90%), but we may yet see things like Star Wars redeemed.

I can't be the only one who would like to watch a good adaptation of Zahn's trilogy?

That's what I wrote : there is no doubt one of the main sources of revenue is merchandising. But that's the thing :

Do you really believe they're happy with only earning money on old parts of the franchise ?

Right now, that's exactly what they must be satisfied with : there is nothing in the post-take over by Disney that has created the kind of following and willingness to buy things the way the old movies did (even baby-yoda doesn't come close). Worse, it feels like they've killed any interest in the 'old stuff'.

So, have they made their money back ? Maybe. I guess it's possible, at least. However, without even wondering whether they've made anywhere close to what they were expecting (there is no question they haven't), even the possibility that they've made what could be expected from any random investment of the same amount of money is doubtful.

But that's the thing: I don't expect a company such as Disney (and its shareholders) to fork out $4.5 billions just to take in the derivative profits from 40-50 year old movies. They sure as hell wanted to create new cash revenue from the franchise (most especially with the new characters). And they could have.

A few years back, I watched Force Awakens again and although it wasn't original or exceptional in any way, it was still enjoyable enough (exactly what I talked about in my previous post). Abrams does know how to make action movies and he is quite good at setting up mystery boxes (not so much at opening them, but that can be fixed). With proper writers and a director who didn't have contempt for the material and who wasn't there to pump his own ego up, the next two movies could have been real great hits.

Instead of that, we got two turds, and a number of following farts that went nowhere fast. One thing though, they sure as hell didn't renew the fanbase in any way (and I think I read somewhere the line of toys mostly ended up as waste).

So my point is, these people warming up executive seats and enjoying their cosy board rooms like to paint themselves as being some kind of financial geniuses when, in reality, they mostly are morons who ended up there because of whatever type of nepotism. They're unable to do what they're supposedly best at, which is ruthlessly make money. Instead, they're marks for con(wo)men who just need to have the right spiel to rob them blind.

It's an overall loss.

Disney paid 4.5 billions for Lucas film, and the 5.3 billions is the box office figure, not what went into Disney's coffers (half of it, maybe ? No idea, really). And that's not factoring in the cost of production and promotion (and I'm pretty sure that apart from the Mandalorian, none of the series has broken even, nevermind turning in a profit).

Actually, that's even worse than I imagined. I know there were special clauses in her contract, but how Disney's execs could have let such a train wreck continue on for so long is beyond me.

To think that when I heard Disney was buying Lucas film, I believed we could expect a number of average productions (nothing exceptional, but mostly enjoyable if forgettable). They wouldn't want to kill the golden goose, would they?..

'Make' is appropriate, but the most accurate word would be 'print'.

The only reason th US is where it is right now is because the dollar is still the world currency. It remains so because you need dollars to buy oil.

And the US will fuck up anyone who tries to change the latter.

I wasn't talking about Kei cars here (although having driven a few, I rarely found them to be lacking on the engine power side. Their size and weight do matter).

Isn't it a well established slahdot tradition to go off on tangents (although my remark was still related) ?

I wasn't aware of the acceleration capability as a selling point. Over here, some people pay attention to it but they're quite clearly a tiny minority. I don't think I've ever seen any commercial talking about it.

Oh boy, does it show the influence of advertising...

European here.

I'm fascinated with the number of posts in this thread saying something along the line of "these cars' engines are too weak to get to highway speeds"

Coming from anyone in the US where the highways speed limit is notoriously low, I find it pretty laughable. I drive a 20 year old Yaris Verso (Funcargo in Japan) by choice - it's the b st car built in the last 40-50 years and it took me a year to find my latest one. In any case, it's got a 1.3l engine - tiny, by US standards - and I find I must be careful not to go over the highway 130km/h speed limit.