Blooper

That’s addressed in the article actually. They had to program it so as not to cheat when they found it actually trying to cheat.

What car did you end up getting?

I’ve always said that about one of my big reasons for buying an EV several years ago. By the time I’m in need of a replacement battery, it will be better in virtually every way - safer, faster to charge, higher capacity, lighter, and (potentially) cheaper. The first replacement battery might not be much of an improvement, but my 3rd might be light-years ahead.

They still do! Fastest wireless charge in the West.

It’s different because you seem to be saying “workers should be able to be incredibly vulnerable to the whims of employers because employers should be good people”. The other guy’s response to that is “why would we ever assume employers are going to be good to their employees absent any mechanism to enforce said good behavior?”

To the contrary - I own a large home in an urban area and it is filled with my children. But we don’t have to have a conversation - I was only pointing out the flaws in your logic. My tax bill will be $12k this year while my elderly next door neighbor’s will be a fraction of that. Our homes are identical (3k sqft over 3 floors). She’s not leaving because it would make little financial sense to do so. This is quite common.

Maintenance costs are probably fairly minimal given how little wear and tear happens in an empty nest. And property taxes for elderly folks are usually frozen or nearly frozen in place - meaning the next buyer will be paying a much higher tax on the same house because they won’t qualify for those exemptions.

Extremely wasteful - and that’s to say nothing of the obvious climate impacts from said waste. It’s one hell of a drawback to what I would otherwise describe as a system that works pretty well.

Not that I don’t emphasize with your struggle - I just want to point out that there are people stuck in those “starter homes” with 5 or more kids who could really benefit from a 5 bedroom upgrade because they’re at a point in their lives where they can afford it and they need it. The housing crisis we’re living through produces victims up and down the income ladder.

Also this whole problem can be traced back to our absurd zoning laws blanketing most of California and the US. Still the boomers’ fault, but not for decisions they’re making today. Most of them are screwed right along with the rest of us. :(

Yeah I was talking about you.

This is why we don’t feed trolls

Because there’s probably a significant number of affected rich folks who are retirees, vets, or both. Though, the propane you saw insinuates that it’s the other way around - that a significant number of retirees and vets would be targeted by the new law. It’s a pretty common tactic used against dumb people who can’t tell the difference. Good on you for seeing through it.

“No no, but what if the guy is just, like, at the table because he’s Nazi- curious but kind totally didn’t kill anybody and probably wouldn’t but also the Nazis make good points about stuff so he can totally sit there, but he’s not a Nazi! See? There are exceptions!”

-that guy, probably

Sex. I want my company to pay me to sex. I feel like I could totally get behind that. Sexually.

I think a large part of the move towards integrated head units had to do with the mandated rear backup camera that necessitates a decent sized screen in the dash in order to use it. The death of CD’s and CD changers also allowed for the screens to grow in size. Lastly, the touchscreens themselves are ever cheaper to manufacture. I love the giant screen in my Chevy Bolt - especially given the Google integration means I don’t have to use the nonsense baked in apps from Chevy.

Here in the US, we have them their own political party. It’s the Republicans in case it wasn’t obvious.

An anecdote:

My high-paying tech job wants us back 2 days a week. I intentionally bought a house near a train that will get me to the downtown office in about 15 minutes while many of my coworkers live in the distant suburbs where commuting will require a lot more time and effort.

Despite this, I STILL don’t go into the office. The biggest reasons:

1. Nobody is there - it’s a ghost town.
2. I’m far less productive while I’m there because I have to leave early to pick up my kids from school.
3. My boss doesn’t go in at all - ever - due to extremely valid health reasons (his wife is undergoing cancer treatment).
4. His boss moved out of state. Like way, way out of state. He’s got a nice office with a beautiful view. He doesn’t and can’t use it.
5. My boss’s boss’s boss - (the CTO) moved to Florida and, rumor has it, lives full-time on his yacht.

I mean… at some point we just have to acknowledge that our giant, empty office space would be much better suited as housing.

Absolutely fair. But as one of those IT dudes who used to be a contractor but now work for the same megacorp I was contracting for - I wouldn’t bet on it being super menial stuff. I love my job and my employer, but it’s very well understood that the agencies are essentially a cover for some fairly serious labor law violations.

Yes, I think that’s the reasonable argument Google’s lawyers and PR will use - but your example kind of demonstrates why that argument falls flat. The service DHL is providing to Amazon is logistics and shipping. This is an established, well-regulated industry all its own.

Meanwhile, at Google, this contractor’s services are listed in the article:

ensuring music content is available and approved for YouTube Music’s 80 million subscribers worldwide

That sounds an awful lot like running the service to me. These employees perform key YouTube-specific work on an ongoing basis. For all intents and purposes, they work for Google, in Google’s offices, on Google’s systems, but their paycheck comes from Cognizant. The services being rendered aren’t on the level of “you make the widget and we’ll transport it to stores around the country because we’re a shipping company”. This is more like “we employ people for you, but provide a flimsy air gap so you don’t have to treat them like actual employees. We sell legally plausible deniability as a service.”

I agree, but I still get a hard-on for the electric Hummer. Not because of the way it looks, but because of all the crazy shit it can do like crab walk and the huge ass battery it has. It’s actually a pretty amazing piece of tech.

-Bolt owner