The only real difference is that a car manufacturer doesn't have any ability to control your actions.
Nonsense. There are many things that a car manufacturer could do to control your actions. A car manufacturer could require that everyone who drives the car pass a breathalyzer test. A car could analyze driving patterns, detect erratic driving, and begin slowing the car until such time as it can safely stop, then shut down. And so on.
The difference is that a car manufacturer cannot force you to buy their car over one that lacks such nanny features. However, with the addition of government regulations to coerce the other car manufacturers into following suit, such approaches could easily become reality.
Spritz in a little conservative ideology - "I've never seen a regulation that helped companies innovate faster," etc. - and you have a general dislike for the prop.
They are, of course, provably wrong if they believe that. Take a look at how quickly incandescent light bulbs increased in energy efficiency after the so-called "incandescent bulb ban". And this is coming from someone who was initially against the ban, because I didn't think that the necessary improvements in efficiency would even be *possible* after decades of near-stagnation.
Or take a look at how much vehicle MPG has improved since the federal government started instituting CAFE standards and how the sale of excess carbon emission credits played a pivotal role in keeping Tesla in business long enough to make it to mass production on the Model 3.
This is not to say that there aren't a lot of dud regulations, of course. California's plastic bag ban, for example, forces people to buy thick trash bags instead of getting single-use grocery bags for free, which means an order of magnitude more fuel used for transporting the bags, almost an order of magnitude more oil for making the bags, etc. So while it might have resulted in some reduction in the amount of plastic blowing around (from all indications, about a factor of 2 reduction), it had a significant net negative impact on the environment as a whole because it went after the symptom (the blowing plastic bags) instead of the root cause (government cost cutting on sanitation services).
Clearly, not all government regulation is bad. We do, however need to be smarter about that regulation, and try to think about *all* the consequences before voting for or against such regulations.
For example, consider a law that does not cap the price increase resulting from that demanded increase in solar plant construction could easily encourage the power company to conceal windfall profits through non-arms-length dealing.
Suppose a power company buys a 45% share in that solar installer, and encourages that solar installer to raise its prices. Then, the solar installer builds out a solar production facility at 2x the normal installation cost, and pays that back as dividends. The power company takes a 3% profit on power sales, resulting in consumers paying 206% of what the power would cost without the middlemen and collusion. And the power company gets back 45% of what the power ought to cost, in the form of dividends, for a total of 51% out of 206%, resulting in a 42% effective profit margin (206 / 155), while externally appearing as a 3% profit margin.
So assuming I'm understanding the proposed law correctly (and, not being from Arizona, that may not be a safe assumption), then that risk alone makes this a bad idea. A proper solar mandate law should require *both* increased solar production *and* a strict cap on the amount of price increase resulting from that change. Otherwise, if the power companies can find a way to use it as an excuse to screw consumers, you can bet that they will.
Two years ago I had an argument with multiple SDC proponents who were claiming that Waymo had already been running driverless for six months.
It depends on your definition of "driverless". Presumably those SDC proponents meant "driven by the computer full-time during normal operation." You meant "the vehicle never needs a licensed driver to manually take control if the computer gets stuck."
Occasionally? Quite often, actually. In 2018.42.2, mine has taken to driving off the right side of the road. On my drive Monday, on roads that I've driven on AutoSteer on numerous occasions, it suddenly veered off the right side of the road (across clearly painted lane markers) twice. One of those times, it actually hopped a small asphalt curb in the half second between when I realized it had gone nuts and when I yanked the wheel back to the left. Fortunately, I avoided crashing into the telephone pole that was about twenty feet away.
I mostly trust Tesla's AP on the largest freeways. On anything else, including freeway on-ramps and off-ramps, I assume that it is being controlled by the same sorts of cats that lie in wait for me to let my guard down so that they can trip me and make me fall down the stairs.
That depends on the vote, but a B movie would go something like:
-superglue shoe on head
-pull down pants
-put sharpie in butt
-stalk nicholas cage
I was thinking something similar, but I have far less faith in humanity on the Internet than you do, so I would expect the experiment to end with a criminal conviction within the first day, e.g.
23:00 - Go to a 7-11.
23:15 - Buy Twinkies and a bottle of Coke.
23:18 - Go home.
23:33 - Pick up your drill and high-speed wood bits.
23:34 - Go to the school playground across the street.
23:36 - Drill a hole through that tree just below waist level, using your largest bit.
23:38 - Go home. ...
00:15 - Go to sleep. ...
07:30 - Pick up the Twinkies and Coke.
07:31 - Go to the school playground across the street.
07:33 - Have sex with the tree.
07:35 - Tell the police officer that you were just doing what the voices in your head instructed you to do.
07:36 - Experiment ended.
but we might see something even more extreme:
23:00 - Go round up two of your friends.
23:45 - Drive to the police station in your friend's car.
23:47 - Tell the driver to stay in car with the car running, parked nose out.
23:49 - Instruct the other friend to distract the front desk police officer while you steal his gun.
23:50 - Run!
23:52 - Drive to the nearest 7-11.
23:55 - Demand all the money in the cash register.
23:58 - Drive to the next nearest 7-11.
00:01 - Demand all the money in the cash register.
00:04 - Drive to the next nearest 7-11.
00:07 - Demand all the money in the cash register. ...
00:43 - Shout "Screw you, Copper!" and draw your weapon.
00:44 - Experiment terminated.
I mean, I used to think you could always count on the kindness of strangers. Then, I learned about anonymity, and realized that you can always count on people to be complete a**holes on the Internet.
I want my darn headphone jack. And I'm keeping it until my phone is unrepairable.
That's why I'm still using my iPhone 6s. That said, today's iPad announcement gives me some hope. I mean yes, they removed the headphone jack, but that's actually a bit of a red herring.
The main problem with the loss of the headphone jack isn't that there's no way to plug in wired headphones. You can, after all, get adapters that let you plug corded headphones into the lightning port. The problem isn't even charging while using wired headphones, because you can buy adapters for three bucks that solve that problem, unlike the stock Apple version.
No, the main problem with the loss of the headphone jack is that you have to have a dongle that is specific to the iPhone — that is, you cannot leave the dongle connected to the headphones unless you use the headphones exclusively with your iPhone, because you can't plug a Lightning plug into your Mac or anything else.
USB-C provides built-in support for audio devices, and USB-C to analog audio adapters are readily available. And unlike Lightning, you can plug that same USB-C adapter into your Mac, and it will just work. This significantly reduces the friction caused by the removal of the headphone jack.
So unlike you, I'm not going to keep this until the hardware dies. I'm going to keep this until the iPhone moves to USB-C, as it should have done two years ago.
Pray tell, what was I supposed to say to them that I would have been able to get my computer back, and in particular, would not have required me to call a lawyer, which would have cost me even *more* money?
Ask to speak to the manager. If the manager maintains that position, pick up the phone and call 1-800-SOS-APPL. Press zero repeatedly until you are connected to an operator. Ask to be transferred to Apple Customer Relations.
Refusing warranty coverage for third-party RAM, unless the RAM is faulty, is a violation of Apple's policies, and is also illegal, at least in the United States (Magnusson Moss). Customer Relations will make things right.
The fact that Sprint (same wireless tech as Verizon) and AT&T (same wireless tech as T-Mobile) are *not* mentioned makes me wonder if this is a tower firmware bug that will be fixed soon.
The only problem with that sort of policy is that once you reach a certain level of promotion, everybody is your subordinate, so if you aren't married by then, you're basically taking a vow of celibacy by accepting the promotion.
A more sensible approach is to not allow people to date their direct reports, requiring at least a couple of levels of separation if they are in the same chain of command. By ensuring that the people dating aren't writing each other's reviews, you remove most of the potential for nepotism, but without it being quite so lonely at the top.
that lane could have just been paved or covered in gravel resulting in a spin out and multi deaths
Which would be clearly visible in the side camera.
it could have a car just out of view coming in the other direction
Which would be seen sooner by the computer than by a human, thanks to faster reaction time, and which probably would have been previously detected in previous frames of video, i.e. the computer is more likely to be able to remember that a car is coming.
The reason you are supposed to stay in your lane and brake is because you cannot possibly and accurately evaluate all the variables for the other lane or how your car will react in a violent swerve to said lane, this doesn't change with computers, too many unknowns.
But when the computer's reaction time is measured in microseconds instead of seconds, there are many situations in which a computer would not need to make a violent swerve in the first place, because it would have two extra seconds in which to brake, start steering, and assess whether that was the right call.
The software applies reverse-biased voltage and/or turns on the electric emergency brake so that the rear wheels lock up, then turns the steering wheel hard to the left, then waits for the tail to swing around, and finally applies power to all four wheels at full throttle until it slows down sufficiently to avoid hitting either the pedestrian or the barrier.
What? That's insane? So is any scenario involving failure of the hydraulic brakes while driving towards a barrier at sufficient speed to be unable to slow down enough via regenerative braking to avoid killing the jaywalking pedestrian who stepped out early enough that you otherwise would have been able to stop, but late enough that you were unable to do so because of a leaking tanker truck filled with vegetable oil that somehow got just enough oil on the road to kill your brakes, yet not quite enough to result in complete loss of control over steering. I mean, you might as well have the pre-programmed solution be utterly spectacular, because you're never going to get a chance to test it in the real world anyway.
You brake as quickly as possible while staying in your lane. swerving while sometimes will avoid an accident, often it will just get others killed.
The difference is that with software, a car can know instantly whether the lane on either side is open, and can have shorter reaction time than a person (at least one would hope), which significantly changes the odds when it comes to swerving.
Also, given enough CPU horsepower thrown at the problem, a car could also ostensibly calculate the correct angle at which to sideswipe a guard rail or parked car such that the car slows down faster than the brakes would be capable of slowing it down, but without flipping the car or causing other problems. Choosing between the life of the person in the car and the life of a pedestrian is nonsensical, but choosing between killing a pedestrian and causing property damage is not nearly as crazy.
Then again, pedestrian airbags are a thing, and making those mandatory, coupled with faster reaction time, would probably make even that question largely moot.
Lightning actually already provides USB host mode. If you take a Lightning-to-USB adapter (the camera adapter), you can plug in keyboards, audio interfaces, etc., and they will all work. You can even plug in certain types of Ethernet adapters.
So I think it is safe to say that they won't prevent host mode from working over USB-C.
There's only one real way to solve the housing problem: Repeal Prop 13. Pass a new law that gives a deep tax break for low-income residents only, and makes that tax break not limited to a specific parcel. Right now, the poor are trapped in their existing homes, because they can't afford higher taxes to move whenever their job changes. And even the middle class often choose to live farther away rather than pay thousands of dollars more in property taxes.
By eliminating that problem, many people will try to move closer to where they work. But there won't be housing there, which will drive prices for homes and commercial property on the SF peninsula rapidly upwards to the point of absurdity, which in turn will give businesses more incentive to move out of the peninsula (and remove the tax disincentive to doing so) and spread out into other areas where land is more readily available, which will over time correct the artificial property inflation that Prop 13 caused.
That's pedantically true. The thing is, in the minds of most people, the distinctions are not between cars and trucks, but rather between personal vehicles and non-personal vehicles.
The personal vehicles category obviously includes all cars and crossover vehicles, but also includes small-to-medium pickup trucks, SUVs, minivans, and 8-passenger full-sized vans. These are the vehicles that most people buy and drive around town.
The non-personal vehicles category includes everything else. This includes large pickup trucks with multiple axles (usually used commercially, not personally), 15-passenger vans, box trucks, sprinter vans, motor homes, busses, tow trucks, semis, and any number of other specialty vehicles that are not typically purchased by consumers for around-town driving (and that, in many cases, require a CDL to drive).
Drawing a line between cars and trucks draws a distinction that makes no sense in the market. Ask yourself this: what's different about a minivan that makes it classified as a "light truck"? As far as I can tell, the entire category seems to exist primarily as a way of automakers avoiding environmental laws that would require better emissions than are typically available on these heavier vehicles, rather than because consumers see them differently. From a consumer perspective, a minivan is what you drive when you have a larger family than will fit comfortably in your large car, or when you regularly haul around other people's kids, or whatever. It's really just another personal vehicle, same as a Ford Fiesta, but more roomy.
At best, drawing a line between pickup trucks and everything else *might* make some sense, because pickup trucks have limited passenger room and are more commonly purchased by people who need to regularly haul stuff around. But even that starts to get blurry when you factor in quad cabs. The automakers are pretty clearly targeting normal consumers even in their pickup truck lines, for the most part.
So really, the only logical line is between predominantly personal-use vehicles and predominantly commercial-use vehicles. Anything on one side of that line is clearly something that consumers will choose between, and anything on the other side is clearly not, and that line isn't particularly blurry.
You're thinking about production only. Car sales, including Telsa (Look at their previous Q4 reports, vs Q3 and Q1) slow around Christmas. Somewhat because of consumer spending in the lead up to Christmas, but also because early Q1 is peak time for real estate transactions. Less people buy new cars prior to property transactions. Tesla will need a bumper Q4 and an above average Q1 to get the capital that they need if they want to pay their bonds, make a profit and tap into the much larger Chinese market. This is expecting quite a lot.
You're forgetting about the carpool sticker laws that were recently introduced. For cars bought beginning this year, the expiration date for California carpool stickers will be on January 1st of the fourth year after you obtain the stickers.
In terms of maximizing the benefits of that sticker, that means the optimal time to take delivery is December, so that you will get your license plate by early January and can apply for stickers at the start of the new year, thus giving you almost four years of carpool lane use without having to wait until the next calendar year to apply.
Tesla had its best quarter in a while. Hopefully, it can continue to execute in manufacturing cars and meet future debt payments. It's not out of the wood yet, but the direction looks good. A strong, successful Tesla will be good for consumers, the car market, and even for other car companies.
However, since it's Tesla and Musk, the report stretches facts somewhat. "Model 3 was the best-selling car in the US in terms of revenue and the 5th best-selling car in terms of volume." Well, that's technically true, if you exclude the top-6(!) selling vehicles in the US. That is, if you exclude the 65-70% of the car market represented by trucks and SUVs, which are technically not cars, then the Model 3 is the top revenue seller. But, that doesn't sound as impressive, even though it actually is.
Agreed. For a car company that didn't exist twenty years ago, and whose market share was within the margin of error five years ago, even being #11 is pretty freaking amazing.
Oh. That makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking, which was that they were going to put VR headsets on their safety drivers, either to help them see what the car sees (and thus aid in debugging) or perhaps to mask out those pesky pedestrians so the safety drivers don't freak out when they hear the thump.
Migrant molecules invaders blamed for Intel's failure to deliver 10nm.... this crude attempt to deceive viewers on Fox 'News'. "Build a wall FAST" says Trump yet again.... "Make Intel Great Again"! MIGA!
You forgot a letter. After ARM cleans their clocks and Intel's stock collapses to a tenth its value, Apple will buy them for their engineering talent at a cost of pennies on the dollar. So Apple Makes Intel Great Again. You know, AMIGA.
I'm not sure if that's a pun on the "migrant" bit or a Commodore joke, so interpret the joke in whatever way seems funniest to you.
Slashdot Mirror
Nonsense. There are many things that a car manufacturer could do to control your actions. A car manufacturer could require that everyone who drives the car pass a breathalyzer test. A car could analyze driving patterns, detect erratic driving, and begin slowing the car until such time as it can safely stop, then shut down. And so on.
The difference is that a car manufacturer cannot force you to buy their car over one that lacks such nanny features. However, with the addition of government regulations to coerce the other car manufacturers into following suit, such approaches could easily become reality.
They are, of course, provably wrong if they believe that. Take a look at how quickly incandescent light bulbs increased in energy efficiency after the so-called "incandescent bulb ban". And this is coming from someone who was initially against the ban, because I didn't think that the necessary improvements in efficiency would even be *possible* after decades of near-stagnation.
Or take a look at how much vehicle MPG has improved since the federal government started instituting CAFE standards and how the sale of excess carbon emission credits played a pivotal role in keeping Tesla in business long enough to make it to mass production on the Model 3.
This is not to say that there aren't a lot of dud regulations, of course. California's plastic bag ban, for example, forces people to buy thick trash bags instead of getting single-use grocery bags for free, which means an order of magnitude more fuel used for transporting the bags, almost an order of magnitude more oil for making the bags, etc. So while it might have resulted in some reduction in the amount of plastic blowing around (from all indications, about a factor of 2 reduction), it had a significant net negative impact on the environment as a whole because it went after the symptom (the blowing plastic bags) instead of the root cause (government cost cutting on sanitation services).
Clearly, not all government regulation is bad. We do, however need to be smarter about that regulation, and try to think about *all* the consequences before voting for or against such regulations.
For example, consider a law that does not cap the price increase resulting from that demanded increase in solar plant construction could easily encourage the power company to conceal windfall profits through non-arms-length dealing.
Suppose a power company buys a 45% share in that solar installer, and encourages that solar installer to raise its prices. Then, the solar installer builds out a solar production facility at 2x the normal installation cost, and pays that back as dividends. The power company takes a 3% profit on power sales, resulting in consumers paying 206% of what the power would cost without the middlemen and collusion. And the power company gets back 45% of what the power ought to cost, in the form of dividends, for a total of 51% out of 206%, resulting in a 42% effective profit margin (206 / 155), while externally appearing as a 3% profit margin.
So assuming I'm understanding the proposed law correctly (and, not being from Arizona, that may not be a safe assumption), then that risk alone makes this a bad idea. A proper solar mandate law should require *both* increased solar production *and* a strict cap on the amount of price increase resulting from that change. Otherwise, if the power companies can find a way to use it as an excuse to screw consumers, you can bet that they will.
It depends on your definition of "driverless". Presumably those SDC proponents meant "driven by the computer full-time during normal operation." You meant "the vehicle never needs a licensed driver to manually take control if the computer gets stuck."
I'm sure there are Waymo jokes where that came from. *sigh*
Occasionally? Quite often, actually. In 2018.42.2, mine has taken to driving off the right side of the road. On my drive Monday, on roads that I've driven on AutoSteer on numerous occasions, it suddenly veered off the right side of the road (across clearly painted lane markers) twice. One of those times, it actually hopped a small asphalt curb in the half second between when I realized it had gone nuts and when I yanked the wheel back to the left. Fortunately, I avoided crashing into the telephone pole that was about twenty feet away.
I mostly trust Tesla's AP on the largest freeways. On anything else, including freeway on-ramps and off-ramps, I assume that it is being controlled by the same sorts of cats that lie in wait for me to let my guard down so that they can trip me and make me fall down the stairs.
Sounds like a B movie!
That depends on the vote, but a B movie would go something like: -superglue shoe on head -pull down pants -put sharpie in butt -stalk nicholas cage
I was thinking something similar, but I have far less faith in humanity on the Internet than you do, so I would expect the experiment to end with a criminal conviction within the first day, e.g.
23:00 - Go to a 7-11.
...
...
23:15 - Buy Twinkies and a bottle of Coke.
23:18 - Go home.
23:33 - Pick up your drill and high-speed wood bits.
23:34 - Go to the school playground across the street.
23:36 - Drill a hole through that tree just below waist level, using your largest bit.
23:38 - Go home.
00:15 - Go to sleep.
07:30 - Pick up the Twinkies and Coke.
07:31 - Go to the school playground across the street.
07:33 - Have sex with the tree.
07:35 - Tell the police officer that you were just doing what the voices in your head instructed you to do.
07:36 - Experiment ended.
but we might see something even more extreme:
23:00 - Go round up two of your friends.
...
23:45 - Drive to the police station in your friend's car.
23:47 - Tell the driver to stay in car with the car running, parked nose out.
23:49 - Instruct the other friend to distract the front desk police officer while you steal his gun.
23:50 - Run!
23:52 - Drive to the nearest 7-11.
23:55 - Demand all the money in the cash register.
23:58 - Drive to the next nearest 7-11.
00:01 - Demand all the money in the cash register.
00:04 - Drive to the next nearest 7-11.
00:07 - Demand all the money in the cash register.
00:43 - Shout "Screw you, Copper!" and draw your weapon.
00:44 - Experiment terminated.
I mean, I used to think you could always count on the kindness of strangers. Then, I learned about anonymity, and realized that you can always count on people to be complete a**holes on the Internet.
That's why I'm still using my iPhone 6s. That said, today's iPad announcement gives me some hope. I mean yes, they removed the headphone jack, but that's actually a bit of a red herring.
The main problem with the loss of the headphone jack isn't that there's no way to plug in wired headphones. You can, after all, get adapters that let you plug corded headphones into the lightning port. The problem isn't even charging while using wired headphones, because you can buy adapters for three bucks that solve that problem, unlike the stock Apple version.
No, the main problem with the loss of the headphone jack is that you have to have a dongle that is specific to the iPhone — that is, you cannot leave the dongle connected to the headphones unless you use the headphones exclusively with your iPhone, because you can't plug a Lightning plug into your Mac or anything else.
USB-C provides built-in support for audio devices, and USB-C to analog audio adapters are readily available. And unlike Lightning, you can plug that same USB-C adapter into your Mac, and it will just work. This significantly reduces the friction caused by the removal of the headphone jack.
So unlike you, I'm not going to keep this until the hardware dies. I'm going to keep this until the iPhone moves to USB-C, as it should have done two years ago.
Ask to speak to the manager. If the manager maintains that position, pick up the phone and call 1-800-SOS-APPL. Press zero repeatedly until you are connected to an operator. Ask to be transferred to Apple Customer Relations.
Refusing warranty coverage for third-party RAM, unless the RAM is faulty, is a violation of Apple's policies, and is also illegal, at least in the United States (Magnusson Moss). Customer Relations will make things right.
The fact that Sprint (same wireless tech as Verizon) and AT&T (same wireless tech as T-Mobile) are *not* mentioned makes me wonder if this is a tower firmware bug that will be fixed soon.
The only problem with that sort of policy is that once you reach a certain level of promotion, everybody is your subordinate, so if you aren't married by then, you're basically taking a vow of celibacy by accepting the promotion.
A more sensible approach is to not allow people to date their direct reports, requiring at least a couple of levels of separation if they are in the same chain of command. By ensuring that the people dating aren't writing each other's reviews, you remove most of the potential for nepotism, but without it being quite so lonely at the top.
Which would be clearly visible in the side camera.
Which would be seen sooner by the computer than by a human, thanks to faster reaction time, and which probably would have been previously detected in previous frames of video, i.e. the computer is more likely to be able to remember that a car is coming.
But when the computer's reaction time is measured in microseconds instead of seconds, there are many situations in which a computer would not need to make a violent swerve in the first place, because it would have two extra seconds in which to brake, start steering, and assess whether that was the right call.
HDMI. :-D
Always be precise about what you're asking me to name.
The software applies reverse-biased voltage and/or turns on the electric emergency brake so that the rear wheels lock up, then turns the steering wheel hard to the left, then waits for the tail to swing around, and finally applies power to all four wheels at full throttle until it slows down sufficiently to avoid hitting either the pedestrian or the barrier.
What? That's insane? So is any scenario involving failure of the hydraulic brakes while driving towards a barrier at sufficient speed to be unable to slow down enough via regenerative braking to avoid killing the jaywalking pedestrian who stepped out early enough that you otherwise would have been able to stop, but late enough that you were unable to do so because of a leaking tanker truck filled with vegetable oil that somehow got just enough oil on the road to kill your brakes, yet not quite enough to result in complete loss of control over steering. I mean, you might as well have the pre-programmed solution be utterly spectacular, because you're never going to get a chance to test it in the real world anyway.
The difference is that with software, a car can know instantly whether the lane on either side is open, and can have shorter reaction time than a person (at least one would hope), which significantly changes the odds when it comes to swerving.
Also, given enough CPU horsepower thrown at the problem, a car could also ostensibly calculate the correct angle at which to sideswipe a guard rail or parked car such that the car slows down faster than the brakes would be capable of slowing it down, but without flipping the car or causing other problems. Choosing between the life of the person in the car and the life of a pedestrian is nonsensical, but choosing between killing a pedestrian and causing property damage is not nearly as crazy.
Then again, pedestrian airbags are a thing, and making those mandatory, coupled with faster reaction time, would probably make even that question largely moot.
Lightning actually already provides USB host mode. If you take a Lightning-to-USB adapter (the camera adapter), you can plug in keyboards, audio interfaces, etc., and they will all work. You can even plug in certain types of Ethernet adapters.
So I think it is safe to say that they won't prevent host mode from working over USB-C.
Why would you need to? Most of those other laptops have fifty-two legacy ports built-in. :-D
There's only one real way to solve the housing problem: Repeal Prop 13. Pass a new law that gives a deep tax break for low-income residents only, and makes that tax break not limited to a specific parcel. Right now, the poor are trapped in their existing homes, because they can't afford higher taxes to move whenever their job changes. And even the middle class often choose to live farther away rather than pay thousands of dollars more in property taxes.
By eliminating that problem, many people will try to move closer to where they work. But there won't be housing there, which will drive prices for homes and commercial property on the SF peninsula rapidly upwards to the point of absurdity, which in turn will give businesses more incentive to move out of the peninsula (and remove the tax disincentive to doing so) and spread out into other areas where land is more readily available, which will over time correct the artificial property inflation that Prop 13 caused.
Exactly. The answer could easily be "both": Apple could quite easily be the company that leads the way to a locked-in, subpar user experience.
That's pedantically true. The thing is, in the minds of most people, the distinctions are not between cars and trucks, but rather between personal vehicles and non-personal vehicles.
The personal vehicles category obviously includes all cars and crossover vehicles, but also includes small-to-medium pickup trucks, SUVs, minivans, and 8-passenger full-sized vans. These are the vehicles that most people buy and drive around town.
The non-personal vehicles category includes everything else. This includes large pickup trucks with multiple axles (usually used commercially, not personally), 15-passenger vans, box trucks, sprinter vans, motor homes, busses, tow trucks, semis, and any number of other specialty vehicles that are not typically purchased by consumers for around-town driving (and that, in many cases, require a CDL to drive).
Drawing a line between cars and trucks draws a distinction that makes no sense in the market. Ask yourself this: what's different about a minivan that makes it classified as a "light truck"? As far as I can tell, the entire category seems to exist primarily as a way of automakers avoiding environmental laws that would require better emissions than are typically available on these heavier vehicles, rather than because consumers see them differently. From a consumer perspective, a minivan is what you drive when you have a larger family than will fit comfortably in your large car, or when you regularly haul around other people's kids, or whatever. It's really just another personal vehicle, same as a Ford Fiesta, but more roomy.
At best, drawing a line between pickup trucks and everything else *might* make some sense, because pickup trucks have limited passenger room and are more commonly purchased by people who need to regularly haul stuff around. But even that starts to get blurry when you factor in quad cabs. The automakers are pretty clearly targeting normal consumers even in their pickup truck lines, for the most part.
So really, the only logical line is between predominantly personal-use vehicles and predominantly commercial-use vehicles. Anything on one side of that line is clearly something that consumers will choose between, and anything on the other side is clearly not, and that line isn't particularly blurry.
You're forgetting about the carpool sticker laws that were recently introduced. For cars bought beginning this year, the expiration date for California carpool stickers will be on January 1st of the fourth year after you obtain the stickers.
In terms of maximizing the benefits of that sticker, that means the optimal time to take delivery is December, so that you will get your license plate by early January and can apply for stickers at the start of the new year, thus giving you almost four years of carpool lane use without having to wait until the next calendar year to apply.
Tesla had its best quarter in a while. Hopefully, it can continue to execute in manufacturing cars and meet future debt payments. It's not out of the wood yet, but the direction looks good. A strong, successful Tesla will be good for consumers, the car market, and even for other car companies.
However, since it's Tesla and Musk, the report stretches facts somewhat. "Model 3 was the best-selling car in the US in terms of revenue and the 5th best-selling car in terms of volume." Well, that's technically true, if you exclude the top-6(!) selling vehicles in the US. That is, if you exclude the 65-70% of the car market represented by trucks and SUVs, which are technically not cars, then the Model 3 is the top revenue seller. But, that doesn't sound as impressive, even though it actually is.
Agreed. For a car company that didn't exist twenty years ago, and whose market share was within the margin of error five years ago, even being #11 is pretty freaking amazing.
No, irony would be if he died from a pacemaker malfunction.
Oh. That makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking, which was that they were going to put VR headsets on their safety drivers, either to help them see what the car sees (and thus aid in debugging) or perhaps to mask out those pesky pedestrians so the safety drivers don't freak out when they hear the thump.
Actually, Intel's 10nm process results in features of almost exactly the same size as TSMC's 7nm process.
So yes, they're behind, but not by nearly as far as you think.
You forgot a letter. After ARM cleans their clocks and Intel's stock collapses to a tenth its value, Apple will buy them for their engineering talent at a cost of pennies on the dollar. So Apple Makes Intel Great Again. You know, AMIGA.
I'm not sure if that's a pun on the "migrant" bit or a Commodore joke, so interpret the joke in whatever way seems funniest to you.