henrikschroder

The latest car Tesla released, the cybertruck, was one of the biggest automotive flops ever, production is essentially halted, demand is non-existant.

Tesla announced and started taking reservations for their roadster TEN YEARS AGO. People who made reservations and paid the $50k-$250k cost are STILL WAITING.

And now Tesla has announced yet another vapourware car, with a controversial design, taking reservation money again.

If you fall for this, you are a fool.

Oh, right, the US has this weird Tesla oligopoly.

In Europe, Tesla generally has a single-digit EV marketshare, so over 90% of consumers don't care about or use the Supercharger network, and are obviously demanding charging locations.

Two years ago in Sweden I rented a random Chinese EV , a NIO ET7, and its onboard navigation system was fully connected to all the major charging networks, so I could see charging stations, their speeds, and open stalls directly in the car navigation, no external apps needed. So there's a whole perfectly functioning non-Tesla ecosystem, and pretty much everything is tap-to-pay, so no apps, no registrations, no memberships, no nothing. And no lock-in.

Kinda ironic that Teslas big start and Supercharger buildout is now holding the US back compared to the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, there seems to be zero buy-in from commercial players in the US. It's such a weird uphill battle.

I live in the US, but every summer I spend a month in Sweden, and the past two years I've rented EVs for the entire stay, and the buildout of chargers these past 4-5 years has been astonishing. It's gone from crap to fantastic in a very short time, and that's without massive government intervention or subsidies or screaming and cajoling.

Because in Sweden, the primary driver of charging stops along highways and in the cities are gas stations.

They already make all their profit from incidental purchases and not the gas itself, so them pivoting to EV charging stops makes perfect sense. They already have the infrastructure in place to sell you overpriced hotdogs and coffee and snacks for your road trip, they already have restrooms in place.

But they also do the same in the cities, it seems like every city gas station has also put up a couple of 350W charging stations. It's not half-assed, they mean business. They all see the writing on the wall, in neighbouring Norway EV's are 90+% of all new car sales, Sweden is at ~30% right now, and climbing, so gas stations will go out of business if they don't pivot to EV charging.

It's fundamental market economy forces at work, the kind of stuff that the US normally prides itself of.

So why is that not happening in the US?

PRAISE BE THE OMNISSIAH!

Or Anthropic is full of TESCREAL morons who think they're assisting the birth of some digital god, and that this stage of development is a necessary evil on that path, and that, surely, Roko's basilisk will understand and not eat them first.

Watching otherwise intelligent people succumb to AI psychosis has been wild.

No, it's not hyperbole. 5 weeks vacation is the legal minimum, this also includes the right to take 4 contiguous weeks in the summer.

At my last employer, I had 6 weeks paid vacation per year, that's 4 in the summer, 1-2 weeks around the Christmas holidays, and a couple of extra days here and there if needed. Most people spent their vacations like that.

There's also something called the "industrial vacation", where related manufacturing industries coordinate the 4-week legal right, which typically results in everyone in that sector taking July off.

In Southern Europe, the same thing happens in August, it's very common that people simply take the entire month off.

> I don't know anyone who's been on leave for more than 3 weeks as a single block.

I am so sorry for you.

> Your take is spot on, and it’s incredibly sad the number of people we’ve created whose only source of meaning or joy in their life is their desk job.

I worked for a silicon valley company that graciously offered its employees a month or two of unpaid vacation every five years. And people who had worked there a long while agonized over it, if they should take it, and whatever should they do with all that free time??!?

Meanwhile, my European ass and my European colleagues were so incredibly bewildered by it, because we were used to 5-6 weeks of paid vacation per year, and being used to that means you have no issues finding stuff to do outside of work.

Corporate American produces the weirdest drones ever, people are so incredibly conditioned to work work work.

> Giving employees 1 week of free time? That's nothing, and nothing will change too as a result. Give them a whole month of free time? I bet they will make some small, short term projects, even doing hobbies like gaming, fishing, cooking or golfing where it wasn't available before.

*confused in European, again*

Hey, if only there was an entire continent of hundreds of millions of people who typically have 5 weeks of paid vacation per year or more so that we could check this and see what happens?

> As far as non-parties to the conflict are concerned, Iran's toll is literal highway robbery.

Yes.

But before the US started this stupid war, everyone knew that Iran had strategic control over the strait, and Iran reasoned that if they were to impose a toll on ships passing the strait, the rest of the world would gang up and bomb the shit out of them, removing their strategic control of the strait. So it was kept open.

But now the US went in and bombed the shit out of them anyway, whereupon Iran discovered that despite that, the US wasn't able to secure the strait. What they previously feared turned out to be manageable. They can close the strait, and the cost of stopping them is much, much higher than the US, or any other country wants to bear.

So the rest of the world is choosing between joining the US' illegal fiasco of a war in Iran to help open the strait, or simply paying the comparably tiny toll the Iranians are asking for, in return for oil shipments resuming immediately. So far, everyone is choosing #2.

As a bonus, Iran has also discovered that they can break through the defences of the other gulf states and legitimately threaten their oil facilities, desalination plants, and other infrastructure. Previously, the mostly US-supplied missile defences they had was assumed to be 100% effective, but by testing it, Iran now knows that they're not.

And all of this because the US, in its hubris and arrogance, assumed Iran was as defenceless and vulnerable as Venezuela, and that it would work out splendidly like that time. Idiocy.

I don't think those boxes had a 16550 UART...

The reason for daylight savings, as batshit insane as it sounds, is that it's easier to authoritatively tell people what time it is, with a one-hour jump twice a year, than to tell people to change business hours twice a year for a better experience around daylight.

It's absolutely fascinating from a psychology standpoint.

My one big hope for when countries now stop doing the stupid clock change thing, is that people become a lot more flexible around business hours and school hours, and adapt a schedule that fits people.

> If things work so well that everyone's quality or life is improved, why would there be dissent large enough to worry about.

Have you met people?

> that sweet old lady from Minnesota who's done rose painting (a national romantic fad around the time her ancestors immigrated) for 20 years is part of a living culture, which isn't simply "American"

I 100% agree with you.

Men hun er faen meg heller ikke norsk.

Because it encourages the weird cosplayers, who will then claim to be "more Italian than the Italians", which is complete nonsense.

Because it's weird fetishisation of European cultures that are both seen as superior to American culture, but also at the same time as inferior.

Because it's rooted in weird beliefs in blood magic; that DNA somehow confers culture.