Bang on. I am the ideal target consumer for a Tesla - own my home, drive mostly short distances, tech savvy, etc. I was seriously considering a Tesla for my next car, until that guy revealed to the world what a giant asshole he is. I'm not giving him any of my money.

I think I started reading /. on a daily basis sometime in 1998.

Maybe people don't want a huge corporation listening to every word they say in their own homes 24/7 ?

I'm a techie, but my wife is not, and she is even *more* insistent that we not have any live microphones in the house. It got to the point that she was about to veto our new TV purchase because it had Alexa "built-in", but we compromised by getting the TV but never connecting it to the internet. (OLED TVs that *don't* have Alexa or some other assistant built-in are hard to find)

Why does this have to be about Ukraine?

It's freaking funny no matter what the motivation.

Windup Girl is great!

Beware of Chicken is awesome! on Royal Road, I am also enjoying He Who Fights With Monsters

I thought it was good but not nearly as good as his other book, "The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic", but that might just be because of my specific interests.

Fantasy:
* The Cradle series by Will Wight is fantastic. It starts a little slow, but by halfway through the first book it picks up nicely. Currently at 10 books.

History:
* A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is more a history of science, but is still excellent
* The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire by Kyle Harper
* Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization by Lars Brownworth
* Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages by Dan Jones

Biography:
* The Storyteller by Dave Grohl is really good if you are a punk / grunge / Nirvana / Foo Fighters fan.

Premium spirits need to be in a glass bottle. Nothing says "cheap" like a plastic bottle, and a paper one is even worse.

Pre-installed apps are only a value-add to the phone maker. It allows them to sell space to third parties that are willing to pay to get mass distribution of their apps.

Honestly, I'd buy a phone that comes with an empty slate, but only to a certain extent. For example, it probably should come with Google Play Store (and that's about it.)

As an aside: can you imagine if Windows doesn't come with Internet Explorer? How would you download Firefox or Chrome? :-D

Kudos to Google to be able to release so many different products. But bummer that they all eventually die. I guess these are likely the successful personal 20% time projects from their software engineers. And when those engineers move on, no one is left to maintain them...

I read the first two (of four) Murderbot books, and they were OK. Not good enough for me to read the other two.

Lexar card are crap, I agree. The only SD Cards I've ever had fail on me is Lexar.

And nothing of value was lost.

When the cops ARE the danger?