Gambling ads are now so pervasive that I wonder how people recovering from compulsive gambling manage. They're all over traditional TV, streaming TV, the Internet, radio ads, magazine ads, etc... Even supposedly "ad free" streaming services like to slip in an ad or two at the start of a show. Either you quickly learn to resist temptation or you are screwed.

The article does not state if employees are required to come in at specific times or for a minimum duration. If employees can get away with coffee badging around lunch, at least they'll be able to avoid the rush hour crush on I-405 and SR-520.

But they'll still have to absorb the added costs of coming into work. And I highly doubt that Microsoft is adjusting compensation upward to make up for it. So these folks will be poorer and will have their lives disrupted for what exactly?

Even worse, the Trump Administration is selling this as a good thing. They're arguing that a lot of these losses are from negative aspects of our economy, such as bloated government and undocumented workers, and from areas that are readjusting to economic shifts triggered by the tariffs (read: onshoring).

But onshoring isn't really happening at the rate Trump wants because of low confidence that the tariffs will remain as-is in four years, because of supply chain issues with manufacturing equipment, because government dependencies such as permits, grants, and infrastructure are in chaos because of cuts, and because it takes a long time to stand everything up. So a lot of companies are just eating the costs of tariffs and shutdowns and cutting elsewhere (read: layoffs) just so that they can survive and regroup after Trump.

And positions vacated by undocumented workers just aren't being backfilled fast enough because of low wages, location, training, and desirability. That's having a knock-on effect down the line, resulting in layoffs elsewhere. Worse, nobody really knows when it will all stabilize.

So no... these are not just short-term transient losses. Things are getting ugly out there and we're likely tipping into recession. This goes double if the AI bubble bursts and datacenter building collapses. And since we've burnt so many of our foreign trading partners, it is likely weak exports will keep the country in recession for much longer.

And dismantling our free society is exactly what conservatives are advocating to reverse the low birth rates in the USA, as documented in the Project 2025 gameplan.

What is to be seen is if reversing modern family planning options and cultural norms will be negated by the inevitable brain drain that comes from living in a fascist police state.

It depends. If you are a low mileage driver and have access to a dedicated 115V outlet in the garage, then the EVSE that's included with your car might do the trick. That's free.

On the other end, if you have multiple BEVs with high mileage drivers, an old house with a low amperage breaker, and a long drop from the utility that would also need to be replaced, that might cost tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade.

I spent less than $200 on 10 meters of 12/2 NM cable (Romex), a double pole breaker, a heavy duty 240V20A outlet (NEMA 6-20), and an outdoor outlet box. Bought a used EVSE with the proper outlet plug for $150. Labor was free. No breaker panel work needed since I upgraded it to 200 amps two years prior when I swapped my gas appliances out for electric (that was $3500).

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Mr. Dimon has a net worth of $2.8 billion. You typically do not become that wealthy by being kind and generous.

As for his complaint, when you dig into it a bit, much of the increase in the GDP gap can be attributed to massive growth in the US tech sector.

But now that companies like Alphabet/Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, and X have grown so large and gained so much influence under the US regulatory system, we're really seeing how ugly they've become. The US is tipping into right-wing authoritarianism and most of those companies are either helping to push the country in that direction or turning a blind eye to it to protect their wealth. And with it, you're seeing an erosion of civil rights, an increase in wealth inequity, a loss of the free press / more propaganda and sanewashing, an increase in health inequity, and much greater levels of government corruption.

So sure, GDP is higher. But at what cost? And what does the future look like for the USA? If things go south, Mr. Dimon can flee with much of his wealth. For much of the rest of the US population, that's not really an option. So maybe we need to look at the bigger picture?

In other news, AI isn't going to kill humans off using an army of terminators. It'll happen because of the crap we burn in order to power AI.

Series-Parallel PHEVs like the RAV4 Prime are more efficient at highway speeds that pure series PHEVs like the i3 Range Extender. Given that Canadians and Americans tend to drive much farther and typically at higher average speeds than their European counterparts, one could argue that series-parallel PHEVs might be a better fit for much of the North American market for now.

One of the greatest obstacles to this is cost. Someone will need to pay for the stations, the swap machines, and all that battery stock. And you'll need to do this at both high traffic and low traffic locations. Next issue is with that standardization. The industry is still in flux, with multiple voltages, cell types, C-rates, and capacities. So those stations will need to carry a fair bit of stock and the swap machines will need to be versatile enough to handle it all. And in the future, you'll need to keep stock around for older vehicles using legacy tech, which hopefully isn't deprecated and abandoned. Third issue is that nobody wants to swap their brand new battery for a much older one that may be degraded.

And last issue is that charging is getting fast enough that the window where swapping might make sense for light duty vehicles is closing. If I can charge my BEV from 10% to 80% in 15 minutes, that's good enough for the rare time that I need to charge away from home or work.

Not everything that pollutes can be moved out of California. And as other states and countries adopt similar systems, polluters will find it more difficult to relocate to somewhere less regulated. And depending on the activity, the cost to bring the product back to California may be high enough to negate the savings from not having to pay the tax.

And as you note, nothing says that the US can't pass a carbon import tariff in the future.

When I bought a one-year-old Toyota from a Toyota dealer, I was able to opt out of their data sharing. But it required creating a profile, downloading their app, and navigating to some buried preference settings. It was not intuitive. And I only knew about the problem because I also own a fairly new Chevrolet that had the same data sharing issue (and required similar opt-out steps).

And that is a problem. It should be an opt-in process that is presented when the vehicle ownership changes hands. And it shouldn't be something that a salesperson can just agree to with a two second explanation to the new owner.

You could power devices such as media hubs (ie, Fire Stick), cable boxes, game consoles, etc...

Depending on which direction(s) the power goes, you could also power monitors. One less cable. (eyes the trio of cables running into my monitor)

It makes a difference if you have a time-of-use energy plan. If you head to work or to bed, you can delay the start until an off-peak period kicks in.

Unfortunately, they're capacitance buttons. I found them terribly annoying to use. Same problem in the Kia EV6. You have to keep your eyes off the road for longer to ensure that you're pressing the button correctly.