Fond memories of buying a Saturn.
Walked in, picked up the pricing card.
Select model, select option package, price for that combination was listed on the card.

First and only time the salesman didn't lie to me.

It was one of my primary sources for parts - great prices, great customer service.
And then, shortly after it was sold to Chinese concerns (~2016), my search for computer cases also returned chicken coops ... ?!?!
That killed any desire to do further business them.

And soon after that, it was discovered that new reviews were completely fictitious. Credibility dropped to zero.

Yeah, also surprised they are still in business.

And some things can never be proven from tests. Blood transfusions, for example. Initially, you could identify this case under a microscope, as they actually froze the blood. Now, the blood is simply chilled, not frozen. No damage, no change from what naturally appears in one's blood. There's even been a couple of cases of identical twins showing up to a race, with one there only to 'offer support'.

The other fun specter creeping in is gene doping. Increase production of *something* - hemoglobin, ACTN3 (variant skeletal muscle protein, oddly pro-sprinters have one version, pro-marathon/triathletes another), there was even talk of some trying the CF gene therapy to increase lung efficiency. Again, you would see the results of the alteration, but no proof that the alteration was done.

In biathlon, there is a family that keeps winning, due to what is commonly known as the 'double hemoglobin mutation'. Essentially, they overproduce EPO, the same drug that got Lance Armstrong banned and stripped of all his titles. One can look at ratios of X to Y all you want: the reality is that these people have a huge *natural* advantage.

Used to be there was very little for the average consumer to compare against the price of movie tickets. Then came this weird invention called the video tape recorder (whether VHS or Betamax). Suddenly, four tickets for your family, costing $30-$50, could be compared against the price of renting a single video, maybe $3. Didn't look good for the theaters.

*Then* we got Netflix ... forget their DVD rental side ... with streaming, you got access to a huge number of movies, all for a low, low monthly price (~$10). Looked much worse for the theaters.

"We're not in the movie business, we're in the concession stand business."

So with ticket prices looking worse and worse, what does the industry do? Crank up the food and drink prices! I can buy a bag of popcorn (~$6), a block of butter (~$5), a 2L bottle of Coke (~$1), make four individual servings, and have most of the popcorn and half the butter left over. Last time I went to the cinema the total was close to $70 for the same.

You raise some good points about the theater experience. All of which are getting stomped by people feeling like they're being taken advantage off by a greedy industry.

"This is a novelty vehicle. This is for people with money to spare on "big boy toys"."

Alternatively, this is a near-perfect commuter vehicle for one or two people, whose commute is 40 miles or less. The proposed price of $40K is less than the average price of $47K. The big savings will be fuel. That is in the thousands of dollars per year, depending on vehicle type, averaging about $3K.

Last year, EVs hit 20% sales of the US market. There's the environmental concerns, too - people will choose the 'better' option, if there isn't too much cost associated with it. A vehicle that, in some situations, never needs charging, is actually financially beneficial.

I read a review of a guy who tested it for a month. He did have a short commute, so never charged it. Decided to take a long trip, just under the battery's range, to a friend's place. Spent the weekend there. It had recharged the equivalent of about 100 miles, not enough to get back. Drove to the nearest Tesla charging station, plugged it in, left half an hour later with a full charge.

In any case, given their history, believe it when the car hits the market, not before.

Scottevest.com has some great options.

Once got screwed by the airline (Air Canada) changing the weight requirements on my return trip. Ended up transferring around twenty pounds of stuff from my suitcase into my coat-of-pockets. Which went into the overhead bin once I was onboard.

I have failed exactly one phishing test - while it was an external address, it concerned a project my company was working on with an external client - and, most importantly, it contained details that my manager and I had discussed the previous day.
Turns out that was the plan - the testing company asked individual managers for details only they and the target would know, and tailored the email accordingly.

Yeah, that kind of 'gotcha!' test really soured the entire company on the idea of security tests.

This test also brought to you by a company that was successfully hacked, through a consultant-written Piece Of Software. And then decided that the best way forward was to downsize their internal IT department, and have consulting firms do even more work.

Not like there are any pedos in the school administration : https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

~150,000 photos taken, via school-issued laptops, of the kids in their own homes - most often bedrooms. Half of those mysteriously deleted just before the FBI served warrants. And all mysteriously excluded from the backup system.

The school district settled for over a million USD ($610K to the defendants, $425K to the lawyers) ... and no criminal charges were ever filed.

Agreed.
If it doesn't have 122 keys, it's not the same.

You can still get them, places like Unicomp or ATG

Paying someone to NOT do something?

Rings a bell ... isn't that called danegeld?

Eff them.
Recently switched from Telus because they were charging me $5/month to NOT use data.

Had some of my work appropriated by Deloitte - they put it in a presentation to upper management, and a copy came my way asking if I could verify 'their' numbers.

At a second company, teammate was asked to work alongside a group of several Deloitte consultants. Their final report was 99% his work ... and his name wasn't even on the list of contributors.

Yeah, after hearing the same story repeated multiple times, I wonder why anyone hires companies like this ... all they do is steal and repackage the work of underpaid employees. Yet somehow it magically gains 'authority' when presented by an outside company?!?!?

And to make sure the speeding, sudden braking, and high-speed turns - all dutifully recorded by the on-board software - don't result in higher insurance premiums!

"And it was pretty good too"

Apart from its habit of chewing through both data caps and batteries in a remarkably short length of time.

Two friends were issued these things ... monthly data caps were exceeded in week two, despite not actually using any data themselves.

Many phones at the time would last days to a week ... these items did not survive an entire day on one charge.

There were fundamental issues with how M$ was dealing with updates - both software and messages - on their model. Issues that both Android and iOS avoided entirely.

Top 3 healthcare networks in the US:

Kaiser Permanente - CEO Greg Adams, 2022 pay $17.3 Million USD

Anthem/Elevance Health (name change last year) - CEO Gail Boudreaux, 2022 pay $15.5 Million USD

HCSC - CEO Maurice Smith, 2022 pay $22.1 Million USD

...

Nah, the criminals have pretty much taken over the hospitals and healthcare system. Hacking them is just turf warfare between the gangs.

1) Before leaving Sweden, he checked with the authorities to make sure there was nothing preventing him leaving. He received an 'All clear! Go ahead!'

2) Once a second prosecutor - the first having decided there was insufficient evidence/cause for a warrant - filed a warrant for questioning, Assange offered to give his testimony at the Swedish embassy in England ... a procedure that had been done many times before. In this specific instance, in an unprecedented step, the prosecutor demanded he return to Sweden, at his own expense, to face questioning there.

Yeah, couple of minor points that shoot down your entire argument.

Oh yeah, once he was at the Ecuadorian embassy, the offer was extended to Swedish officials to do their questioning there ... which they declined, repeatedly.