choripan

Now away from the MF thread jack? What if Zelensky's statement about the counteroffensive is yet another feint, in order to keep the orcs constantly stressed/on edge? Normally you keep these things quiet but I think the Ukrainians constantly talk about it (as well as the allies) to keep the Russians on edge. The Russians constantly think every action is the beginning of a counteroffensive, look at the Telegram stuff posted here. At this point, I'm not even certain they will launch one, at least in the traditional sense.

Slava Ukraine. FYI in spoiler to hide something CR-adjacent.

Internal Monologue: "Don't go CR, don't go CR, don't go CR." *walks up to the ledge* *looks over* Huzzah(!) for a well-done ceremony, but it'd be nice if they could do it without the heredity title part or, especially, the hereditary obscene wealth.

How cool to be a Ukrainian with the last name HIMARS these days!

I thought you were being sarcastic or silly in your last post. I've demonstrated that (1) they're not the same category of vehicle in terms of simply slotting/categorizing them (weight, purpose, function, etc.); and (2) the performance isn't comparable to today's supercars for what, you know, supercars do. If you have a Tesla and calling it "basically a supercar" IRL helps you get laid or boosts your self-esteem, cool for you. It's simply not a true statement, unless you stretch the statement to it's breaking point and then some. If you want the last word, have at it. It's tough to argue with "your mom," which is up there with "because I said so" or "nuh-uh."

What is the 3rd reason?!?!? If I weren't so lazy, I'd insert the "well, we're waiting" meme here. Anyway, point is that the Model S isn't and shouldn't properly be called a supercar or compared to one. Call it a fast sedan. Compare it to an M5 or Caddy CT5-V or whatever. Or better, an F-150 Lightning or one of these other electric torque monsters like the Model S. But not a supercar.

For example, the Porsche Cayenne turbo -- which is an SUV(!) -- is comparable to the Model S Plaid(!) around what's often considered the world's benchmark track, at around 7mins, 35 seconds. True supercars can cut about 30 seconds off that, which is a LOT, and get down around 7mins flat. The point is, this annoys me because it's a good example of how much of a salesman/huckster that Elon is.

I couldn't disagree more. It is a dragstrip car, akin to a Dodge Demon, and *nothing* like a supercar. IOW, it can go fast in a brief straight line, but is a goddamned dog on a track. So it's a dragster with dated styling and cool tech. The specialist. The kicker or punter of the car world. Not intending to call you out specifically, btw. It's a common enough misconception that it's become a pet peeve for me.

As happy as this makes me, I'm not getting too excited because I already had the wool pulled over my eyes once when O-o-o-O'Reilly went off the air. Next douchebag up to inject poison into the gullible boomer masses. The system moves on.

In reading about this, in many instances, the play seems to be to lease (to get the full $7500) and then buyout the lease at the end of the deal is favorable under the market conditions at the time.

FWIW, if you're including me in that group, I'd encourage you to re-read my post, where I say it's not simple or easy and involves hundreds of small lifestyle changes over years, if you're going to get it to stick. As with most things, cold turkey doesn't work for most people and then, when it doesn't work, they get frustrated. Also, I think it's implied that what folks are talking about here doesn't apply to people with health challenges like pituitary gland issues or hormone regulation issues or something like that. For the remaining large majority of larger people, though, it would apply.

Former fatty-ish here -- 260 at 6'3" in my late 20s/early 30s. I'm now around 200 at 41yo. Cutting back a bit for another visible abs summer (douche alert), when I'll be low 190s. Is it simply or just a lifestyle change? Not quite. it took the better part of a decade for my wife and I to deprogram ourselves from our poor people lifestyle patterns and the typical American diet. We are still working on it but are pretty close to a good equilibrium that allows us to have fun but not pack the pounds back on. But I think it's facile to chalk it up to diet. Or wrapping it up neatly in a package of just lifestyle change. Most people need to be comfortable with it being dozens or hundreds of small good habits that you build, and bad habits that you lose until, one day, you blink, and you can't believe how you looked in pictures or what you used to eat. But I agree with those in here that think it's asking a lot to make a broad lifestyle change. But to ask people to do something small better a few times a month until, a year or two down the road, it aggregates into a lifestyle change? That's fair.

My grandparents and then my grandpa outside of Kassel a couple years later. Two things always struck me in these pictures: - Family legend is that my grandma's heart broke when my grandpa shipped off, only to repair itself when he came home. As my great aunt, who took this picture told it, they tried to get my grandma to smile throughout the day he shipped off, but she couldn't do it. Interestingly enough, her pictures usually have a couple of sentences describing the picture and the year. Here, it's "off to France" in black, and "to war, John and I" in blue. I always imagined her beginning to write her description, not being able to make it through it, and having to pick up her writing at a later day or time, just with a different pen. - In his pictures throughout the war, I notice that he loses his baby fat and becomes more hardened, and you can see it in his pic from Kassel. I know that I went in the Army and came out differently, a more hard person physically and mentally but a much more soft and caring person socially/emotionally, and I wish he would have lived long enough so that we could have talked out our respective stories.

😡 <--Me, a Detroit homer, pissed we just missed at $284B. Our MSA should include Washtenaw County/Ann Arbor, which would put us around $313B (313 y'all!) Source material if you're interested in going beyond the top 15: https://apps.bea.gov/itable/index.html?appid=70&stepnum=40&Major_Area=5&State=5&Area=XX&TableId=533&Statistic=3&Year=2021&YearBegin=-1&Year_End=-1&Unit_Of_Measure=Levels&Rank=1&Drill=1&nRange=5&AppId=70

Good luck! You also may want to edit to take your name out of the pic of the body part.

4 days (really, two half-days and two full days, counting travel) in Medellin with *NO* wife and kids starting tomorrow. Visiting my best friend from childhood/undergrad who was a whoremonger there for a few years before shacking up with a 22yo hottie. Tomorrow night, I've insisted on doing the Poblado/Lleras thing because I'm a tourist and it's my first time, and I'm with a buddy I did 75 cent bottles and jager bombs with for many years. Sunday and Monday are wide open, though. My Spanish is somewhere between B1 (DELE exam late last year, holler!) and B2 (been putting in 5-10 hours a week in class since then), so I can converse but would not be a good poster on shaggyvaca.com. Key goals are (i) hang with my guy, (ii) do it up and pack as much in as I can, and (iii) "scout" Medellin for my family. For background, my wife is a prof and can research anywhere during the summers. I work remotely and make my own schedule. Kids (5&4) have been in Spanish immersion childcare since they were 12 months old and are bilingual. Last summer, we lived in Barcelona and this summer we'll be in Madrid. We are looking for somewhere with less of a time difference that is not fucked by a crazy rainy season in the summer. Here are things I'm thinking of: - Half day tour out of town to visit a pueblo and horseback ride in the hills/mountains - Tour on bike to hit up a bunch of neighborhoods. This seems like a way to spend like 30-60 minutes in a variety of neighborhoods and then later drill down on those that look like prospects. - Find an intercambio and hope to meet a local or some locals to show me around - Comuna 13 tour - Generally, just hang and walk around with my buddy and (sometimes) his girl Is there anything that's can't miss? If so, I want to incorporate it because I might never go back. Thanks for any recs!

Trying to tiptoe around CR here, but perhaps Dilbert revs were waning -- how lucrative could it be anymore, given hold old the strip is and how little money newspapers have? -- and he realized that, by doing that, he now has a rabidly loyal ~-30-35% of the US population that will buy anything he puts out (an independent strip, merch, etc.) The grift is real and that could be his play.

DTE can suck my cock. Power out at my place since Wednesday night. Shacked up with our 5 and 3 year old at my dad's, since he's in FL for the winter. Basically loaded a car and a half full of pajamas/clothes, fridge and freezer shit (inc our chest freezer), and random shit. They say it'll be back on by Monday. We'll see. Everything covered in like a half inch of ice, especially the trees, was gorgeous for a day, though. ******** Oh, and also, shocked that in all you goons fighting over weather, no one has suggested snowbirding it. I'm a proud Detroiter/Michigander, but our winters blow now that it doesn't snow as much. Need to be somewhere with a sane winter or enough snow and cold to play snow football, pond hockey, sled, have snowball fights, etc. But but but... A Midwestern summer is the best if you're on the westside of the eastern time zone. Pitch perfect summer nights with the sun out until near (or sometimes past 10), on a boat with beer and ladies, the fireflies, letting a girl borrow your sweatshirt by the fire on a cool night (you'll probably smash, or at least make out). Nothing beats that. I often spend time visiting family in Naples, Miami, and Austin during the winter and spring, and it's great, but it gets dark at like 7, give or take. Fantastic, but not the same as a day and night that feels like it'll never end, in a good way.

Teehee this reminds me that Trump didn't want to honor the fallen in France because he didn't want to get his hair wet. (Refresher: https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-rain-check-honoring-americans-killed-wwi-prompts/story?id=59119504.)

You can Google for more on this (first relevant result that came up for me and I have to go pick up the kids from Grandma's) but, uh, talk to your elected officials and the FCC . https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-senators-urge-telecom-agency-ok-use-connected-vehicle-spectrum-2023-02-13/

I don't think this is fair. I think GM's super cruise was like $4k at the time. FSD was $8k and arguably more capable, but more dangerous. Arbitrarily and out of my ass, let's say FSD was worth $5k at that time. His point is that, as I follow it, beyond that Level 2+ functionality at the time, he took the gamble and bought an option for the incremental $3k cost that FSD would turn out to be what was promised by Musk. That was a reasonable gamble, IMO, especially because many didn't know at the time that cameras would hit a wall -- which, however unlikely (very!), it's still possible they could pull a rabbit out of their hats -- and because Tesla, at the time, had positioned themselves as market leader.

I will say, though, that for as much of a huckster barker as Elon is -- sorry you subsidized his company by springing for the FSD. Not sarcastic or dickish, but a genuine "sorry dude" -- I am thankful that he and his company have spurred more serious players into action in the EV and AV space.

I can see where you're coming from. That said, my wife is *in* autonomous tech and EV. She sits on the board of and advises a few startups and the M-City initiative at the University of Michigan (pretty cool, if you want to click-through: https://mcity.umich.edu/). I am her test audience before she goes and speaks at conferences -- this includes South By a few years ago, shout out to Austin -- or publishes papers or whatever, so I have that spousal "you have to know about this shit because your wife is tits deep in it" thing going on. In any case, the consensus in the industry is that there were two paths that companies took a few years ago. Tesla's path was, more or less, a bet on cameras. This was cheap and quick to deploy, and allowed them to jump out to a head start. Consider that you can get a 1080p backup cam for like $20 on Amazon; imagine buying at scale. Anyway, consistent with Elon's patterns, he marketed the hell out of this, including the "vision" you mentioned above. However, it appears to be bearing out that a system founded upon cameras is easy to quickly build up to Level 2 or 2+, but then you hit a wall. This is why Tesla is no longer seriously advancing and is flailing to put together a new hardware stack in hopes that it can move the ball forward. It is unlikely that Tesla will ever reach Level 4 or 5 with its current approach and the consensus is that Tesla is too committed/down the path of to its current approach to pivot and recreate the software side for a more fulsome system. The majority of the industry uses some combination of cameras, radar, lidar, etc. At first, many companies were well behind Tesla because of some combination of cost (prohibitive to deploy enough sensitive) and the software side (integrating the various sensor systems. Now, the cost of the hardware is plummeting (example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-25/lidar-sensor-price-plunge-leads-to-orders-from-gm-volkswagen). Also, the physical size of a lot of these systems is shrinking and they're becoming easier to integrate. I wish I had my wife's slide deck showing the change, with the pic of the lidar from a few years back that looks like an old school police siren on top of the car to the little sensors that are coming online now. Anyway, between decreasing hardware costs and increasing hardware availability for the various sensor systems, and realizing the gains from all the investment that has gone into integrating multiple systems for higher-level automation, other players are now leap-frogging Tesla. This is why you see that MB just got their Level 3 approved and GM's Level 3 successor to Super Cruise is coming soon, why Ford's Blue Cruise is considered a leader now, etc. Trying to think of a good analogy, but maybe it's like a sprinter racing a distance runner over a half-marathon. Tesla jumped out to a big lead but, with its camera-based approach, is not equipped for the long run. Meanwhile, the majority of the industry has been plugging along, saw Tesla jump out to a big lead the first 100 or 200 meters, but is now passing it.