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Starlink recently bought up lots of billboard space here in rural BC advertising how “Fast, affordable internet has arrived in Canada” and I’m this close to defacing those signs by crossing out “Fast, affordable” and writing “Nazi sympathiser” instead.

Oh, shame to read that. It sounded like it had real potential.

Microsoft experimented with oceanic data centers too, and I don’t believe they actually abandoned that project either. It’s just Musk and his ilk are very loud and outsized loudness has a tendency to dominate public discourse.

Unlike Slate, Ford has access to their vast trove of sales information over the past 8 decades from their truck division. I am pretty sure they figured out that a truck at a 30k price point needs to be a crew cab or larger to sell in the volume they need to make it work for them financially.

Unlike Slate, Ford is a business that needs to be profitable in what they do. They can’t start-up style burn through a bunch of investor money to see if a market exists for bare-bones single cab trucks.

As a result I think both may well have a place in the market, and I am excited to see affordability overall coming back into the picture.

SAAB Automotive got killed by GM, resurrected by Spyker, subsequently killed again by debtors, resurrected again by Chinese investors who lost the rights to the brand, turned into NEVS (National Electric Vehicles Sweden), ran out of money again due to COVID, and has since been in “hibernation”/limbo. Most recently Stenhaga bought the remainder of the factory in Trollhättan, and EV Electra were considering to buy what’s left of the production models. That deal fell through and, last I heard of it, whatever is left of the NEVS were like 20 folks who got fired in 2024.

So yeah, to quote McCoy “He’s dead Jim”.

Amazing video, thanks for sharing.

Oh yes. TVR circa 1998 / speed 12 nonsense would be magical if they had the budget and freedom today that they did back then. I feel like a modern TVR would build something like a 4 motor EV with a manual transmission somehow. I’d be there for it honestly.

They were designed to do that on the regular. Especially Volvo’s polar editions were built to withstand just about any condition and kept simple and barebones for that reason.

Duesenberg. They made incredibly stylish and well engineered cars that were ahead of their time. I’d love to see a true competitor to Rolls Royce (Bentley doesn’t really compete with Rolls anymore. Sure they’re expensive luxury cars, but they aren’t anywhere near as bespoke as Rolls Royce cars are).

The Swedish Volvo died the day Ford took over, Geely is just there to trot around the remains.

Although, let’s be honest - Volvo had been on the verge of bankruptcy like three times before Ford bought them so it’s likely they would’ve died on their own too. Turns out making cars that are incredibly reliable is not a sustainable business model.

There is apparently no standard in print journalism anymore. Any opinion piece regardless of its merit will and shall get printed.

This is at least in large part how the locking down of smartphones began. People either weren’t around yet or don’t remember how much of a wild west smartphones were for malware, scams, etc. when they first reached mass market uptake. There was a while there where companies were blocking smartphones from their networks because of the security risks.

It took Apple and their closely integrated/walled garden approach and insistence to sway the perception. And that’s what other manufacturers then decided to emulate.

Oh, I am not saying they’re not still opportunistic money-chasers. Hence the comment about there not being any good AI companies. To me though, their reluctance on some topics and honest admissions on the capabilities of their AI make it appear that they less happy to throw all principals overboard in the race to win the AI market than the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Musk.

Still. I will happily take a company with some moral fiber over one with none when it comes to this AI race to the bottom.

Not saying Anthropic are the good guys here (there are none IMHO) but they are clearly trying to be the “less bad guys”.