Technology Connections

Theory:

The folks who love features like automatic route planning and believe they are mandatory for EV adoption are much more likely to lease cars every three years and are thus not even thinking about why someone who wants to own a machine wants full control of that machine without a subscription

huzzah, someone who actually gets what I'm on about

Thread.

Guys, those annoying middle managers who never actually do anything are in charge of everything now.

The crafty people with agendas have figured out nobody actually checks things carefully any longer. Makes influencing politicians very easy.

It also works on you and me.

Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social

I'm finally digging into the cross tabs underlying the @searchlightinst.bsky.social memo telling Dems not to talk about climate change. It surprised me, but may not surprise you, that the memo lies about what US swing voters actually said in the polling. Let's have a look, shall we? 🧵

He's got just the one bit, folks.

Every new idea is either acquired or stolen. Almost like a monopoly, I wonder if we have laws on the books against those

Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social

NPR - Before Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg directed employees to build a standalone prediction market app, he proposed buying Kalshi. www.npr.org/2026/06/30/n...

Meta considered buying Kalshi before developing its own prediction market app

Mark Zuckerberg met with Kalshi's CEO last year about a potential deal, but talks did not move forward. Now Meta is making its own prediction market app.

Watching reactions to the Slate truck has been... weird.

I didn't expect people to completely forget the lower cost of ownership angle to electric vehicles so quickly but they apparently have.

Many comparisons between it and Ford's current Maverick on purchase price and nothing else!

The fuck!

This video is proof you can fix anything if you try hard enough.

Recently discovered this channel - someone whose hobby is to fix CD players. Very much my jam, and this one stands out for sheer tenacity!

youtu.be/Y4gP1_hBb9A

Can I fix the most damaged CD player on eBay?

YouTube video by Spare Time Repair

Just posting this video for the non-sickos who don't obsess over new high-speed electric car charger installations

▶

I mean... of course

Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social

NYT - The new Air Force One, which President Trump flew on earlier this week to Turkey, lacks the same defensive countermeasures that were security features of the old model, including its advanced antimissile capabilities. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/us...

New Air Force One Lacks Defensive Countermeasures of Previous Model, Officials Say

Experts said the lack of such capabilities poses a potential risk when the president travels overseas. The White House defended the aircraft’s safety.

I recently watched a compilation of TV commercials that aired when I was a kid on kids cable channels.

Please raise your hand if this phrase unlocks an utterly useless memory deep inside you:

[A woman's voice says enthusiastically]
"Even baked Alaska!"

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

And I mean, in normal times I would say the idea of copying an obviously illegal gambling app would be rather on the nose but we live in hell now

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

And I keep getting cranky about the weird concerns Europeans express about the environmental harms of air conditioning because those heat pumps you're installing *are the same fucking things* and they're a lot bigger and use a lot more energy and have a lot more refrigerant in them.

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

For those that might have missed it, he also said "the US could never build something like this" in reference to the br- I mean, jet, somehow ignorant of how it's a Boeing 747. Made by Boeing.

In the US.

Brain is melting

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

I suppose this can be seen as a good thing, in that electric cars are normal enough now that people are making those sorts of comparisons.

But it's been a bit of a mindfuck watching TCO completely fly out the window when that was the main reason folks like me wanted EVs in the first place.

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

The best charger is the charger you have at home.

If you can't charge it home, there's a good chance there's a charger right down the street.

And when you're meandering away from home, there's probably way more chargers out there than you think.

Reply to @rincewind.run

another positive to keep in mind as we Work Through Things is that as much as it pains me to see us be morons re: drill baby drill, the US doesn't actually matter that much in the global context.

we can be morons in the corner, it will be very embarrassing, but it's not a climate catastrophe

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

But bottom line, the problem we face is that tens of millions of people currently drive cars which set gasoline on fire to move around.

Those same people live where transit does not serve them and is not likely to for decades.

So I'll ask them to consider cars which don't set fire to gasoline.

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

This is the only way I can square the circle of what seems like a massive blind-spot.

There are people (hello, it me) who enjoy making decisions and who can understand the *value* of a car which picks chargers for you but simply don't want that.

I want good old fashioned freedom to choose.

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I'm increasingly convinced that a large majority of why everything sucks is that the general public no longer has a very good understanding of trade-offs and the practical implications therein.

PopSci does a good job exploring engineering trade-offs, but that's its own kind of poison.

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

I *am* increasingly annoyed that it took so long for people to release there's tremendous value to be captured in selling a product which costs next to nothing to produce, but the combo of slow learners, a public with poor science literacy, and rampant corruption will do that.

Reply to @jtp.bsky.social

yes, exactly.

and wow, what a cool innovation it would be if we could use that smartphone as a car's infotainment system so it stays up to date without the automaker having to support it long-term!

hopefully someone works on that and doesn't one day decide to kill it for subscription revenue.

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It makes me sound like a crank, but it's stuff like this that makes me think we're losing our grip on what it means to be a person

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

We have chosen to use the word heat pump because it describes what the machine does. It pumps heat energy across a barrier.

When you pump heat from outside to inside, you make the inside warmer. When you pump heat from inside to outside, you cool down the inside. That is what air conditioning is.

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

Also, insulation works both ways. Buildings designed to "keep heat in" are not at a disadvantage to cooling! In fact it will be much less energy intensive to maintain those buildings at a cooler temperature. We insulate well here in Chicagoland and my home is still below 24°C with AC off for 10 hrs

Reply to @techconnectify.bsky.social

There is nothing inherently inefficient about a window unit and they are in fact *much more* efficient than a single-hose portable air conditioner which, by reports from many people now, remain essentially the only option on the market in much of Europe.

Policy seems woefully ignorant of the tech.