The turn of the century was an unbelievable time for cars. Just enough computer to make things interesting. Not everything is computer.

German cars used to use muted, pure red at night. My A4 even had a recessed light in the overhead moonroof area that shone invisibly onto the center console, softly illuminating your hand as it came near any of the controls. Real human factors engineering makes everything better.

when the bar goes down for access, the bar goes up for quality

The reason government programs are so inefficient is that, unlike a commercial company, the feedback loop for improvement is broken, because they have a state-mandated monopoly and can’t go out of business if customers are unhappy. No matter how bad the service is at your DMV (sorry to pick on DMVs), you still have to use your DMV, because it’s a monopoly.

Can’t fake the real good stuff.

i have a folder on my computer named "keep going" here are some of the images inside of it: (part 2)

According to Numbeo’s 2025 Quality of Life Index, only a handful of countries rank above the United States in overall life quality.

Orwell addresses this in his 1946 essay ""Politics and the English Language". “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” He offers 6 rules: 1) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. 2) Never use a long word where a short one will do. 3) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. 4) Never use the passive where you can use the active. 5) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. 6) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I have never in my entire life met a smart person - IQ over 120 - who says things like "disproportionationately affected citizens of minoritized class identity" as vs "poor people." Simplifying the complex is a sign of true wit, while needlessly complicating the simple - think Judith Butler - signals the reverse.

One of France's oldest companies, a 600 years old foundry, just went bankrupt because it "could no longer cope with the explosion in energy prices." These guys survived the Middle-Ages, dozens of wars, plagues, Nazi occupation, but couldn't survive Europe's current suicide pact.

Reminder:

The fascinating designs of nuclear power plant control rooms

Men only want one thing

TIL .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx are just .zip archives with mostly xml inside.

Future generations will never know this level of tactile satisfaction.

In 1995, Renault and Williams put an F1 engine into a minivan, just because they could.

In 1995, Renault and Williams put an F1 engine into a minivan, just because they could.

Very interesting and unique take.

One day.

Does anyone actually enjoy driving a new car? I recently had to rent one and my god, the experience of driving it was total horse shit. I can't be the only one. There must be arbitrage opportunities for anyone who only sells / rents cars made between the golden age of 1980s - 2002. Even a car made 10 years ago is SIGNIFICANTLY better than a brand new one. Seriously, stop scrapping old cars! They are gems. I thought we were in for a pleasant drive on winding country roads nestled in the Tuscan mountains in a supposedly top-of-the-line Alfa Romeo. Instead, on this type of road, the whistles and beeps are just incessant and the steering interventions which are mandatory features that can't be turned off, are downright DANGEROUS. I don't want lane departure warnings, I don't want lane keep assists that lock my steering wheel into place. I don't want my car to angrily hiss at me every time I go above the bloody speed limit. I don't want automatic braking because I know better than the car. And yes, "everything is computer" these days and IT SUCKS THE SOUL OUT OF DRIVING. I don't want to fiddle with huge touch screens on the dashboard when physical knobs are just easier and safer to deal with. I don't want the transmission computer and engine computer and cooling system to continuously be in an existential crisis and sometimes, inexplicably, fails to respond, respond incorrectly, or just outright fails. I don't want smaller and smaller engines in cars that are made with significantly more plastic by weight and volume in the name of fuel efficiency. I don't want a utilitarian hunk of plastic with advanced infotainment and spyware on wheels that is a total piece of CRAP. Whenever people tell me that technology just makes everything better I just scoff because it's not true for automobiles. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur or whatever but I will cling to my old gas guzzling clunkers from decades ago for as long as I can.