I choose not to think about it or include it in my mental threat model, the same way I choose to not worry about thermonuclear warheads.

If there’s some exploitable backdoor and Intel gets owned, we’re all boned and there’s nothing we can really do about it. I don’t have anti-ballistic-missile systems, and I also don’t have the capability to make an entire hardware/firmware/os from scratch.

So instead focus on the things you can control and are more likely to happen. Don’t plan for doomsday, plan for every day.

Can’t upvote this enough. It’s not the consumers, it’s the dealers calling the shots. Some examples:

Looking for a Corolla hybrid: no dealer had one, and all of them said it could be 18 months or more before one would be available

Looking for a RAV4 suv: we have 8 on the lot take your pick

Looking for a Mazda 3 hatchback: the only one in the colour you want is a six hour drive away and no we can’t transfer it here

Looking for a CX5 suv: we have literally a million of them

In both examples the cars cost almost the same amount to build. They have the same drivetrain, engine, transmission, etc. But since the “suv” or “crossover” is taller and bigger they can charge 20-30% more, earning them more commission and dealer fees, so that’s what they order from the manufacturer. Unless you have months to wait, you take what you get.

It’s not perfect, but the new (2019+) mazda system is very nice. It’s all controlled by buttons and dials, zero requirement to ever touch a screen. It all feels quite thoughtfully done, especially when you compare it to fords or teslas with a big dumb laggy iPad stuck to the dash.

Local options are always better. The Mexican joint sells you a massive breakfast burrito for $6. Nepalese takeout will feed you for days for $16. Hot dog truck will fill you up with delicious processed meat for $4.

Subway? Subpar lunch made out of cardboard and ground up yoga mats for almost $20.

GOAT vehicle. It’s purely functional in pristine egg form. Bulletproof drivetrain. Comfy as hell, even by today’s standards. If one ever comes up on autotrader in good condition I’m buying one.

It sort of does make sense, since it’s how trains work so well! A single locomotive can haul dozens of carriages way more efficiently than putting a single small motor on each carriage. It also has way less aerodynamic losses since the trailer is right in the slipstream for the truck!

The problem is that this also applies within a radius around a “port of entry”. So everybody that lives within about 100 miles of the coast, an airport, or a rail line that crosses a border — which is probably about 80+% of any country.

Trust me, if you go to Japan you will go to a 7-11 whether you want to or not. They are absolutely everywhere, like “ubiquitous” is an understatement. I think when we were there we went to 2-5 convenience stores per day just because they were just so… convenient…

Do you people not put milk in your crude oil? I find it suits the subtle bitterness of Alberta tar to give it a wonderful but subtle aftertaste.

Cardiff, Wales. One of the few places in the world that felt like a Real City while also having its own distinct culture and feel. Every other city I’ve been to feels like the same sort of dull corpo-district monoculture.

Old Montreal also has a bit of this, but only the central city areas, the outside periphery quickly devolves back into the “this could be anywhere in North America (version francaise)”

I wish I was the right kind of creative, greedy, and dull to come up with this kind of crap. I could scam so many bald billionaires.

Not sure I’d want to take risk management advice from the mortgage-backed securities ghouls who crashed the economy 15 years ago, but okay I guess.

When you fly on Air Canada there’s a unmutable ad for the Alberta oil sands right after the safety announcement before takeoff. It’s surreal enough, but it’ll be so much worse when they start doing this kind of shit too.

I don’t need artificial intelligence in my terminal. Do you know how many times some troll has posted about “rm -fr /” on Reddit and other shitty forums, which then gets gobbled up and laundered by LLMs? Not letting that anywhere near my prod servers with valuable data.

Anecdotal… we drove through rural Ohio a few weeks ago. In several hours of travel we only saw ONE trump sign. The same place in 2016 or 2020 would have been full of them. Regardless of the impact of this, the enthusiasm is dead. There might be “maga guys” on Twitter but they’re largely disengaged in real life.

Servers are 100% efficient at heating, but heat pumps are 300% efficient. Get the most energy efficient devices you can, and heat your house with a proper heat pump.

I wouldn’t put a lot of trust in Telegram. Not only is their cryptography off by default, it’s a bespoke hand-rolled non-standard algorithm that might not work as well as they say. Oh, and it’s been potentially backdoored by the FSB (Russia’s CIA) for six years.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/telegram-reportedly-ordered-to-share-encryption-keys-with-fsb/

It’s crazy how the US gov basically handed him a monopoly on EV charging infrastructure, something Rockefeller could have only dreamed of, and the guy throws it away less than two weeks later in some ketamine fuelled stupor. Then has to backtrack at the cost of reputation, confidence, and sentiment. Truly another great stable genius.

Right? I’ve been using NextCloud/OwnCloud since ~2015. It’s a very standard LAMP app, nothing fancy going on at all. Give it enough memory and you’ll never have any problems, same as any other web service.

I did it back in 2020 when we all had nothing better to do. Got as far as installing X11 and Openbox, and halfway through setting up the toolchain for Firefox.

It was fun - the kind of fun digging a big hole is. It’s not for everybody, but I sort of enjoyed it.