• 1 Post
  • 91 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 27th, 2023

help-circle

  • Yeah that tracks. I’ve always been comfort minded so the Model 3 feels really bad to me.

    For materials, they’re like one step above hard plastic. They don’t feel like high quality versions of whatever material they are, if that makes sense. “Just… fine” is a good descriptor. Unfortunately I don’t spend a ton of time in its competitors so I may have been unfair to the materials by comparing it to more expensive options. And yeah, in my case the barebones interior feels less comfortable.

    I do hope you keep liking the car! None of us ex Tesla supporters could have seen this coming, so it shouldn’t hinder your enjoyment.


  • I guess I wanna clarify that it’s bad in my opinion, not objectively. I’ll return to this later. I just don’t wanna seem like I’m shitting on your car or the reasons you got it.

    Cars are typically comfortable when they have good ride quality and interior. The Model 3 has the absolute worst in both regards of any EV I’ve tried. The suspension is legendarily poor and is my primary complaint— it truly feels like punishment. As if every road imperfection was multiplied, not dampened. They could’ve given it the interior of an S class and I’d still find it uncomfortable. Yet the interior is sterile and features low quality materials. I tried my best to recall any one comfort besides heated seats, but I truly believe it is bereft of them.

    So, back to how this is my personal opinion. I am a traditional comfort guy: good ride quality, creature comforts, high quality materials. For those who don’t care about that, the Model 3 is a great “get me there” vehicle. The software is good and it has ample driving assistance. The supercharger network is unrivaled if you don’t mind funding Musk (I do, so even though mine can now access the network I won’t use it). It’s very functional. Just not physically comfortable.

    I’ll admit that most of the EVs I’ve tried are Model S competitors, not 3, but I’d still take either Ioniqs or the Mach-E over the 3. Also the latest Model 3 improved the suspension, but I’ve yet to try it









  • After some recent events I read Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service. It includes bit on how well trained, extremely prepared USSS agents were unable to stop a single practice gunman whose identity they knew. All variables were in their favor and they were far more competent than hired security will be. I’ve included an excerpt at the end.

    Corporate security will not stop someone willing to go to jail or die for it, such as someone terminally ill and fucked by their insurance. Media puff pieces overstating security effectiveness— spread through outlets owned by the ultra wealthy— would be far more effective in preventing another event like this. Presumably the more people that know, the more emboldened they would be to repeat this heartbreaking, earth-shattering tragedy. Which would just be terrible. Certainly I would be horrified and thus suggest suppressing this info. We should be spreading how corporate security is infallible to protect heroes like Mr. Thompson’s peers so they can continue to be upstanding members of society.

    “In the wake of the Wallace shooting, the Service conducted more frequent and intensive drills on how to handle different kinds of attackers on a rope line. Agents and officers practiced over and over, playing the roles of detail agents and spectators on either side of the line. The drill instructor warned the agents ahead of time that a person in the crowd would play the role of the shooter and approach the principal with a gun. The drill instructor even pointed out who that person was.

    “The agents were told who had a weapon,” said one former agent. “And the guys are working the rope line and they’re constantly looking at this guy waiting for the moment when he’s going to pull the gun. They know who it is.”

    Agents swiveled their heads back and forth from the spectators in front of them to the mock gunman in the crowd. They tried to anticipate his move and readied themselves for the fastest dive or lunge. No matter how many times they did the drill, the result was the same. “They never once stopped him before two shots,” the former agent said.”




  • From Nate Silver’s write up on this poll:

    Yesterday, I complained about how so many pollsters are “herding” by publishing results that are almost an exact tie in a way that is incredibly statistically improbable given the unavoidable sampling error from surveying a small number of voters. I also noted a handful of prominent exceptions — rouge pollsters like the New York Times/Siena College that practically exist in an entirely different universe and imply a much bigger political realignment.

    Another such maverick is Ann Selzer of Selzer & Co. (Selzer and NYT/Siena are our two highest-rated pollsters.) As my former colleague Clare Malone wrote in 2016, Selzer — like NYT/Siena — has a long history of bucking the conventional wisdom and being right. In a world where most pollsters have a lot of egg on their faces, she has near-oracular status.

    Emphasis mine. While polls were decently off in 2016 and 2020, Selzer’s were not, and reflected a significant underestimate of Trump by nearly every other pollster. This poll suggests Harris is being underestimated. If Selzer is correct, Harris wins very comfortably.

    It’s hard to explain how unexpected this result is. Harris proponents like myself were hoping for Trump +8-9 or less, which would correlate to a Harris win in the electoral college. You can still see this on r/fivethirtyeight from the bad site. I’m not optimistic and my best hope was Trump +7. People misread this as Trump +3 and were still celebrating. Headlines aren’t exaggerating here: this is a truly shocking poll. If the real result is even Trump +5, he is likely to have lost handily. If this is as accurate as Selzer has been since 2012, he will have lost in a true landslide. (Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, of course.)

    I’ll link again Silver’s article on herding because it makes a strong case that most polls are not currently reliable due to self-preservation. Selzer releasing these results is not a self preserving move and would be a large pockmark on her otherwise “near-oracular” record.

    You can scroll through my history and see that I am not an optimistic person. I initially assumed a Harris loss before Biden dropped out because RFK was still polling too well, a traditional indicator of loss when dropping incumbent status. I was pleased with her upward momentum— and still am, she deserves a great deal of credit for an excellent campaign— but she has always been the underdog in my mind. This is the most positive sign I’ve seen all season. It helps that Siena’s most recent PA poll was also quite positive at Harris +4 if I recall.

    I’m too worried to be hopeful, but this has made it harder to doom. It’s so unexpected that I take it with a grain of salt, but if she’s even half right, things are a lot better than they feel.


  • Okay so I haven’t heard about her before this but, from this thread and a quick google search, I feel like I know enough. Anyway. I’m hopeful then that the fame will pass— lots of internet fad celebrities fade and become more or less normal people again soon— but she pockets enough money to live a good life and keep paying it forward.


  • Yeah. I started working out pretty heavy way back to stop being underweight but I still go multiple times a week to upkeep. I hate it but it keeps me from this shit.

    Staying fit keeps most of your body working way better for longer. You can feel bodily discomfort in the gym on your terms, or at random on nature’s terms.


  • Recorded speech about engaging in crimes is often acceptable evidence. It’s probably the same with written messages.

    I guess it’s up to the accused to prevent law enforcement from acquiring what they said, whether it be preventing recording, preventing police from sifting through mail or unsecure communications, or preventing police from acquiring the accused’s copy of potentially illegal communications. Which he is currently attempting.

    I don’t blame him for trying, and would agree on a lesser extent that he is right to prevent self incriminating now. But copied communication as acceptable evidence is pretty settled in law by now.