Doesn't the iOS app mostly just channel info directly from other sources like the local gov't weather service? I suppose maybe they tried to put some intelligence into it when they bought Dark Sky. That seems about the time it started trying to predict rainfall in the next few minutes. Which hasn't ever worked for me.

I remember back when the iPhone came out, this was perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of it, at least to me. We were so used to phones coming with crap on them and tightly coupled to the carrier. If the carrier didn't want something on the phone, it never got there. So Apple comes along and says "Hey, AT&T, we will make you the exclusive carrier for the iPhone iff you leave the entire experience under our control."

There were lots of downsides to that deal, of course, but I appreciate that it broke the carriers' exclusive control over mobile phones.

Spinning up a competing carrier has a much higher barrier of entry, though, than creating a new mobile phone. If my only choices are carrier-controlled or manufacturer-controlled, I will choose the latter. Gives me way more options.

You wouldn't get a phone in 2007 that didn't lock you in to something; the question is whose ecosystem you'd prefer to deal with.

I remember the Verizon crapware phone experience well.

I would say their comment had a lot more nuance and thought put in to it than yours did.

I mean sure, but Androids been following Apple's lead, not tother way tround.

Toyota does have a conventional BEV, so they can do it if they want. They just don’t seem to be enthusiastic about it.

Toyota's CEO and upper management seemed to be oddly fixated on hydrogen powered cars for a very long time. I think it was just in the last 2-3 years where they finally gave up and started looking at BEVs.

If it's not like those rare earth ( or watch movement saga with Swatch) that China will simply refuse to supply to other OEM, old car makers like Ford, Toyota with brand image and solid engg in rest of car making can just buy. Maybe that's their thinking?

Bonus if there's leap frog tech that obsolete all the CATL investments..

Those false supply chain concerns really only work within the right wing US political milieu. "Rare earth" with batteries really only works with the Republican set of propaganda.

I'm sure Toyota management has their own set of false beliefs about supply concerns, or perhaps about competitive edges, or perhaps about biases towards fluid fuels.

I think it depends on what you mean by big challenges. City driving is maybe the easiest 80% of driving. There’s a long tail of odd challenges you run into in less controlled environments, and I’d call that the biggest challenge.

I think city driving is the worst — people popping out from nowhere, roads that shouldn’t be but are because they have always been. Suburban and highways seem easiest.

In the hills of LA you have sharp blind corners where people have installed public fisheye mirrors to help you see around, then you have crazy people in Hollywood throwing furniture in front of your car, and non-stop traffic and people passing on the wrong side of the road between blocks even when there is a median, school kids and crossing guards, emergency vehicles trying to through and people doing otherwise illegal things to help get out of the way…

I'm an avoid motorcyclist and have followed additional safety courses. These placed 90% of all accidents in cities. What do you mean by city driving being the easiest?

In a city, you'll never have to worry about the "road" you're supposed to follow being a dirt track that barely looks different than the muddy fields on either side.

In a city (especially in SoCal and the American Southwest, which is, AIUI, where all the self-driving cars are today), you can be nearly certain that the various mapping companies have accurately plotted the roads and destinations, and if you're trying to get to a popular Finger Lakes winery, you won't be directed down a limited-use seasonal road that's entirely covered in ice.

In a city, you can be pretty well guaranteed that there are speed limit signs anywhere the speed limit actually changes.

Just off the top of my head, as someone who's lived 40 years in the rural Northeast.

Wouldn’t ice trucking be in that long tail? I mean, ya, there are lot of niche cases that companies like Waymo haven’t worked on yet, but…the money is in the cities so that’s where they start. Interstate trucking might come next, ice trucking might be one of the last use cases covered.

Anyways we’ve gone from “this won’t happen in our lifetime!” to “it doesn’t handle X niche use case yet.”

There are self driving trucking companies.

Some EVs, not all. My Lightning has a parking pawl.

> 2. to raise money for the treasury

And admitting that is why SCOTUS will kill them. Raising money for the treasury is Congress' job, not the executive's.

> there’s no dramatic shift towards government ownership

Interesting that you mention this. It's not exactly the same thing, but someone in another thread here on HN pointed out that the feds have been acquiring non-trivial stakes in a number of companies. More than just the one or two that I had seen in headlines.

It's funny, because it's a bigger overt push in the direction of actual socialism than the dems have ever tried, by the group of people who most love to use socialism as a boogeyman.

But the argument in favor of it seemed compelling on it's face, at least worthy of debate.

Not GP, but I would just like to say that while every time period has good and bad, 1997 was pretty damn great in the grand scheme of things. Not just that year, but the 90s in general. If I could pick a decade to live in and never leave...

Interesting that the Matrix picked the 90s as it's world to lock humanity into as well... Prescient?

> The US doesn't have the climate to grown coffee

Well, Hawaii does, but your point is good, thank you.

I knew that would come up :). Yes, Hawaii produces about 1% of the coffee consumed in the US. I'm guessing a chunk of that is consumed in Hawaii...

But I'm glad you got the point. :).

I'm not a coffee drinker normally, I have never acquired the taste, but I had some hand-picked perfectly roasted coffee on our last visit to Kona and it was divine. Completely straight, nothing added. I have some appreciation now of why some people like coffee, as I could drink that every day. I probably couldn't handle that much caffeine, however.

Hawaii would even have mountaineous and that island climate that's good for growing coffee. But labor costs probably mean they couldn't compete even if they tried

Especially when it comes to life threatening illnesses like cancer. I've seen more than one entirely normal, rational person start grasping at off the wall solutions when faced with the imminent end of their life.