Politics aside it would have done significantly better if the pricing they had during its announcement event was anything close to the pricing it had at release. They announced it at $39.9k, $49.9k, and $69.9k for the RWD, AWD, and Cyberbeast. The RWD didn’t really ever happen, at least not as announced. They did release a RWD but it was different and much more expensive. They pulled it from market after ~5 months. The AWD and Cyberbeast actually released at $69.9k and $99.9k. Needless to say many people cancelled their preorders.

There’s a reason you don’t do things like that…

Apparently nobody in that software team has heard about Knight Capital. They reused a flag and that coupled with a deployment failure that only lasted ~45 minutes caused an over 400 million dollar loss nearly bankrupting the entire company. Ultimately they ended up combining with another company.

The immediate cause of the incident was a deployment failure that left one of eight servers running outdated code, creating an inconsistency in how the system interpreted incoming instructions. The new software reused a flag associated with a legacy function known as “Power Peg,” which had been disabled but not removed from the codebase, and on the unpatched server this flag activated obsolete logic that continuously generated child orders in response to parent orders that the system did not correctly recognize as already filled.

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I use to work near this Taco Bell. The exit to the drive through had a rock off to the side. The amount of times I left work and saw somebody sitting on top of that rock is frankly embarrassing. Just looked it up on street view and they changed it. It made them close the drive through every time somebody hit it. So not terribly surprised.

Overhead view, people kept trying to turn early and cut across the handicap parking. Why? No idea…

It’s now a fence and bollard.

They didn’t get rid of their rock though! They just moved it to the prior corner.

You can spend untold amounts on ways of using that space.

Small space? Pop-up spice rack.

Larger space? Pop-up coffee maker.

I will already tell you that’s happening. Own a Ford and the amount of QR codes that are on all parts of that vehicle is truly astonishing. I know Ford published a huge pdf of things to check for to cut down on warranty fraud. It’s absolutely checking certain parts against the build data to see if they've been swapped since the vehicle was built.

It’s not all nefarious. Keeping tabs on all the parts in each vehicle can help them scope recalls to certain batches as above or redesign parts that keep failing before their lifetime expectancy(usually because it’s inside warranty and costs them money).

Sometimes it’s just bad parts from a supplier that only affects a tiny amount of vehicles sold.

I had a motorcycle with a front tire recall. I actually had to take it to the dealer for them to check the tire itself. They had two different manufacturing batches of the tires in the motorcycle manufacturing facility at the same time. One batch was bad. They knew the VIN’s of the bikes that could be affected but had no way of knowing which batch of tire went on what VINs. They had to send recall notices to the whole range and check it out individually knowing only about half of the VINs notified actually had the problem. Plenty of bikes made before and after the bad tire batch that weren’t in scope of the recall.

I still own vehicles without the green light. That started being a thing about the time they made gauge clusters giant lcd screens that were lit up at all times of day. If you don’t have your headlights on in my car then you can’t tell how fast you’re going since the gauges aren’t lit up at all. Makes it super obvious when your lights aren’t on…cause you actually have to turn them on in that car. Which leads into my next thing.

My pet peeve is people driving around with only the daytime running lights on. They have weak headlights and absolutely no tail lights. I run into at least one car like this nearly every time I drive at night. I found one possible cause for it. Any time you take your car in for service they usually turn off the auto headlights so it’s not draining the battery in the shop but they rarely turn them back on.

If you live in a relatively flat area then sure…carbs. I live in the mountains and can change 5-6K feet of elevation on one ride. The carb will not run great somewhere along that trip. I will mention the Euro5 emissions throttle/fuel maps on EFI can be janky. Carbs do have a smoother power delivery in general…when working.

I’m a few days late to this post but a few additional things to consider and some ramblings…

Whatever you’re looking at I’d run some insurance quotes. From my experience engine displacement and type of motorcycle are large factors in rates. I’d imagine there is a whole actuarial table for claims paid out on that combination that insurance companies use. As an example I could insure a 1200cc cruiser for half what a 600cc supersport cost even though they made comparable power(not power to weight figures though). I’ll also mention that my supersport insurance cost went down over the course of about 3 years of having no tickets/accidents to about half the original quote. It was not my first bike.

If you’re doing the maintenance, then in general, it’s easier on things without full fairings. Some bikes you don’t have to remove panels others you absolutely do just to do simple stuff like changing the oil. I own a ZX6R and oil changes are quick and simple with no panel removals. Coolant swaps require taking about 15 panels off and the removal of the entire nose of the bike just to see the radiator cap. It takes several hours. Another 950cc naked I own the radiator cap is right there. Just drain and fill. No tools required. Something to keep in mind when looking around.

You mentioned being particular on maintenance and motorcycles have shorter intervals than cars do for basically everything. As well as new maintenance items like chain cleaning, lubrication, and slack adjustment. If you follow the manual, some of those are as frequent as 400-600 miles. Most don’t actually do it that frequently but it’s certainly an item to keep an eye on. A dirty/dry chain can rob power and accelerate chain wear(chains are not particularly cheap). A lot of failures in a car that would be a non-event can put you in the hospital on a motorcycle. Fluid leaks? Annoyance in a car. Coating your rear tire in oil or coolant on a motorcycle can cause a crash as both fluids are super slick.

My first bike was a used CBR300R(286cc) which is really just a standard single cylinder motorcycle with a fairly upright seating position but is fully fared like a super sport. It was dirt cheap to insure and got around 75 mpg and you got to rev the pants off it. I really wish I had kept that bike. I sold it for nearly what I paid for it. There was only one time I felt the lack of power was problematic and that was a combination of about 3-4 other things all aligning at the same time in the worst ways. Everything else you just need to be diligent and plan ahead. A basic riders course should go over that at length.

According to The Verge, 8GB of memory works mostly fine for basic tasks such as web browsing, text editing, and video streaming on YouTube and other streaming platforms. However, the laptop would hang or freeze "for several seconds" whenever someone joined a video call on Microsoft Teams.

Not surprising. Probably the only Microsoft app more bloated than Windows is Teams.

I still can’t tell Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard apart. I constantly misremember who is in what movie.