My EV Story

Steven Guccione

We got one of the first Tesla Model 3s. You might think it was my idea but it was my wife’s.  She put down the deposit, sight unseen many months in advance.  From the first time I drove it I was sold.  Fast, quiet, clean, low maintenance.  What else could you want in a car?  Nothing in the ensuing years has changed my mind.  Quite the opposite.

I figured it was only a matter of time before everyone bought an EV, especially with battery prices plummeting and batteries being around half the cost of the original Model 3.  And in some parts of the world that’s exactly what happened.  But not in the US.

Today there are stories in the press about the EV “bubble” being over.  Only for the US auto industry, which has failed to make a competitive product, even with subsidies.   Well, Tesla did have a good run until a series of bizarre decisions by their management trashed their brand.

Today China makes what are said to be very nice EVs for $10k.  But American auto buyers will never see them.  Nor will they see a $20k EV American auto manufacturers could surely make and sell, if they wanted to. Instead Americans will be paying $50k per car for last century’s technology.  It is a bit like the pharmaceutical industry now, but worse.  Americans will not be paying vastly more for the same product, but will be paying vastly more for an inferior one.

So much for free markets and capitalism.  Big oil and The Big Three (or is it Big Two these days?) will be profiteering and we will all be paying in so many ways while the rest of the world moves on into the 21st century without us.

Texas / New Mexico Border

Steven Guccione

I noticed on the news the other day that the eastern border of New Mexico isn’t square.  There is a jog at the Oklahoma panhandle.  Just a small one but I wondered what the story was.  It seems a surveying error and politics gave what should have been about 1,000 square miles of land over to Texas from New Mexico.  An interesting read from Texas Standard.

How A Bad Survey And Powerful Connections Added 1,000 Square Miles To Texas’ Lands

The Great Subscription Trap

Steven Guccione

I’ve never been a fan of streaming subscriptions.  The trend over time is always less content, higher prices, underpaid or even unpaid artists and, eventually, ads.  And since my musical tastes tend to be diverse if not unusual, lots of music I want to listen to simply is  not available on popular streaming services.  I recall the first three things I tried to listen to on Spotify weren’t available (I think it was Don Walser, Neil Young and Warren Zevon).  Not a good first impression.

I ripped my music from CDs eons ago and tend to keep my music in MP3 on a Plex server.  Even paid for a lifetime subscription to Plex.  It also manages my photos and movies.

These days I usually buy MP3s directly and download them.  But this week I had a CD I wanted to rip.  Popped it into the wife’s Windows PC, but everything was broken.  Especially tagging.  I get the feeling the Big Guys don’t want me to own music.  They want me to rent (from them).  So I went over to Linux to see what I could do.

Abcde was a nice front end and got me MP3s and even some CD information to name the files.  All command line, but simple.  Except I couldn’t get tagging to work.  Something missing.  I will revisit it and see if I can make it work, but for now went over to Picard and tagged the files and was done.

The Great Subscription Trap: How Streaming Broke Its Promise and What It Means for Everything Else

Lords of the World

Steven Guccione

A review from the London Review of Books of The Lives of Caesars, originally written during the Roman Empire by Suetonius.  It includes lots of rumors and stories of the vices of a dozen Roman emperors, including Caesar, Nero and Caligulia.  I suppose it was the Epstein files of its era.

Interesting to note that Caligulia was murdered at age 28, less than four years into his reign.  Nero lasted a bit longer, taking power at 16 but slitting his own throat at 30 after being declared an enemy of the state.

Lords of the World

Move Along. Nothing to See Here.

Steven Guccione

I try to avoid posting about politics and things that get  ample coverage elsewhere, but this is a bit too much of an outrage to pass up.

The FBI says no evidence of Epstein running a sex trafficking ring.  After years of hiding millions of documents, milions still withheld. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of victims telling the same story. After Trump officials promised a list of powerful men who victimized women at Epsteins properties then did everything to cover up this list.  After officials talked about reviewing pornography involving children.  After one person, strangely a woman, convicted and sent to jail for the crimes that now seem to have never happened.  After powerful men all over the world are being forced to resign and even being stripped of royal titles.  Just as a former president and former first lady agree to testify publicly, after having their names dragged through the mud for literally years.  No, nothing to see here.

Oh and release this statement on a Sunday morning just before the Superbowl.  Hoping nobody’s gonna notice?  I think we will.  I did.

AP review on what the Epstein files show about the FBI investigation of possible sex trafficking