Will Tesla’s only long-term competitive advantage turn out to be Dog Mode?

by philg

“Comparison Test: 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E vs. 2020 Tesla Model Y” (Car and Driver) has Ford crushing Tesla in every area except straight-line acceleration (useful in a country of 330+ million people using a road network designed for 150 million?) and charging network (#BidenWillFixByTaxingTheRich). The Ford Mach-E is built better, has a better user interface, offers more comfortable seats, is cheaper, and is quieter. The Ford accelerates 0-60 mph in 4.9 seconds, which should be more than fast enough for street driving.

A comment on the C&D article:

I can’t get over how bad Tesla interiors are. Take away the giant tablet in the middle and it’s completely empty inside. A $60k car with the interior quality of a Mitsubishi. The Mach E is cheaper and has better quality. If Ford is killing you in the quality department you have issues.

Loyal readers will recall my obsession with Dog Mode, going back to 2003 (see Car/Kennel). The legacy car companies seem to be refusing to add these 10 lines of code, perhaps because they don’t want to be held responsible if the feature is used improperly and a dog is baked to death? I wonder if therefore this will become Tesla’s only long-term competitive advantage vs. Ford, VW, Hyundai/Kia, Toyota, Honda, et al.

Also from Car and Driver: “Every Electric Vehicle That’s Expected in the Next Five Years”. It seems that there isn’t much interest in building the Toyota Camry of electric cars, i.e., a car that doesn’t purport to drive itself, that doesn’t accelerate faster than a C5 Corvette, that doesn’t have a huge touchscreen stuck in the middle of the dashboard, and that therefore doesn’t cost more than necessary.

Full post, including comments

Now that we have a country with no rental cars, who’s laughing at the flying car concept?

by philg

When the founders of Terrafugia, 15 years ago, showed me their pitch arguing that a flying car was more efficient for some class of trips than a Honda Accord or a traditional piston-powered airplane, I responded that (a) nobody could argue that a small airplane was a better practical transportation tool than a Honda Accord, except for trips to islands such as Martha’s Vineyard, and (b) given the few hundred aircraft they hoped to sell, they didn’t need to convince buyers to purchase based on rational requirements.

Why wasn’t it a big advantage to have a plane that could also be a car and thereby support the last 15 miles of a trip? Nearly every airport offered rental cars, I pointed out. For shorter duration needs, the more popular airports also had crew cars that Cessna and Cirrus pilots could borrow for free. UberX launched in 2012, further reducing the friction of the interface between air and ground.

Like most of my business advice, this turned out to be wrong. It just took 15 years for the wrongness to be obvious! Here in 2021 it is impossible to get rental cars and it is impossible for Uber to compete for labor with the U.S. government (i.e., people who would otherwise be driving Ubers are relaxing at home cashing checks from Uncle Joe; see We are very short staffed and no one wants a job right now).

(Recent conversation at our local airport with the guy working a rental car desk: “We can’t get any cars and we can’t hire anyone. Nobody wants to work. We’re sold out every weekend.”)

Related:

Full post, including comments

Why isn’t the cost of mining Bitcoin more or less equal to the current price of Bitcoin?

by philg

A comment on Is inflation already at 15-30 percent if we hold delivery time constant?:

GPU scarcity is entirely due to the growth of digital currency mining and the corresponding increase in demand for the chips that do the mining most efficiently. A top-end GPU can recoup the list price from digital currency mining in two months.

Why is the return on investment quick/high for Bitcoin mining? If the price of Bitcoin goes up, shouldn’t there be an almost immediate flood of people into the mining business such that the cost of mining rises to just below the selling price of Bitcoin?

An explanation of the mining process:

Once miners have verified 1 MB (megabyte) worth of Bitcoin transactions, known as a “block,” those miners are eligible to be rewarded with a quantity of bitcoin (more about the bitcoin reward below as well). The 1 MB limit was set by Satoshi Nakamoto, and is a matter of controversy, as some miners believe the block size should be increased to accommodate more data, which would effectively mean that the bitcoin network could process and verify transactions more quickly.

Note that verifying 1 MB worth of transactions makes a coin miner eligible to earn bitcoin—not everyone who verifies transactions will get paid out.

To earn bitcoins, you need to meet two conditions. One is a matter of effort; one is a matter of luck.

2) You have to be the first miner to arrive at the right answer, or closest answer, to a numeric problem. This process is also known as proof of work.

If mining is lucrative, e.g., because mining costs $5,000 in carbon-spewing electricity while Bitcoin is selling for $40,000, shouldn’t so many new miners flood in that it would be less probable to “be the first miner to arrive at the right answer”? This would effectively raise the cost of mining and the process should continue until mining costs $39,000+.

I suspect that I’m missing something. “Why The Actual Cost Of Mining Bitcoin Can Leave It Vulnerable To A Deep Correction” (mid-2020):

In early 2020, researchers predicted the cost to mine Bitcoin will be at around $12,000 to $15,000 after the block reward halving in May. But, it is now much cheaper to mine BTC than the initial estimates. The low breakeven price to mine Bitcoin may leave it vulnerable to a correction.

Bitcoin has become more affordable to mine in recent weeks due to two main factors: difficulty adjustments and cheaper electricity in Sichuan, China due to the rainy season.

A low breakeven price of Bitcoin can raise the probability of a price pullback because miners have more incentive to sell BTC, which may increase selling pressure in the short-term.

“To be completely accurate: Given current difficulty, 0.04$/kWh and S9 running custom firmware bringing it down to 71W per TH efficiency. The cost to mine 1 BTC is 8206.64$. Meaning its still profitable,” one miner said.

Maybe my theory isn’t contradicted by this article. At the time it was written, the market price of Bitcoin was $9,626. But what is the cost of mining today relative to the market price of existing Bitcoin?

Full post, including comments

Why didn’t we ever get convenient neighborhood COVID-19 testing?

by philg

We spent $trillions purportedly fighting COVID-19. We said that testing was critical to this fight. There is empty retail space all over the U.S. (thanks partly to closures ordered by governors!). Why didn’t we ever get COVID testing that was actually convenient, fast, and simple?

Plainly it can be done. Here’s a storefront COVID-19 testing center near Times Square (June 12 photo):

Why weren’t there storefronts like this all over the U.S., starting around April 2020, the fees paid via the government money printing press?

Related:

Full post, including comments

Turn opprobrium into praise by identifying as LGBTQIA+?

by philg

Happy Pride Month again! Don’t forget that

Suppose that we hear about a financially secure 90-year-old white American having sex with a 31-year-old “Brown” immigrant? That’s an unequal power dynamic, right? And we would condemn this relationship, I’m sure. Former Miss Ukraine Oleksandra Nikolayenko isn’t especially brown, but she’s 40 years old and we don’t see a lot of media praise regarding her marriage to Phil Ruffin (86-year-old billionaire).

What if Mx. Nikolayenko said “I identify as a man” and Phil Ruffin said “I am gay”? Then we would have a love story suitable for publication… “‘I Found Love At 90 With A 31-Year-Old—After Finally Coming Out'” (Newsweek):

When he arrived, John was dressed in black with his black mask. We actually both had our masks on right up until the salad course was brought out. That was the first time we actually saw each other. We got talking and soon found that we had lots in common. Neither one of us smokes or drinks and neither of us uses foul language. We talked about shows that we liked and things we both enjoy around town; we both really like Asian food.

They had as much in common, in other words, as any two people selected at random from the Chinese population of 1.4 billion.

Young John is not prosperous:

He had three roommates so I didn’t visit him as it would have been less comfortable for us.

John is an immigrant:

John is originally from Mexico, where there are plenty of tarantulas, but he’s afraid of them.

Their friends are implicitly against polyamory:

Most of our friends now are also gay, and a number of them are in younger/older unions or marriages. It really doesn’t come up, nobody says anything about it because we’re two people who are happy together. That’s all our friends care about. Whenever it comes up in Facebook comments—and it does come up—I say that age is just a number. Of course it is an important number, but it is just a number.

Just a number? Let’s compare to Jeffrey Epstein, who died at age 66. It was disgusting when Epstein was 61 and there was a possibility of sex with a 19-year-old. See “‘UNCLE’ JEFF’S PLOT Jeffrey Epstein hatched plot to marry ex girlfriend’s 19-year-old daughter to give her £40m inheritance”:

JEFFREY Epstein told pals he wanted to marry the teen daughter of his beauty queen ex who called him “Uncle Jeff”, it has been claimed.

Celina Dubin, now aged 24, is the daughter of doctor and former Miss Sweden Eva Andersson Dubin – who the paedo dated in the 1980s.

Epstein reportedly enjoyed a close relationship with Eva and her husband Glenn Dubin – who she married in 1994 – a billionaire hedge-fund manager from New York City.

And in 2014, the sex offender, then aged 61, told friends that if he was ever to marry he would choose then-19-year-old Celina, reports Business Insider.

He said that he wanted the teenager to inherit his fortune and that marriage would help her avoid inheritance taxes, the report claims.

That same year, Epstein – who died in prison in August while facing child sex trafficking charges – named Celina as a beneficiary to his $500m fortune.

A source familiar with the millionaire’s estate told Business Insider that the young girl would have inherited $50m – however the paedo banker removed her from his will in 2015 for unknown reasons.

The Dubins reportedly spent holidays with Epstein even after his conviction in 2008 for having sex with a minor.

What if Celina Dubin had said “My pronouns are he/him/his” and Jeffrey Epstein had said “I am gay and find all three of the guys pictured below attractive, including Mr. Eva Dubin on the left and Mr. Celina Dubin on the right of the photo”? Now the romance between Mr. Epstein and Mr. Celina Dubin would be heartwarming instead of “gross”?

Full post, including comments

Good news for Californians who spent all of their money on marijuana

by philg

Both medical and recreational marijuana stores were open throughout California’s coronapanic shutdown. “Amid coronavirus pandemic, California gov classifies cannabis industry as ‘essential’ during state’s effective lockdown” (March 21, 2020):

Under a clarification document Gov. Gavin Newsom issued late Friday, all licensed marijuana businesses in California can continue with business as usual during an effective statewide lockdown implemented in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

The decision to categorize cannabis companies as “essential” in effect provides an economic lifeline to the marijuana industry by allowing MJ businesses to keep their doors open.

The entire cannabis supply chain – including all state-licensed MJ businesses such as farmers, distributors, manufacturers and testing labs – also are considered “essential” under the state policy, according to Nicole Elliott, senior adviser on cannabis in Newsom’s Office of Business and Economic Development.

Elliott noted there’s no differentiation between “medical” and “recreational” cannabis companies, which means every licensed marijuana business that chooses to continue operations during the lockdown can stay open.

In a separate news release, the state Bureau of Cannabis Control said: “Because cannabis is an essential medicine for many residents, licensees may continue to operate at this time so long as their operations comply with local rules and regulations.”

What about Californians who didn’t pay their landlords because the CDC has thus far blocked evictions and it was more important to purchase “essential” marijuana? “California Has a Plan to Pay the Back Rent for Low-Income Tenants. All of It.” (NYT, June 21):

A $5.2 billion program in final negotiations at the State Legislature would pay 100 percent of unpaid rent that lower-income Californians incurred during the pandemic and would be financed entirely by federal money. The state is also proposing to set aside $2 billion to pay for unpaid water and electricity bills.

The state’s separate rental relief program would be available to residents who earn no more than 80 percent of the median income in their area and who can show pandemic-related financial hardship. In San Francisco, a family of four would have to earn less than $146,350 to qualify.

So if you’re a working class American in the Midwest, paying rent on an apartment and paying taxes to the federal government, your hard-earned dollars will go to bail out California stoners earning $146,000 per year, so long as those Californians said “I prefer not to” when their landlords asked them to pay rent.

From 2019, when it was legal to have an in-person class at a college in San Francisco:

And, since it is Pride Month, we can take Pride in the Eros club (reopened long before the San Francisco Public Schools because bathing with friends is “essential”?):

(Of course I am Proud to have been in the Castro (dinner with a patent litigator), but I merely walked by Eros and did not go in. So my Pride level is only at 10 percent.)

Full post, including comments

Official business victimhood designations

by philg

A form from a university vendor portal, in which one is asked to enter one’s “Diversity Classification”. Here are the federally recognized victimhood categories for a business (including individual proprietors operating on a Schedule C basis):

Wouldn’t almost anyone qualify as “physically challenged”? Compare yourself to these four individuals who were chosen at random:

Wouldn’t you be at least 80 percent disabled compared to any of the above? (in the sense that you wouldn’t be able to do more than 20 percent of what they can do)

Why is checking boxes important?

Full post, including comments

Our Juneteenth ice cream cake

by philg

From the weekend, our Juneteenth ice cream cake:

Togetherness and love for the chocolate and vanilla. Rainbow sprinkles to celebrate all of the varieties of love among humans (including poly!) that we valorize during Pride Month.

Provenance: We invited over an immigrant (from Switzerland) to celebrate National Immigrant Heritage Month (for those who seek to minimize the number of immigrants with whom they interact, Joe Biden says “America is, always has been, and always will be a Nation of immigrants.” (perhaps an unwelcome message for Native Americans!)) and she arrived with this cake in a box.

Full post, including comments

ICUs were clogged during coronaplague partly because relatives couldn’t visit

by philg

Our anonymous hero behind Medical School 2020 is working in a hospital now. Part of his residency training has included shifts in the intensive care unit. There he has gained some insight into why American ICUs became clogged during COVID-19 peaks.

“Hospitals wouldn’t let relatives come in to see the patients,” he said. “A patient with no long-term chance of survival can’t be unplugged with relatives approving ‘goals of care.’ But people are reluctant to approve unplugging a loved one if they aren’t able to see the patient and understand the patient’s situation.” In other words, without relatives coming into the ICU, the docs and nurses had no “goals of care” and therefore kept patients on ventilators for weeks after they would ordinarily have been unplugged.

Full post, including comments

Four weeks to flatten the curve (U.S. keeps the border closed)

by philg

From the Biden administration:

In other words… “4 weeks to flatten the curve” (“reduce the spread”).

How is this supposed to work? Can’t anyone come in from Canada or Mexico currently, so long as he/she/ze/they says that he/she/ze/they is seeking asylum? (“The Justice Department Overturns Policy That Limited Asylum For Survivors Of Violence” (NPR, June 16, 2021) says “in effect, restoring the possibility of asylum protections for women fleeing from domestic violence in other countries”, but the law should apply to people with all gender IDs, just as the “Violence Against Women Act” in theory can be used by those who identify as “men”. So if two people live together and say that they hit each other, both should be able to apply for asylum, emigrate to the U.S., and move in together to continue their domestic arrangements.)

The Canadian side of Niagara Falls, June 2019.

From the Cirrus:

Related:

Full post, including comments