My electrician drives an electric F-150, it's impressive how useful it is for him. The frunk carries a big box of tools, there's tons of outlets to charge his power tool batteries, he can even run a small welder
I justified the lightning purchase to my partner by pointing out having an equivalent whole house battery backup in Tesla power walls would be more expensive than the truck
We've not hooked up the transfer switch yet but we have ran a lot of extension cords during an ice storm last year and kept all our aquariums going, all 700 gallons of them
If you’ve had it for that long without installing the crucial part of what you described above as a major selling point, I think that would have been useful to volunteer in the original comment lol.
The extension cord thing was interesting too, but “I sold my partner on a feature that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth to set up” is super relevant to discussion!
We haven't needed to yet. Our primary concern are those aquariums and it worked wonderfully for them when we needed it. Much better than running through over a hundred dollars a day in propane to keep them running, and the truck parks in an insulated garage so no cords to a generator through a window letting the cold in
Have you seen the prices of pre-owned Honda/Toyota sedans that are less than 5 years old? There are absolutely cars out there where trading in your new car after 3-4 years can make sense depending on the cost of the car, the depreciation curve, and whether you want to always be driving a relatively new car. Of course it's almost always going to be a better value proposition to drive the car for 10 years if you can, but that can still depend on depreciation.
Low mileage used cars don't come with a warranty, or probably have a more limited warranty if they're CPO.
Leases can be better, but again they are usually better choices in high depreciation scenarios (like luxury vehicles or EVs, as you point out), not low depreciation scenarios.
> Also electric cars get killed on the depreciation curve.
I have heard this a couple of times now, and I believe it. Is the cause battery wear or pure demand (buyers don't want used EVs for various non technical reasons)?
In California, at one point, you could get a few thousand rebate, if you were in the Central Valley, and additional few thousand rebate. Some local cities gave rebates on top of that, and the federal tax rebate on that. Buy a $45k Model 3 and get back $13k-$15k just for buying it. Rebates like that are going to play havoc with resale values. On top of that, new Tesla's went down in price over the past several years. I think as these incentives taper off we'll see more of a stable drop off.
A local couple runs a hot food stall at outdoor markets all over the city by backing theirs up to the stall and plugging in all the kitchen things they need into the outlets in the bed.
I have the powerboost hybrid F-150. It does all this, can power a house with the generator, AND I can drive it through the mountain west with zero EV infrastructure at insanely high MPG for a truck. Plopped a Tune camper on the back and couldn’t ask for more.
Same. In a Powerboost, pulling my 5000 pound boat 500 miles to north Idaho is super easy, with a single refuel. In a Lightning that would be a nightmare, recharging 4-5 times. In truth, I’m excited about Ford’s pivot. I think electric motors with a range extender would be fantastic. Like the Chevy Volt for pickups.
That’s pretty cool, and I just checked the prices and it only starts at 11k dearer than the standard f150, which is less than I expected. Interesting.
What’s more insane to me as an Australian is its 50k USD starting price in America, but in Australia it starts at $149k USD as they’re only sold by third parties that do right hand drive conversions (at imo a way too high premium, 100k for that service + shipping???)
I don't think so, not like it was once upon a time. I had a manual 6-cylinder I bought in about 2002 for around $14000, no leather, 2wd extended cab. That's like $25k in today's dollars according to Google. If they made a basic truck for even $40k as EV it might sell a lot better, but I am pretty sure they are all about selling 60k+ trucks for profit.
There's a 100% tariff on top of all the regulatory and political hurdles that prevent BYD from selling in the US, but it shows that a very nice truck can be built for $40k.
Americans are not allowed to have better quality, lower priced Chinese vehicles because they have to suffer the incompetence, failure, abuse, and plunder by their ruling class due to … the decades of incompetence, failure, abuse, and plunder of their parasitic and alien ruling class.
It is easy to understand what the tariffs are attempting and why, but what supporters don’t get is that at the very least it’s all wrong in sequence and timing, not to mention poorly executed due to the schizophrenic and manic nature of American politics that is dominated by the president’s supposed term limits and warfare of memes people believe. “A day late and a dollar short” has probably never been more appropriate.
The inherent problem with empire and reserve currency is that it supplies a drug to a ruling class that is already inherently prone to excess.
“ The first archetype, Euro premiums, has an average labor cost of $2,232 per vehicle and includes premium brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, and Audi. This group is characterized by high production costs, complex design and advanced manufacturing processes, and strong labor unions.
Within the category, German manufacturers face among the highest labor costs of $3,307 due to stringent regulations and high wage rates.
The second archetype, electric vehicle-only manufacturers, includes startups as well as more established players like Tesla, which do not operate under organized labor contracts. Their average labor costs range from $1,502 to $13,291, and they face high per vehicle production costs due to low manufacturing volumes. EV-only manufacturers also have been heavily reliant on government subsidies, which are now being cut back by the new administration.
The third archetype, mainstream model manufacturers, has an average labor cost of $880 per vehicle and includes traditional high-volume automakers from various countries. Japanese manufacturers enjoy lower labor costs per vehicle, with an average of $769, compared with manufacturers in the United States, where the average is $1,341 — a labor cost per vehicle that reflects recent historic union gains.
The fourth archetype, Chinese car manufacturers, has an average labor cost of $585 per vehicle, characterized by low wages and high efficiency. The group maintains the lowest overall conversion costs in the industry by leveraging its newer factories, efficient supply chains, and high production volumes” - https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2025/apr/...
The F-150 Lightning Pro trim is the closest thing to this, and aside from the first year generally has only sold to fleets.
Theres also the Chevy Silverado EV WT trim which is a similar base model trim, but with the huge heavy battery its paired with it's still an expensive truck.
You can only get the Lightning from the factory as a super crew with a center console, but some people have converted theirs to a front bench and column shifter for a total of six seats.
I read the Ars Technica version [0], completely insane read if true (LLM allegedly painted target on mom, convinced him he was the matrix's Neo, but kung-fu was already pre-uploaded, etc...)
The paper compares p-computers with D-Wave's quantum annealing machine, which is limited to only solving certain problems (as opposed to universal QC such as Google or IonQ's, that could in theory implement Shor's)
For Hitler, the rights to the original text of Mein Kampf (and probably many of his other writings) went to Bavaria after he died.
However various translations and abridgements were made with their own copyright.
Houghton Mifflin owns the rights to the US version of Mein Kampf, which was published in the 30s with a lot of the Hitler-iest parts removed (the rights are separate from the British version even though the text is identical). During WW2 and even up until the 1970s, the US government confiscated the royalties that were owed to Hitler.
Houghton Mifflin was eventually able to purchase the full rights. After an article in 2000 about how profitable it was, they started donating the profits to Holocaust-related charities. A few years ago they decided to go back to pocketing the money.
Dogs are certainly better at looking intelligent. I think dogs, being a more social animal, are more eager to please, and so are willing to be trained.
Cats can vary wildly. One of my cats seems dumb as a box of rocks and haven't even grasped the idea of object permanence. If she's tracking a laser, and I move it around a corner, she can't figure out where it went. She goes from intense staring and tracking to standing up and looking around, confused. When I bring the laser back around the corner, she's instantly back to squatting and tracking it.
Our dog remembers the location of toys at the park over long periods of time, though being able to sniff them out probably helps. He also expresses genuine surprise and suspicion when he sees novel objects (e.g. the large Christmas tree that was put up in the park, a horse and rider), because he knows they're not usually there. He doesn't like fat people, which is embarrassing, but I also knew a dog as a teenager that freaked out anytime it saw someone who wasn't Asian. Just given the amount of back and forth communication that happens between most owners and their dogs, they're very clever. Cats are some of the best hunters in the animal kingdom, but I've never felt that they're there in the way that dogs are.
> Cats can vary wildly. One of my cats seems dumb as a box of rocks and haven't even grasped the idea of object permanence
Similarly I've seen cats have one of two reactions to a mirror: ignoring it entirely or actually using it by e.g. looking me in the eyes and meowing at me through it. While I've not witnessed it personally on the internet there's also tons of videos of cats freaking out and trying to fight the other cat in the mirror.
This supports the idea that the gamut of intelligence in cats is quite wide.
I had a cat once who didn’t grasp the idea of a box having an inside. I used a cardboard box as a laundry basket and when folding laundry, I would ball pairs of socks and toss them inside the box. He always ran behind the box and couldn’t figure out where the socks went.
I had a cat for a while that seemed surprisingly capable when he was motivated. The most interesting thing I saw him pull off was pushing a heavy bag of cat food off the top of a refrigerator to split it open.
Occasionally, he'd demonstrate the ability to plan too. When he started to get territorial and start fights with neighborhood cats, we started keeping him inside. Naturally, this didn't sit right with him. After watching someone enter the house every day in the evening, eventually, he would perch next to the door in the evening waiting to bolt out the moment the door opened.
Dogs and cats have different modalities for intelligence.
Dogs are social animals that have evolved to be human companions a long time ago. This is why they are "trainable" and, therefore, seem more intelligent.
Cats are not; they are extremely good hunters that by and large tolerate humans in exchange for easy access to food and water. You can't really train them, but they will find hiding spots you didn't even know existed and you will NEVER have problems with mice with one around.
I'll echo Sohcahtoa's sibling comment to yours, but with a different pair of species: horses and donkeys (mules count as donkeys for this one).
Donkeys have a reputation for being stupid and stubborn because they're smarter than horses. Too independent for easy training, and will refuse an idiotic command.
I don't really understand this. Isn't it about as surgically invasive as getting a pet spayed?
Does the scent gland do anything more than just stinking? For a cat, removing the claws literally removes bones from them. It limits their mobility and hurts like hell.
(Not that I want a pet skunk. Just curious as to why it's unethical)
>Does the scent gland do anything more than just stinking?
It's part of their communication system. There's no direct corollary in human qualia, but you might say it's akin to permanently destroying your ability to flirt or tell other people that something belongs to you. You would still experience the impulse, but not have the cognitive equipment to do so any longer. Removing scent glands destroys the physiological equipment, of course.
That's a wildly stretched metaphor. Spraying a threat with a chemical weapon so powerful it will deter a hungry predator is not akin to winking at a cute girl or boy.
And if the scent gland is "part of their communication system", then a loaded 45 is part of a (domesticated, modern) human's.
Skunks use their anal scent glands as a defensive weapon, yes, and it's thought that this is their primary use. However, until recently, it was also thought that skunks didn't scent mark at all. It turns out that they do, through body-rubbing, like cats. It stands to reason then that we might also be wrong about the functions of their anal glands, and that (as with most carnivores) they serve some sort of less-extreme communication function in addition to the last-resort defense. But threat displays are also part of a human's communication system, yes.
In any case, there are differing accounts as to whether removal affects the animal, and also whether it's even necessary to prevent spray incidents.
I mean, you're removing part of a living animal for human convenience. If the ethical issue isn't obvious I don't know what to tell you.
The practice has been banned in the UK for almost 20 years, under the exact same laws as ban declawing cats. It's unnecessary mutilation with no medical justification.
We neuter male cats so they don’t spray piss everywhere and spay female cats so they don’t go into heat and scream incessantly to be let outside.
Both procedures seem slightly more invasive than removing a scent gland in a skunk, given that it removes the sex organs that secrete hormones and changes their behavior for the rest of their life.
It’s possible that a skunk gets anxious when it tries to spray and nothing comes out, I can’t say I’m an expert in skunk behavior, it just seems less invasive than spaying or neutering to me.
We do a lot of bad things to animals for human convenience. Including forced breeding and raising them to be slaughtered.
The ethics is murky to me because I assume the procedure doesn't cause lasting pain and allows the animals to be pampered pets. The alternative is they are kept wild.
There are plenty of quite happy non-descented skunks out there.
They don’t just go around spraying. It’s a defense mechanism - pretty much their only one as a matter of fact. Tame pets are very unlikely to spray anyone not trying to hurt them.
A few years back (10 maybe?) they had a disk crash, and there was a notice that for people with 100 or more problems solved they'd do an extra effort to recover their solutions and add you back, not sure if it was only posted on the main website. I was lucky to get my account back at the time
Ah okay, I was active there 9-12 years ago, so it migh been before the crash. I remember checking it, however, 7 years ago, and I was still able to log in.
A few years ago I was evaluating options to move away from a deprecated external latex library my company relied on in Confluence, and tested Notion. I was super impressed at the rendering speed of their latex implementation (KaTex of course). As other have mentioned, not everything is there, but it was sufficiently good for our purposes. The switch was a pain, I hoped that Notion had good tools to move over from Confluence, but we had to do a custom job relying on sketchy undocumented APIs
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