Alright, I’ll take the bait. Let’s do some recreational math

This web page contains average passenger car fuel efficiency broken down by year. The most recent year available is 2016, so we’ll use that: 9.4 km/L or 22.1 miles per gallon. A gallon of gas has about 120MJ of energy in it. So, an average car requires about 120,000,000 / (1/22.1) = 5.4MJ per mile

This web page has calories burned for different types of exercise. I separately searched and found that the average adult in the US weighs around 200LBS, so we’ll use the 205LBS data, and I’m going to assume that “cycling - 10-11.9 MPH” is representative of the average commuter who isn’t in too much of a hurry. That gives us 558 calories per hour, or 55.8 calories per mile (using the low end of the 10 to 11.9mph range). That’s equal to about 0.23MJ per mile (as an aside, it’s important to note that the calories commonly used when talking about diet and exercise, are actual kilocalories equal to 1000 of the SI calories you learned about in school.)

Moral of the story: an average bike ride consumes around 20x less energy than an average drive of the same distance.

For anyone else who’s never heard of hydrogen reduced steel before, here’s the gist as far as I could understand from a quick web search:

Raw iron ore is usually mined as iron oxide. To make that into metallic iron, you need a way split up the iron oxide molecules and carry the oxygen atoms away. This is traditionally done in a blast furnace using coal. In addition to being burned as fuel, the coal also provides carbon atoms, which will rip the oxygen off the iron and use it to form carbon dioxide instead.

The hydrogen reduction process proposes to substitute hydrogen for carbon. This changes the byproduct from carbon dioxide to dihydrogen monoxide, AKA water.

I’m a little disappointed that the article didn’t put more emphasis on the fact that this latest instance is proof that earlier statements from the manufacturer were straight-up lies.

Back in February, when Stellantis (the parent company of RAM) was caught doing the same thing in Jeeps, they gave an official statement:

This was an in-vehicle message designed to inform Jeep customers about Mopar extended vehicle care options. A temporary software glitch affected the ability to instantly opt out in a few isolated cases, though instant opt-out is the standard for all our in-vehicle messages. Our team had already identified and corrected the error, and we are following up directly with the customer to ensure the matter is fully resolved.

Even at the time, that statement was dishonestly trying to pretend like the problem was that the message kept coming back, rather than the problem being its existence in the first place. But, even if you give them a pass on that, they said in no uncertain terms that “instant opt-out is the standard for all our in-vehicle messages.”

This article says that the only way to permanently opt out of the messages in the RAM is to call a customer service number. That’s not “instant” buy any definition I’ve ever heard.

So, in conclusion, this is the third time stellantis has been caught doing this, and they’ve lied about it on at least one of those occasions in the past. Anyone considering purchasing a stellantis vehicle should assume that these ads will continue, will most likely become more aggressive, and any promises to the contrary aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

Absolutely. I’m as skeptical as anyone of companies cramming AI where it doesn’t belong, but this story is just Hertz being a shitty company and using AI as a scapegoat. Anyone with two braincells to rub together knows that when you’re implementing a new automatic system like this, you start out with the sensitivity turned way down and give human employees an easy way to override its rulings.

I’m happy to believe that the people running Hertz are dumb, but there’s no way they’re that dumb. They did this on purpose because they knew it would make them a ton of money in bogus fees, and they could just shift all the blame onto the AI.

Not just groceries. I’ve been trying to move as much of my business as possible to private/local options.

• Credit union for financial services
• Local pharmacy instead of Wallgreens/CVS.
• Independent barber shop instead of a national chain.
• Local mechanic instead of taking my car back to the dealership for service.

Making these changes is not only my own small expression of disapproval against the behavior of corporate America, but it also keeps more of my money circulating within the local economy where it helps to strengthen the community instead of being shipped off to Wallstreet.

I suppose an extra sentence in the first paragraph could have made things clearer, but the AAR, which is the focus of the article, is an industry trade group made up of companies that operate trains in north America. Those are the “operators” in question.

No Man’s Sky

Isn’t this the one that crashed and burned on launch, but the devs owned their mistakes and put a ton of work into patching and upgrading? What a fuckin redemption arc for it to end up on this list unironically.

I’m reminded of this video about how changes to the construction industry starting in the '50s resulted in the loss of ornamentation in architecture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBOXF-FION4

Fun fact: Victorinox has been operating since 1884 and has never had to lay off an employee.

To avoid this they set aside profits during boom periods to supplement recessionary periods

What a novel idea.

https://labor411.org/411-blog/this-company-has-never-laid-off-an-employee-100-of-which-have-been-with-the-company-for-over-40-years/