Taiwan actually has an indigenous EV car called the Luxgen. Rode in one when I was there in January. It was an SUV. Nice enough - haven't been in enough SUV's to compare, but the "taxi" driver said he liked it. With Chinese EV's they are quite popular in Thailand. See a lot of them in BKK, and have seen showrooms for them also. BYD is probably the most popular.

Wholly agree.

That’s one I canceled. We literally go months and months without watching it. There’s one series Mayla watches so maybe next year we’ll turn it on for a month. And it’s crept up to over 300 per year.

Yeah I read that piece and it seems to be about Apple Watch data changing from version to version as much as any fault with the AI.

Exactly

FoxNews op-ed on the aforementioned university scientific research output ranking: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/harvard-gets-schooled-china-americas-universities-choose-activism-over-excellence It seems to boil down to "Harvard bad, DEI bad." It acknowledges China's state funding for scientific research, but silent on the Trump administration's cutting of scientific research funding.

A friend of mine lived in Argentina during their hyperinflation. Grocery stores would announce new prices on a loud speaker throughout the day. He remembers seeing a woman crying while putting back some groceries she could no longer afford after the latest announcement.

I went Saturday when the app said it was surprisingly empty. The app lied. Everyone was there trying to get one in before the snow.

When Alex Honnold risks his life climbing a skyscraper he’s a “legend” but when I risk my life day-drinking Bacardi and smoking Lamberts I’m a “bad parent”. Where’s the justice in that?

It’ll be a night launch. Wish it was daylight but that’s only possible for one or two of these dates in April. [image: 1769429526740-1655d638-aa34-41fa-82d4-0af9ebe482f4-image.png]

I hate when that happens.

@taiwan_girl I'd love to, but there's not a winning lottery ticket rich enough to finance that place. Its not really the usual stye I like, but it is attractive, the teak fittings and light. And we all want a retractable roof for stargazing. Yes, what is it with multi- bathroom residences these days. I mean, its good to know the outdoor privy is long gone, but surely two toilets are sufficient for most houses? That Bel Air home has four floors so 5 toilets per floor🤪 My mate is moving into a modern pretty-ordinary 3 floor semi-detached town house. Three bedrooms, four toilets. Why four, when one or two of those rooms could be more useful as storage or an extra hobby room etc.

This reminds me to remind you what I remind my kids all the time... how lucky are we to have aluminum in our lives? Such a cool metal and so many uses.

Very cool, I do that for my Christmas tree each year. I've been using the same gallon milk jug (with water, of course) and set up using Pascal's Principle (?) or whatever it's called where the water levels remain the same. I fill the jug up with water every few days as the tree sucks it up.

Fascinating idea, thanks for sharing!

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1428563248796091/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

As we speak I'm watching a red shouldered hawk perched in the neighbor's tree. he's patient - has been there for half an hour or more.

Interference in Iranian affairs is why we have that regime now. As much as I'd like to see them hung in the streets, we need to be very careful about regime change.

Interesting article. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2026/01/25/g-s1-106940/40-years-after-challenger-lingering-guilt-and-lessons-learned/ Bob Ebeling and other company engineers were watching at the Morton Thiokol booster rocket complex in Utah. They crowded into a conference room with Thiokol managers and executives; all focused on a large projection TV screen. The night before, in the same conference room, Ebeling and his colleagues had tried to convince NASA booster rocket program managers phoning in from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama that the cold weather made launching risky. The synthetic rubber O-rings lining the booster rocket joints stiffened in cold temperatures, and this would be the coldest launch ever by far. The Thiokol engineers feared blow-by would burn through both sets of O-rings, triggering an explosion at liftoff. At first, Thiokol's engineers and executives officially recommended a launch delay. But the NASA officials on the line pushed back hard. The launch had already been delayed five times. The NASA officials said the engineers couldn't prove the O-rings would fail. One of those engineers, looking back on it now, 40 years later, says it was an unachievable burden of proof. "It's impossible to prove that it's unsafe. Essentially, you have to show that it's going to fail," explains Brian Russell, who was a program manager at Morton Thiokol in 1986 and who was focused on the O-rings and booster rocket joints.