Americans wanted to beat the Soviets to the moon the first time around, and I don't think it was because they'd "been propagandized into the position that they alone are exceptional".
I think this desire is reasonable, but also completely misses two of the main reasons Tesla did their "everything mediated thru the touch screen" in the first place (besides cost, which TFA mentions).
1. It allows for having "presets" for everything configurable in the car. If you've ever shared a Tesla, you understand this: the driver's seat adjusts itself to the right position, as does the HVAC, etc. Everything being digitally mediated means I can loan my car to someone and when I get it back, all of my settings will be exactly as I left them.
2. It paves the way for "robotaxi". You don't need physical buttons geared towards maximum ergonomics of the driver if there is no driver. Obviously Tesla hasn't quite achieved that goal yet, but that is what they are aiming for so it makes sense they wouldn't invest much at all in driver ergonomics.
Similarly, the doorhandles being flush is not entirely about "looking futuristic", but is instead another way to squeeze every last drop of aerodynamics out of the vehicle, which is incredibly important for EVs.
The presets on my mercedes and my mustang and my honda fit work quite fine, thank you.
And these touch screens are cute until a product manager wants to show their marginally questionable value to the universe by changing the UI, buttons, placement etc. and now you are searching for the crucial functionality that you forgot to set or check, after the last OTA update occurred, before you started moving, and are now careening down the highway at 60 miles an hour...
Look at a hifi stereo unit: it has a physical volume knob, but at the same time the remote has up/down buttons. Same thing, presets work with physical buttons and knobs just fine.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this more criminal?
BAM / new franchisee claims that any consignment deal is null and void after their takeover. If they knowingly possess items that therefore do not belong to them legally (because they were never owned by the previous franchisee), is that not theft (and therefore criminal behavior)?
Like imagine the previous franchisee left their phone in the store. Then the new owners say "nah, it doesn't belong to me". But actually it does. That is theft.
Not sure I follow. Anthropic included benchmarks where GPT 5.5 outperforms Claude 4.8. Sure maybe that is a strategic error, but that doesn't seems to indicate benchmarks can't be trusted (I personally don't trust them, but not because of this).
SpaceX has been specifically engineering both the tiles themselves (e.g. manufacturing) and the way that are used on the ship to be much more rapidly repairable than the Shuttle.
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