But think of the shareholder value they created! (/s)
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When I buy a cheep consumer router, I make sure that it can be flashed with OpenWrt. It has updates, and has a consistent interface, especially when the native UI does things in a weird way. (Looking at you TP-Link!)
This. I find that if it’s something I only do or revisit every six months or so, it’s like starting from scratch without notes.
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I installed a pi-hole about a year ago. I should have done it much earlier.
Operating it is pretty simple. Configure your pi-hole’s address as your DHCP-assigned DNS provider. You then create groups of various client machines in your network, and assign blocklists to those groups. Blocklists can be created and curated by yourself, or you can “subscribe” to zero or more of the curated lists created and maintained by other people.
Many of the available lists are specialized to IoT devices. For example I have a couple of Amazon FireTVs that are in constant chatter with their home servers. Even though all traffic is HTTPS, people have taken the time to monitor traffic on their FireTVs and created blocklists of addresses that don’t provide functionality. So I grouped my FireTVs and subscribed them to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/AmazonFireTV.txt which blocks several third party trackers used by FireTV, plus an Amazon tracking site.
It’s nice because it doesn’t take up much space in my brain. Once set up, it just quietly and effectively blocks trackers.
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Seriously, this is the main thing (other than, you know, the money for a new car) stopping me from going all in on an electric vehicle. I would love the EV equivalent of a dumbphone.
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It’s probably no coincidence though that these cars are only available in Europe
Um…there’s a Renault dealership right in the heart of Tijuana. 
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It would be interesting to start a car company, explicitly not do this, and find out exactly who invites you over for a cup of tea and a discreet chat. 
I was about to expound on the same points about information, control and organization over-reach as had been made, more eloquently, about 4 years ago. This, in part from my enthusiasm for my page-turner du jour: “Seeing like a State”. I shall refrain. 
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Can they be imported to the US?
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I suppose so. Even by resale into San Diego, maybe? I know that vehicles sold in Mexico can be driven into the U.S. on visas, like if someone wanted to go visit relatives it would be permitted within a certain window before it would need to be altered to adhere to smog regulations in California.
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Just finished this book, “The Internet Con” by Cory, and it’s a great book.
as usual, don’t buy it at Amazon.
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Some slightly successful blowback:
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"People feel that they paid double — which was actually not true, but perception is reality, I always say. So that was the reason we stopped that.”
Uh. People did pay double. You sold them a car with heated seats, then made them pay again for the privilege of being able to flip the switch on those seats.
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Yeah, that quote stood out to me too. We’re not stupid.
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The intel SX/DX con. Or like how Tesla extended everyone’s range during a disaster thus showing that actually Tesla was stealing from them the whole time.
Fuck all that noise.
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These Canadians are doing some interesting things making hybrid electric semi trucks
https://www.edisonmotors.ca/
I find their videos entertaining
https://www.youtube.com/@EdisonMotors
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We put software in nearly everything, and started thinking of software as a service we can turn on and off.
It’s logical to sell people said service.
It is also a logical target for hacking. I’ve got a name for a specific hack already. Let us call it the BMWBoilingBalls hack, short 3B.
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Is that the hack where you pay the ransomware guy to turn the seat heaters off?
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It only costs 3B. Bitcoin, that is.
Brainstorm: install a bitcoin mining rig in the car and you won’t need heated seats!
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I like the idea of hacking BMW to mine bitcoin. How’s their GPU?
I also like the idea of a win-win hack. The person who owns the car gets a hot ass if they want one, and I get some money for that. As a bonus, they do not pay BMW and don’t pay me, so they do not have an incentive to involve anyone who would try to prevent that.
… the one it’s using for emergency obstacle avoidance?
