lh7777

The Supreme Court still gets to weigh in before companies can start asking for their money back. From the decision:

The Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate through October 14, 2025, during which the parties may file a petition for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court. If, within that period, any party notifies the Clerk in writing that it has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, the Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate pending (1) the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari or (2) a judgment of the Supreme Court if certiorari is granted. While the issuance of the mandate is withheld, the United States Court of International Trade shall take no further action in this case.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cafc.23...

Edited to remove hyphens that copied in from the PDF source.

Personally, I'm more dismayed by this change:

Apps that haven’t been updated with Tahoe-compliant everything-fits-in-a-squircle icons are put in “squircle jail” — their non-Tahoe-compliant icons are shrunk and placed atop a drab gray Tahoe squircle background, to force them into squircle compliance.

I've been replacing some app icons with their older, non-square versions for years (Firefox is probably my favorite). Will be disappointing to lose that option -- I've never understood why Apple feels the need to standardize app icons like this.

Another option is to use the temporary address change form instead of the permanent one. You can have your mail temporarily forwarded for up to a year. Permanent forwarding also only lasts for a year. The only difference is that the USPS notifies everyone of your new address for permanent forwarding, but not for temporary. Just keep an eye out for any forwarded mail and notify the sender yourself if it’s something you want to keep receiving.

Your local library might offer free access to Consumer Reports -- Seattle does: https://www.spl.org/online-resources/consumer-and-diy

This drives me crazy. I have saved searches for various power tools within a few hundred mile radius. Most of what I see are duplicate posts from people cross-posting in adjacent regions, the same items re-posted weekly (or more frequently), and irrelevant listings that show up due to keyword spamming. I wish there was a way for me to say "I've seen this ad, don't send it to me again unless the price drops". Have been thinking about building some kind of filtering software to eliminate re-posts -- anyone know of a project that does this?

In my area, fiber and cable aren’t available. If you’re lucky, you can get 5 mbps DSL for $70+ per month.

The only credible options are WISP, Starlink, and cellular. WISP is the same price as Starlink and is slower / less reliable. Cellular is cheaper but gets slow at peak hours.

In short, the local WISP has been losing a lot of customers to Starlink and T-Mobile Home Internet.

I rented a Bolt from Hertz last December and their policy at the time was:

“Return your EV at the same charge level as pick-up and pay $0. Or return your EV at any level for a $25 Recharge Fee.”

They were pretty lenient about the return charge — it was close to 100% to start and 80% when I returned it, but they didn’t charge me the $25. Even if they had, the EV rental rate was cheap enough that I would’ve still come out ahead vs. renting a gas car.

Backblaze Personal does support encryption, but it's always been incomplete. If you supply your own encryption key, it's true that Backblaze can't read your data at rest. But to restore files, you have to send your key to Backblaze's server, which will then decrypt the data so that you can download it. They say that they never store the key and promptly delete the unencrypted files from the server, but to me this is still an unnecessary risk. There's no reason why they couldn't handle decryption locally on the client device, but they justify on-server decryption in the name of convenience -- you can restore files via the web without downloading an app. If you're concerned about this, the solution is to use B2 with a 3rd party app like Arq.

One nit to pick — Solidworks is owned by Dassault, a French company, but got its start at MIT and was developed in Massachusetts for many years. I’m not sure where they’re based now, though.

Catia, another Dassault 3D CAD platform that predates Solidworks, is French.

I plan to add mechanical brakes to the reaction wheels...This enables jump-up manoeuvers which in turn enable the cube to get to its equilibrium position on its own.

Looking forward to this -- I always thought that was the coolest part of the Cubli project. Here's a video: https://youtu.be/n_6p-1J551Y?t=92

Here, they're only 8 cents each -- not much incentive to treat them as reusable. Plus these "reusable" plastic bags are magnets for dirt and difficult to clean.

I wouldn't write off cork as insulation so easily -- fluffy insulation (fiberglass and cellulose) doesn't cover every scenario.

For example, Washington State's energy code now requires continuous exterior insulation. Putting a continuous layer of rigid insulation on the outside of the building reduces heat loss due to thermal bridging (conduction through the studs).

The most common material for this purpose, in the US anyway, is foam (polystyrene or polyisocyanurate). Other options are mineral wool, fiberboard, and cork. Mineral wool and fiberboard are pretty expensive compared to foam and I imagine that cork would be similar or even more expensive. But a cool thing about cork is that it can double as both insulation and cladding. I don't know if that makes it an economical choice, but someone's marketing cork for this purpose right here in Washington [1].

[1] https://www.smallplanetsupply.com/thermacork

Edit: fixed a typo

There’s also Winnebago, which is publicly traded and owns a number of other RV and boat brands.

Confusingly, "Thou" (thousandth) and "mil" (mille, Latin for thousand) are the same thing: 0.001". Thou is definitely more common, but mil persists for film thickness, e.g. 4 mil trash bags are made from 0.004" plastic film.

In precision machining, you'll also hear "tenths" (one tenth of a thou or 0.0001").

They also make the Promaster van. Between work trucks and cargo vans, I wonder whether these results (which are incidents per 1000 drivers, not incidents per mile) are skewed by commercial vehicles that see a lot more annual mileage than a typical passenger car (which Ram doesn’t even make).

IRS has an excellent electronic debit system.

They actually have two! Direct Pay and EFTPS use ACH (electronic check) and are both free.

Personally, there's very little anymore that I need to pay by physical check -- almost everyone takes credit cards, and for those that don't (or who charge more than 2% for credit card transactions), I use ACH.

I'm surprised you don't get billed for checks.

Not too many years ago, I had a landlord (a big property management company) who charged a fee for electronic payments. I forget how much exactly, but it was ridiculous -- like $10 or $20 per payment. For them, I used my bank's online bill pay, which behind the scenes is just the bank printing out a paper check and mailing it to the payee. I bet they've switched to free ACH payments by now.

Lately, the only cases I can think of where I actually pull out a check book and write out a check are to pay (1) a contractor (electrician, landscaper, etc.) and (2) for a campsite at a self-service campground. Most parks take credit cards (just write your payment information on the registration slip) but a few don't. I'll pay cash if I have exact change, but as I don't make a habit of carrying around lots of small bills it's helpful to have checks just in case.

US Mobile's "Warp 5G" (Verizon) has the same priority as Verizon's own plans as long as you're using a 5G device.

As a sole proprietor, you can open a solo 401(k) and contribute up to $66k pre-tax in 2023. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Now healthcare as an individual is another matter…

Any suggestions? I see Best Buy has some open box minis for $630 and there are plenty of 3rd party refurbs for around $500. Feels like I'd have been better off buying a brand new one for $600 yesterday.

Thanks for this. I've been using Roadtrippers, which is OK but full of intrusive ads even if you pay for the Pro subscription. Furkot looks much better.

When I’m done with a project, I’ve taken to packing up these kinds of files into a disk image. That way, I can access them if I need to, but they don’t show up in search. There’s a risk that the image gets corrupted or isn’t readable on some future OS, but since these aren’t mission critical files, I’m not too worried about that.

In the US, this is accurate for other clean energy incentives, but EVs get a $7500 tax credit rather than a tax deduction so the benefit doesn’t depend on tax rate.

The credit is not available for incomes over $150k (single) or $300k (married filing jointly), but the credit is also non-refundable, which means it can only reduce your tax to zero. If your total tax is < $7500, you don’t get the rest back as a refund. This means that, for example, married couples earning less than ~$95k don’t get the full credit.

I'm in WA, and my rate per kWh isn't quite that low, but the fixed "customer charge" is high enough that it ends up being about half of my total bill on average. I get that the utility needs income to maintain the infrastructure, which is particularly expensive per customer in rural areas.

What I don't like about this setup is that there's little incentive to conserve energy, invest in solar, etc. On the plus side, whenever I get an electric car, my "gas" will be practically free.

On my iPhone, I was surprised to see I had made 20+ visits when in reality that was my first visit to fingerprint.com. It makes me feel better that my fingerprint isn't actually unique!

Ford has been rapidly raising their prices (so it’s hard to keep track) but last I saw starting prices were $73k for the Rivian and $56k for the Lightning.

The nice thing about the built-in nav is that it always works everywhere in the U.S. Google Maps only lets you download an area about half the size of Washington State at a time and you have to manually select the area to download. Fine for local use, but too tedious (and too much disk space) for a long road trip.

I just ran into this issue in Montana the other day. Weird thing was that it’d sometimes read the 80 mph limit correctly, then a second or two later revert to 60. My Sprinter just beeps at me, though. No brake action if it thinks I’m speeding.

Yes, the manual does say not to use adaptive cruise control (Distronic) on icy or slippery roads, if visibility is poor, or if the radar sensors are affected by a variety of weather conditions. Cruise will even automatically disengage if electronic stability intervenes.

I’m mostly annoyed that false positives such as the Nevada issue described above or a one-time splash of water on the sensor when it’s perfectly safe to use cruise control results in the whole system being unavailable for an extended period of time. To me, the right solution would be to disengage Distronic when the sensor can’t see well enough and then allow the driver to re-engage traditional cruise control if they deem it safe to do so. The system doesn’t have the sensors or the smarts to know if it’s actually safe to use cruise control, only the driver can make that judgement. From the manual: “Cruise control is only an aid. You are responsible for the distance to the vehicle in front, for vehicle speed, braking in good time and for staying in your lane.”

if the system fails to detect any other vehicles for a period of more than about 90 minutes, it assumes that there is a sensor fault, and refuses to operate

I have a current model Sprinter and this behavior is frustrating (thanks for the explanation, by the way, I thought it was a random bug). Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow, with the system saying the sensor is dirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if traditional cruise control would keep working without the active braking assist, etc. but unfortunately it’s all or nothing. I do like the system when it works, which is most of the time, and it’s never done something that felt unsafe.

I haven’t had any problems with the info system. This is my first vehicle with a touchscreen, and I was worried that it’d be a pain to use. But Mercedes provides real buttons for common actions, little trackpads on the steering wheel that can control the system without ever having to touch the screen, Car Play works great, and the built-in nav system is useful for those times I need directions and don’t have a cell signal.

My biggest worry is how these delicate parts will hold up over the years. My 10 year old car has a monochrome dot matrix display that loses a good number of pixels when it gets hot out. Will I really be able to get replacement parts for the Sprinter when the screen or computer start to die in 10-15 years?

The Inflation Reduction Act provides a 30% tax credit for clean energy upgrades, including batteries IIRC.