anon6789

That makes sense. Thank you for explaining it. I’ve only played with Hyundai’s and Subaru’s smart cruise and lane assist, and it doesn’t take long to know it’s nothing like what I’d picture FSD to be. My car is a 2008, so I’ve only got basic CC.

Thank you! That at least makes it better than most subscriptions since it should add some value to resale if it’s transferrable. The buy it outright price pays off vs the sub in about 4 years too, which isn’t too bad either.

Good points. I do feel like I remember that the Full Self Driving was a paid upgrade and I’ve seen enough stories of Tesla locking people out of things via update. For something like FSD, does it throw you off any driving it after the trial ends, like do you get reliant on some of the upgraded features and then forget ever when they get turned back off? Having something as a potatnetial aid or safety feature that is potentially sometimes there and sometimes not seems a bit weird. Something like VW’s speed limiter would just make you slower, but if you get used to the car steering/braking and then another day it doesn’t, that seems a bit questionable. You sound like you pay attention as you dont like it especially anyway, but just for your average Joe.

Not directed at OP, but just in general about this story, but for the number of times I feel I’ve seen this story posted in the last few days, I have some critiques and additional info that doesn’t seem provided by these articles being shared. For anyone else curious:

This appears to be old news. I don’t follow electric cars because I live in a NIMBY complex where we will not be having means to have any kind of charging in the foreseeable future. Looking this up to see what exactly is being paywalled by VW, I see forum posts from at least as far back as last August.

What is being limited is the electric motor. Basic is 150 kW, the optional is 170 kw of power. People on the id3 forums say this is essentially taking the car from the electric version of 205 HP to 231 HP.

You can do a one month free trial, an annual subscription, or a lifetime purchase, but I didn’t see if this was tied to the purchaser or the car itself. I’m not in UK so I don’t care enough to look that up.

People on the forum are also saying some leases bar the upgrade and that the insurers there wish to know if the car is “upgraded” and there is a slight premium for having it, so some may wish to forgo the added power rating and associated fees and premiums.

I have no real opinion as I have no skin in the EV game, but I am generally anti-subscription, especially for what sounds like a software setting.

I hope this helps anyone else trying to see what this story is all about. Again, no shade on the people sharing this, I just wish some articles/posts would have a little more context for those less familiar as this community is generalist and not a car/EV one where we should probably expectedly be more versed in the topic.

I never expected there were so many other long haired men here secretly dealing with hair issues! I thought I’d been dealing with this alone the last few years since I decided to stop buzzcutting myself. Now I wish we had a more active hair community. Not necessarily male only, as this post seems to show we have “human hair” and not “guy hair” or “girl hair.”

I stumbled on DBZ to start my anime journey like a lot of people probably did, so associating big with filler isn’t an unfair assumption.

Seeing something so big in both story size and fan base hyped up all the time also feels unrealistic for most things, but One Piece to me lives up to its reputation.

If you’ve watched it already first, in my opinion I don’t think you need to go back to read it. I can’t think of anything significant they’ve skipped like in some adaptations of manga.

I’ve gone back to reread things like Golden Kamuy where some stuff was too graphic to put in the anime or if the anime was well behind the manga like MHA was, but One Piece is wholesome so nothing got skipped and I imagine it prints money so it’s only one partial arc behind for the most part now.

That’s a bit why I waited until I was a huge chunk into the reading to start the anime. I could just enjoy the animation and to see how previous events tie into where I am in the reading. The anime feels pretty true to the manga. Continuity feels great, and I really wonder how much was planned to play out this way 30 years ago or if Oda is just that good at not painting himself into corners with plotlines.

With the huge online fandom, it isn’t hard to search up what chapters events take place in if you want to reread a section. I think if you really want to get deep into it and work on your own theories and such, doing an arc and taking a break to roll it around in your mind and to go back to key events and hint drops, that feels very doable.

There’s only 2 arcs that drag on a bit, but I think it’s paced nicely and there’s good delineation between key events.

I dislike fights in manga since I can’t seem to visualize it clearly, so I like a bit of jumping back to watch the anime and get an experience like what you seem to describe. Since so much is out already too, you can watch some of the anime to get the voices and outfits in your head too, which I always find helpful too.

You naturally know what works for you though, but One Piece is truly top notch and it would be sad to see someone skip it for its size. It is almost all solid gold material, and while there is absolutely some stuff less interesting than others, it really isn’t much, and there is no filler in the manga. The anime has filler between arcs, but it’s easily skipped if one desires and slower parts of the story drag even more animated than read, but I think that’s true of any story.

It’s not a race and you can wait to start whenever, but I’m glad I’m caught up and don’t have to risk having the ending spoiled in a few years when it wraps up.

I never wanted to jump into something that big because it felt too daunting. I had seen maybe 3 episodes on Toonami like 20 years ago but that was it. I gave the first couple of chapters a read since we liked a lot of the same stuff.

I was hooked right from that start. I read a ton of it, and then picked up the anime from the start around when I reached Fishman Island.

That was a little over 2 years ago, and I’ve been caught up on the manga for months, and the dub anime since last week.

It hasn’t been anywhere near the only thing I’ve read or watched, but it’s always just been that good I haven’t wanted to put it down for long.

My SO is nowhere as into this stuff as I am, and she cannot believe she’s just watched 1100+ episodes of the same thing. She’s needed more breaks than I did, but she is kinda bummed there’s no more at the moment.

I had held off on the Gunslinger series from Stephen King forever for similar reasons and it turned out the same way. Some things are so loved for good reason, and the time goes by way faster if you agree than for something you find mid.

Nice article here on why a kill switch is unnecessary. It goes into the supply chain of parts, control over maintenance and IP, and associated systems tied in with the fighter’s advanced features.

Its development was in coordination with (at the time in the 90s), and while a lot of funding was the US, it was built as something for us and our allies, even if those relations are strained now. There are a lot of countries that make things for the F-35, and if a killswitch were discovered, I can’t imagine it would please any of those countries and they could cease supplying parts or services the US needs in turn from them.

To reiterate, there is no evidence to date that F-35s in service anywhere feature some kind of dedicated capability that can be used to fully disable the jets at the literal or figurative touch of a button. What is true is that Joint Strike Fighters are subject to particularly significant U.S. export and other governmental controls. Virtually all F-35s in service worldwide are dependent in critical ways on proprietary support from the U.S. government and contractors in the United States.

“You don’t need a ‘kill switch’ to severely hamper the utility of an exported weapons system, you just stop providing support for it and it will wither away, some systems very quickly,” TWZ‘s own Tyler Rogoway wrote on X yesterday. “The more advanced the faster the degradation.”

I’m no expert on this, but it all sounds pretty reasonable. If anyone understand better, please feel free to correct anything I’ve said!