Drew Dowdell

You can't go by base prices because the price of a bunch of the options was inflated too. I'm on the Rivian facebook group and there are post after post of people's reservations jumping from $75k to $95k. Lots are posting screenshots of their cancelations as well. It's unknowable if those are just a loud few, but the comments sections are long and what it has done is turned what was once a total FanBoi group where Rivian could do no wrong... I.E. Telsa-Lite Fanbois, and turned it into a Rivian Hate group. Horrible public relations move.

Well that went smoother and faster than expected. I still have some SQL server tuning to do, but ... we're here.

Hi all... it's that time again. The current server was installed in 2016 and it's time we pack up and move to a newer build. Because I have some other web projects going on, the power of the new server is significantly increased over the last one, so I'm hoping to get some big performance boosts to the site. We're talking going from my Encore to a Hellcat in terms of power. That said, this software is still rather bloated, so there is still an upper limit to how fast it will go no matter how much processor I throw at it. It will be a fun experiment. Also... there is 96 gigs worth of data to transfer, so we'll be down a while. I'll probably kick off the transfer at 5:30 pm my time. Please be patient. Thanks, Drew

Kia is nothing like pre-2000 Plymouth. They have unique models and they don't share styling with Hyundai. There is no Soul equivalent at Hyundai, there is no Veloster equivalent at Kia. Kia has the Carnival while Hyundai has nothing. Even the Palisade and Telluride have different personalities visually and the Telluride is slightly more capable off-road.

Tsk… you know quite well that at over a liter per cylinder that engine was all about the torque

Absolutely. Those pictures were from my trip to Miami and Key Largo over the holidays.

Well keep in mind that while Hyundai owns a controlling interest in KIA, they still operate pretty independently by modern standards. They are much more independent than any of the American brands are from their parents.

You were probably out and about when you were pre-symptomatic though... unless someone exposed you and you KNEW it when it happened, there was a lag time between when you were shedding the virus and when you started having symptoms.

Shot 1 - No side effects.. slightly sore arm that night Shot 2 - Feeling icky about 24 hours later, lasted a couple days, but no sore throat, cough, or any other respiratory issues, just a feeling of tired and blah. Worked from home that week and just took it easy. Shot 3 - Feeling icky about 24 hours later, went to bed a little early that night, woke up feeling fine. I felt a lot less icky than you did. You sound a lot more like when I had the bad case of Strep rather than what I felt like from the vaccine... though I didn't even have the cough from Strep. That said, I had one of the stronger reactions to the vaccine than most people get. Albert had no reaction to any of his shots beside the sore arm that comes with any vaccine and didn't miss a day of work (he can't work from home). You still didn't answer the question though. How many grandmothers did you kill? How many dads did you put on ventilators?

I don't want to get sick at all. Having Strep a couple weeks ago was plenty for me thanks. I also don't want to spread it to others if I did get infected... and vaccinated people have significantly lower viral loads than the unvaccinated. There is no upside to not getting vaccinated. None. Interestingly, there is an mRNA vaccine for HIV that started human trials in the last week, plus another technique using a gene therapy called CRISPER that can cut the virus out of an infected person's DNA (HIV imbeds itself in DNA, that is how it is able to hide from the body's immune system).

No. That is categorically, absolutely, completely false. There are breakthrough cases of stuff we get vaccinated for as children regularly whenever herd immunity is broken. The MMR vaccine (2 doses - 3 years apart) is 97% effective against measles, 88% effective against mumps. They've also found out that people my age need MMR boosters because the effectiveness of the vaccine we were given as kids wore off unexpectedly. I had my MMR shots redone in 2016. The Tetanus shot drops from 75% effective to 12% effective in about 4 years. Hep B (3 doses in the first 15 months and then restart the adult series with 2 doses after age 21) has a 90% effective rate that drops over time for 20 years.... but the vaccine came out in 1995, another in 1996, and the Hep A and B combo in 2001, you may not have gotten them. I did my series also in 2016. It takes 4 doses of the Polio vaccine (4 doses - 5.5 year spread) to reach 100% effective and the doses go from 2 months old to 6 years old for the entire series HPV (1 dose) is 86% effective in teenage women, and 71% effective in women over 20, but they won't even start administering it until at least 9 years old ate the minimum and many providers won't do it before 14. They only recently started offering it to teenage boys / adult males and they waited this long for stupid sexist reasons. (men are usually asymptomatic carriers so the doctors didn't feel the need to vaccinate them even though it was the men that were transmitting it to the women). As such, there is no data on the effectiveness in men yet because it rarely ever gets detected. Of the childhood vaccines, only the Chicken pox vaccine (2 doses - 5 years apart) meets your criteria of being 100% effective. They all require boosters, many with multi-year intervals. Many of them have their effectiveness diminish over time. The mRNA vaccines are around 93% effective at preventing hospitalization from infection, and 80% effective against any infection at all. The degradation of the effectiveness has nothing to do with the vaccine, it's your body's immune system having the memory to keep making anti-bodies. Unfortunately, just being infected with covid does not provide the same protection as getting vaccinated does and your body loses that memory even faster because it never gets the second dose unless you get infected again. Again, they work fine. Take it up with your body that the virus fighting memory diminishes over time. The vaccine is gone from your body 5 - 7 days after your shot. But this is an insanely selfish, self-centered, view. How many people did you infect in your pre-symptomatic period? Which chemo patient did you kill? Who's dad is on a respirator now all because you sneezed on a shopping cart? Just because you made it through doesn't mean you didn't infect someone else. Boosters every 6 months is a small price to pay to not kill someone. One last chart to counteract your claim that the vaccine is not effective. In the unvaccinated population, there are 9.75 deaths per 100,000 cases. In the vaccinated and boosted population, there are 0.1 deaths per 100,000 cases. So even the old talking point of "99% survival rate" is clearly not even valid.. it's currently about 90.5% for unvaccinated, but earlier this year was lower. Look at the difference in those lines... you still want to say that the vaccine is not effective against preventing deaths? It would take 970,000 vax+boosted people getting covid to equal the number of deaths from 100,000 unvaccinated.

The G70 is definitely the sportiest in the Genesis line. The GV70 is a fantastic vehicle too... Albert would love it. It's a cush cruiser with a lot of power.

You're missing the entire point. The Stinger flopped because it is a Kia with a Kia interior but riding on a Genesis platform. It's the VW Phaeton all over again (except the Phaeton did have a nice interior for the class). Genesis has proven to me that they can do the interiors they need to do. I really liked the Telluride as a possible vehicle for Albert... but he absolutely declined ANY KIA badged vehicle. He does like the Genesis options, and he knows they are the same company. He just remembers the original Sportage and Sephia... and more recently the Soul.... and wants nothing to do with them. The Genesis SUVs are fantastic vehicles for what they aim to be... but they are not off-roaders in the same vein as something like Discovery, Lexus GX, or the Rivian R1S. On the higher end they are Maybach-Lite. At my house, I'd rather have a luxury Telluride with a Genesis level interior and one of the turbo-V6es for me while Albert would rather a GV80. It is purely a subjective styling thing. I'm more motorcycle, hiking, skiing, scuba diving, cabin in the woods.... he's more going to the symphony, fine dining, and a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue.

You keep saying guarantee as if there is any in this world. Nothing is guaranteed. However, his likelihood of dying of covid, or even being hospitalized would have dropped drastically into the single digit percent chance range. If you get intubated there is a 75% chance you're not going to make it. If you get vaxxed and boosted there's less than a 1% chance you're even going to be intubated. I gotta ask... what is the hesitancy to a vaccine that has been administered several billion times already and is one of the most effective of all vaccines ever?

I think it is being used for the next batch of EVs from Hyundai, Genesis, and Kia. The Genesis GV60 is the next half a generation of this. Noise was very low, hardly any wind noise, and Denver was under a wind advisory while I was there. The only real noise was from the tires. Fit and Finish was standard issue compact Kia... not spectacular, but not bad either. The center console was kinda plasticy and creaky. There is no gain in interior room compared to the gas model. If you don't fit in a gas Niro, you won't fit in this.

Nothing is guaranteed... not even your seatbelt. But if you're healthy with a good immune system, your symptoms would have been reduced even further with the vaccine and possibly never have even been infected. One of my part-time remote employees had it a few weeks back, she picked it up from holiday traveling with a big group of friends. All she had was a scratchy throat and a bit of tiredness because she is triple vaxxed. The kicker is that now that you've had it, if you go get your three shots, spaced out appropriately, you'll be as close to 100% immune as you can get. unfortunately, currently, you are still vulnerable to a Delta infection and in a few months even a second Omicron infection.

I'm glad you're okay. No one is surprised you weren't hospitalized and we're glad it didn't happen. You didn't seem to have any co-morbidities. But even what you went through might have been avoided entirely.

Hmm... I wonder if that is a cheat code for the Silverado EV.

I’m on that bridge multiple times a week and walk with whatever dog I’m watching in the park under it frequently. It definitely weirded me out. Not you, the bridge collapse.

Have you had either of them back here? The roads down your way are a bit nicer than what we have here..... and that's when the roads stay standing.. 2 miles from my house....

So I made up this chart that I think demonstrates how little difference there is between the 2.0T engines in this class. Peak horsepower on most of these is over 5,000 RPM and the Acura is at 6,500 RPM. I want you to think about how often in your daily life that you exceed 5,000 rpm while you look at these charts. What you'll end up noticing is that in the RPM of typical daily driving, 1500 - 4000, there is virtually no difference with the largest spread being 17 horsepower... nothing noticeable at all. Furthermore, these figures are only calculated at wide-open-throttle. At partial throttle, the numbers will be significantly lower. The Mercedes and Acura have very deep first gears, but they are only ever used when sport mode is engaged. It gives them significant pulling power in that mode, but that is a transmission advantage, not an engine one. The front-wheel drive Cadillac 9-speed looks like it might feel spritelier than the RWD 10-speed in a vehicle of similar weight as second gear is a bit deeper on the 9 than the 10. The 9-speed also has a very very slightly larger ratio spread. In overall spread, the Acura wins and in theory should be the most efficient at a steady highway speed if the transmission is able to hold 10th gear, but that's a noticeable "if" as none of these tend to hold their top gear in anything but a steady cruise. The BMW ZF 8-Speed has a pretty deep 1st and 2nd, but then starts dropping the ratios faster than any other transmission. Long story short, if you like the car, minor differences in peak horsepower that only really occur at high RPM under full throttle really shouldn't be the deciding factor. They are marketing materials and not in any way meaningful to you on your morning commute. The question marks are where I didn't have enough data to make a calculation. Cadillac 2.0T BMW 2.0T MB 2.0T Acura 2.0T 235HP @ 5000 RPM 248 HP @ 5200-6500 RPM 255HP @ 5800-6100 rpm 272 @ 6500 rpm 258 lb-ft @ 1500-4000 rpm 258 lb-ft @ 1450-4800 rpm 273 @ 1800-4000 rpm 280 @ 1600-4500 rpm Peak Torque 258 258 273 280 RPM Effective HP @ RPM Effective HP @ RPM Effective HP @ RPM Effective HP @ RPM 1500 74 74 ?? ?? 1600 79 79 ?? 85 1800 88 88 94 96 2000 98 98 104 107 2500 123 123 130 133 3000 147 147 156 160 3500 172 172 182 187 4000 196 196 208 213 4500 ?? 221 ?? 240 4800 Calculated torque below 236 ?? ?? 5000 247 Calculated torque below ?? ?? 5200 237 250 Calculated torque below ?? 5800 213 225 231 ?? 6000 206 217 223 Calculated torque below 6100 202 214 220 ?? 6500 190 200 ?? 220 GM 10-Speed ZF 8-Speed 8HP45 MB 9G-Tronic Honda 10-Speed First: 4.70 4.7 5.4 5.25 Second: 2.99 3.14 3.2 3.27 Third: 2.15 2.11 2.3 2.19 Fourth: 1.80 1.67 1.6 1.6 Fifth: 1.52 1.29 1.2 1.3 Sixth: 1.28 1.00 1.0 1 Seventh: 1.00 0.84 0.9 0.78 Eighth: 0.85 0.67 0.7 0.65 Ninth: 0.69 -- 0.6 0.58 Tenth: 0.64 -- -- 0.52 1st gear only used in Sport 1st gear only used in Sport GM 9-Speed First: 4.69 Second: 3.31 Third: 3.01 Fourth: 2.45 Fifth: 1.92 Sixth: 1.45 Seventh: 1.00 Eighth: 0.75 Ninth: 0.62

Unfortunately, neither of the suspensions are tolerable to me.

It’s the same V6, but it’s not as powerful as the Camaro V6. The visibility isn’t the best compared to sedans, but it’s better than the other 2.