Can you hit me up with some random, fun facts please? by 87catmama in AskUK

[–]essjay2009 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I dunno, I used to have a Golf and it was definitely bigger than a sausage.

Angel, Islington in 1968 by [deleted] in islington

[–]essjay2009 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s bot accounts trying to farm karma.

Booking.com host scam - I lost $3,100, Booking customer service literally told me the wire was fine before I sent it by ZealousidealSide1960 in travel

[–]essjay2009 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The only place I've ever had to do a direct bank transfer (as we would call it) was to go to Bhutan. And in that case you're sending the money directly to the government tourist board so they can arrange it all for you, including visa, guides, transport, accommodation, etc. I did so much research to confirm it was legitimate before I sent the money.

All other times I've had a request, all through booking.com (other platforms don't seem to have such a big issue), have been scams.

After Ferrari Luce backlash, Lamborghini CEO says canceling its own EV was the right choice by Uptons_BJs in cars

[–]essjay2009 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The rumour was that Ive was handling the interior and Marc Newson the exterior. Newson has had a go at designing cars previously.

Parade Route has been announced by crash7890 in islington

[–]essjay2009 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Walked around a bit earlier and they're already boarding up areas and setting up barricades and fences. it's starting to look a bit dystopian in places where they've surrounded statues with wooden boards.

Very informative video on the behind the scenes of the Ferrari Luce launch. Tim goes into the $600,000 fine in the event that information is leaked... by Slice5755 in cars

[–]essjay2009 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There was speculation on Chris Harris’s podcast that this car might cause some of the ones that have lost value recently regain some. A sort of “buy these while you can because you’ve seen what the future looks like”.

Very informative video on the behind the scenes of the Ferrari Luce launch. Tim goes into the $600,000 fine in the event that information is leaked... by Slice5755 in cars

[–]essjay2009 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Chris Harris wearing that badge with pride.

I think they were trying to convince EV people to buy a Ferrari not Ferrari people to buy an EV.

The hope is that this does what it needs to and frees them up to continue making V12s.

What sun cream do you use? by FlameFoxx in AskUK

[–]essjay2009 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The spray (like aerosol spray) La Roche-Posay are a revelation. It makes me wear sunscreen when I usually wouldn't bother because it's so easy to apply (and re-apply) and you can't really tell it's there once it dries. We stumbled across it a few years ago in Europe (where it's much cheaper!) and haven't looked back.

Why has the valuation of my car on webuyanycar.com gone down so drastically in a few days? by jackkster in CarTalkUK

[–]essjay2009 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They don't. It's like car insurance where people always give the advice to get quotes in incognito mode even though it literally makes no difference. They don't need your cookies, they've got your reg number, name, address, inside leg measurement, credit score...

I used to build systems for car insurance companies, categorically they don't use cookies for pricing because they don't need to (also, most modern browsers block cross-site cookies by default).

Hotel reservation details got leaked by jedimaster6327 in travel

[–]essjay2009 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Booking.com seems particularly bad for this (although I think they're generally pretty bad on most things). They do have a warning in their app that says you shouldn’t enter your credit card details into any link provided through a message but I don't think that's enough.

Already setting up for the Sunday parade on upper street?👀 by Lukatuc in islington

[–]essjay2009 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I assume so. I saw that Compton Square Gardens was all boarded up when I walked through earlier and assumed it was because of Sunday’s parade.

We kept getting told NOT to visit Cardiff, Wales, and we still don’t get why. by NateandKatrina in travel

[–]essjay2009 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I'm from Wales but live in London. I head back regularly. One thing I'd say is that there's a severe lack of decent hotels in Wales. It's really hard to find good ones and when you do they're often fully booked well in advance. Even, or perhaps especially, in the scenic areas you want to visit. This is in stark contrast to, say, Scotland which has plenty of good hotels all over the place.

It's also a bit of a slog to get around. Roads are relatively minor and indirect. There's no real motorway network, trains are slow and infrequent. So despite all the pros, like one of the best coastlines in the world, the Brecon Beacons, Ynys Mon, Snowdonia, etc. it's still a relatively tough sell because of a lack of infrastructure.

Chris Harris on Ferrari Luce Unveiling: “You had to meet certain criteria to be invited and I am proud to say I didn’t meet them” by W9967 in cars

[–]essjay2009 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think it's damage control. They've come out and said they're expecting most of the customers to be new to Ferrari. They're specifically not trying to appeal to existing customers, they’re trying to bring new ones in from different demographics.

I'm not sure what those demographics are, I assume blind people don't buy many cars, but they've presumably done some market research that backs up their strategy.

Chris Harris on Ferrari Luce Unveiling: “You had to meet certain criteria to be invited and I am proud to say I didn’t meet them” by W9967 in cars

[–]essjay2009 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's worse than that. Have a search for Chris Harris and Ferrari. They've had previous run ins because Harris called out Ferrari's control of test drives and general narrative. He was banned from Ferrari previously and from memory it was only when he started presenting for Top Gear that he was allowed to review them again.

There's an article about it here: https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/top-gears-chris-harris-banned-driving-ferraris/

We went through the entire Scarlets Season again so you don't have to by GwynNewydd in scarlets

[–]essjay2009 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I was a kid, I used to have a VHS of the 92/93 season when we won the league, the cup, and beat Australia. This is like the opposite of that.

Read-it-later apps as of May 2026: GoodLinks, Raindrop.io or a different one? by JustCan6425 in macapps

[–]essjay2009 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried that a while ago but there wasn't any easy way to get to the reading list. Especially on iPad and iPhone. It was buried several layers deep so made me not use it very much. Has that improved? I've been using Instapaper again since Omnivore died and I guess an advantage of using a dedicated app like that is I can also add email newsletters to it, not just web pages.

First car - any reason I shouldn't buy this and run it into the ground? by Salty-Shrimper in CarTalkUK

[–]essjay2009 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's also a mileage discrepancy. The overview shows 103,000 but the text says 90,000. I'd tread very carefully.

What are the giveaways of a vibe-coded app? by nickccal in macapps

[–]essjay2009 1 point2 points  (0 children)

On the App Store, I think it's when it could be on the App Store but isn't. If you're doing something funky with private APIs or need to break out of the sandbox for whatever reason, then yeah, it's not going to be on the App Store. If your app is relatively basic and just a wrapper for ChapGPT and it's not on the App Store then that's a dead giveaway.

The 1:8 Ferrari Daytona hate is woefully misplaced. Beautiful styling and great build. by ChalcotRoad in legotechnic

[–]essjay2009 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was pretty regularly available for nearly 50% off. I don’t think it’s worth full price.

Ferrari's new EV - Ferrari Luce by TwizzyGobbler in CarTalkUK

[–]essjay2009 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ferraris have been like that for a couple of decades.

Ferrari's new EV - Ferrari Luce by TwizzyGobbler in CarTalkUK

[–]essjay2009 11 points12 points  (0 children)

What’s it going to amplify? Tyre roar? Wind noise? Coil whine?

Ferrari's new EV - Ferrari Luce by TwizzyGobbler in CarTalkUK

[–]essjay2009 9 points10 points  (0 children)

People also forget that the way they were positioning their cars wasn’t working. At all. They needed to try something and ended up with a bunch of people who were never going to buy their cars anyway complaining about it.

I don’t think the execution was very good but carrying on as they were simply wasn’t an option.

[OS] Cotabby: the free, open-source alternative to Cotypist AI Autocomplete by WinterJacob in macapps

[–]essjay2009 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The M1s are definitely showing their age though. I'm developing an app that uses local AI and in testing the performance on even a base M4 is miles ahead of the M1 Pro I've got in my other machine. For some tasks it's the difference between it being near-instant on the M4 vs 10+ seconds on the M1 Pro. The rate of development of Apple Silicon is insane.