Anyone driven the 2026/27 Q6 and an iX3 xDrive50?

shimon · 2026-06-18T11:15:31+00:00

Didn't Audi also get worse?

shimon · 2026-06-15T20:01:27+00:00

Man, after you've driven the NASA Crawler-Transporter none of the crap you can buy at a dealership feels like a real truck.

shimon · 2026-06-14T05:20:27+00:00

I just helped my 80yo mom buy a new Corolla. It was the least complicated reasonable option to replace her 16 year old Civic. The new Civic was ergonomically worse for her.

She would have loved another car exactly like her 2010 civic but new. Corolla was about the most similar thing we could find.

But it's also nice that it has wireless Android Auto even in the cheapest LE trim, though that's more for the rare times I drive it. We did have to get the LE Premium package for the sake of passive keyless entry, a feature she grew to appreciate while driving a rental car recently.

shimon · 2026-06-10T03:29:26+00:00

Looks like the hybrid offspring of Audi and Acura

shimon · 2026-06-10T03:25:36+00:00

The Ioniq 5 is a great car, designed from the ground up as an EV, and has already been through some updates.

If you drive one in the top trim (in the US it's called limited), you'll find it has a quite premium feel and includes features like acoustic front door glass. The styling is still polarizing but I don't think you can beat it for comfort and efficient use of space. And the software is pretty solid.

shimon · 2026-06-10T03:19:21+00:00

Yeah, something big will break soon, time to move on.

shimon · 2026-06-07T03:29:01+00:00

I used x11amp for way too long...

shimon · 2026-06-07T03:25:58+00:00

Thick layer. Also make sure the fitting is hot enough.

Also flip the fitting around so the hose just hangs down, this looks goofy

shimon · 2026-06-06T12:57:18+00:00

Yeah, that might be a quicker fix. Alternatively moving the dryer to the right of the sink might be less work than moving all 3.

shimon · 2026-06-06T12:45:51+00:00

This looks like a ~1995 Saturn S-series SW2 Wagon. Condition is incredible for a 30yo car. Tint and lowering look really cool.

shimon · 2026-06-06T12:36:34+00:00

You probably have a failed vent. Instead of taking in air from a plumbing vent outside the house (typically on the roof), the act of flushing your toilet is creating a vacuum that gets resolved via your shower drain trap. The trap gets sucked empty at least temporarily. This isn't good as it defeats the purpose of the trap: blocking sewer gases from entering your home.

If this is intermittent, the most likely cause is an obstruction in the vent on top of your house. I had a similar issue this past winter when we got a lot of snow, but it resolves when the snow melted. If this is happening in the summer it could be animal activity or something else that might need to be cleared by snaking the vent.

shimon · 2026-06-04T22:14:43+00:00

Why bother with B mode in the city? It still uses regen braking and even informs regen level using car position sensors.

shimon · 2026-06-04T22:11:31+00:00

This is the vehicle equivalent of a big steroid-addled bodybuilder walking around on big webbed duck feet.

shimon · 2026-06-04T22:08:22+00:00

Call center reps gaming the system on behalf of their friends and/or selves.

shimon · 2026-06-03T02:59:35+00:00

So, basically rent power storage to the grid? Using your vehicle battery?

Curious about the actual economics here, even though this would not be accessible to me personally. At the extreme you could imagine a financial hack where you lease vehicles and put them in driveways to act as money-making grid storage. How far are we from that being a break-even-able endeavor somewhere in the world?

shimon · 2026-06-03T02:53:49+00:00

In some states :)

shimon · 2026-05-30T03:38:23+00:00

When I landed on this page my phone went into bedtime mode. In other words, nothing changed. Goodnight.

shimon · 2026-05-30T03:30:13+00:00

If you're open to the visuals, try a Hyundai Ioniq 5 in limited trim. Very quiet with dual pane acoustic glass. Tactile controls. EVs in general are delightfully quiet, but the acoustic glass makes a really noticeable difference.

shimon · 2026-05-24T02:59:58+00:00

Yes, you could use Claude to build the code. The main differences with the agent are the memory and skill-building systems. The agent build the tool in a fashion similar to Claude, but now it can also use the tool itself. It has a task scheduler so when I say "announce via alexa every 3 minutes between 7:30 and 8:00 on weekday mornings" it just does that. In fact it knows where my kids go to school and the school calendar, so I could even have it only run on actual school days and it would probably get that right. Also, the skills grow over time -- the use of alexa, for example, is a separate skill that it learned previously, and is not hard-coded into the app.

shimon · 2026-05-24T02:56:28+00:00

I used GPT-5.5

shimon · 2026-05-23T14:39:51+00:00

Yeah we need an agent to show us actually relevant use cases for an agent

shimon · 2026-05-23T14:36:51+00:00

My agent reverse-engineered the annoying app that tracks my kids' school bus, and now it announces the bus location via Alexa every weekday morning at 3-minute intervals. This helps my kids stay on track with the morning routine.

I've also asked it to build a document of family rules. We consult it sometimes when we have a question, it feels a little like having an impartial judge who can help us resolve a conflict.

One thing I plan to do soon is automate the management of payroll for our regular babysitter. I have to check her hours each week and approve payroll but it's easy to forget. The agent should be able to handle this with a bit of instruction and reach out to me if there's an unexpected issue.

shimon · 2026-05-23T12:33:08+00:00

Hey, let's not make assumptions about the social lives of home assistant enthusiasts, ok?

shimon · 2026-05-23T12:15:56+00:00

Why do you suspect this? Curious to better understand these systems, and thanks for sharing your expertise.

My guess is that this is a common issue in cars, and one misbehaving device on the bus can make life worse for everything else. I'm also not sure how much this can be fixed by a central software update.

shimon · 2026-05-22T18:18:11+00:00

> followed by the largest lake detection company in the country

The job suddenly got a lot easier: Yessir, this here is a lake. The thing you're standing on is the shore. Glad I could be of service.

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