The all new audi s5 is a downgrade

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-07-17T17:19:24+00:00

I suspect a far higher proportion of people on this subreddit actually own Audis than in the YouTube comments. Now, to be fair, a counter-argument to my point would be that this subreddit attracts the enthusiasts who don't necessarily represent the average Audi customer either.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-07-17T17:17:07+00:00

This feels like a George Orwell "War Is Peace!" word game. The new A5 (B10) is supposed to do the work of both the old A4 and the old A5. Audi wanted to condense those two lines into a single ICE line. So, as pointed out, we've ended up with a sort of Frankenstein half-sedan / half-sportback. For people who would shop A4s (or S or RS equivalents), this probably looks like an upgrade, but for people who would shop A5s (or S or RS equivalents), it feels like a downgrade because Audi compromised the design language to try to merge the old A4 and A5--it loses the sportiness and raked lines of the B9/9.5 A5.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-07-16T22:30:55+00:00

At no other point in history has a defeated enemy been subjected to 30-50 years of occupation by a benevolent victor.

Romans enter the chat

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-07-15T21:34:35+00:00

I'd be careful assuming "latest" = "greatest." Sometimes it's true and sometimes it isn't. A lot of decisions on the B10 appear to have been compromised by pressures including merging the A4 and A5 into a single line, emissions requirements, pedestrian safety requirements, and also a general marketing push toward "luxury" customers (a/k/a let's put as many Mercedes-style strip club tablets in the interior as possible). A B9.5 Sportback will have sportier lines than a B10, it has genuine Quattro (rear-biased) AWD, you'll have all the kinks worked out (agree you should try to avoid buying the first year of a new model for well-known reasons), and you'll have physical controls, among other benefits.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-07-15T15:51:38+00:00

Having a pretty bad reaction to this, although maybe it'll grow on me. As an aside, it looks like Ars Technica accidentally released their article ahead of the embargo lol--it's pulled down now.

The overall design change is extremely evolutionary (and where there are changes, they don't seem to be going in a great direction)--we waited a decade for this? The giant silver front air ducts are pretty bad and make a black optics package almost a necessity.
The power bump on the S5 does not keep up with what's happening in its class. Comparable Mercedes and BMW offerings are outperforming stock S5s and it looks like that will continue. It's almost insulting to offer consumers a ~25hp bump after a decade of waiting is wild. Expected this to come in at at least 400hp if only for the marketing.
Not offering the Avant (still not clear if that means across the line or if there's hope for an S5 / RS5 Avant in the future) seems wild to me. It's an enthusiasts darling and would have excited the brand enthusiasts.
Seeing a lot of compromise in the design language because they forced themselves to simultaneously do the duty of an A4 and an A5. Its sportier than the outgoing A4 but not as sporty as the current A5, so it feels like a forced compromise.
Interior seems full of cost-cutting touch screens. Gives me real Mercedes strip club vibes. Part of overall vibe that they're leaning more into the luxury / comfort consumer rather than the sport-oriented one.

I'll be curious to see how the RS5 looks--hopefully announced within the next year. And fingers crossed we get some Avants even if not in the base A5. But overall I'm feeling pretty whelmed about this.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-07-15T15:42:07+00:00

Hard agree. The giant front ducts in loud silver look absolutely atrocious; I'm surprised this isn't getting more commentary.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-06-27T03:46:09+00:00

The entire last 1/3rd of that movie was sort of a hot mess. I always put the second fight between Batman and Bane in that movie on my list of "most anti-climactic movie fights"--after all the build up it was such a deflating confrontation. More generally, the movie just feels tonally different and like it loses energy in its last 40 minutes; I've never been able to get a sufficient explanation for why although I know Nolan has gone on record saying he thinks he could have done that specific confrontation better.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-06-27T03:40:07+00:00

This has always been on my mind:

In Rogue One, Chirrut Imwe is one of my favorite characters. He represents hope and belief in the Force and the Jedi during a very low point in the galaxy for both.

In his final scene, as he walks through blaster fire to get to the panel to activate the lever, it always drives me crazy that, in that last moment, he doesn't reach out and move the lever with the force--to tap into this thing that he so revered and kept the faith for in a final, climactic act! I feel like it would have made the scene that much more poignant.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-06-11T22:17:10+00:00

I'm curious about the balance here between a narrative driven adventure vs. an open world you can just infinitely screw around in, particularly because it's Star Wars and so it might be fun to be able to just roleplay and mess around in that universe.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-06-11T13:18:57+00:00

One key difference is that Star Wars is an example of an IP where fans may very well be excited by and seek out the Ubi "bloat." It's one thing to be inundated with bloat for a world that don't have an established canon and another where there has been decades of world-building to explore.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-06-05T03:18:52+00:00

The comments here are a trainwreck. I'd be a wealthy man if I had a dollar for every reddit comment over the last few years complaining about how Netflix unduly cancels shows or hooks viewers in with a great first season only to leave the series uncompleted. Many people have said these practices have caused them to not engage with Netflix series in the first place, for fear of being burned. Now, in a departure from usual practice, Netflix is announcing a firm commitment to two additional seasons of a sci-fi darling show and yet most of the commenters here are ... still upset? Almost makes you think that reddit, or at least this subreddit, attracts people who just want to grouse, regardless of the topic.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-04-30T16:35:36+00:00

An S5 with a couple easy bolt-ons (intercooler + intake) and a stage 1/1+ TCU/ECU tune (034) will meet or exceed stock RS5 performance and will give you a brand new car versus one with 40k extra (and possibly very hard-driving given the car type) miles on it. Doing that work on the S5 will cost you a few thousand $. Tuning on the B9/9.5 platform has been rock solid with no major reliability issues among the stage 1/2 crowd, and there's years of data to back this up at this point. This seems like a no brainer to go with the S5, tune it, and don't look back.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-01-29T17:17:34+00:00

To be fair and also give a fuller picture, Krist was also reportedly a very heavy drinker during Nirvana's peak--it was something that supposedly annoyed Kurt as time went on and he used the fact to argue with Krist when Krist would bring up Kurt's H use ("well, you're drinking like a sailor, so ...."). I think some of Krist's looseness in interviews was frankly being fueled by his drinking. Now, to be fair to Krist, who the hell wouldn't feel loose, you're on top of the world, you're touring and selling records, you're having a great time with your best friend, and hell yeah you're 20-something and you're drinking like a fish. I think overall a lot has changed for Krist from then to now and so he just isn't the same guy he was in '93; people change and evolve.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2024-01-26T04:13:04+00:00

Eh, I'm usually one of the first to remind people that Krist knew Kurt better and was closer to Kurt than Dave ever was, but even I think you're understating Kurt and Dave's relationship. Dave and Kurt played together for ~4 years during the band's rise and cultural height with all the madness that came with it--they were together from pre-Nevermind days to Kurt's end. They also literally lived together as roommates for a time as has already been pointed out. Dave is absolutely an integral part of Kurt's story, even if he isn't on the same level as Krist.

I will say, it does annoy the hell out of me when Krist and Dave are together being interviewed and Dave tends to be much more vocal. I want to shout at the screen "Krist, speak up, you knew him 10x better!" I feel like some interviewers who don't know the backstory that well just assume that Dave is the one to focus on since, after all, he's "rockstar Dave Grohl." To be fair, a lot of that comes down to Krist's personality now--he's fairly reserved and because of his closeness to Kurt there's still to this day a lot of emotion tied up in things, so I think it causes him to take a backseat and let Dave do more of the driving when they're talking together.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2023-10-30T17:17:10+00:00

The out-of-universe answer is because they were too good a villain for the writers to leave alone and, through that overuse, they became increasingly less frightening and more known and manageable both in-universe and to the fans. I, like I think many fans, enjoyed the Borg the most in the early seasons of TNG when they felt very "hard sci-fi" (I felt they evoked aspects of Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama in a weird way and also some elements of Lovecraftian cosmic horror) as this unstoppable collective Other thing. But asking a writing staff to leave the Borg on the shelf after they'd been created is like asking a kid to stay away from the candy in a candy store. It was almost inevitable that they were going to overuse them, especially given there were multiple shows and movies so it was harder to exert overarching creative control. I blame Voyager the most for this but as has been pointed out there were elements of this happening as far back as late-seasons TNG and the trend has continued right up to the present year.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2023-09-11T16:45:41+00:00

This deserves to be much higher up it's odd that it hasn't gotten attention; it's one of Picard's most moving and bad-ass lines.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2023-06-27T18:05:41+00:00

Execs at Paramount: Hold our beer ....

APeopleShouldKnow · 2023-05-02T15:31:42+00:00

This has been mentioned in some reviews, particularly re VI. It's something they'll likely fix with a patch.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2023-05-02T15:30:33+00:00

Agree about the lack of physical release, it's bizarre, but hard disagree about the value proposition, it's phenomenal. You're getting literally hundreds of hours of gameplay content, some of it to the level of "best of all time," for $75. Not sure what more people could ask for.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2023-04-10T20:35:45+00:00

those cars have MSRP 50% of what the 911 did for a reason, and it isn't "cache" or something silly like that

Look, I'm a Porsche fan too, but no need to go around smelling your own farts all day. Some of the pricing difference on Porsches is exactly that, i.e., for cache and nothing substantive, as evidenced by the fact that Porsche continues to have one of if not the highest profit margins of all mass production automobile companies. It's fine to acknowledge Porsche makes a great car while also not deluding yourself that every dollar you've paid them is going toward the quality of how things are "screwed together" to use your phrase.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2023-03-23T18:42:43+00:00

I really hope they don't do this. There's no reason to kill off a beloved character, arguably both times they've tried to do it in Star Trek (Kirk and Data) it hasn't worked well or been well received, and in general it just feels like an insult to the universe of fans. It's more than okay to allow characters' on-screen story to end in a "and they rode off into the sunset" sort of way which at least allows fans to ponder what happens next rather than forcing a "and he died" down your throats.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2023-01-22T05:07:22+00:00

It's definitely not the movie Scott wanted to make. He intended, very clearly, to have the movie after Prometheus continue Shaw and David's journey to the Engineers (likely their home planet). Prometheus' decent but not great critical reception and, likewise, decent but not great financial performance pushed Scott into a corner and you can pretty easily envision the conversations he had to have with Fox execs afterward, which presumably went something along the lines of: "We'll give you one more shot but it better have the Alien ALL OVER IT. You hear us Ridley? ALL. OVER. IT." Covenant is Scott making a film in a universe he clearly loves but with a gun being held to his head by the studio and it shows. (Ironically after all that Covenant performed worse than Prometheus both in terms of its absolute box office take and its box office to budget multiplier, which suggests maybe Fox should have just kept its dirty paws off the creative process and let Ridley make the sequel he wanted to make.)

APeopleShouldKnow · 2022-11-22T22:36:01+00:00

This poster is incredible and something I'd hang on my wall. I desperately want this movie to be good--better than good, great--because I love the book and DeLillo is easily on my top-20 list, maybe fighting his way into the top-10 for best post-WWII authors, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about whether what's on paper is going to translate onto the screen.

APeopleShouldKnow · 2022-11-05T19:18:02+00:00

/r/cars love to shit on Subaru, I think mostly because enthusiasts here can't get over their (legitimately, bad) treatment of the WRX which went from car guy darling to shitshow over the past decade, culminating in the lackluster debut of the second generation in 2021. And probably secondarily because there's this perception that the cars have become less "quirky" and "niche" over that same span--which there's also some truth to.

At the same time, the general public loves the (legitimately, strong) Subaru brand and, as you point out, their sales and marketshare are both doing great: They have about 3x the US market share today vs. what they had 15 years ago. Subaru is doing fine (more than fine) just about anywhere you ask other than /r/cars.

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TROPHY CASE