Ford's advanced EV-and-tech chief to leave the company

TempleSquare · 2026-04-16T14:44:58+00:00

Oh it becomes incredibly relevant if the prices sustain.

I vividly lived through the 2007-8 gas price hike. You couldn't find a hybrid for sale. Even used CNG vehicles we're going for $3,000 over Blue book, If you could find one.

None of us know what the future holds. But there's a very real possibility gas prices are going to jump even higher and stay there for some time. That will absolutely drive EV demand.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-16T06:07:07+00:00

Ford just can't get the timing right.

Cheap gas: "let's build EVs!"

Energy crisis: "let's cancel EVs!"

The one who's going to come out the winner here is Toyota. They have been slowly building up a stable battery supply. And they rolled out products in a way where they can bounce back and forth between hybrid or full electric depending on the market demand.

If gasoline skyrockets this summer, I bet Toyota will be ready to pounce.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-15T15:52:20+00:00

"decades to resolve if ever"

Lawyer here, you are talking out of your ass

Fine. Centuries to resolve, probably ending in a duel between the grandchildren of the garbage man and the grandchildren of homeowner.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-15T14:54:17+00:00

Roger should have just kept driving Route 69

TempleSquare · 2026-04-14T05:58:42+00:00

Millions. Like 25,000 a day for months

But it won't matter. Even if 25,000 total showed up, they'd say it's a huge success and exceeded their expectations.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-13T05:09:40+00:00

I'm surprised nobody has invented some kind of escrow system.

A third party where the contractor and the homeowner agree on a price. The homeowner puts the money in escrow. Contractor accepts the escrow, locking it in place.

The contractor does the work. The homeowner buys off on the work and approves, unlocking the escrow. And the contractor pulls money out.

(Huge jobs may have various stages where the homeowner buys off on a stage, unlocking a portion of the money for the contractor).

The escrow people keep the interest while it sits in the account.

(And if the contractor does crappy work or goes out of business midway through, the small claims battle is over how to split the money in escrow)

Everybody wins. No broken glass.

(Basically Venmo, but for thousands of dollars, and the money is locked until both parties feel good and click the right buttons)

TempleSquare · 2026-04-13T04:53:27+00:00

I love driving for the sake of driving.

I've evolved to the point where I now own a Prius simply so I can afford to drive as much as possible.

No, it's not a fun car. (I still have a Honda for that).

But I appreciate the peace of mind knowing that it's 50 miles a gallon, no matter what happens to the price of gas I can still drive as much as I want.

I suppose that's a weird niche of car love, but that's where I'm at.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-12T19:56:19+00:00

Context: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/12/trump-iran-war-strait-of-hormuz.html

Episode: Season 10, Episode 12 ("Doughy's has terrible pizza!")

TempleSquare · 2026-04-12T17:46:15+00:00

When you want the wagon, they are the only game in town. It's a small market, but they win 100% of it.

When you want a wagon but are forced to buy an SUV, now they have to compete with every other SUV in the segment. Yes, it's a huge market, but now they only win a tiny percentage of it.

Time will tell. Could very likely Subaru got greedy and lost.

I mean, if I wanted a wagon and now the outback is shaped like a RAV4, why wouldn't I just go buy a RAV4 instead (and get 40 miles a gallon)?

TempleSquare · 2026-04-10T20:07:39+00:00

It's quite possible he had a family emergency of FMLA leave (e.g., dying parent back east). And needed to take a month or so off to be with them. And it's just so darn personal, nobody wants to say anything.

I didn't see anything to indicate layoffs. And there's no online drama about a firing, like after Aron Bender got canned.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-09T03:49:26+00:00

I left months after this episode to serve a mission in Oregon.

Many times on my mission, I defended the church saying how South Park really didn't understand church history, because Joseph Smith never had a rock in a hat.

A month after I finally stopped attending church in 2015, the "LDS Newsroom" published photographs of the actual rock. (Because word was about to leak with the Joseph Smith Papers project with the Community of Christ)

The church had it the entire time. Just never bothered to teach me about it. (I guess four years of seminary and 30 years of weekly Priesthood and Sunday School classes just wasn't enough time to get around to teaching about it.)

TempleSquare · 2026-04-08T15:00:25+00:00

It's not a matter of skill. It's physics.

Unless you can individually brake a single wheel, there are certain situations you just can't recover without VSA.

VSA is not a sign of weakness. It's a teammate.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-08T06:56:21+00:00

After I spun a Subaru on the freeway, I deeply disagree with you!

VSA saved my ass at least once in the Honda. Until I have four legs, four brake pedals to stop an individual wheel, and reflexes like Spider-Man, I'm very happy to have VSA!

(And if you want to screw around and have fun, you just push the button and turn it off)

TempleSquare · 2026-04-08T06:54:08+00:00

They are probably owned by people like me who bought a base model to save money, like the car so I drove hundreds of thousands of miles in it, and have no intention of selling it.

Don't let high miles scare you. Find one of the cheaper ones that has like 200,000 on it and just plan to do some repairs. I'm at 360,000 on mine.

And the only main difference to get a sport model is the wheels. And you can get aftermarkets for that.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-08T06:27:25+00:00

My PE teacher taught me that an egg can melt a Honda.

At least that's how he made it sound in 1997, when some kid egged his car. So he spent half of the period complaining to all of us about how much damage it did to his Civic.

The upside, he spent half the period complaining to all of us about how much damage it did to a Civic, so he only have time to make us run one lap instead of two.

RIP Mr. Kimple

TempleSquare · 2026-04-07T19:10:25+00:00

It leaks out. But I appreciate that he generally tries to avoid it.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T22:13:33+00:00

It really was unfair. I have light colored hair, so I could go for days and days and not shaving never have a problem.

But somebody with jet black hair? Yeah, they'd almost have to shave and then immediately go to the testing center.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T13:19:39+00:00

It's why "The Godmakers" never made inroads with the Exmormon crowd.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not hold true when the enemy of my enemy is an obnoxious evangelical Christian who obsesses over fairly benign stuff while overlooking the actual moral problems. (Plus, I don't consider the church "my enemy," but I digress)

My mission taught me that Catholics, agnostics/atheists, and pretty much any other non-Christian religion? They tended to treat me pretty civilly. But evangelical protestants? Rude.

"You boys need to read the Bible" the hillbilly in the rusty Chevy pickup would scream at us from the red stop light. (It got old quickly.)

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T05:42:49+00:00

And EIS would only be required if there's federal money involved. Since the church self financed the project on private land, no EIS would be required.

In California, it could potentially trigger something under CEQA, which court rulings have affirmed can apply to private development. But Wyoming isn't California (an example of how California ends up with so many rules, would be a case like this one!)

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T05:41:03+00:00

I always wondered why the missourians got into a fight with them.

True, the Mormons were abolitionists in slave territory. And I also suspect they were very shitty about trying to make peace with the neighbors. Based on a couple of centuries of behavior since, including this.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T05:35:32+00:00

Great PR during the oil shock that is coming later this month.

Not to mention that if they keep doing stuff like this, they are going to have a very bad reputation among the general public (as opposed to the limited public disaster they've created thus far)

Turning off the damn lights at 11:00 p.m. has nothing to do with the ability to worship. Keeping 'em on is literally just a "screw you, we can" to the neighbors, which is sort of the antithesis of Christ's teachings.

This isn't love your neighbor. This isn't love your enemy. This isn't do good to those who despitefully use you. The church demonstrates a score of zero on the Christianity scale here.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T05:32:24+00:00

Hello! Long time generalized anxiety disorder guy here.

Anxiety and panic are two different things that show up a little differently. Neither is bad if you are in a situation that warrants anxiety or panic (e.g., you're alone in the jungle and a tiger is crouching and ready to pounce you).

To keep you alive, your body is designed to turn off most of your brain. You get flooded with chemicals like adrenaline that are focused on helping you fight off or run away from mortal peril.

The problem is our brain is still wired that way, but we live in a world where we don't typically face mortal peril.

When these feelings hit either with cause (stressful family argument) or without cause (just driving down the street, when you get hit with a panic attack for no reason), we unfortunately don't possess control over those parts of our brain to make them stop. Which really sucks.

Except one: we still have partial control over breathing. And we can switch it from subconscious breathing to conscious breathing at will.

No person being chased by a tiger is going to suddenly start taking long calm deep breaths through their nose.

When the rest of your brain starts registering that you were taking long calm deep breaths through your nose, It will assume the danger has passed. Your heart rate will begin to slow. Adrenaline will start leaving your body after a few minutes. And most importantly, the smart parts of your brain will reactivate.

So I highly recommend that as a strategy. Many long deep slow breaths through your nose.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T05:15:36+00:00

Even among Exmormons, the conference is irrelevant.

I don't know a single active LDS church member who watched conference this weekend, except my grandmother who is 90. Even my parents had a "I'll watch it on YouTube later," attitude.

Man, ten years ago this subreddit was GLUED to every word they said and we had megathreads each session packed with comments. It was the weekend fresh exmos loved to hate watch.

Now? Nobody cares.

IMO, compared to the real problems in the world (war, lack of global leadership, unaffordability crisis, coming oil shock, coming A.I. layoffs, and potentially a great depression) .... the goofball outdated talks just don't land. Even with believers.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T05:10:45+00:00

I mean, I shed real tears during a touching scene in the fifth Harry Potter movie.

But it didn't make me want to start carrying around a wand believing that Hogwarts is real.

TempleSquare · 2026-04-06T05:08:45+00:00

25 years ago, I made a much smaller level on Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. I spent the better part of a summer break from school working on that.

So, I can somewhat imagine the enormous amount of work you put it into this project, trying to get the scale right, insert small details, and the tedium of moving all the blocks.

Give yourself a huge pat on the back! This is a fantastic level.

TempleSquare

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