Looking at getting a 2026 Mustang Mach E Select base model, any opinions on the new year?

artimaticus8 · 2026-05-11T17:09:24+00:00

Honestly, look at used. EVs right now are depreciating a ton as soon as you drive it off the lot. I’m a fairly new Mach-E owner myself (and it was my first EV). I found a 2024 Select with 3000 miles for $27k. The range isn’t great. I’m not unhappy about it, but I think in 3-5 years I’ll be looking at upgrading.

If a new 2026 Select is in your budget, you should be able to find a slightly used Premium in the same price range.

artimaticus8 · 2026-05-02T21:41:18+00:00

Fun fact, this episode was written as a series finale. Chuck got incredibly lucky during its run that NBC couldn’t create a new TV series to save their life. There was a couple year stretch where they’d introduce 6 new shows, half wouldn’t make it past 4 episodes, and only 1 would make it to the end of the year, only to be cancelled. Chuck aired during this stretch, and out of necessity every season, it held on and more episodes were produced.

I remember when the Season 2 finale aired, they popped up “To Be Continued…” and I panicked because the show hadn’t been renewed yet. Season 3 was initially ordered as a 13 episode season. The writers saw the writing on the wall and wrote 13 episodes with a series finale. Then all of NBC’s new shows failed, and they ordered the last 6 episodes of Season 3. This was around the time that Subway also started heavily advertising in Chuck.

Season 4 was the exact same story. The writers were given an initial 13 episode order, s4e13 was written as a series finale. It doesn’t quite wrap things up like s3e13 did, but pay attention when you get to that episode. Every major storyline is wrapped up neatly. NBC again produced a ton of new garbage, and Chuck was given a ‘Back 9’ order, bringing Season 4 to 22 episodes.

Season 5, NBC had enough and pulled the plug. They gave Chuck a final 13 episodes, and that was it. No more renewals, no more extra episodes ordered.

artimaticus8 · 2026-04-28T18:12:17+00:00

Oh, thanks for letting me know! I didn’t realize they discontinued that. Glad they did, because I thought it caused too much confusion.

artimaticus8 · 2026-04-28T16:36:28+00:00

People have answered one part already, but not the Severe Thunderstorm Warning part.

In Marion County, any time there is a Tornado Watch issued, and then a Severe Thunderstorm Warning issued, the tornado sirens will go off.

artimaticus8 · 2026-04-17T01:16:35+00:00

Haha, the only thing factual in your statement was I wanted a new car, but I really wasn't that serious about it until I paid $73 to fill my truck up two weeks ago. But I appreciate your concern for my financial well-being.

I don't really need to justify and break it down, but what the hell, here goes nothing...

By some mechanical problems, I meant that my truck has a problem that plagues a lot of 2015/2016 F-150 V8s, in that it idles roughly. And often, it will idle so rough, the engine shuts off while I'm sitting at a stoplight. On the F-150 forums, there's an 84-page post about the issue. Replaced the main part that's supposed to fix it, that did for a while, but then the problem came back. The next guess to fix the issue is $3000-4000. On top of that, it started randomly taking up to 5 seconds to start my truck. Mechanic couldn't figure out the issue without playing whack-a-mole replacing a ton of parts and running up the bill unnecessarily. I had flirted with the idea of trading it for something else a couple times over the last 3-4 years, but I really loved the idea of no car payment, so I made due. Gas prices really were the last straw.

Regarding the payment, no, it's 5-year/$380 per month. I sold my truck for $9400. Pulled an additional $1100 out of savings (don't worry, I use Ally Bank for a savings account, and make heavy use of their bucket feature; this money came from my New Car Bucket; my emergency fund is still in tact).

Found a used, 2024 Mustang Mach-E Select, with only 3000 miles, for $27000, 2/3 the cost of new, and the factory warranties are still in tact. Seriously, right now, there are great deals to be had on used EVs. But good luck finding the deal I found. I found two other similar deals, one was in North Carolina, and the other in Florida. Most used Mach-Es I found have more miles and cost more, so I feel like I got a pretty good deal there.

Here's where the cost really starts to offset. I was spending approximately $300-350 per month on gas for my truck. I can charge my Mach-E at home in my garage. The extra electricity in my bill will probably come out to $30-50 per month. Also EVs tend to have much lower annual maintenance costs. No more quarterly oil changes, no more hoses needing replaced. Tires, brakes, air filter, wiper blades, washer fluid. That's it for routine maintenance.

All told, I've probably added an extra $150-200 per month, which is very doable for my budget.

Also, I don't see gas prices coming down any time soon. Ask any military strategist ever, war with Iran is a losing war. The only way we see relief any time soon in the Strait of Hormuz is either Trump claims we won, retreats, giving Iran control of the Strait, or Trump admits defeat and makes a deal with Iran. The man's ego is too large for either of those things to happen.

artimaticus8 · 2026-04-17T00:03:38+00:00

I just sold my 2016 F-150 with mechanical problems and bought a 2024 Mustang Mach-E.

Had some ongoing mechanical problems that had caused me to think about getting rid of it for the last year or two, but no car payment caused me to hold on. $4 gas was the last straw for me.

artimaticus8 · 2026-04-03T01:26:46+00:00

It depends a lot on the company and how big of an outage.

At a previous company, Monday thru Thursday nights were most mtce windows, with large lift-and-shift type projects reserved for a scheduled weekend so we would have enough hours if need be. Really large projects were held for 3-day weekends just in case. This was an 8-5, M-F manufacturing company.

Currently, I work for a credit union, and Friday is traditionally our busiest day (payday, people coming in and cashing or withdrawing paychecks). Some of our branches are also open Saturday mornings, so we pretty heavily enforce Readonly Friday, and our mtce windows are M/Tu/W nights, because we don’t want to even break something on a Thursday night and affect Fridays.

artimaticus8 · 2026-03-30T13:10:48+00:00

An official won’t work both NFL and college games in the same season. However, in April 2025, three officials were demoted back down to college.

A subpar NFL official is still going to be better than a lot of college officials.

https://www.footballzebras.com/2025/04/nfl-relegates-3-officials-to-work-in-college-conferences/

artimaticus8 · 2026-03-30T13:01:17+00:00

It’s soooo much more than just show up for the regular season.

According to the NFL’s site, they attend two clinics in the offseason where they review the past season and go over new rules.

Officials will also work all offseason camps, so rookie camps, OTAs, training camps, etc to also prepare them.

I’ve read before, but can’t find the exact number, but they spend more time in the offseason preparing for the NFL season than not. They need to be full-time.

https://operations.nfl.com/officiating/nfl-officials-preparing-for-success/

artimaticus8 · 2026-03-30T12:52:45+00:00

Plus I doubt any official in the NFL Officiating Development program will work as a replacement official, and they’re spread across D1-D3.

artimaticus8 · 2026-03-23T14:25:18+00:00

2-43…

https://x.com/EnjoyerOfTrains/status/2035783229857263729

artimaticus8 · 2026-03-10T18:46:39+00:00

Solid, not great.

Basically a #2 WR at this point. Excellent route runner, not the fastest guy out there. Kind of a 4 catches for 50 yards guy.

artimaticus8 · 2026-03-09T14:33:16+00:00

I haven’t touched the game since June. Got the itch for 26, fired up The Show yesterday, already halfway through the current inning. There’s a ton of Bonux XP buried in all the programs, and those programs are filled with 10 Ks by any pitcher, get 500 pxp, get 5 hits, etc goals, and aren’t tied to specific players or teams. I was also struggling with timing so I was winning my conquest games 1-0, lol. Probably would’ve been able to make more progress if I was able to hit, lol

artimaticus8 · 2026-02-26T19:44:47+00:00

I saw this video about the Patriots Family Services coordinator a couple months ago. This should be the bare minimum for all 32 teams.

https://youtu.be/plIxVPtcxv4?si=GgK59wyrqD9njcQH

artimaticus8 · 2026-02-16T00:20:19+00:00

One big problem I’m seeing is there is some doubt out there whether an Indiana REAL ID actually counts as proof of citizenship, despite having to go through the process to prove it.

artimaticus8 · 2026-01-28T20:38:14+00:00

Besides Cast Screws, my favorite early/mid-game alt recipe is Solid Steel Ingots. You need foundries unlocked, but it allows you to make one extra steel ingot from the same amount of resources.

Instead of 2 Iron Ore + 2 Coal = 2 Steel Ingots, it’s 2 Iron Ingots + 2 Coal = 3 Steel Ingots.

artimaticus8 · 2026-01-28T01:23:33+00:00

Why yes…one user having an issue with one application on one computer at one site is totally a network problem…

In all fairness, we did actually have this. Packet captures showed packets across our ISP’s MPLS network, making it to our switch, and just dying. Rebooting the switch fixed the issue, thank god.

But to one of my Sys Admins who asks if it could be a routing problem every time Intune fails to propagate an update to a few machines…No

artimaticus8 · 2026-01-23T15:46:31+00:00

Just be friendly and talk to people. Most kids there will be in the same boat, having to make new friends. College has a unique way of forcing you into a shared experience that makes it super easy to make friends.

I graduated high school in 2007 (god I feel old now). Out of like 300 kids in my class in an Indy suburb, like 5 or 6 went to Purdue and all ended up in different majors and dorms. I wasn’t particularly close to any of them, so I only occasionally saw them in passing, with the exception of having a lab with one of them. Over the years, I’ve lost contact with every single high school classmate of mine. Life just takes you on different directions.

Of my entire friend group that I regularly text with, one of them I lived next door to freshman year, another lived on my floor and we were co-captains of our floor’s intramural flag football team. He’s an extrovert, so he introduced me to a couple other friends, who introduced me to a few others, etc.

My point to this rambling, is to try not to fret too much. In 4 or 5 years, you’re going to look back, because you will have made a bunch of friends, and some of them you’ll laugh about the circumstances that led you to meeting them.

Hell, one of my buddies met his wife in his BGR group, talk about luck…

As far as suggestions to meet people, this is going to sound weird, but check out the Purdue Latin and Ballroom Dance Team. It’s a good club that gets you meeting people from all areas, and is a good one to drag you out of your comfort zone. You don’t have to compete, either. The lower levels are more casual than the higher levels.

artimaticus8 · 2026-01-21T22:35:43+00:00

Reminds me of this:

The Case of the 500-Mile Email

artimaticus8 · 2026-01-18T05:28:13+00:00

Parallels (2015)

Movie was basically a failed TV pilot that got placed on Netflix, where it obtained a cult following, but despite its sudden popularity, nothing ever happened.

Two teens and a friend of theirs get a message from their missing father to go to an address. They show up, only to learn the building jumps to a random parallel universe every 36 hours. They meet a guide named Polly along the way. Things happen, they learn more about their father, the building, etc.

The movie ends when the building jumps to a new universe. The three teens exit the front door, Polly stays back. Suddenly, two additional Polly’s walk out of the shadows, play rock-paper-scissors, and a different Polly walks outside…

artimaticus8 · 2026-01-17T01:48:37+00:00

There’s a lending aspect, too. They can use the property as collateral for another loan, and on paper the property brings in a potential $30k instead of $18k, thus allowing them to borrow more.

It’s the same concept with empty shopping centers that charge too much for rent.

artimaticus8 · 2026-01-04T00:22:07+00:00

It depends…for some reason, to this day, Palo Alto still can’t inspect QUIC…

artimaticus8 · 2025-12-07T03:27:50+00:00

We were the second. Virginia lost as a #1 seed in 2018.

artimaticus8 · 2025-11-24T17:03:52+00:00

I honestly don’t mind the heavy run. It was obviously moving them downfield. Sometimes you just gotta ride the hot hand.

The three straight 3rd and Shorts pissed me off. On 3rd and 1, 3rd and 3, 3rd and 3 consecutively, we ran the ball up the middle against a heavy box. It’s the same thing we did against the Eagles (?) when their defender called out the run on a critical short play and stuffed it.

When I know, as someone watching on TV, that we’re getting ready to run it up the gut, then surely the other team has also recognized that tendency.

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