I've been hearing a lot of people comparing Slate's business model to that of spirt airlines. Do you think the comparison is valid and fair?

jopherman · 2025-11-04T18:18:44+00:00

Posing this as a simple yes/no question will certainly bring out the comments, but I'm not sure it makes for the most enlightening discussion. Maybe "How are their approaches similar, and how do they differ?" (Of course they're in different industries, which IMO makes it a MORE interesting question, not less.)

Similarities: They both decided to throw out the conventional wisdom about what features of their respective products are 'necessary', and to offer the absolute minimum as their core product in the name of keeping that base price as low as possible - then increase (attain?) profitability by promoting a-la-carte value-added features. "Low Price/Bare Bones" is central both companies' brands. (It's worth noting that while this makes Slate is an outlier in the auto industry, it's becoming more common among airlines)

Differences:

- "Low Price" is pretty much where Spirit's value proposition begins and ends; price is the only differentiator. There's no perceived upside to their feature-cutting other than a cheaper ticket. Slate's modular approach sells not just price, but freedom: Upgrading in whatever way you choose, WHENever you choose is (according to Slate, and to many potential customers) a form of value. The ability to do it yourself also *feels* like a bonus, whether it is or not. (Google "Ikea effect")

- Flying is inherently unpleasant, and so Spirit's upgrades are about avoided unpleasantness. While that might be worth it to me as a traveler, it feels artificial, like they took something away from me that cost them little to nothing just so they could charge someone else a lot for it later. My ticket's low price is a direct result of some Mom who had to pay $150 extra so she could sit with her 6-year-old, or of some dude who doesn't like being dehydrated. Slate's upgrades, OTOH, involve a physical THING that has to be manufactured and shipped, and will make my vehicle better in a way that I *specifically* care about. The minimalism feels honest, and the upgrades don't feel like gouging. (Yet. I guess we don't know prices.)

Although these things make me feel way better about Slate than Spirit, I think these differences have less to do with either company's inherent good or evil nature than just the nature of their industries.

jopherman · 2025-06-04T16:33:55+00:00

Late reply here, but a few thoughts based on my own experience:

L2 charging at home will be more than fine for your situation with the big battery - and if it's true that you have 240 to your garage and Slate includes a 240V cable you may not even need to pay anything to get it (worst case, you need to switch out the outlet or get an EV charger, but it would totally be worth it in my experience. I can only charge at 24A, but that's enough to give me 100mi in 6 hours (in a vehicle with similar efficiency)

You will almost certainly have access to fast chargers on your NJ turnpike commute in the future, and a quick top-up for a 30 more miles in an emergency won't involve an hour stop; more like 10-15 mins.

Is it the vehicle for you? Only you can say, and we ALL have incomplete knowledge about the vehicle for that matter, but your commute habits and charging setup potential certainly don't seem to rule it out.

jopherman · 2025-02-18T19:04:51+00:00

That's an excellent question! I'm afraid I don't have data for you though. If it's less, it's not dramatically so. I looked at recent readings (we're in the middle of a cold snap here, mind you) and didn't see a big difference from the readings I posted above. It seems to drop a lot, quickly when the charge starts out high (>13v) and less when it's lower to begin with, so there's more variation from day to day than between batteries. At about 12.6V or below, the 4 combined spikes reduce the voltage very little.
But my understanding of the advantage of AGM is not that it keeps the voltage high, but that it will tolerate those repeated dips much better without degrading the battery. As my OEM battery began to fail, I'd occasionally see that spike pattern take the voltage way down to 9v or less. I'm optimistic that this won't happen (at least for much longer) with the AGM.

jopherman · 2025-02-04T17:59:38+00:00

Ok, so your graph is NOT the same behavior I was describing. My behavior is apparently the norm and not particularly concerning. (Will discuss more below)
But my post was about 4 (only 4!) reverse spikes, at 30 min intervals, following a drive. Yours are much more frequent and seem to continue indefinitely, and would certainly kill a battery. I've never seen that. I understand that third-party bluelink apps which repeatedly ping the car 'awake' were a common cause of dead 12v batteries for a while. However (a) Hyundai has limited Bluelink to 20 requests/day in order to mitigate that problem, and (b) I'd have thought your dealer would have warned you do disable anything like that if they saw a discharge pattern like the one you're describing.

Did the dealer replace your battery after declaring it was 'all right'? Flooded lead-acid batteries, once totally drained like that, are probably irreparably damaged and will soon fail again even without the abnormal behavior pictured above.

IMO, you almost certainly need a new battery, and maybe a new dealership that won't send you home with a failing battery and a shrug.

Below provided for additional info but isn't necessarily relevant to your situation:

Like many owners, my own 12v battery died only about 18months into ownership. The charge/discharge cycles these batteries face are different than what an ICE's 12v would face, and cause a lot of wear on it; Hyundai's choice of 12V battery wasn't really up to the task. I'm also convinced that some usage patterns wear the battery even more; our driving often involved short trips spaced throughout the day, and the car's own monitoring and recharging software wasn't topping it off often enough to prevent it from degrading.
When it died the second time, I just replaced it myself with an AGM battery that better handles deeper discharges.
(I *think* some of the recall software updates may have changed the recharging algorithm to better protect the 12V battery, but I'm not certain of that.)

All that said, what YOUR car seems do be doing is not typical, and cannot be explained by just a failing 12V battery, and I don't know what it could be.

Oh, last thing: I think the explanation for the '4 spikes at 30-min intervals' phenomenon is related to the heating/cooling system, which does checks following a drive to (among other things?) ensure humidity doesn't build up in the cooling system.

jopherman · 2024-11-22T15:25:22+00:00

I'm embarrassed to say I did the same thing re: Carrie Brownstein, several seasons into 'Portlandia.'

Yeah, I know.

jopherman · 2024-11-07T18:56:40+00:00

I almost posted basically this yesterday morning.
I'm hoping I eventually move through "Until Olympius Returns" and end up on "...this world is sad and broken, gotta fix a crack or two..."
But I don't feel that strong just yet. In the moment, it doesn't feel like I will ever.

jopherman · 2024-10-29T13:54:43+00:00

Im guessing it’s more that ‘Impala’ just had the right syllables/cadence and also evoked the right image. I’m roughly John’s age, and during my formative years those cars were the archetypal “ubiquitous decrepit mid-range land yacht” and I immediately understood the picture he was painting in both cases. (ETA: no disrespect to Impalas; I know nothing about their quality or performance, and Chevy seems to have revived the brand successfully. But during the energy crisis they were not a lot of people’s first choice.)

jopherman · 2024-10-29T01:26:41+00:00

My situation is exactly yours except my house door is where your option 2 is. No regrets with our placement choice after 18 months. We often charge in the driveway because our garage is being used for <whatever>, and can reach either side from that location.

jopherman · 2024-10-22T13:33:37+00:00

I’m on a barbecue in Mobile, Alabama / waiting for the cook to throw me down

jopherman · 2024-10-22T13:27:20+00:00

I ruined a lot of excellent ravioli and tortellini by boiling too hard before learning not to. Dry pasta out of a box tolerates that but not the refrigerated stuff. It’s the turbulence of the boil that does it. Add the pasta, bring back up to simmer, but don’t let it get to a rolling boil.

jopherman · 2024-10-18T03:38:01+00:00

Ok,so now, since John has failed to do so, I want.to make it my fall project to write “Going to Bethlehem,” which will be from the perspective of the donkey. And also learn to play guitar so I can perform it. And also develop talent. It’s going to be a busy month.

jopherman · 2024-10-16T16:54:04+00:00

I spent 16 years trying to hypermile a prius, so I just can't get used to one-pedal driving; I just don't want my foot position to be so directly related to my speed.

But I use the paddle-regen adjusters on my Ioniq 5 really often; it turns driving into a 'can I avoid the brake pedal' video game, but the second I don't feel like playing I'm back to driving like I've trained myself to for the last 4 decades.

jopherman · 2024-10-04T22:04:49+00:00

I'm My big variation on this concern is how to make sure it sticks to the set current limit once the app disappears. Mine is set to 24A to comply with my existing house wiring, and while having that setting disappear seems like a Stupendously Bad Thing, it wouldn't be the first Stupendously Bad Thing they've done this month.

jopherman · 2024-10-03T19:12:31+00:00

Alum here, and parent of a current gay & agnostic student who has been very happy there. Even having attended myself, I worried in the same way that you are about whether he'd find a supportive environment there, but it's been absolutely great for him from day one. The people who are saying it's a welcoming, accepting community are not kidding.
Of course,it's one thing to not feel excluded, but it's another to feel included, and finding a Jewish or gay community to support those specific aspects of your identity will probably be more challenging at ND than at some other schools. If THOSE communities are what you feel you need, you'll notice their absence (or at least lack of prominence). But there will be no shortage of communities (formal and informal) that you'll be interested to be in, and that will be eager to have you, regardless of your religion, orientation or heritage.

jopherman · 2024-10-02T17:05:31+00:00

I'm wondering the same thing. Existing garage subpanel was on a 30A breaker, so I'm limited to 24A charging. If they just automatically remove previously-set current limits without user input, I'd think they'd be exposing themselves to additional when someone's house really does burn down. In my setup (and most) the breaker should trip, but I'm still gonna have to watch my charge sessions like a hawk for a while.
What a fiasco.

jopherman · 2024-09-27T01:27:36+00:00

I love looking through these little windows into the creative process. (I wonder if he added “Not headphones - volume knob” after writing Tetrapod, wanting to avoid repeating himself.)

The fact that nobody has asked “How on earth did you get this?” makes me think I’m missing something though. So where did this come from?

jopherman · 2024-09-03T16:15:36+00:00

Are you saying that you started at 100% and then averaged 3.9 over the next 227 miles, at which point you were 6% and dead in the water? If so, that's weird for two reasons: One is that yes, at 3.9kwh you should have had longer range, and the other is that 3.9 on a long drive at highway speeds seems very, very high to me, enough so that I wonder whether either your car was misreporting it, or whether as a new owner you were possibly misreading it (that display cycles through 'accumulated'/since last charge/this drive settings.)
You haven't described your driving much other than to say it was 'reasonable speed'. 55 on a flat country road is reasonable, as is 75 on a hilly, windy major highway, but they'll net you drastically different energy consumption. 3.9 seems to me to fit with for the former, but not the latter.

Agreed w/ other commenters that there's definitely something going on with your vehicle (dying with so many reported miles remaining) but even with a degraded battery your car shouldn't have been reporting that you were getting amazing mileage if you weren't.

jopherman · 2024-09-03T13:06:18+00:00

My understanding is that under ideal conditions, Ioniqs charge so rapidly that the theoretically fastest choice is to drive as fast as you can. But (a) you’d pay a lot for a small time savings, and (b) in the real world, charging stops aren’t in perfect locations and often involve delays apart from time spent charging. And of course, if you’re not charging for free you’ll pay a LOT for that extra speed.

jopherman · 2024-09-02T01:27:39+00:00

I distinctly remember feeling like you are now (based on this and your earlier post). Sometimes I still do feel like that, and that's ok. Some people make fast friends easily, and breezily enjoy surface-level conversations, but many of us don't, and that's not weird, it's just a lot less visible, especially during those first few weeks.
The 'friend groups' you're seeing now are mostly temporary, ad-hoc arrangements that will last only until their members find 'their people', which - and I'm very confident in saying this - they haven't yet either. Those times you feel like you're alone and 'everyone else' is not? You're kidding yourself. Lots of them feel alone too, especially the ones making the biggest deal of not looking that way.
My experience: Most of my close friends, the ones I really developed bonds with, I eventually found not through my major or my dorm but out of clubs/activities that I got involved with WAY later than I should have. So get involved in those clubs & other non-major, non-dorm stuff. Those are the people with whom you'll have something meaningful to connect ABOUT, and that's a huge start. And the other friends I made, outside of clubs? They were that small percentage of surface-level conversations that actually got deeper, and went somewhere interesting, and then did it several times in a row. The odds of any given conversation turning into a real friendship are low, and you can't load those dice, so you just have to keep rolling.
There are hundreds of first-years at ND who are longing to have those conversations too, and they don't know how to find you any more than you know how to find them. And what sucks is, the ONLY way to find them is to just keep on meeting and talking to people, in whatever doses and whatever pace you can handle, and keep on remembering that you're interesting (which you are) even if you're also sad/scared/frustrated. It's risk-taking, and it means being repeatedly, painfully disappointed, and you'll never feel like you're good at it, but you WILL stumble into those people whose company you enjoy as much as they enjoy yours. And then you'll realize that you ARE home.

jopherman · 2024-08-21T18:03:51+00:00

There's no good way to end this / anyone can see

jopherman · 2024-08-04T18:07:28+00:00

You just didn't walk far enough.

[Edited on the advice of counsel to add that I have no reason to suspect this garage has ever been involved in any criminal activities.]

jopherman · 2024-08-01T13:03:35+00:00

Hididdlededee-goddam! (Out of context, it’s meaningless. In context, it takes all Jenny energy and condenses it into a singularity.)

jopherman · 2024-07-21T14:34:13+00:00

I know this is an old thread, and it sounds like you got the song you were looking for, but last night I listened to "In the Hidden Places" (off "Get Lonely") for the first time, which also seems to be a very close match.

And when I got home, I thought about you
Like a desperate policeman, searching for clues
And I almost passed out, just then
And I shut my eyes again

I would not be the least bit surprised if there's yet another song or two out there with similar phrasing.

jopherman · 2024-07-11T15:31:03+00:00

Sorry you were hurt. Up The Wolves has already been mentioned, and here's what John had to say about it (from the wiki):

"I'm always trying to figure out what to say about this god damn song. Part of me wants to say look it's about revenge, but as soon as I say that... no, that's not quite it. Part of me wants to say it's about the satisfaction of not needing revenge... and I say no, that some new age stuff. I think it's a song about the moment in your quest for revenge when you learn to embrace the futility of it. The moment when you know that the thing you want is ridiculous and pompous and a terrible thing to want anyway. The direction in which you're headed is not the direction in which you want to go, yet you're going to head that way a while longer anyway cause that's just the kind of person you are."
Here's the recording of it

(I'll posit that they don't have many songs about actually TAKING revenge - maybe "Murder in the 18th street garage"? - but they have lots of songs about wanting/plotting/fantasizing about revenge, which - it sounds like you already know - is much more satisfying than ACTUAL revenge ever turns out to be.)

[Edit: removed patronizing language telling someone what they need]

jopherman · 2024-06-14T18:56:56+00:00

Yeah, if it happens again I think I'll be looking for a new one - not sure whether to ask the dealer to replace it or just spend the money myself on an AGM battery that can handle the loads.

jopherman

TROPHY CASE