wearling0600

There's loads of people who prefer iPhone and would sideload if allowed but it's not a deal-breaker. I prefer iOS and Apple hardware but refuse to buy one without sideloading.

My S24 Ultra is arriving tomorrow, but I'll likely be buying the iPhone 16 if it comes with sideloading.

So Apple is gaining a customer, I've been eyeing the MacBooks too ever since the M1 came out so might end up pulling the trigger on one of those as well.

It's definitely an acquired taste, I assume that if you get hooked on it, you start to associate the taste with getting stimulated which makes it seem pleasant.

Having said that, I don't drink coffee (tastes awful unless it's drowned in milk and sugar at which point what's the point), but the smell is heavenly, and I like coffee flavour in cakes/desserts.

And I say this having tasted some of the best espresso known to man - my closest friend is obsessed and has equipment worth thousands, and we've sampled great coffee places including in Italy.

So then... continue using exclusively Apple's store then?

If you consider Apple to be the gold standard for security, you have just keep going as you are.

I don't see how giving other people the freedom to choose infringes on your security.

Probably to continue getting 'Gulf Region'-rich off the back of the oil it found in an area that is internationally recognised as their territory.

Even Venezuela recognised it as part of Guyana's EEZ until very recently.

After Maduro mismanaged one of the most resource rich countries into basically a failed state, he's now trying to cling to power the tried and true way: stoking a pointless war with its neighbour.

Best case he's trying to rally support for a 2025 election, or use the threat of as an excuse to say the election. Worst case he's gonna do a Putin and actually start a war. Not a bad time for it either, whilst the world is already distracted with Ukraine and and Gaza.

Here's a decent video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ7fTSirNDs

It just makes sense, they've got their cars tuned in by now, Abu Dhabi is a circuit they know well so they're not likely to mess up the setup (or conversely find some amazing leaps through setup).

They now likely have a huge selection of used parts they can put on the car so they don't risk wear/damage on the parts they might need at a later date.

So if you're not expecting to be fighting for championship positions in the final race it's a no-brainer.

The others did it in Mexico which is the 2nd best option, if you don't want to use up all of FP1 in the final race for the young drivers.

Damn, that's pretty drastic! I had no idea that they're reworking the sizes to such an extent.

Especially if they're gonna keep shoving street circuits down our throats, they might as well make the cars more suitable.

You wouldn't race fullsize SUVs down the streets of Monaco, yet somehow you're expected to in modern F1 cars which are comparable in length and width.

MotoGP already has this tech in place and has for a while, works pretty well.

And the long lap penalty is pretty genius. You get a penalty, you have to serve it pretty soon, not get added after the race like F1, at which point you've had the chance to build a buffer because the cars can't follow that closely.

The chances of this happening are a rounding error. Red Bull need a #2 who is fast enough to pick up wins when Max can't and take points off his rivals.

They need a Bottas, not an Alonso.

As an armchair team principal, I'd take even Bottas over Alonso. And Ricciardo over either.

Unless Alonso commits to the mother of all 2nd driver contact with an iron-clad non-disparagement clause.

So won't happen.

As a fan though, I'll pray to whatever deity to let it happen, what delicious drama we'd have on our hands.

I don't know, your #2 reason doesn't seem to stand up to reality.

I don't know where you are, but where I am (UK) you can go on any high street (in most towns there will be an area where most shops are, think strip mall in the US) and you will find at least a couple shops that fix and sell electronics - primarily smartphones, but also vacuum cleaners, TVs, computers, games consoles.

Pretty much all of them are locally-run and are, I assume, profitable in spite of every electronics manufacturer trying to run them out of business.

I say I assume because they wouldn't be everywhere if they weren't.

I've had phones fixed by them, they offer warranties, reasonable prices, only had an issue once and it was put right after a tiny bit of back and forth.

I think by "we can't afford it" you mean "capitalism hasn't yet found a way to centralise the profits and run the small business owners out of business".

2&3 completely agree

On 1 though, I agree IF every other game embraced the modding community as much as Bathesda games do. GTA is the only other game I heavily mod, and in comparison it's such a pain in the ass, the game engine is not designed to support it so you get weird bugs, just overall a worst experience.

So I think it's fair to rate the base game highly for its support of mods. They've decided that providing a great experience for mods is a high priority for them. Maybe they can make the base game better if they don't have to make it compatible with whatever modders want to throw at it.

Oh you mean debatable because it's one of the cleanest, cheapest, and safest sources of electricity we have?

Which allows France a degree of energy independence which has helped it not suffer the same amount of pain other countries have now that they're having to kick the cheap Russian gas addiction?

And through huge cross-border interconnects it allows France to sell electricity to neighbouring countries at a huge profit?

Nuclear is not always the answer, but as France has shown, as long as you invest in reliable infrastructure and don't put it in earthquake/tsunami-prone areas, it can be a huge positive for your country.

And you don't have to rely on antagonistic petrostates for to power your homes with gas, or on strip-mining huge swathes of land by equally-antagonistic China for rare-earth metals for your wind turbines/solar panels/battery storage.

I assume that you're talking about the Dacia Spring which got 1 star (though the Renault Zoe got 0 stars recently and a few others did too in the past).

So whilst you're not wrong that these cars currently hold the lowest ratings of cars tested with the new post-2020 procedure, I'm sure a lot of older cars would fare far worse.

And it's fundamentally flawed to subject a tiny 970kg EV city car to the same tests as a 2-3 ton towering SUV. Besides the vastly different use cases, bigger and heavier vehicles will have an inherent advantage in most of the tests - hint none of them are adjusted for the weight of the vehicle.

I'm not saying this is somehow wrong, they're simulating crashing into an average car or a stationary immovable object, just we're automatically discounting small vehicles which have a genuinely valid reason to exist.

The new NCAP ratings only makes sense if we're saying affordable, small, light cars don't need to exist. Like everything automotive nowadays, it's designed to gently nudge us towards big lumbering swollen hatchbacks as the holy grail of the car industry.