Neither do chips, even if they all start as silicon from the ground. What the earlier comment was saying is that the actual composition of crude oil varies by location so you aren't necessarily getting the same ratio of finished products at the process. With silicon you have a bit more control over what goes into the fab. But you're still at the mercy of demand from the market.
The crude composition defines a range of possible products, not exactly ratios. Longer chain hydrocarbons are also cracked to yield more light products.
> defines a range of possible products, not exactly ratios
I'm not sure I follow, varying range necessarily implies varying ratios (e.g. a product missing from the range means its ratio is zero).
Even when in theory you can obtain some higher quality products, the composition of the crude can make it too complex and expensive to practically obtain them.
You don't want to refine gasoline from heavy crude, especially in winter when demand is lower. For gasoline or kerosene you want to start from lighter crude. Same with many undesired components (either from the crude or resulting from the refining methods), the more you have, the more complex the refining, and the resulting ratio of products you obtain varies.
So in practice what you get out of the refining process absolutely depends on the characteristics of the crude, and many other things like market demand or the capability of your refinery.
Same as with silicon. The process to make the wafer results in different quality if you want to make low tech or cutting edge semiconductor products.
Indisputably, once someone has a hammer, especially one that grants them this much extra power, they will go looking for nails. In 2025 those who still defend those "hammers" with the wide-eyed impression that they can somehow control them once they're out there are at best showing hubris, lack of foresight, and disregard for the history books.
To be more clear, when you push for "less sharing" and somehow get it, you aren't actually getting what you want, you're just getting less of what you didn't want. It's like when the waiter asks you how much spit you want in your soup, the correct answer is to kick the waiter out not to demand a minimal amount.
> if you turn those into "specialty" coffees and upsize them, and then add ~10% sales tax
Right off the bat, it's McDonalds, there are no "specialty" coffees. And the sales tax is irrelevant, what matters is what comes out of the pocket.
$20 for McD-quality coffees and soda is insanely expensive. It puts it above places like Starbucks which makes no sense because there's a Starbucks literally 50m/150ft away from that very same McD.
Pictures of the menu at the closest McDonald’s to MacArthur Park show the coffees at ~$4 and sodas at ~$2-3 all large, which is a more realistic number but still only around half the quoted amount.
Of course there are "specialty" coffees at many McDonald's. Well over a decade ago, recognizing the margin and admitting the public interest in sweet, creamy, coffee drinks, they began a shift into direct competition with Starbucks, et al and offer a full menu of Americanized espresso and blended coffee drinks. Like at Starbucks, these easily run over $5 for the large sizes, and they're widely available.
Because of both brand loyalty, or because they also want other things from McDonald's that Starbucks don't carry, it's a extremely successful and profitable product segment for them, even when a Starbucks is "literally 50m/150ft away".
GP must have been asking for the non-PRC shill opinion.
> My guess is that it's at least 10 years away,
That doesn't sound at all like a lot. China has a uniquely effective industrial espionage... industry, combined with a very thick geopolitical skin and disregard for international demands. This helps accelerate any process that others have already perfected.
We'll start to see the real deal if/when China eventually catches up to the leaders in every field and the only way to pull ahead is to be entirely self propelled (you can't take advantage of someone else's draft when you're in front of the pack).
Manufacturers will look to price the OS support into the product. Customers will see an overpriced phone because it has ten years of support or a cheaper one with five years support and will think "I'd rather buy a new one in five years, I need a battery replacement anyway". I'd be very curious to see how the market responds to this, but I suspect manufacturers will set prices in such a way as to lead the customer towards a predetermined choice.
Reminds me of college where a MBP was $1k but a bargain bin windows laptop was $300-400. I knew many people who scoffed at the price of a MBP and then proceeded to buy 2-4 new laptops over the course of 4 years due to their laptops (sometimes literally) falling apart or otherwise breaking down. It was lost on them that they ended up paying close to or more for their laptops while having a subpar experience.
To be fair, a nicer, more expensive, more reliable windows laptop would also have been an option.
Didn't those people also get much newer hardware each time they upgraded? People who chose the expensive one will be dealing with the sunk cost fallacy.
They are, and most time this allows them to abuse you. But what do you think happens once you that gateway is blown open, isn't your front door next?
> There are multitudes of online storage providers outside of the UK's reach and jurisdiction
What I said above means that once you normalize the situation that providers have to open the gate to your yard whenever the state comes knocking, the state will just come knocking directly at your door. In other words I'm not sure the state will stop in its pursuit of access to your data when it can just incriminate trying to evade the law by storing it out of reach.
> But what do you think happens once you that gateway is blown open, isn't your front door next?
Yes this is the way policing should work, if they think you have done something they knock on your door rather than go to Apple and Google and compromise the entire population all at once through the convenience of their monopolies. Bonus points if a judge needs to grant them the privilege of knocking on your door too.
> Yes this is the way policing should work, if they think you have done something they knock on your door [...] Bonus points if a judge needs to grant them the privilege
How exactly would they come after you if your data is "outside of the UK's reach and jurisdiction"? They went after the gatekeepers because they wanted a one stop shop for accessing people's data. They will look to take the same easy road in the future and there's nothing easier then framing any attempts to keep data out of UK's reach as a crime. They get your data or get you for not providing the data.
The law will be "stupid", tech savvy people will find ways around it. But it's enough to throw a or a noose around as many people as possible and tighten as time goes by. Authoritarianism 101.
> How exactly would they come after you if your data is "outside of the UK's reach and jurisdiction"?
By suspecting you of a crime first, then they can establish access to your device through legal due process and access the data on your device or imprison you for not facilitating it. Same thing they do with computer passwords and whatnot.
My friend, suspecting you of a crime is the easiest thing to do. Just putting your data outside of UK jurisdiction makes you suspicious. Ever tried going into the US and refusing to unlock your phone if asked at the border because "you have rights"?
> through legal due process
"Legal due process" is literally just what the law says. In this case a backdoor is the legal due process. The UK government took aim at Apple and Google because they wanted a one stop shop for their data access needs, and didn't want to bother going after you "the criminal" individually. If Apple and Google didn't exist and everyone starting backing up their data in some far away, untouchable jurisdiction (should you trust one) you think the UK government wouldn't tighten the noose around individuals the same way? Most governments are going in this direction anyway.
The government showed its intentions with this move: have easy access to your data. They'll keep pursuing that goal no matter what, gatekeepers or not. They define the due process. In this particular case the problem isn't that Apple is a gatekeeper but that the government wants things they shouldn't (by my definition) have.
FSD never drives alone. It's always supervised by another driver legally responsible to correct. More importantly we have no independently verified data about the self driving incidents. Quite the opposite, Tesla repeatedly obscured data or impeded investigations.
I've made this comparison before but student drivers under instructor supervision (with secondary controls) also rarely crash. Are they the best drivers?
I am not a plane pilot but I flew a plane many times while supervised by the pilot. Never took off, never landed, but also never crashed. Am I better than a real pilot or even in any way a competent one?
I'll grant that the marketing oversells the capabilities of the system, but (as I have commented repeatedly in these FSD threads): anyone using it knows within a couple days their comfort level. I'm utterly unconvinced that any user is actually confused about the capacity of the system just because it's named "Autopilot" or "Full Self Driving" is not telling the truth.
The fact of the technology is that while imperfect, it is absolutely a marvel, and incredibly useful. I will never drive home again after having a beer after work, or when I'm tired after a long day. I can only attribute the angry skepticism in the comments to willful ignorance or lack of in-the-seat experience. I use it everyday, it drives me driveway to parking with only occasional interventions (per week!).
I'll throw in that my wife hates it (as a passenger or driver), but she has a much lower tolerance for any variance from expected human driving behaviour (eg. lane choices, overly cautious behaviour around cars waiting to enter traffic, etc).
> I can only attribute the angry skepticism in the comments to willful ignorance or lack of in-the-seat experience
Next to "the latest version really fixed it, for realsies this time", the "anyone who doesn't like it is ignorant or has irrational hate for Tesla" must be the second most sung hymn among a small but entirely too vocal group of Tesla owners. Nothing brings down a conversation as quickly as someone like you, trying to justify your purchase by insulting everyone who doesn't agree with your sunk-cost-fallacy-driven opinions.
> Nothing brings down a conversation as quickly as someone like you, trying to justify your purchase by insulting everyone who doesn't agree with your sunk-cost-fallacy-driven opinions.
I don't have any sunk cost in FSD. The car, sure, but it's a fine electric car that I got when there weren't many options (especially at a reasonable price).
I felt I was being generous. My inclination is that animosity to Musk's odious politics clouds the rational judgement of many critics (and they've mostly have no first-hand experience with FSD for any length of time).
I've heard this so many times it's starting to be a meme. The system was claimed to be very capable from the beginning, then every version was a massive improvement, and yet we're always still in very dangerous, and honestly underwhelming territory.
Teslas keep racking up straight line highway miles where every intervention probably counts at most as 1 mile deducted from the total in the stats. Have one cross a busy city without interventions or accidents like a normal human driver is expected to.
It was very capable, and each version has been a big improvement. The first time I rode in a Tesla with FSD back in 2017 I was shocked by how good it was. Self driving tech has advanced so fast that we forget it was considered next to impossible even 15 years ago. You are judging past tech by 2025 standards.
Novelty is enough to look like "shockingly good". You were comparing "no self driving" to "some self driving". A jump from 0 to something always seems big. Standard driver assists were also impressive when they appeared on cars. In the meantime Tesla still makes a lot of claims about safety but doesn't trust the FSD enough to publish transparent, verifiable stats. That speaks louder than any of our anecdotes.
> You are judging past tech by 2025 standards.
That's very presumptuous of you. Every single person I know driving a Tesla told me the FSD (not AP) is bad and they would never trust it to drive without very careful attention. I can tell Teslas on FSD in traffic by the erratic maneuvers that are corrected by the driver, and that's a bad thing.
> Every single person I know driving a Tesla told me the FSD (not AP) is bad
I really don't believe this because everyone I know who drives a Tesla tells me the opposite. I tend to think this is an artifact of people who just irrationally hate Tesla because IRL every negative thing I hear about Teslas comes from people who don't own the cars and hate Elon Musk.
> they would never trust it to drive without very careful attention
Of course, because the product is not designed to drive without human supervision.
> I can tell Teslas on FSD in traffic by the erratic maneuvers that are corrected by the driver, and that's a bad thing.
I don't believe you actually can because I don't notice any difference in the quality of driving between Tesla's or any other car on the road. (In fact the only difference I can notice between drivers of different cars is large trucks). So, again, I write off such statements as more of the same emotionally driven desire to see a pattern were there isn't one.
> this is an artifact of people who just irrationally hate Tesla
> more of the same emotionally driven desire to see a pattern
Don't you find it curious that every opinion you don't like must be from irrational people hating Tesla, but opinions you do like are all rational and objective? It's as if we didn't define the sunk cost fallacy for exactly this. You're a rational person, if Tesla was confident in the numbers wouldn't we have an avalanche of independently verifiable stats? Instead we're here playing this "nuh-uh" games with you pretending you're speaking with an authority nobody else has. Does any other company go to such lengths to bury the evidence of their success? The evidence that supports their claims?
And of course I can tell FSD drivers, literally nobody else on the street will so often brake hard with absolutely no reason, or veer abruptly then correct and straighten out so hard it wobbles, both on highways and in the city. If it's not the car then it must be the drivers but they wouldn't make such irrational moves.
P.S. The internet is full of video evidence of FSD making serious and unjustified mistakes. Every version brings new evidence. How do you explain those? Irrational haters inventing issues? Car misbehaving only for them? Because you see, even if you film 10 times and get the mistake only once it's still very serious.
Yeah, that's the type of feedback I absolutely do believe. Sounds like something someone would say about their car to me IRL. That's basically the standard I apply to internet comments.
For what it's worth, that was not my experience. 12 didn't fix all of the issues I'd heard about its predecessor. 13 didn't fix all the issues I experienced with 12. "Better" isn't enough, it needs to be so good that every issue with the previous generation is resolved. It's never been close to that.
I'm also sick of hearing "have you tried?" And also "it's really improving!"
Maybe the manufacturer should try the next version. And test it. And then try the next version. And test it. And then continue until they have something that actually works.
That's not an anecdote, it sounds like an exaggeration bordering flat out lying. A 2000 miles trip "without touching anything" to drive the car is statistically impossible for any reasonable drive (e.g. not endless straight lines on an Australian highway), especially for a Tesla famously known for needing interventions often. Even more advanced autonomous driving systems are far too limited to take arbitrary 2000 miles trip with zero human assistance.
2,000 may be stretching it but it is possible if the driver is trusting enough. Personally many of my disengagements isn't because it is being dangerous, but just sub-optimal such as not driving as aggressive as I want to, not getting into off-ramp lane as early as I like, or just picking weird navigational choices.
Trying to recall but I haven't had a safety involved disengagement in probably a few months across late 13 and 14. I am just one data point and the main criticism I've seen from 14 is: 1) getting rid of fine speed controls in favor of driving style profiles 2) its car and obstacle avoidance being overtuned so it will tap the brakes if, for instance, an upcoming perpendicular car suddenly appears and starts to roll its stop sign.
Personally, I prefer it to be overly protective albeit turn it down slightly and fix issues where it hilariously thinks large clouds of leaves blowing across are obstacles to brake for.
Driver profiles seem like a terrible answer to the question of choosing a maximum speed, both for the driver of the vehicle, and for Tesla — because it shifts the understanding of the car's behaviour from the driver to Tesla. I think it's insane that Tesla would take that risk.
IMHO, it's okay for the driver profiles to affect everything other than max speed, including aggressiveness of acceleration and propensity to change lanes. But since exceeding speed limits is "technically" breaking the law, the default behaviour of FSD should be to strictly obey speed limits, and drivers should be given a set of sliders to manually override speed limits. Perhaps like a graphic EQ with sliders for every 10 MPH where you can manually input decide how many MPH over that limit is acceptable.
This would be an inelegant interface, and intentionally so. Drivers should be fully in control of the decision to exceed the speed limit, and by how much. FSD should drive like a hard-nosed driving instructor unless the driver gives unambiguous permission to do otherwise.
[0] Note that I am describing this based on my understanding of the US environment. I am Australian, and our speed limits are strictly enforced at the posted speed, without exception. On any road, you should expect a fine if going 3—6 km/h [2—4 MPH] and caught by a fixed or mobile camera. This applies literally anywhere, including highways. By contrast in the USA, I understand that 5—10 MPH on highways has been socially normalised, and law enforcement generally disregards it.)
> The idea authoritarianism reduces crime [...] is a fallacy. Crime still happens
There's a whole range between "reduces" and "eliminates", and introducing the "elimination" argument is a strawman.
Authoritarian regimes do cut down on crime committed by the oppressed masses. It's a side effect of the heavy handed control that allows those in power to stay in power. Severely punishing crime is one more means of exerting more power and control over that population, the leaders can't afford to let regular people get away with flaunting authority. But the upper echelons will always commit crimes or abuses especially against those they control because they can afford to get away with it.
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