I am lucky enough to have a PC that can run the lastest gpt-oss models from OpenAI. I am not impressed. It is like talking to Drax the Destroyer from Guardians of the Galaxy. Even when you explain the joke to it, it still misunderstands.

It also lies. Probably not purposely, it merely says what a human might say even though it is impossible for it.

18 months

18 months

It's bullshit that companies expect resignation notice but give no notice to those being laid off.

Yeah yeah I've heard the fears. They won't work. They'll cause trouble before leaving. Fine. Pay them for two weeks or whatever the expected notice is after you boot them.

I don't think either party owes anything not agreed to in a contract. I'm just saying that expectations are massively one sided in the US.

Been trying to say that over here and people just tell me to have fun staying poor and that Biden would love me and whatever the fuck it is they say...

I'm so exhausted. Bone tired. Hormone tired.

Someone I used to work with in my dept of transportation days just shared this with me. He said he gave it to his son. What do you think? #asknostr

Maybe I have a chip on my shoulder I'm not sure. I came in trying to prove everyone wrong, and realized the problem was much larger than myself or my friends could or had the motivation to solve, among other reasons. I was 19-20 y/o when I started, still in college, excited etc. Then head-first I figured out the way I thought the world worked doesn't. I'm sure many if not most people come to find that out in some way or another.

Agreed, the problem is much larger than automotive. I guess I might just feel guilty that I left the automotive activism fight (not one I wanted to enter, and surely too scared to enter alone). Maybe I am black pilled and it's cope idk? There is a huge loneliness in automotive that was hard to cope with. It doesn't seem like anyone around me/us understood or cared to understand the problem we were all facing, just worrying about themselves and slashing prices, cutting support, ending friendships when the 2022 economy and shortages it. Some of them are rebellious or coping (not sure which), like the government aint commin' after me, till they do and get their asses handed to them with tools they never knew the government had.

But yeah, for me, it's about ownership, that I can do what ever TF I want with MY property. That's where I felt alone. Where I felt, the normie generally sees the good things government does, and that means they must tolerate or work around the government instead.

Even when you speak with activist groups like SEMA in california, you listen to their seminars or their federal court cases, and it's "they generally agree that the EPA must exist to protect humans, but you need to give people clear rules on what they can and can't do" It's literally the same fucking thing as bitcoin. regulate me harder daddy. That's the part where I felt alone, like even the activist lawyers don't see problem, then who does?

Not a surprise, but we even worked with a federal government rep, and you learn real quick, their interest is to get themselves views on tik tok for "standing up for the people" and never follow up or make any change either.

That's the way my friend. For me, i get to share my EPA story in such a way that gets people motivated. When we were shutting down, I took every opportunity to convince others that if you want people like us in business, and it's too late to save us, but you have to talk to people. Get them to understand what's happening to the industry.

"If there is one thing I can leave you with, it's too late to save us, but it's not too late to tell your friends and family, government isn't going to save us". Most of my demographic agreed with the last part XD

I'm not black pilled, but my response to that is "that's cute". Again not trying to be rude, but it's on the activism front you know. For me, it led me WAY deeper into the rabbit hole of economics and finance. The fact that new cars were 10x the price and junkers compared to older vehicles (my bread and butter was 94-03 Ford pickups), but at some point guys are keeping things on life support becaus they have to justify putting $15,000 of parts into a truck that's still only with $1500. It becomes an economics problem. They have to justify the cost of owning a pickup truck for example, when they didn't before. They have to start doing accounting on what they truck makes them, or saves them in a year. Or do I just put it behind my barn and use it for parts, or sell it and rent a truck when they need one etc. It just doesn't work out economically anymore if you ask me.

Again im not black pilled, but something big has to change, and regulation is not helping. As always, the regulation is enforced on the wrong people.

I'm not black pilled, but my response to that is "that's cute". Again not trying to be rude, but it's on the activism front you know. For me, it led me WAY deeper into the rabbit hole of economics and finance. The fact that new cars were 10x the price and junkers compared to older vehicles (my bread and butter was 94-03 Ford pickups), but at some point guys are keeping things on life support becaus they have to justify putting $15,000 of parts into a truck that's still only with $1500. It becomes an economics problem. They have to justify the cost of owning a pickup truck for example, when they didn't before. They have to start doing accounting on what they truck makes them, or saves them in a year. Or do I just put it behind my barn and use it for parts, or sell it and rent a truck when they need one etc. It just doesn't work out economically anymore if you ask me.

Again im not black pilled, but something big has to change, and regulation is not helping. As always, the regulation is enforced on the wrong people.

I generally think the Bitcoin ethos fixes many social, financial, and ethical issues over time. It'll take decades to fix all this shit. I'm just doing the best I can with what we have.

Yeah it's a dangerous place out there XD. My business partner and I often pine for the "what ifs". Generally were happy we walked away from the industry, the people we were at the time... I would do things differently now or in a couple more years time, but it's another front you have to be an activist on, and I didn't have the support or courage to die on that hill, and generally still don't. Part of me still feels like it led me deeper into the rabbit hole of free speech. I'm not sure that's my calling either, but activism chooses you, you don't choose it imo.

Call them out, if it makes you feel better. But I guess my point is just that, unfortunately, most everyone sucks ass.

Also, on the parts. Parts are hard man. Since about 2018-2019 mfgs make it hard to get OEM parts after the model is out of MFG warranty, usually like 5 years. After 5 years sometimes even dealers have to go aftermarket. Even oem parts suck too now-days though. Blame mfgs or mfg parts suppliers idk. But what I can say is that Bosch is usually pretty good. If you have a car (usually foreign) with Bosch equipment, they make it easier for distributors to purchase. While they do have multi-million dollar minimum purchase orders, they almost always have 20+ parts available though some part of their network in my experience.

Navistar/International, CAT ,(Ford diesel engines), (mostly diesel engines) use a healthy amount of bosch components that can be sourced. A B2B that offers some retail purchases is Alliant Power (they're called something else now, again parts is a fucking mess after 2020)

Really the only US domestic parts sources are like Dorman, or Cardone Group (I think they even merged now idk). There are some others but mostly just resell dorman or cardone white-label parts. Denso for asian stuff (high quality usually).

Well we can chat about that if you want, and why I got out of automotive :) Depends what your interests are. It's a highly regulated area and mfgs would rather sue joe home owner out of existence, than allow you to help people.

That said, tech life is not easy. Most guys get into it because its another trade for kids that don't know what they wanna do. It pays better than many trades but is hard work too. MFGs try everything they can to squeeze money out of dealerships and repair shops as well. While theyre forced to offer tools for repair by the government, it doesn't specify what ways they can offer it.

At some point Ford engineer gave us a megashare link to a firmware download for something one of our techs was working on. (funny story Siglent recently sent me a megashare link for a firmware recovery package XD)

For our shop, it was run buy guys who were highly motivated (3 of us started the show, I was just an employee though). We were one of the most expensive repair shops though, and generally turn down small jobs like the equivalent of your situation.

Dealership techs are usually a different story though. I've been offered tech jobs and declined because the work sucks relatively speaking in the trades. Usually the pay is lower because dealerships don't make much money in comparison to 3rd party shops. They have more overhead, mandatory warranty work (they usually lose money on) and they are required to set repair pricing based on the mfg book time which usually isn't enough for the dealership to make much on, despite it feeling like they are telling you to bite the pillow. Dealerships make money on sales, not service, may around here avoid service as much as possible. That and for the past few years they have been short staffed and hiring kids fresh out of tech school.

My experience was mostly in calibration firmware engineering (or reverse engineering).

Techs would rather have an engine swap then a hose repair or brake job. It pays WAY more for the time and attention. I also forgot to mention, techs at dealerships get paid on book-time or job-time not hourly (usually) some do, but it's like $5/hr just to be there. The money is on the job.

If a job says 30min repair, they only get paid 30mins for the repair which usually doesn't account for them getting setup, tools out, logged into to the dealer network, connected to the vehicle etc. So if a job takes more than the book time, you want a larger job so it pays more. Small jobs don't make the tech money, nor the dealership. They don't want them, but often have to take them, or the service writer makes a commission taking the job lol.

Meh, when you’re getting paid fiat and the management is skimping on your wage, and you might get reprimanded for spending now non-billable hrs fixing something that should have already been done, you just don’t give a shit.

My wife's wiper fluid was pouring out of the bottom of the car when refilled after some body work right where the reservoir is housed (hit something on the interstate). She took it back in. Three techs (we were told) couldn't find a leak. Cool.

I just went to refill it and found it leaking everywhere. It took me two fucking minutes to figure out the problem.

What the fuck is going on out there? Three 'professionals' and not one had enough brain power to figure out what was going on?

TWO FUCKING MINUTES. Yet another item on my list to just fix myself.

America is the laughing stock of the world right now.

I hear you. However, I have a 1 TB Pixel 9 Pro XL running Google OS. I switched my daily driver from GrapheneOS when I upgraded. I kinda saw this coming. I also wanted the AI integration for business enhanced productivity.

I choose what data I want Google to have access to, but I want it to have full access to that data. I can easily say that I have saved a ton of time and productivity has doubled as a result of Gemini integration throughout Google's entire suite of products.

Like, Proton is great, but it's just not there yet compared to what Google has to offer for business users. The workflow automation alone with Gemini handling everything from email drafts to document analysis is genuinely game-changing for productivity.

I practice security through isolation and compartmentalization and I have been quite happy running Google OS on the latest Pixel. Different threat models call for different approaches.

They basically knocked Samsung through the door with AI integration and productivity. Samsung's recent marketing basically calls out the elephant in the room - the only positioning they have left in the game is their Galaxy Z Fold6 and flip phones, which I have no use for. Everything else Google just does better now, especially with the Tensor G4 chip optimized specifically for their AI workloads.

There is definitely a large and growing segment of power users who want the full Google ecosystem for legitimate productivity gains.

Who cares? Its idol worship.

Funny joke, but would love to knock the teeth out of the responsible mouth(s).

meetup dot com is full of dark patterns that trick you into entering your credit card details (basically KYC) even if you just want to attend events.

the free Internet is dying in front of our eyes. this is why we nostr.

What was promised: Flying cars

What we got: KYC light bulbs

A correct opinion.

Unpopular opinion: Salt and vinegar chips are the worst thing Ever.

Safe assumption.