Category: Business

Of Course, It Would Be

Corporate Fuckery, Drive Time

…Volkswagen, who are taking that extra step towards eventual self-immolation:

Auto Express reports that German automaker Volkswagen has introduced a subscription-based model for unlocking the full potential of its ID.3 electric car, a new model available in the UK. While the ID.3 Pro and Pro S models are listed on the configurator as producing 201 horsepower, buyers must pay a monthly subscription fee of £16.50 ($22.29) to access the car’s maximum output of 228 horsepower.

Considering that sales of the ID.3 outside Yurp can probably be measured in single figures per month, nobody Over Here should care about this.  (And if this lawsuit succeeds, well…)

But in this case of bastardy, it’s very definitely the principle of the thing that matters.

Fuck them, and the batteries that power their accountants’ laptops.

Gotta say that it’s this kind of chiseling that makes me want one of these oh so badly:

Anything without a chip or batteries will do, come to think of it.  Even a replica with a (non-electric carburetor-fed) VW Beetle engine.

Interesting Concept

Gratuitous Gun Pics, Marketing / Advertising

From PSA:

Why is this interesting?  Well, I like the idea of an easy-switch barrel combo rather than having to hump two .22 rifles around (as I do) in order to get the maximum fun out of the cheap .22 LR and the added power of the .22 WMR.  (Plus there’s that space issue in Ye Olde Gunne Sayfe…)

That straight-pull bolt is an excellent idea.  (The B1 was originally marketed as a Hammerli-designed action, hubba hubba.)

But there’s a snag.  You see, Walther has made this rifle accept Ruger 10/22 magazines — excellent — and they supply three magazines with the rifle — even better.  BUT:  the ratio of magazines is:  two .22 LR mags, and only one .22 WMR mag.

And that’s the problem.  Ruger .22 LR (BX-1) mags are so plentiful that people hand them out to kiddies as Halloween favors or Xmas stocking stuffers.  Ruger .22 WMR mags… errr not so much;  you have to get them online rather than in brick-n-mortar stores.

Far better, in my opinion, to supply two magnum mags and one LR mag.  Or just up the price of the rig by $10 and offer two of each.

OR — gasp! — include two BX-10 .22 LR mags, and one of the BX-15 .22 WMR mags (15 rounds, oh my).  There’s almost no difference in price between the 10- and 15-round mags.

There ya go, Walther:  free marketing advice from a would-be customer (blocked only by poverty from being an actual customer).  Have at it.

Tell me that’s not a toothsome prospect, I dare ya.  (Maybe if I looked under the sofa cushions…)

Better yet, mounted on a nice laminate stock.  Nah, that’s asking too much.

Okay, here’s an offer to any of my Loyal Readers:  buy me one of these Walthers, and I’ll send you both my .22 rifles (the SQ LR and the SSV WMR) in exchange, including scopes and bipods.

Modern Take

Business, Eco-Crap, Travels

In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs’ chant changed from “Four legs good, two legs bad!”  into “Four legs good, two legs better!”  and the farm changed forever.

Well, when it comes to airliners, it seems that the latter has become the norm — just substitute “engines” for “legs”, and you get the picture.

Modern engines, we are told, are more efficient and more eco-friendly (in that they burn less fuel and therefore squirt much less of that eeeevil carbon-whatever into the atmosphere), so therefore twin-engined long-haul aircraft are so much more desirable, you see, than those fat and dirty old 707s and 747s.

Amazingly, the oh-so eco-friendly Germans don’t agree (albeit for the wrong reasons), and are keeping some of their 747s:

This four-engine behemoth, first flown commercially in 1970, is no longer financially viable in an era of increasingly-efficient twin-engined jets. The final passenger-configured jumbo was delivered eight years ago, and Boeing has no plans to restart the production line.

But one European airline hasn’t turned its back on the 747 just yet. Germany’s Lufthansa, perceived by many to be aviation’s kings of efficiency, still operates 27 jumbo jets – 19 of the newer 747-8s, and eight older, slightly smaller 747-400s – and is even upgrading some jumbo jet interiors with swanky new Allegris seats as part of a £2bn Lufthansa fleet-wide refit. 

Here’s the reason:

Why the lingering attachment? Part of the reason is simple and unromantic economics. According to aviation analysts, operations out of its Frankfurt and Munich hubs are each at take-off slot capacity.

So, with flight numbers capped, Lufthansa really needs its biggest aircraft, and the 364-seat 747s-8s drop neatly between the Airbus A350 (293 seats) and A380 (455 seats).

Yeah, whatever.

I happen to prefer flying aboard the older 747s for one simple reasons, based on the old saw:  “Two is one and one is none.”  Using that as a yardstick, I happen to think that four engines are safer than two.

I know, I know;  according to the cognoscenti, modern twin-engined airliners can stay in the air if one engine breaks.  But to my way of thinking, if one engine can break, its identical twin can also break, for the same reason.  I know the chances are not high, statistically speaking;  but the chances are not zero.

And forgive me for being a little skittish about my transportation suddenly turning into a lawn dart at 28,000 feet.  Under those circumstances I’d like the odds to be somewhat more stacked on my side, and four engines are not going to fail simultaneously, or even sequentially.

I know that this is more of a moot point nowadays, when it appears that my transatlantic flying days are pretty much over.  And annoyingly, according to a cursory study, Luftwaffe  Lufthansa is persisting with the European Airbus 330 for DFW-FRA.  (Why Frankfurt?  Because if you’re going to connect at an airport in Euroland, Frankfurt is as good as LHR or CDG, to name but a couple, and better than MAD or — gawd help us — ROM.)

But the principle remains, because it’s true for any passenger, not just me.  So in my opinion, Orwell’s original thesis is true:  four legs good, two legs bad.

Circling The Drain

Business, Drive Time, Eco-Crap

Wow, nobody (except for the Terminally Stupid) could have seen this coming:

Japanese automotive giant Honda is reassessing its strategy for electric vehicles as it navigates challenges stemming from the high costs of EV development, flattening EV demand, and the impact of U.S. tariffs.

In the first quarter of its 2025-2026 fiscal year (April 1 to June 30, 2025), Honda took a one-time charge of ¥113.4 billion (~$780 million) related to its EV-related troubles. In total, the impact of the EV charge and its exposure to tariffs took a toll on Honda’s operating profit during the quarter, as earnings fell to ¥244.1 billion (~$1.69 billion) from ¥484.7 billion (~$3.35 billion) just one year ago.

Yeah… who else thought that the EV industry would fail without massive government subsidies / Green-based regulation?

Well, yes.

Sidestep

Corporate Fuckery, Marketing / Advertising

I’ve spoken about this topic before, but this is a parallel thought.

Whenever I click onto a link which leads me to a PJMedia outlet, I’m often  / always confronted with a message blocking the article, said message requiring me to turn off my ad-blocking software before I may proceed.

Uh, no.  To quote Dubya, “Nahguhdoodat.”  It’s not that I have anything against advertisements, per se — hell, I’ve worked in the ad agency business myself, and I know that ad revenues help media companies remain in business.  What I object to, with a screaming passion, is that digital ads don’t just announce, they shout at me and intrude on my reading with pop-ups, loud audio and all sorts of other bullshit.  And let’s not talk about ads which have tracking software built in, which leads to all sorts of unpleasantness and bastardy down the track.

Side note:  To be frank, I also don’t want to be led to other ads which “relate” to any specific product in which I might show an interest.  Fucking Amazon’s “if you bought this, you might also be interested in this” trope heads the list, but other websites — e.g. Bud’s Guns FFS — also perpetrate this nonsense, even when my interest in, say, a .22 Beretta pistol generates a “suggested list” which includes a Glock 17 and Bergara rifle.

Anyway, I’m not interested in “allowing” ads into my reading of news items, thank you very much, because my indulgence does not extend to being abused by the advertisers.  So fuck you.

Now there are ways to sidestep this little device.  The one I use the most is to Ctrl-X the link, and in the blank thus created, type in “archive.is/” and then CTRL-V the original link and hit enter.  This generally leads to a page like this:

Click on the blue link, and voilà!  you get the article:

Now some websites have found ways to confound this method or the alternative archiving software products, in which case I do something radical.

I just close the page and OMG forget reading about the topic altogether, in that form.  Why?

There is no topic in the news that is so important.

PJMedia is not the only culprit, of course:  it seems as though almost every “newspaper” has created a PPV setup on the basis of:  “if we can’t derive income from ads, we’ll have to get the moolah from membership.”

Fair enough, I concede the point.  It always made sense back in the old print media days, but even then there were work-arounds.  Buying a magazine each week for $1.25 gets spendy — so the print companies made insanely-discounted offers such as “Get two years’ worth of magazines for only 25c per edition if you pay $6!”

And yes, the magazine contained ads — but those ads didn’t require you to read them before you could turn the fucking page, which is largely what digital media requires.

Finally, let me be completely honest about this.  If I’m going to pay to read a publication of some sort, my polymathic nature demands that I don’t confine myself to a single topic, unless it’s a topic I’m insanely interested in.  It’s why for many years I had subs to Gun Tests, G&A and the like.  (I also had a sub for TIME magazine, back before they became irretrievably leftoid, because they carried articles on lots of topics, not just political ones.)

But if I’m going to pay for a daily read, I want the publication to contain topics on just about every topic — and this is where Breitbart News  and PJMedia  fail, because there it’s 90% politicspoliticspolitics — and politics only constitutes about 40% of my interests.

And to be brutally frank, finding out someone’s guess about Georgia’s next senator is woefully insufficient for me to consider paying for the privilege.

Even more to the point, Redstate‘s top 6 articles have so little interest to me that I’m not going to bother opening any of them, regardless of whether there’s a paywall / ad unblocking demand involved.

Okay, #3 might be sorta interesting but hell, we all know that the Democrats aren’t going to give an attaboy to the good guy with a gun, so why bother?

So that’s why I do the digital sidestep.  And if the sidestep is eventually completely blocked, well then fukkem:  I’ll just go to the range or watch an unblocked video on why military pistols don’t matter.  Way more fun.