Zeb

Its not a bad drop really. Along the lines of SML which is I believe is 2 gms carb. My usual beer Beer, VB goes 12 gms Carb - so on a carb basis, I can have about 12 Hahn beers to 1 VB - I enjoy it and still get a "buzz". ( ie 375 ml VB v 330 ml Hahn) Plus it helps keep my weight down. Whats not to like ? 😋

Aldi had these on special this week @ $9.99 a six pack (about half the price a 6 pack elsewhere I later found out) - but I found them pretty good. Went back today and got a couple of cartons. Good stuff for a low carb beer -

A stroll around the Guangzhou Auto Show 2023. It’s astounding what the Chinese auto industry is doing!

The Secret by Lee Child, Andrew Child (Jack Reacher #28) Overview: Chicago. 1992. A hospital patient wakes to find two strangers by his bed. They show him a list of names and ask a simple but impossible question. Minutes later he falls to his death from his twelfth-floor window - a fall which generates some unexpected attention. That attention comes from the Secretary of Defense, who calls for an inter-agency task force to investigate. Jack Reacher, recently demoted from Major, is assigned as the Army's representative. If he gets a result, great. If not, he's a convenient fall guy. Reacher may be an exceptional military investigator, but office politics aren't what gets him up in the morning. As he races to identify a cold-blooded killer and uncover a secret that stretches back 23 years, he must navigate around his new partners. Will Reacher bring the bad guys to justice the official way...or his way?

Uber is importing 10,000 electric vehicles from China that it intends to issue to drivers under a rent-to-buy scheme as it accelerates its green ride-share plans. The vehicles are being imported under a partnership between Uber and EVDirect, the Australian distributor for Chinese electric carmaker BYD. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/uber-s-surge-plan-to-bring-10-000-electric-vehicles-into-australia-20231024-p5eeob.html

VW to stop selling fossil-fueled cars in Norway October 22, 2023 Volkswagen (VW), long one of the major car dealers in Norway, has announced it will stop selling all models fueled by gasoline and diesel after New Year. The German producer and its Norwegian importer point to the massive rise of electric car sales in recent years. “As a final farewell to fossil cars, the last order for a Volkswagen Golf will be taken towards the end of the year,” said Ulf Tore Hekneby, director of Norway’s importer of Volkswagen cars, Møller Bil. He called sales of electric cars in Norway “a formidable success,” while the market for fossil-fueled cars has all but crashed.” Yet only weeks ago VW was saying it had to cut back on EV production lines in Europe because buyers didn’t want them. This of course contradicted the facts surrounding very significant increases in EV sales in most European countries. https://www.newsinenglish.no/2023/10/22/vw-stops-selling-fossil-fueled-cars-in-norway/

Not so big, but found in an *interesting* place - https://i.postimg.cc/QNPX1zTs/Screenshot-20231020-204452.png

MCC expels member at centre of Lord’s altercation London: The Marylebone Cricket Club has expelled a member at the centre of the altercations with Australian players at Lord’s during the second Ashes Test in July and suspended the membership of two others following a months-long investigation. The three members involved, who have not been named by the MCC, were found to have used abusive, offensive or inappropriate language or behaviour. The club wrote to its members on Thursday to tell them one of the men involved had been permanently banned, another suspended for four-and-a-half years and a third member suspended for 30 months. New video shows Australian batsman Usman Khawaja pointing out another patron in the Lord's Long Room for abusing him as he walked off for lunch on Sunday. The scenes followed English batter Jonny Bairstow’s controversial stumping on the final day of Australia’s 43-run victory three months ago. The players were booed loudly as they went through the Long Room to lunch, and David Warner and Usman Khawaja appeared to remonstrate with members. Khawaja was captured on video footage calling out the behaviour of individual spectators at Lord’s. “A few of them [were] throwing out some pretty big allegations and I just called them up on it, and they kept going,” Khawaja said at the time. “And if they kept going I was like, ‘Well, it’s your membership here’, so I was just pointing them out. But it’s pretty disrespectful, to be honest. I just expect a lot better from the members.” Australian captain Patrick Cummins later accused the men of behaving like “pork chops”. Upon receiving word of the penalties, Cricket Australia expressed appreciation to the MCC for following up Khawaja’s complaints, which were supported by a detailed report compiled by the team’s security manager Frank Dimasi. “We are appreciative of the support of the team by the MCC at the time and these subsequent sanctions,” a CA spokesperson said. “We trust this brings the matter to a close and there will be no repeat of the behaviour in future.” Based at Lord’s, which it owns, the MCC acts as custodian and arbiter of the laws and spirit of cricket. MCC chief executive Craig Lavender’s letter to members said the men were all found to have used “abusive, offensive or inappropriate behaviour or language”. “The actions of the three individuals in the pavilion on the day in question fell well below the behaviour expected from our members,” he wrote. Lavender said a document outlining guidance on disciplinary penalties made it clear the misconduct in each case was serious enough to fall within the “higher end of culpability”. Details of the disciplinary process will remain confidential, and the MCC does not intend to publish the names of those sanctioned. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/mcc-expels-member-at-centre-of-lord-s-altercation-20231005-p5ea64.html

Credit Pattaya News https://thepattayanews.com/2023/10/05/sudden-storm-hits-pattaya-beach-last-night-near-pattaya-police-station/

Judgment Prey by John Sandford (Lucas Davenport #33) Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers team up to crack an unsolvable case in this thrilling new novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford. Alex Sand was spending the evening at home playing basketball with his two young sons when all three were shot in cold blood. A wealthy federal judge, there’s no short list of people who could have a vendetta against Sands, but the gruesome murders, especially that of his children, turn their St. Paul community on its head. Sand was on the verge of a major donation to a local housing charity, Heart/Twin Cities, and with the money in limbo, eyes suddenly turn to his grieving widow, Margaret Cooper, to see what she might do with the money. Margaret, distraught over the death of her family, struggles to move forward, and can’t imagine how or why anyone would target her husband. With public pressure mounting and both the local police force and FBI hitting dead end after dead end, Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are called in to do what others could not: find answers. With each potential lead flawed, Davenport and Flowers are determined to chase every theory until they figure out who killed the Sands. But when they find themselves being stonewalled by the most unlikely of forces, the two wonder if perhaps each misdirection could lead them closer to the truth.

BYD going from strength to strength -

Can you figure out a way to set her up without her knowing where it came from ?

Hyundai to invest $12.6 billion in EV manufacturing, battery production in Georgia Hyundai Motor Group 005380, -0.52% on Tuesday said it is investing $12.6 billion in new EV manufacturing and battery production in Georgia that will employ thousands. The investment includes the $7.59 billion Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America site in Bryan County, Ga., that will create more than 8,500 jobs, and the $5 billion battery manufacturing facility joint venture with SK On Co. in Bartow County, Ga., that will employ about 3,500 people. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hyundai-to-invest-12-6-billion-in-ev-manufacturing-battery-production-in-georgia-aadaa088?siteid=rss

How China sparked chaos in the world of cars Stephen Bartholomeusz The most transformative development in the auto industry’s history since Henry Ford pioneered mass production more than a century ago is threatening both the automotive establishment and its workers and causing angst on both sides of the Atlantic. The European Commission last week announced an investigation into China’s electric vehicle subsidies. The commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen said the global auto industry was being overrun by cheap Chinese vehicles with prices that are being kept “artificially low by huge state subsidies”. In the US the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) launched three strikes on Friday in pursuit of a claim for a 36 per cent increase in wages over the next four years as the union tries to defend the high-paid jobs in the legacy industry from a transition to electric vehicles (EVs) that requires fewer and less well-paid workers because there are fewer moving parts. Most new EV plants in the US are in non-unionised plants in states offering tax incentives, threatening Detroit’s dominance of the industry and the UAW’s members. The Europeans, Americans, Japanese and South Koreans are handicapped in the race to an EV-dominated future because of the dominance of internal combustion-powered vehicles in their markets. They make money from their traditional operations but are losing money in their fledgling EV businesses. Ford, for instance, has said its EV business will lose $US4.5 billion ($7 billion) this year. China, by contrast, is set to dominate the global battery-powered EV industry because more than a decade ago – after realising it had no material competitive advantage in vehicles powered either by internal combustion engines or in the hybrid sector where the Japanese manufacturers led developments – it targeted EVs. It was a centrally-driven strategy, rolled out in 2009, that deployed subsidies for demand, supply and funding of the sector. Beijing provided generous subsidies and tax incentives for purchases of EVs, particularly for taxi fleets, bus fleets and for central and local government agencies but also for consumers in a program that was supposed to be tapered and ultimately phased out by 2021. Local governments and state-owned banks also provided support. For some manufacturers, by the middle of the last decade the subsidies represented more than half their sales revenue, although that proportion has dropped to single-digit percentages as subsidies have tapered and EV sales exploded. The pandemic led to subsidies being extended until the end of this year but the spluttering of China’s economy this year resulted in them being extended again following a mid-year announcement that tax waivers for purchases of EVs and hybrids would remain in place until the end of 2025 and then halved in 2026-27 before the incentives are withdrawn. The decision to pursue EVs was not purely opportunistic. Beijing saw the potential to reduce its carbon emissions through the displacement of the legacy fleet of vehicles and also recognised the potential to leverage its dominance of the supply chain for batteries, which constitute about 40 per cent of an EV’s costs. The strategy, which extended the incentives to foreign manufacturers with plants within China, has been extraordinarily successful. Last year nearly 7 million EVs were sold in China – almost nine times the number sold in the US – in a market where locally-owned auto companies are increasingly displacing and dominating foreign brands. They are also making inroads, with brands like BYD, MG and Polestar, within the international market. While China-manufacturers vehicles account for only about three per cent of the total market, about 15 per cent of sales in the battery-powered EV market in Europe this year have been generated by China-built vehicles, with the SAIC Motor-owned MG brand accounting for about 6 percentage points and EVs from Tesla’s Chinese plants about 4 percentage points. The one big market where Chinese-manufactured EVs haven’t gained a foothold is the US, thanks to the 27.5 per cent tariff that Donald Trump slapped on Chinese auto imports, which more than wiped out the estimated 20 per cent or so cost advantage – mainly from lower labour costs – Chinese manufacturers have over their Western competitors. Europe, with its mandated targets for carbon emissions reductions and a commitment to end sales of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035, is by far the most attractive market for the Chinese companies. It also helps at the margin that tariffs are weighted in China’s favour. Cars exported from Europe to China face a 15 per cent tariff rate. Those going in the other direction are levied only 10 per cent. If China is able to dominate global EV production it will transform industrial landscapes across the world, given the significance of auto manufacturing within economies and, because of the advanced engineering capabilities it develops, across industry sectors. The German export powerhouses – Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Audi – have major conventional and EV manufacturing facilities in China but the slowing economic activity amid weak consumer confidence has, despite the extension of the incentives to purchase EVs, created substantial excess capacity and ignited a price war (which Tesla has been aggressively participating in). The European economies are also struggling and, with the cheaper Chinese brands making accelerating inroads, there is real concern about the future of the auto sector in Europe. The idea of a future where Germany imports its Volkswagens or BMWs from China, unsurprisingly, isn’t appealing to German policymakers or auto unions. The German manufacturers, however, have such large investments in China that they are unsettled by the EC’s announcement of the investigating of China’s EV subsidies, fearing China – which labelled the move protectionist – will retaliate. China’s EVs and their batteries are technically sophisticated – they are out-competing most of the major Western brands in electronics and software – while the government-promoted and incentivised take-up of EVs means their EV sector is growing within the Without legacy operations and profits to protect and dominance of the battery supply chain, there is the potential for China to replicate the similar path it took to dominance of the global solar sector, an industry where Europe, as a first-mover in response to climate change, once was an industry leader. It isn’t surprising that references to that experience have cropped up in European discussions. Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, enacted last year, contains substantial incentives to build and buy EVs (a point of some irritation for Europeans) but the US badly lags China, which claims to be as much as five years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of EV and battery technologies. If China is able to dominate global EV production it will transform industrial landscapes across the world, given the significance of auto manufacturing within economies and, because of the advanced engineering capabilities it develops, across industry sectors. Whether it is another bout of protectionism, or more subsidies of their own, or both, other auto manufacturing centres like the US, Europe, Japan and South Korea and their workforces may need more help from policymakers to survive. https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/how-china-sparked-chaos-in-the-world-of-cars-20230918-p5e5fn.html

I had some years ago now and my Doctor said the best thing was to keep the hand etc active as much as reasonable. He also said Glucosamine might help, which I thought it did. Over the counter stuff - think I just got mine from Aldi. There are different opinions on the efficacy of it though - maybe try it. Just opening & closing the fist as "exercise" also seemed to help. The 'pain" was low level and it seem to just fade away. I still do the so called "exercise" occasionally.

Really excellent 😋 Thailand in the planning ?

Tesla Semi tested at highway speeds - REAL world range shocks rivals

Life, Music, Elton, and Me by Bernie Taupin An evocative, clear-eyed, and revealing memoir by Bernie Taupin, the lyrical master and long-time collaborator of Elton John. “I loved writing, I loved chronicling life and every moment I was cogent, sober, or blitzed, I was forever feeding off my surroundings, making copious notes as ammunition for future compositions. . . . . The thing is good, bad, or indifferent I never stopped writing, it was as addictive as any drug.” This is the memoir music fans have been waiting for. Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions and millions of records. Together, they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics (like 2019's Rocketman) and even John's own autobiography, Me. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now.

Yep and many of the huge utes (ie pickups) drive around most of the time empty.

Zero Input Drive on Tesla Full Self-Driving -

A Thai review "involving" the MG4 -

This is due for release later this week - The Secret Hours by Mick Herron review – secrets and spies This companion piece to the Slough House series uncovers intrigue and corruption in the secret service, from 90s Berlin to the Cabinet office Credit guardian Mick Herron’s new novel opens with a simple assertion: “The worst smell in the world is dead badger.” The poor beast itself turns up soon after, as does a “flight kit”: the stash of documents, currency and disguise kept close at hand by spies just in case. A frantically violent night-time chase through unexpectedly hostile Devon farmland quickly follows. But it is not the action, or even the tradecraft, that will reassure Herron readers that they are on secure ground with The Secret Hours, his 16th novel across 20 years. It is the stench of that badger. Herron has become something of a laureate of decrepitude. His Slough House series features the fabled Slow Horses, British secret agents cast out to the periphery of the shadow world via an imaginatively comprehensive assortment of personal, operational, moral or other failings. In those books both the dilapidated building and its equally distressed inhabitants are subjected to a detailed physical scrutiny that doesn’t shy from matters of hygiene and odour. Most particularly in respect of Herron’s leading protagonist, Jackson Lamb, the flatulent, corpulent, unwashed leader of the Slow Horses, captured in all the spirit of his brilliance and boorishness by Gary Oldman in the Apple TV+ series. While The Secret Hours is billed as a standalone novel, it is really more of a lean-to, or even an extension. Among the new faces there are plenty of familiar names, storylines reappear in one guise or another and the world is still populated by the joes and the dogs and the milkmen and the rest of the glossary of Herron’s Spook Street. More here - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/08/the-secret-hours-by-mick-herron-review-secrets-and-spies

Why the Tesla Model Y is the best selling car in the WORLD ! Tesla Model X Long Range now costs only $72,500 - reduced nearly $30,000 -

The instant availability of a huge surge of torque (even in my base model) is utter joy, plus it also sets me back in my seat. Do test drive the MG when available and let us know how it goes. Yesterday was a stunning early spring day in Sydney, so I was out clocking up the K's in the MG 😋