Sunday Vibes
January 2026 is in the books, and it was the longest month that I can remember having lived through, period. We talk Tesla, David Brooks (for the last time, I swear), and how Substack is enshittifying itself. Strap in, it's gon' get bumpy!
Topics:
Tesla kills its high end
David Brooks
Movie Night
Substack is creaking again (be sure to read to the end for this...)
An absolutely fucked month comes to a close, I swear that on January 9th, I almost wrote a post about how the first 10 days of the new year were just next level fuckery, but then the universe said: "hold my beer".
In this month, we had: Attack Venezuela and arrest Maduro, threaten Iran over their (checks notes) bad treatment of protesters, murder Renee Nicole Good, abduct a 5 year old to use as bait to draw out his father (that worked) and his mother (she stayed inside) ultimately sending this 5 year old to Texas, continue to harass protesters in Minneapolis - snatching phones, and threatening them with erasure if they raise their voices, we went to Davos and threatened to take Greenland by hook or by crook before deciding that maybe that would be bad, DHS and ICE invaded Maine, making life there hell, only backing down with Susan "pearl clutcher" Collins went "ahem, uh, you are going to definitely lose this senate seat you fucktards", the execution of Alex Pretti, a pretty solid VA nurse who while carrying his concealed handgun, with a valid permit, was disarmed and then shot 10 times in the back by a group of trigger happy testosterone laden fuckheads, then the administration said that if anyone brings a firearm to a protest, they will be shot, that's the law (uh, the NRA, the GOA, and even Kyle Rittenhouse would like a word fucko's), raided the GA elections office to "confiscate" the 2020 election materials, and publicly arrested a journalist (Don Lemon and Georgia Ford) for reporting on the protests. (I should add that the journalists they are harassing have a melanin oversupply).
And a whole bunch of shit I missed, because who the fuck can keep track of this. That might be the longest run-on sentence I have ever typed, yet it feels insufficient.
And that was just 31 days.
But I am not going to dwell on that. Let's talk happier things...
Tesla does the unexpected
Ok, maybe not unexpected, but the usual game with automakers is that you have a premium tier, cars you market and sell to the affluent that lets you then sell to the masses for a lower margin, but not kill their profitability. GM has Cadillac as the top tier, Chevrolet is the mid tier, and GMC is the workhorse (although there is less distinction between Chevy and GMC). Ford has Lincoln at the top, Mercury in the middle, and Ford at the bottom. Honda and Toyota have their premium brands (Acura and Lexus respectively).
The point being that all makers have this differentiation.
Tesla is unique in that they started at the affluent market, targeting the Mercedes/BMW/Audi/Lexus market with originally the Model S, an $80K car that could stretch to $100K plus with the extended range. That was followed by the Model X, a crossover SUV that expanded that market.
Only then did they have the funding to turn to the masses, and the Model 3, and Model Y followed. I live in the SF Bay Area, and 3's and Y's are like cockroaches at night in a fleabag restaurant when you flip on the lights suddenly, they are EVERYWHERE.
But Tesla is not like most automakers, and they have neglected the update cycle. In the usual world, big refreshes of vehicles typically happen every 5 years, with a mid cycle BNG update (BNG is stylistic, or from my dirt bike background, "Bold New Graphics").
Tesla has long argued that they didn't need to refresh their lines, they could just do an Over The Air Update (OTA) and "drop" new features to drivers. But people are oddly attached to their cars, and they want something that is new and different (I tend to keep my cars a longish time, the Acura RDX I bought in late 2019 might be the last car that I ever buy, 6 years old, 25K miles on it, that is not unreasonable) and new widgets on the iPad-sized control panel is not "new" or "exciting".
But Tesla is not really a car company, they are a tech company that makes cars, and that has led the FT to talk about how the three principal businessed of Musk's might be combined:
FT Alphaville
This gem, on the likely merger of xAi and SpaceX made me spit coffee:
Moving SpaceX to public ownership is expected to lift its value versus the last private funding round by about $700bn. XAI was last valued at $230bn, so there’s still nearly half a trillion dollars being conjured up from somewhere. Unless the extra uplift can be justified by previously unrealised rocket/chatbot synergies, it follows that SpaceX will be cannibalising the premium Tesla shareholders are paying for access to the Muskoverse. By how much is impossible to guess, because the numbers never had to make sense in the first place.
Do read that, and subscribe to FT's Alphaville on Substack. It is free, and it is worth the time to read.
Anyhow, Tesla sunsetting the Model S and the Model X is not a good sign. But I will note that Musk's naming will be broken. Like a perennially adolescent boy who types 80085 into a calculator to laugh about the answer being "Boobs", this will no longer be the S3XY or "Sexy" product line up. Small joys.
David Brooks does a header into ... whatever
David Brooks decided that it that he is going to leave the Grey Lady, hang up his spurs and ride off into the ever after.
With a not so straight face, he writes:
When I came to The Times, I set out to promote a moderate conservative political philosophy informed by thinkers like Edmund Burke and Alexander Hamilton. I have been so fantastically successful in bringing people to my point of view that moderate Republicans are now the dominant force in American politics, holding power everywhere from the White House to Gracie Mansion. I figure my work here is done.
He does admit that this isn't strictly what he believes.
He goes on to blather some shit about how we are more divided, and as a nation are sadder, angrier, and more pessimistic in the post Cold War period.
Uh, my dude, you were part of this journey, and while you are tapping out, you still can't reconcile how your whitewashing and elevating of some heinous positions were instrumental into how we got here.
Brooks needs to take a long hard look into a mirror to see his complicity in this time we're in.
Fuck off.
But, I will never have to write about this waste of air and skin ever again. YAY!
Movie Night
My wife and I spent about half a year watching the entire Jame Bond collection, fr0m Dr. No through to No Time to Die. This is our "Saturday Night" ritual, and now that we've completed the 25 episodes of Bond, we are on to the Indiana Jones movies.
It is refreshing to see Raiders of the Lost Ark, released in 1981, before the world was all CGI perfection. Watching the film transfer to BD, ripped and on the Plex server was enjoyable.
But, apart from how awesome Karen Allen is in that episode, our dinner night is when I make something, and we watch while eating, and we share a nice bottle of wine.
This time, I made a NY Times recipe, "Chicken Picatta Pasta" (that's a gift link) that is one of the better recipes I have made from the NY Times Cooking, but one thing to keep in mind is that their portion size is nuts. This recipe calls for 12 ounces (305 gm) of dried pasta, and that felt too much. As a former chef, I kinda know what a portion should be, and that makes a whole lotta pasta.
Turns out that I should have used about 6 oz (150 gm) for 4 portions. Oh well, we have a bucket of this left over, so I will enjoy the reheating.
The recipe is easy, and quite delish. I made it without shallots (I just don't like them) and added moar garlic. Do reserve the half cup of pasta water, you will wants that extra moisture in the final dish. Served with freshly baked Sourdough that I had made earlier in the day.
Yummy!
The wine was a 2020 Ridge Monte Bello Chardonnay that was exquisite. At about $80 a bottle it is a splurge. Mostly for a Chardonnay, I just get the Costco Kirkland Sonoma Chard, that is very drinkable at $8 a bottle.
Substack is again sucking
I no longer publish on Substack, but I do still read the Notes, and post my newsletters/blogs there to draw traffic and feed my vanity when people like/comment/restack from there.
But I have noticed that my "feed" the "For You" is getting unpredictable. I do read people on Tesla, on AI, on politics, and the like, so I am used to seeing that in my feed, but lately, it has been adding a lot of tangential (at best) or completely fucked posts for me to "consider".
This is telling me that their investor masters are forcing them to aggressively grow engagement, because they need more eyeballs on the profitable 'stacks to grow subscription fees, and help them to one day become "profitable".
You are also seeing it on large-ish paid stacks, where they are beginning to insert "paid promotions" inline to use freeloaders. But last week, I saw that on one of the stacks I pay $100 a year for the privilege of supporting them.
And that is one step too far, I will not be renewing there (I will probably take that money and the proceeds from a Kidney sale and buy a subscription to the Financial Times).
Anyhow, this fuckery with the algorithm is going to cause me to use the Substack Notes a lot less, and one day, it will be like Twitter to me, dead, but too damn stupid to lie down and actually die.
This presents a conundrum. I enjoy engaging with many of you there, and I love when you restack, and drive more engagement there. This is where I have an ask, you can drop it in the comments below, or if you are reading this via email, just hit reply.
I do not want to lose that wider community, so :
- Should I just wade through the fuckery that Substack is going to inflict on their audience as they work to monetize everything, and keep hanging out there?
- Or, should I create a Signal group chat that you can all connect with and we can have an asymetrical conversation there.
Let me know in the notes or in email replies.
Last thought:
You (my audience) are the best, and you are the reason why I happily spend the $50 or so a month to keep this going. I love to write about this quirky stuff that catches my attention, and I am humbled that so many of you open and read each post.
I will never take that for granted.
From the bottom of my cold, dead heart, I thank you one and all.
