Jason Michael Perry — Page 4 of 10 — Thoughts on Tech & Things

Latest Thoughts

  1. 🧠 When Your Car Becomes a Brick

    Almost any device you buy today is a connected device that is essentially bricked without servers and the Internet. I’ve mentioned the pain this can cause when businesses fail and instantly your speakers, home automation, or other products just stop working.

    As our toys get bigger, the stakes of what this means get higher. Take the recent bankruptcy of EV car maker Fisker. Some of the car’s features need access to online services to work, and some features require OTA (over-the-air) updates to get enabled. While cars from old, non-existent brands like Saturn can run today with no issues, a Fisker and other connected cars have much more complex software that stands to limit what’s possible when and if the company shuts down its services.

    It’s not uncommon for today’s cars to respond to recalls by releasing software updates that fix issues. Fisker has made it clear that it can and will not provide any updates beyond its recently released version 2.1 update. That has to be a hard pill to swallow after spending $70k on a car that is now valued for 14k.

  2. 🧠 Tesla lays off Supercharger team

    Man, this is the dumbest decision I’ve seen.

    I test-drove many EVs before deciding on getting a Tesla Model 3, and the deciding factor was unquestionably the supercharger network. It is the best in the US and a huge differentiator for Tesla.

    Even if the supercharger network diverted resources from the company’s core goals, there were better alternatives. Selling or, better yet, spinning off as a JV could have preserved the invaluable institutional knowledge of the 500-person team.

    Keep in mind that this is the same team that just convinced every US car maker to make NACS the Tesla Charging standard the de facto US standard. In doing that, they opened the company to receive cash from Biden’s NEVI program. They’re getting free cash from us and the US government to expand this network.

    If you see something I’m missing, please let me know in the comments, but this single move seems like the best way to destroy one of the company’s best competitive advantages.

  3. Tic Tak Yo

    To play the game, tap the text below that says Play Now, and enjoy!

    Fully AI-generated MVP from this sketch I did of an MVP application.


  4. 📺 Thoughts on Tech & Things New AI Album

    Be sure to check out the full album on Soundcloud!

  5. 🧠 Anthropic Drops Claude 3

    Anthropic has just released a set of improved AI models, the Claude 3 family. As a long-time fan of Claude, I couldn’t be more excited to kick the tires and see how it compares with OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4. Anthropic claims that Claude 3 is just as good as, if not better than, its rival ChatGPT 4. Of course, marketing speak is one thing, and the real proof is always in the pudding.

    I’m eager to put the Claude 3 family through its paces and taste test this latest offering from Anthropic. Claude has been my favorite AI model for a while now, consistently impressing me with its performance and capabilities.