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Post by Ben on May 31, 2022 16:55:51 GMT
I'm continuing to get the "rate limited" message - got it just now but re-loaded the page and it was OK Same here too. It appears intermittently.
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Post by Ben on May 30, 2022 14:47:33 GMT
Meanwhile, we get the Arkana, which is...well, I don't know what the fuck that's meant to be. Looks like a French interpretation of an X4. It is a French X4, and it is an absolute pile of crap.
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Post by Ben on May 16, 2022 1:39:41 GMT
Neat. I like these things.
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BMW i7
Apr 20, 2022 15:39:35 GMT
Post by Ben on Apr 20, 2022 15:39:35 GMT
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BMW i7
Apr 20, 2022 12:41:44 GMT
Post by Ben on Apr 20, 2022 12:41:44 GMT
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Post by Ben on Apr 14, 2022 14:29:08 GMT
There's no good angle on that honestly, but in that particular M trim with the black grille it looks especially bad.
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Post by Ben on Apr 11, 2022 18:06:32 GMT
Gosh that went quickly. The only thing I have against the Range Rover is quite how enormous it is. I already find the Velar more than big enough plus the P400e version of that is a 2.0 which puts me off that. What’s the engine in a P440e full fat RR? It’s a 3.0 6 pot. The size is a little less problematic I think outside of a big city Is it the straight six? Those are sweet.
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Post by Ben on Apr 8, 2022 9:47:44 GMT
Nice!
These things are bloody comfortable. Looks like you got a good 'un.
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Post by Ben on Mar 31, 2022 13:53:10 GMT
I dunno. Alpinas are supposed to be subtle, and the big grille just doesn't seem to gel with the Alpina treatment.
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Post by Ben on Mar 31, 2022 13:47:55 GMT
Frankly it's been like this for a lot of websites lately. It's basically enforced data collection, and not something I'm really a fan of.
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Post by Ben on Mar 24, 2022 12:49:23 GMT
It's a tricky one, because it affects different people in different ways. I've had colleagues who were struck down for the better part of a week with really bad symptoms, while for others it's just a minor inconvenience. So you just never know how badly it will hit you.
That said, today Singapore announced a whole lot of measures to open up again. Not a total eradication of restrictions like in some countries, but a massive loosening up nonetheless that will make things feel a lot more normal again.
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Post by Ben on Mar 24, 2022 1:46:19 GMT
That's great. Hope you continue to stay safe. I don't want to get it too, but I just have this odd feeling that the Government wants us all to get it and get 'immunised' so as to get this over with.
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Post by Ben on Mar 23, 2022 12:52:41 GMT
Meh
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Post by Ben on Mar 23, 2022 12:45:37 GMT
As an introvert I kinda enjoyed staying at home, and I tried to take the positives out of it. Our lockdown period coincided with my dad's illness so 1) he got to rest and not work, and 2) we got to spend time together. It also made me realise who are the people that are really important in my life and who are the ones that are not.
Right now as we're opening up Covid is spreading around quite rapidly. Up until February I had not had a personal encounter with Covid (it was always other people, not anybody I knew), but since then there have been quite a few friends and colleagues who have gotten it, with varying degrees of sickness. I'm lucky so far in that I have not had it, but I'm just waiting for the inevitable I guess.
Not looking forward to being sick though.
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Phones
Mar 23, 2022 12:37:56 GMT
Post by Ben on Mar 23, 2022 12:37:56 GMT
My regular phone is an iPhone SE, which is essentially a newer iPhone 8 (I can't really tell the difference TBH), and I like it mainly because it still uses the fingerprint scanner instead of face recognition to unlock which I dislike.
I also have a Samsung Note 10 which I use solely to take photos, because the camera quality is a million times better than my iPhone. It's at least good enough for work.
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Post by Ben on Mar 11, 2022 16:19:50 GMT
Seems a shame - difficult to see how BMW houses M and Alpina. Unless it takes the BMW full-electric and reserves Alpina for ICE? Or uses Alpina for performance EVs, leaving M for ICE. Likely the former. There are already electric M cars in the works (the iX for one).
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Post by Ben on Mar 8, 2022 12:46:11 GMT
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Post by Ben on Mar 5, 2022 15:19:19 GMT
I like the Yaris Cross's refreshing honesty. It is just A Car and doesn't pretend to be anything else. It doesn't have a load of features (it does have touchscreen though), and whatever few bits it has are actually convenient.
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Post by Ben on Mar 5, 2022 12:35:20 GMT
What I infer is that it's probably going to be a flagship.
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Post by Ben on Mar 5, 2022 12:29:33 GMT
That's a slippery slope to go down, because it means going back to the days of colonisation. I don't think that's where we want to be heading towards. It's not a slippery slope. It's the playing field we've been on for generations. What were the Cuban missile crisis or the Vietnam war or the Georgian war about? The slippery slope is to pretend that powerful countries cannot and do not exert a sphere of influence. Imagine a world where every country decides it has the right to complete self determination - how many minutes after Taiwan joined NATO would an invasion start? That still doesn't make it right. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I draw a parallel with where I am, Singapore. We're a tiny country with a majority Chinese-origin population (the only independent nation in the world to be as such), but culturally we're as far removed from China as we can be. We don't kowtow to China, and if China decides one day to "have claims" on us, you can bet your ass we'll put up one hell of a fight, and call our friends in as well (there's a reason we signed so many defence pacts with Australia, US and etc).
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Post by Ben on Mar 4, 2022 13:45:15 GMT
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Post by Ben on Mar 4, 2022 13:41:28 GMT
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Post by Ben on Mar 4, 2022 13:36:36 GMT
Putin argues that his sovereign concerns trump those of Ukraine, the Baltic States, Finland etc, and that effectively those countries do not enjoy the same sovereign rights as others to self-determination. This is a simple fact. Big, powerful countries exercise more sovereign rights than their near neighbours when it comes to security. It's not ideal, but it's true. Is Mexico free to exercise its sovereign rights and form an alliance with Russia? Could Canada form a military alliance with China? We should also be very careful on what we wish for with regards to self determination. Let the buffer zone countries become members of NATO and because of Article 5 a minor regional conflict could escalate to world war three. That's a slippery slope to go down, because it means going back to the days of colonisation. I don't think that's where we want to be heading towards.
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Post by Ben on Mar 3, 2022 12:00:48 GMT
Good. Good riddance.
Poor driver and an even worse human being.
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Post by Ben on Feb 24, 2022 15:35:51 GMT
We are fucked basically.
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Post by Ben on Feb 24, 2022 12:51:51 GMT
Honestly, observing all of this, it's just scary to watch it unfold. But the larger observation for me here is that China has not outright condemned Russia for their actions. The implication being that China may well be considering similar actions in the future too. Not just Taiwan, but also on South East Asia (there's already slight online murmurings about claims to Vietnam and Philippines). And when that happens it's essentially WW3. If I were Xi, I might be thinking this was an excellent time to try and grab Taiwan... He's probably taking notes on Putin's assault strategy before moving in, TBH.
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Post by Ben on Feb 24, 2022 12:49:17 GMT
Those are just the business. Supremely comfortable and plenty of space. A Honda Freed is actually pretty small. It can seat seven because Honda are pretty good at interior packaging but I doubt the third row will be comfortable for extended periods.
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Post by Ben on Feb 24, 2022 12:42:51 GMT
Honestly, observing all of this, it's just scary to watch it unfold. But the larger observation for me here is that China has not outright condemned Russia for their actions.
The implication being that China may well be considering similar actions in the future too. Not just Taiwan, but also on South East Asia (there's already slight online murmurings about claims to Vietnam and Philippines). And when that happens it's essentially WW3.
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Post by Ben on Feb 20, 2022 3:42:54 GMT
That looks pretty neat.
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Post by Ben on Feb 12, 2022 2:52:46 GMT
Hello Sir. Welcome back.
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