Talk about cars

site/link-log.yaml

@@ -1,3 +1,22 @@
+- url: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/07/12/2009-Ranger
+  name: "Tim Bray: 2009 Ranger"
+  summary: |
+    > Car companies: Dare to do less · I couldn’t possibly walk away from our time in the Ranger
+    > without thinking about the absolutely insane amounts of money and resources and carbon
+    > loading we could save by building smaller, simpler, cheaper, dumber, automobiles.
+
+    Please, yes. In the last 15-20 years, auto makers, particularly US auto makers have completely
+    abandoned the basic sedan market and the _actual_ light truck market. Before that, base sedans
+    and trucks were intentionally sabotaged (e.g. base trim without aircon) so that dealerships
+    could upsell you expensive packages (e.g. aircon plus a bunch of shiny bits you don't care about
+    for $5,000).
+
+    I feel like there's an opportunity for someone to change the game with a car like this:
+    - ✅ A stero system that is basically a dash-mounted $20 bluetooth speaker and one USB port
+    - ✅ Aircon.
+    - ✅ An eye toward user-serviceable.
+    - ✅ Cheap, reliable, and durable.
+    - ❌ No other computer-y or electronic bits.
 - url: https://maggieappleton.com/home-cooked-software
   name: "Maggie Appleton: Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers"
   summary: |