I didn’t down vote you, but you’ve got some misconceptions.

X-mode isn’t actually different gearing in the mechanical sense. It’s an electronic system that optimizes the existing drivetrain components.

It doesn’t provide additional gear reduction like a low-range gearbox, it adjusts the CVT’s (continuously variable transmission, which doesn’t even have “gears” in the traditional sense, but is a set of chains and pulleys) behavior, traction control, and power distribution, but doesn’t change the fundamental gear ratios. Hill descent control is a braking function, not a gearing one.

True 4WD systems have a physically separate low range gearbox that allows the driver to physically engage different gears to vastly reduce the gear ratio to allow the vehicle to make much more efficient use of the available engine power.

You would waste far more energy trying to get an AWD Crosstrek over a boulder with X-mode than an actual 4WD vehicle with a lever to put the vehicle into 4 Wheel Low gear.

While excellent for many things, Subaru’s AWD system is essentially a fancy electronic traction control system. It cannot reduce gearing to the level of a 4WD low range gear box. And that’s fine! But the incorrect assumptions of people who overestimate the capabilities of their vehicles is the precise reason for the rules the NPS has in place; Subaru Crosstreks with X-Mode are gonna need to be rescued by NPS staff far more often than 4Runners with a low range gearbox.

Subaru marketing is great, but NPS roads with AWD restrictions are not rally stages in a Finland forest, they are roads with boulders or mud or deep water or sand or many other things that a 4WD vehicle will probably be able to handle, but an AWD vehicle will probably not be able to handle. And on these roads, if you get stuck, a park ranger is going to have to rescue you, at tax payer expense, because you thought your vehicle could do something that it could not.

And neither AWD system has a low range gearbox like a 4WD system, which is the point of the NPS rule.

The main difference is the additional physical gearing for 4 high and 4 low gears, both of which have different gearing than “regular” drive.

I have an older Audi with a Torsen Quattro AWD system, and an ancient Toyota 4Runner with 4WD. The 4Runner can be switched into either 4 wheel high or 4 wheel low gears to deal with different conditions. The Audi always has the same gearing, it cannot be switched.

It’s like the gears on a bicycle - 4 low is the one where you barely move while standing on the pedals - maximum torque per revolution.

You can go rock crawling in a 4Runner in 4 low. You really should not go rock crawling in an Audi or Subaru without 4 low, no matter how much ground clearance the vehicle has.

The National Park Service has this rule because it doesn’t want to spent time and taxpayer money rescuing people who think AWD is the same as 4WD with a low range gearbox.

That would be a very satisfying ticket closure

My understanding is that EU regulators had an issue because Windows Defender rolled out kernel mode/kernel data protection, which gave Microsoft a de-facto monopoly in that market segment if no one else was allowed to use the same technology in their products.

Microsoft complaining that the Crowdstrike incident was the EU’s fault is an argument in favor of a Microsoft monopoly, which the EU has been pretty consistently against, and EU opposition to this should not have been a surprise to Microsoft.

_> Luv used to date a girl named Mi-do. _> They broke up when he was still fat, but he still cared for her _> He heard that her new boyfriend was verbally abusing her _> Luv confronted him and said _> Don’t hurt Mi - no more!

$25 + subscription and/or SD card

I’m not saying this is what the backup batteries on my modem and in my rack are specifically for, but it would definitely prevent downtime from a Droney McTinFoil von Transformer scenario

Fuckin’ Lars, man

If you can’t build yourself up without tearing others down, you’re an ass.

“Only Happy When it Rains” automatically begins playing in head

…but how do they work?

I think the reaction depends on how aware one is of how one’s flow state works. Neurotypical people seem to be able to get back into it much easier than us ADHD types, but I think that’s often because our flow states tend to be deeper, so it’s much more annoying to be knocked out of it for seemingly trivial reasons by people who don’t know how hard it is to get back into that state after an interruption.

In my opinion, this is (mostly) a “training issue”. If I know this is how my brain works, it’s my job to train those around me on how to help me be as efficient as possible, even if it’s something as simple as “if my headphones are on, do not interrupt me unless something is ON FIRE, OR if I have been working for more than 3 hours without a break.”

If either of those things are true, it’s also my job to not be annoyed by the interruption, which is of course often harder than the interruption itself.

“Everyone liked that”

“Alexa, bring me a beer”

Check out Valetudo. It turns supported robo vacuums into local only devices. Works amazingly well and integrates with Home Assistant for the whole tech nerd cloudless smart home experience.

Pro-tip: It’s almost never a Good Day in LA

The Donkey Kong Bongos accessory on top of the TV is just…chef’s kiss. Perfect.

Donkey Kong Bongos

Tubesync is pretty great

What kind of headaches are you having? I’ve been running two completely different machines in a cluster with a pi as a Qdevice to keep quorum and it’s been incredibly stable for years.