I wrote in 2021 that my dream car is a mythical 3-year-old electric minivan (that doesn’t exist). Later that year, I wrote up a summary of the prospects of an electric minivan (as of 2021). As of 2023 there wasn’t much of a change.

Here in 2024, I’ve given up on the dream of an electric minivan, at least for my purposes and for now. The dream is closer than ever.

• I was actually able to sit in a 2024 Kia EV9 at a local dealership. It’s a big 3-row SUV, but it’s the closest thing to an EV minivan that actually exists. It’s not cheap, but it’s not ridiculous either.
• Volkswagen says their EV minivan, the ID.Buzz is “coming to Canada in late 2024.” I suspect that means I wouldn’t be able to test drive or buy one for at least another year, and even then, I expect it will be quite expensive.

For my family, we still have (and love) our 2013 8-passenger Honda minivan. We’ve been finding we’re driving it around a lot more with one or two people in it lately though. With three kids often heading in three directions, we’re also reluctantly accepting that we have use for a second vehicle.

So, we’ve added a 2024 Hyundai Kona EV to our fleet.

• It’s the cheapest and least cool EV we could find.
• It was actually available on the lot to test drive and buy.
• Provincial and federal rebates add up to $10,750.
• It doesn’t have stupid door handles (though it does have a stupid key fob).

Farewell electric minivan dream. I hope we meet again.

Today some tourists ask me to take a photo of them. I happily obliged. They thanked me, and then they asked me to take another, this time with the phone vertical please.

I could almost feel my hair turning grey.

It’s so easy to complain about poorly-designed and poorly-built systems, and just as easy to forgot to note (or even notice) when they are well done.

I filled out the 2024 Census Test from Statistics Canada yesterday and it was pretty good. The interface was simple, understandable, fast, and allowed for a combination of mouse and keyboard input.

Well done.

Is (are?) Aurora Borealis the only phenomenon that actually looks better when photographed than in real life?

There was a minor internet brouhaha over an Apple iPad ad where they crush a bunch of musical instruments and creative tools. It was just a video in (very slightly) poor taste. No one got hurt.

I also didn’t really like the ad – it felt like if Amazon made an ad where they burned thousands of books, and dumped the ashes into a Kindle. Burning books is never good a good look (unless it’s The Day After Tomorrow and you need to keep warm), neither is crushing pianos.

That said, I’m not sure apologizing is a necessary or appropriate step. I’d save the apologies for when people get hurt.

A co-worker of my, James, released a new album with his band brainrust. Creating an album is a top-tier life achievement in my books.

The album sounds great and feels like a fitting, if unintended, tribute to Steve Albini, who died this week.

It is available on Spotify, Tidal, and other streaming services. There’s a video for the track ordinary on YouTube.

In the world of those who build out the web platform, and CSS in particular, there’s some drama.

1. The Webkit team at Apple have put forth a compelling proposal for how to make the Pinterest-style layout (aka, ‘masonry’) by building on CSS grid.
2. The Chrome team at Google have an alternative approach to the same problem, introducing a new ‘masonry’ display type as a peer to flex and grid.

The folks at the ShopTalk Show talked through the state of the debate with a Google rep in episode 614.

My take is lukewarm:

• “Masonry” layout is too specific a use case and not valuable enough to build in to the web platform.
• I needed grid and flex a million times before they came along. I don’t think I’ve ever found myself needing masonry layout.

If you need it, that’s great. It doesn’t have to be for everyone. There is a cost to adding to the platform though.