It depends heavily on where you live.

Where I grew up, the main concern was that snow piled up quickly during heavy storms. Most people knew how to deal with it and would be fine, but the incompetent people (who to be very clear aren’t always new to the area…) made things extremely dangerous for everyone else. Doesn’t matter if you’re an expert at driving in the snow if some asshat with worn out 3-season tires plows into you and injures you. But we had the infrastructure to withstand cold and snow, even if most of it was old and janky. The human aspect of it was a little messed up (plow drivers making min wage and working max legal hours, people being left to shovel 3-4ft of heavy plow walls in their driveway, etc) but they managed to deal with it. Core things like power and gas were mostly buried and kept working so you could stay warm at home, and homes were designed for temps well below freezing.

Long time ago I did experience a blizzard in Wyoming. Holy crap, like nothing else I’ve experienced. We literally couldn’t see the road 20 feet in front of us at times. You get snow-blind if you stare at it too long. We saw so many cars that had driven off the road on accident because they lost track of where the pavement was.

I live in Portland OR now, we don’t get many blizzards but our ice storms are rough. If we get snow people stay home if they can, it rarely lasts longer than a few days before it all melts.

Not verifying the load capacity of a customers vehicle.

My past job made the customer sign off the paperwork before we loaded them up and this guy did sign off on the paperwork that his truck could take the load. So, I wasn’t technically liable. I was newly certified and was the only driver around that day. We were a small shop that only took a few deliveries a week, and customers wanting samples back after delivery was even rarer (destructive testing is fun!).

Since I was new to this, I didn’t intuitively know the difference between a flatbed and a normal passenger pickup. So yeah. In my ignorance and with this guy’s sign-off in hand, I try to load his ~1000lb pallet of bigass metal test samples into his. Personal. Pickup.

The truck just kept squatting and squatting, even though I still had weight on the forks… until it finally made a horrific creaking noise. I immediately unloaded the pallet and went to apologize. The guy was mortified but he kept it cool and called his actual delivery guy to come with a flatbed the next day. I did that one too, thankfully his delivery guy just cracked up when I explained what happened (even gave me some quick advice too!). They kept doing business with us, at least, but his reaction in that moment is still seared into my mind.

Startup times getting down below 20s definitely helps with this. I haven’t had a machine that took over 30s for a few years now… even my phone isn’t that slow.

Was recently asked to look at a laptop because it was “running slower than normal” and “takes a long time to resume from sleep.” Hmm, ok. It’s only a few years old, probably just bloateare.

I powered it on and immediately got served an early-2000s size dose of 10+ minute startup time. This laptop from only a few years ago still came with a spinny disk drive… Ugh. Didn’t even bother trying to optimize it. It’s getting cloned up to an SSD before I even try to work on it.

It’s weird here too because states set sales taxes. I live in Oregon, and we don’t have a standard sales tax here. That means what you see is what you pay at the register for most things, and it’s so freaking nice.

About the only thing I regularly see is the bottle tax (0.10/can added at the register). That’s refundable too, at least theoretically, so it’s not that bad.

Unlike sane people, regressive leaders do not need or care about reality in order to get people removed from the ballot. It absolutely does not matter that progressives have not invited insurrections. They’ll be removed anyway if that precedent is set simply because they are an alternative option, and the voting population is sufficiently decieved or deluded to support it.

Putin might as well just say the quiet part out loud at this point. Classic sociopath dictator, gotta pretend blood isn’t on his hands.

Rest in peace Navalny. You and your people deserve better than this.

Republicans say the repeal will lead to Michigan becoming less attractive to businesses and will lead to forced union membership. House Republican leader Matt Hall said in statement following Whitmer’s signing that “businesses will find more competitive states for their manufacturing plants and research and development facilities.”

Translation: Regressives want businesses to be able to abuse employees, and they’re afraid that not being able to abuse employees quite as easily will put up some reasonable guardrails on maximizing profits.

It’s desperately needed, and in some senses it doesn’t go far enough.

Regressives held our state government hostage via superminority rule and actively forced us to compromise on their inhuman policies to make any progress for three straight years. Without this, only a rewrite to our state constitution’s quorum rule would prevent eternal hell regressives holding our state hostage via minority rule.

Now, we can at least revoke these turds after they fuck us over. But in the grand scheme of things, I worry that what this law doesn’t do is prevent this new cycle from repeating. It doesn’t take many of them ruling over a few tiny, horribly misinformed districts to screw us all over. In other words, it only takes a tiny number of regressive candidates each year to accomplish that goal.

Yeah, implementing policies like this has to be done really damn carefully to prevent unintended consequences from dragging the whole thing down. It’s also not a push-button solution to a problem; it requires persistent, long-term commitment and gradually change to get right. Tricky, especially when, at least here in the US, regressive politicians regularly get elected and scuttle policies that would eventually work if left alone.

Anyway, yeah, just focusing on a land-value tax alone won’t solve the problem of equitable housing. It’ll have to be worked in carefully with safeguards to prevent the 1% from abusing it, that prevent public green spaces from disappearing into the concrete jungle, that ensures we have space to build and improve public transit, infrastructure , etc.

For example, single family home zoning on large (7000+ sq ft) lots isn’t appropriate major cities. It’s reasonable to expect people to compromise away from that type of housing into smaller lots and mixed-use zoning, so that SFH’s can exist in small spaces but be surrounded by businesses and apartments. But, if a small single family home or an apartment wants to work in a small garden or share a public garden, I think those types of things should be protected and, at least if they’re public access, exempted from land use tax to a certain point.

We of course have to be careful not to allow loopholes that enable people to exploit that and keep inappropriate amounts of land to themselves without paying dearly for it. But we also need provisions for that kind of land use to exist without it being so expensive that only the wealthy have it, or that horrific things like HOAs are the only ones able to afford them.

It’s a mess. I’m glad though that they’re trying it out. Just putting the idea off because it’s hard will keep things worse forever.

A van is certainly going to be cheaper to put solar on than a whole house LOL! That’s completely understandable. Yep, I’m sorry, I usually assume people are talking about homes because I don’t have a van, and so I misjudged youe capial involved as a lot more than I’d have. For van living I’d say it’s a must-have regardless of price, considering that you might not have grid hookups consistently!

When the options are sue or plan for the future…

You’ve omitted the critical, first-priotity option: get out. Unless that I what you meant by “plan for the future…”

Absolutely nobody who is sane of mind will look at texas, with its radical conservative “leadership” and sociopath 1% investors, and say “I want to stay here even though I could move.” And I’ll admit, I’m very quick to judge you for what you said: if you can afford whole-home solar, you can afford to move to a nice fucking house.

Now, I was in the same boat.

I left idaho (which by many measures is worse than texas) years ago, and have been trying to convince my family to do the same. They agree they need to leave that hateful shithole, but selling their home and uprooting from their tiny circle of non-psychopath idaho friends is still very hard. I’m going to end up digging deep financially to make it happen, but it’ll work out in the end.

Still, nobody deserves to end their life in such a hateful place. Leaving is an option once you can afford a home, no matter what anyone says. And at least if people leave, they won’t be actively forced to support a radical conservative hate state.

It’s unbelievably disappointing to see such an efficient and potentially clean source of transit absolutely ruined. Ruthless capitalism for the win - but only if you’re warren buffet or a dead guy named vanderbilt.

Oh also, let me drop this here: last week tonight on presicion scheduled railroading https://youtu.be/AJ2keSJzYyY?si=gJXfGCO5ubAFjgny

Very similar theme to the above article, also I forgot how absolutely fucked original Thomas the tank engine could be lol

If you are looking for a permanent cable run, rather than those fuzzy-brush covers (which have zero insulation or fire-block potential) you can get in-wall ethernet wall plate ports that will seal air out and provide a permanent ethernet receptacle in the wall. The advantage of these is that once you install them, you can disconnect the cable from either side of the wall if necessary, rather than having to snake the cable back out of the the wall again. In your case, even if you’re just going from one side of the wall to the other, this is worth doing if the cable would stay there permanently or if you plan to pipe Ethernet in even after moving the modem to the garage later (not that I recommend that - just keep it inside if you can).

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-Category-6-Jack-in-White-10-Pack-5016-WH-10PK/305193884

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-White-1-Gang-1-Decorator-Rocker-1-Duplex-Wall-Plate-1-Pack-5001-WH/206428112

If you use foam to fill any voids or gaps around the cable, make sure you use fire-blocking foam inside the wall (can get it at any hw store). It’s required by code in some areas, better safe than sorry. This is for inside the wall, i.e. you don’t want to see it because it’s typically a bright orange color.

I recommend you use a shielded and outdoor-rated Ethernet cable if possible to cut down on interference. Most good quality cables now are shielded, but wanted to mention just in case.

The only two places I proactively remove leaves are the street drain (to prevent flooding) and my roof. Maybe the sidewalk if I’m feeling adventurous.

If they’re in the lawn IMO they’re not a problem. I’m honestly shocked anyone even has time to fuck around with taking/collecting them, regardless of how they look.

HOAs are a cancer that drive people out of good homes.

This is so insanely corrupt. Really, Louisiana should be penalized by the feds for even allowing a sham court like this to exist, let alone go as far off the rails as fenton has. And the mayor - and anyone associated with them - really ought to be behind bars serving mandatory minimums.

Let me share a somewhat related anecdote:

I live in Portland. Bought a house two years ago (yay hyper-specialized job privileges, etc!) and chose a fixer-upper in a good neighborhood, as it was one of the only things in my budget that wasn’t way out in suburban hell. Many of my criteria for buying were just “make sure this isn’t a rotting, radioactive dump” but I did want to make sure I could get an e-bike and ride to the store eventually.

Well. The new place was actually so close to a little local grocery chain that I just had to walk two blocks to it! I was so stoked.

Then, we “managed” the way through the first year by really pinching pennies while we took care of all the critical house fixes, so we didn’t go there a lot. In reality we saved very little by doing this and wasted a ton of driving time and cost, but I did wake up and start waking to the little store more as things “stabilized.”

And then it fucking closed. The little store wasn’t bringing in enough dough to pay their criminally high rent. And so, we were stuck driving further to save a very much imaginary penny on each item we bought anyway. And you know what? I was fucking wrong. I should have been going to the little local store from day one, not to fucking winco and freddys.

I can still ride my bike to the store but it’s so much further that we can’t “just walk.” It’s either a 10m e-bike ride with a cargo basket strapped on, or a stupid 3 min car ride that sometimes takes 10mins due to traffic anyway. What a waste when we had something so much better and more walkable.

Still, can’t complain. If I had moved to suburbia biking to the store would be a stupid and suicidal joke 🤷🏻‍♀️

My rule for a while has been to limit myself to one major subscription at a time. It really curtails the rampant streaming costs.

I made an exception for spotify for a while (so I’d have spotify + one streaming service + maybe one small low-cost one) but with how expensive they’ve all gotten I’ve reverted to only spotify and low-cost stuff.

Right now I just have spotify and dropout TV so I can catch up on Dimension 20.

All the 1%-ers bawling about how they’re not getting enough infinite profits at the expense of all of us couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this, right?

/s 🙃

“Cyclists can be dangerous (road hazard/traffic hazard) and annoying, rude and disrespectful but they don’t…”

Sorry but no, you’re absolutely off-base. Cyclists are forced to bend over backwards in a world optimized for sociopaths to rage around in 4000lb+ murder machines, and short of literally killing someone there are few or no consequences if they screw up.

Cyclists are not the root cause of the problem here. Horrific infrastructure and car drivers certainly are, though.