I’ve had this discussion with a friend of mine at length. He’s an “independent” and votes such. I think an approach to the 2 party system without ranked choice will always be a losing battle. We agree the system is broken, but have vastly different opinions on how we can approach it.

Trying to explain that systemic issues that go back generations cannot be solved overnight. Even 20 years would not be enough to see a large enough change in society, and how others are perceived. Think about it, our civil rights movement was only 60 years ago where people of color and whites were segregated and explicitly did not have equal rights.

Personally, and I hope I’m wrong, I see the next 4 years being a downward spiral. Those who voted for Trump are so closed minded, they grasp for anything that remotely supports their position.

It’s impossible to help those who do not want to be helped.

It’s difficult. You’ve got people that vote red or blue for no other reason than that’s what they’re told to do by peers/family. They don’t look at the possible outcomes, just that “they win”. And wanting to help people is almost looked down upon in many facets of society.

America has a critical thinking problem, coupled with an extreme lack of genuine empathy. Don’t let the “nice American” bit fool you if you ever travel here. The nice small talk is a front, and you can very easily find yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Health care is a great example. Or anything LGBTQ+.

Honestly, it’s a culture thing. It’s toxic as hell and hard to navigate.

Breakdown is probably a non-military version of “debriefing”. Just because you completed the project, doesn’t mean that there are’t obstacles you didn’t initially account for that you’ll need to address during the project. It also helps to break down (heh) how successful the project was, or if there will be follow up actions. Then you cleanup once unknown unknowns are taken care of.

I agree. I certainly felt the outcome was going to be much different.

I didn’t think “Dems got beaten pretty bad in the election” was open to mean all elections.

They weren’t beaten badly, it was barely a 1.5% margin. Electoral votes….different story. But even then, this illustrates that a few more votes in key states would have had a drastically different outcome.

Sorry, I meant to say for your current phone. Otherwise you’ll have some sort of road block if the carrier sees your current phone as locked. I had that issue with Sprint years ago.

You can verify by going to Settings->General->About.

Towards the bottom there should be “Carrier Lock” and it should say/list “No SIM Restrictions”.

If it doesn’t, you’ll need to call your provider to have them unlock the phone.

Generally I don’t buy anything else other than Phillips. They’re usually bulletproof if you don’t get the smart bulbs. I’ve not had a Phillips fail in ~10 years. But that’s a sample size of like 30 or so bulbs.

Like the other commenter said, you can get some pretty good deals due to the recent issues.

Just don’t bother with a 13th/14th gen intel right now. Either go 12th gen intel, or straight up AMD which is what I’d recommend.

Source

Yep. When I moved into my house the previous owner had used all garbage Walmart LED’s. I think I had one fail each month and just bought a bunch on sale from Phillips eventually.

Most common failure was the driver. So they turned into strobe lights lol. Most annoying failure ever.

And more importantly, not every LED is dimmer compatible. Sometimes they’re super picky or just plain don’t work.

Take a look at Keychron. They have a lot to offer for around your budget and they go on sale frequently.

Are you looking to be able to swap switches out? If so you will need to find hot swappable switches.

If you care about backlighting they might be a little more expensive. But Keychron is reasonable. I’ve had their K2 for years and it has a better feel in it vs Corsair or Razer stuff in my opinion.

I feel like mines the opposite. I pay $20/mo and we get access to a huge and well taken care of community pool, park, and basketball court. They also host community parties for each holiday that you can go to. They certainly allow you to get your $20 worth. Idk how they do it.

When it comes to architectural control, they’re pretty lax. We’ve got some vibrant and eclectic houses, but they are well put together. I haven’t found anything yet they won’t approve if you stay within a standard palette offering when it comes to shingles, siding etc. But some of these colors are yellows and reds so it’s not all boring either.

They also don’t allow signage in the yard to be displayed. So political signs etc will get you a violation. But it’s just a “remove by x date” and there’s no penalty if you do. I don’t mind this rule.

We do have to keep grass cut to an extent, but my neighbors cut it once a month at most and it’s usually a non issue. Honestly, other than safety things I’ve not seen anything crazy in mine. The two lady’s that operate it are super nice.

Anything mini led with local dimming and HDR will be more than enough at a lower budget. Hisense has some pretty nice ones.

Check out rtings to get a general idea of features and their usefulness.

If you’re looking for strictly mileage, the hybrid will do better. The turbo motor would be in boost and consuming more fuel.

Coming from VW/Audi it’s easier to just grab a factory unit and have it programmed. Yea it’s expensive, but the German cars aren’t super easy to tinker with.

Wolfenstein 3D or Doom. It’s hard to think which I played first. Probably Doom.

Is that why I can find some brands in Colorado and not in Michigan? Or are there just really that many brands?

I never thought about a sudden change in brake compound affecting the AEB system and its calibrations. I’ve always tried to stay OEM or comparable aftermarket pads. For example, I swapped my pads on my GTI for some EBC’s mostly because of brake dust. They performed very well, but I also had sticky tires. I have noticed I was able to find parts much more easily with that car than I have my Mazda. And with how many parts revisions I’ve seen for that one car I’d believe that they demand a lot in parts manufacturing. I guess it comes with the territory when they do something like the global MQB platform where parts are so easily shared.

In 6 years and 150,000 miles I only had one incident of a false positive where the car braked for whatever the system saw as an obstacle. Fortunately, no one was behind me but it was a route I traveled every day and it happened early on (~40,000 miles). My newer Mazda has the whole camera setup etc and definitely triggers if with the adaptive cruise if someone in the lane next to me brakes or slows down so I can see the overly sensitive reactions making people angry.

For the headlights, I don’t think factory cars are much of an issue. Now that matrix style lights are making their way here we should be able to learn a lot from Europe.

Thanks for the insightful reply! It’s cool to see stuff like this.