Nice.

Depression never ended, and the robber barons own everything. Good news is housing is cheaper, but food slightly more expensive.

Sounds about right. Most of the Japanese manufacturers have had to put a higher amount of effort on reliability, in large part due to Toyota’s amazingly strenuous testing of reliability before they even consider dropping a new product on the market. As a bit of a bonus to that, once reliability was upped, making more sporty cars could be achieved because you had the budget to change around the driving dynamics of a car without making it inherently unreliable. The Miata is probably the best example of this, as while each generations drivetrain usually isn’t too special (outside of being high revving), it manages to handle well and be reliable while doing so.

I don’t even think it’s a question of innovation, more just perceived reliability. A large part of the reason Mercedes and other German brands were considered high quality was that they were more reliable than a lot of other brands on the market, while being good to drive. That isn’t really the case anymore, and Toyota and Honda have that basically cornered that market to the point that it’s an outlier to fine one that isn’t reliable.

Which is a repackaging of the red panic.

Plus the possibility of an added dick joke.

It’s a lot more rare for sure. Some still do have nice stuff, but it’s much, much more of shitshow than it used to be. Unfortunately not many independent thrift stores around me, and the few that are generally have nice deals even less often than goodwill.

Or Tea with little/no sweetening (my personal favorite is hibiscus with a little lemon in there).

“Looks at current price of sugar” - Lemon juice it is!

It’s a stretch, but it is much more reasonable than simply monitoring all of the faces of users as to what they are doing while in their cars. Which is a strategy that is used by a lot of the newer tesla and other cars for autopilot and the like, in large part because auto manufacturers don’t want to be blamed for their customer’s stupidity. I can absolutely see that being effective, but very invasive into people’s privacy, and eventually something a politician pushes. At this point, enforcement really isn’t enough and the only way to truly fix it kinda is some passive limitations. I’m not saying complete lock down of functionality, but make there be some safeguard that only passengers can get away with for more than just changing music or receiving calls if the GPS is reading more than 20-30 mph.

While true, they aren’t a huge risk to others. I’ve driven nearish drunk drivers, stoned drivers, and plenty of people on their phones, and while the ones on their phones weren’t usually as bad as the drunk ones, they are ridiculously common and seem to be getting worse.

Again, it isn’t an easy solution, but the problem is insanely prevalent. I used to have a 30 min each way commute, and I’d say it was pretty safe to say at least 20% of the drivers I would drive alongside (mind you, above 65mph and generally in larger vehicles) were on their phones and pretty obviously distracted. It is very, very dangerous, and cops don’t really care to stop anyone doing it because its very hard to stop.

Also, what do you mean by 5 seats? I don’t really get the reference.

Or it could just be a limiter on top speed. I know there are a few Chevrolets (like the volt) that limit top speed to around 90mph. I’d argue that’s pretty reasonable, as I don’t believe there is a public road where the speed limit is that high in the US. However, I do agree that the bigger issue is phone use and how no one seems to have a simple answer for fixing it (probably need a mandated mode which limits functions when the GPS detects you going over a certain speed, but which would require a large amount of industry cooperation which probably isn’t available).

Oh, it’s fine, the brain is a different kind of fat! /s

Got a set with a box cutter and a foldable knife a few years back for $7, haven’t really used the knife much but the box cutter has been used a ton. It’s really nice to just be able to replace the blade when it starts getting dull, and it has allowed me to use it for a lot of precision cutting for a lot of different projects, plus it’s really easy to fold or unfold so I don’t have to worry too much about cutting myself.

But then you have the issue of being dependent on China for the solar panels, which is why it is crucial to have domestic production. And we have already seen this demonstrated, as China has banned the export of solar panels recently in reaction to us banning electric cars from import (they would probably hurt our domestic car market).

No reason you couldn’t have a cylinder of airy cow syrup on the side.

Even where you wouldn’t think it is appropriate. I make pizza crusts from scratch, and sometimes I put a bit in the dough to give it some flavour.

No, that is the original meaning of having three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. If any of them are not doing their job the other two branches are supposed to hold them accountable (supposed to being the operative term here). I was just saying that the senate was not established as a system of checks and balances against the house of Representatives, but rather as a compromise so that smaller states wouldnt necessarily be completely beholden to one’s with much larger populations.

Checks and balances would be the executive and judicial branches, not the senate.