An R107 - 1985 380SL. I specifically wanted an '84 or '85 because I planned on driving it enough I wanted the smaller engine, but wanted one of the years after they fixed the timing chain issues.

Well, that's one issue. But as for Mercedes, I've had three. My antique '85 is easy to keep in good condition. The others were always in and out of the shop. At one point we had 2 that were under 10 years old. (I don't "shuffle" cars - I like to hang on to them and treat them well.) One went into the stealership's shop in November. They called and said it was done, so I swapped and took that home and left the other for some repairs. Both cars had continual issues and at least one of them was in the shop every day from early November until late February when I finally went in, talked to the salesperson and said, "My wife is now telling everyone she knows the Jag joke* about Mercedes. Why are these cars breaking down so much? Are you unable to fix them properly or are your parts so insubstantial they can't last?"

Tesla can keep their cars running without having to have them dragged into the shop every few months. When Mercedes can do that, they might be worth considering.

* The Jag joke: The British say a Jaguar looks great in your driveway - and if it's actually running that day, hey, so much the better!

I wish the submitter had read the NEJM article before posting this. If he had, he'd realize that AIER has no idea what they're talking about. Hey, that's what happens when you trust a politically biased site that is willing to misinterpret results of a study just so they can politicize life and death. The study says nothing that the AIER claims it says.

Even more, they are working with a very small group, so a larger study would be needed for confirmation. Interestingly enough, all the larger studies say that lockdowns and masks make a difference.

I don't see the big deal. MAME and other emulators have been able to emulate old arcade and console games for years. I have a system running on a Raspberry Pi, under RetroPie, that can run ROMs and binary files from cartridges for arcade machines, Atari consoles, Nintendo consoles, and many more. I think it comes with something like 30 emulators installed by default. (Or maybe it's over 35 and at least 30 are under RetroArch and can be easily configured through RetroArch.)

Viasat: Providing 20th century technology to 21st century customers!

At least that's what should be their model.

I had to use Viasat, or Viasuck (as it would be more accurately called) for two years. Their level of incompetence is astounding and their prices are outrageous. (That's coming from FiOS to Viasuck.) Their current high level tier is 150GB per month. While they offer "unlimited," basically they don't cap you, but they can slow you down whenever they want to prioritize for others.

They're overloaded as it is and can only increase bandwith with more satellites. By the time they get more up, Starlink will leave them crying in the dust and wondering what happened. A year or more ago, when the average monthly bandwidth usage was about 269GB, Viasat was truly puzzled why anyone would think they needed more than 150GB a month.

I got lucky and found an internet provider that resells data from various cell networks and it's like I have real internet again. I can stream shows that I can watch with my wife on our HDTV and not see such poor resolution that we can barely make it out.

Viasat needs to be allowed to compete in the open market, where, after Starlink, Project Kuiper, and OneWeb take hold, Viasat will be all Tango Uniform.

My first thought, too.

Also, "The Terminal Man."

Exactly. Now all the sites that obnoxiously start playing videos when you load the pages (and nothing stops all of them) are going to pop open windows to do the same. Pop-up to the side, pop-up over top, pop-under...

And is there a limit to how many windows a site can open this way?

What could possibly go wrong?

While it's possible you might see that kind of invention from a Friend, you're more likely to see them finding a way to simplify the process than in creating a new one.

But as to the question of whether they would drop the price or not, you also make a good point: Yes, they'd likely share the process with others, rather than keep it secret. Few people in any craft are going to turn down a simpler way to do something or a method that saves them money and time. Some may stick with the older way, but I wouldn't think that would be many.

I'm not sure just what the Friendly way of dealing with a situation would be, but that entire situation seems to be purely hypothetical.

But I'd like to stress that this is from your point of view, not from the point of view of a person who has the priorities of living according to the Testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends. While this would be a factor to many Friends today, I doubt it would have been a factor in the 1700s, in a simpler market without mass production or machines that would help in production.

Overall, I haven't known many Friends to object to the company being called "Quaker." In many ways their products are what Friends might produce: Simple and plain cereals, for the most part. There has been frustration, at times, with people thinking the man on the Quaker Oats logo is what Friends would look like today. (Actually, the logo is a kind of update of their original logo, which was an image of William Penn, the Quaker Pennsylvania is named after.)

There have been a few times (two that I'm aware of) where modern Friends have had issues with the Quaker Oats company. Both were when they had promotions on their cereal boxes that represented or tied in with characters known for violence. One was Popeye and the other was the Power Rangers.

And, just as a bit of something extra, here's an amusing Quaker/Quaker Oats story:

After my divorce, when I was teaching and having trouble making ends meet, I did market survey work. Usually that involved going into stores and recording shelf space amounts or product counts or price tag checks. I was doing an isotonic drink study, where we had to list all the isotonic drinks and count the number of items facing on the front of the shelf. At the time Quaker Oats owned Gatorade. I was there, with my clipboard and another man is at the other end of the isotonic section, probably doing about the same thing.

He saw me and said, "Are you Quaker?"

I didn't know Quaker Oats owned Gatorade and wondered if he recognized me from our Meeting or something. I was guarded but answered, "Yes. How did you know?" And he said, "Well, you seemed to focused on the Gatorade products," or something like that. It took me a second or two to figure out what he meant, then I started laughing, realizing he was asking if I was with Quaker Oats and not asking about religious affiliation.

You're thinking from your point of view, not the point of view of most Friends.

Regarding paying extra for a rush, remember this was in the 1700s. Yes, it's possible that someone could say, "I need a chair now and I'll pay $10." If they had a chair in stock, it would be the same to the shop owner as someone who was not in a hurry to get it. If they said, "I need a chair by tomorrow and I'll pay extra," likely the response (in that era) would be something like, "Friend, I wouldst be glad to make a chair for the as soon as I can, but I would not be able to complete it by tomorrow." On the other hand, if he could do it and it was something he could do easily, he would still do it without an extra charge. It's not likely he would stay up, for example an extra several hours, to get a chair done for a "rush" order.

As to the "true value," yes, that depends on what people are willing to pay for it, but Friends would have been making products that people can use. Furniture, tools, maybe simple toys, but not something like a fancy high end chair with extra features. A shopkeeper or tradesman would know what the value of his product or labor was. They'd know what was going on in the market and whether people were paying $5 for a chair or not. This was at a time when people weren't dealing with newer models or new features and products that were unknown quantities that are riskier to sell. These shops and businesses would generally be shy of taking risks, so they'd be staying with a proven market.

While this led to the idea of set prices (and price tags), yes, a lot has happened since this practice started and much of it has nothing to do with Friendly views or values, but with greed or profit.

(And it's worth noting that while accumulation of material wealth was not a Friend's goal, that many Friends did well in commerce because they had a reputation for fairness, quality, and integrity. Much of their income would often be saved up because of their simple lifestyle.)

You're quite welcome!

Maybe I'm being self-serving thinking this, but it seems to be RSF has frequently been at the forefront of Christian organizations or sects in believing in or standing up for fair and/or equal treatment in many situations. (Like slavery or racial rights, women's issues, and so on.)

Yeah, Friends don't aren't really an organized religion in the conventional sense. For unprogrammed meetings, you don't even have a minister telling you what to believe or think. All can speak out in Meeting for Worship equally.

One of the Testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends (Friends, to Quakers, but most people call them Quakers) is equality. Another is honesty and others include integrity, truth, and simplicity. Friends believe in doing their best, in other words, not doing shipshod work. If they have an item they have produced for sale, say, for example, a chair, then, as part of their belief in integrity, they will have put their best work and used quality material in making that chair.

With that in mind, at one point, and I don't know if this started with just one Friends' Meeting or how it spread, but the consensus was that if you've worked diligently on a chair and one person comes into your shop and offers you $10 for that chair, but the fair value (considering labor and materials) is $5, then it's being dishonest and acting without integrity to take the additional $5 because that person was not a good negotiator. It's taking advantage of their lack of time or inability to negotiate. On the other hand, if a Friend has put in conscientious work and has to make a choice between selling it for $3 or not selling it, that's not fair to them.

The consensus, for a while, had been on a fair price for a fair amount of work and materials. From there, it wasn't far to go to reach a conclusion that if $5 is a fair price for that chair, then, barring changes in costs for materials (or maybe labor or cost of living), then gaining more or accepting less through dickering is less than fair, to either the shop owner or the customer.

While I know many will say, "Well, if they don't take all they can get for it, they're idiots!" If your focus is on the accumulation of wealth and possessions, then, from that point of view, that may be true. But if your intent in life is not material, but on personal improvement, growth, and following your spiritual beliefs, than there is much more to be gained from turning down the extra money offered than there is in accepting it. Friends are big on fair gains as opposed to grabbing what you can when you can. (Which is why they don't gamble and generally are quite careful in selecting what stocks they will invest in.)

Remember, this may not seem moral or immoral to you or others. That's okay. For Friends, their concern is in doing what they believe is right.

Sometimes it's the only choice - other than leaving them alone to stumble around and die alone.