At one point, I priced collision coverage for my car (it's optional for me since I own the vehicle outright) and it would've been $2,000 for six months... on a vehicle with a value of $2,400.

It's interesting that you can get so much more coverage for so little cost. Your laws regarding cost must be very stringent. I certainly wouldn't mind paying what you're paying for the coverage you've got. I was paying $600 per six-month term ($1200 annually) for the paltry $10,000 property liability and $10,000 personal injury liability required by law. What always bugged me was paying so much for so little, and I know the insurance company jacked the rates up because they know that you have to be insured to drive lawfully, and have to pay whatever they tell you.

Holy. Shit. No wonder driving is so expensive in Europe! Do you mind me asking what that policy costs you per year? I have $10,000 property, and $10,000 personal injury coverage (the least allowed by state law) in an effort to curb my insurance costs, and it sets me back about $400/yr. I would be paying several thousand dollars per year for coverage in the $100k range, I can't even imagine what it would cost to get into the millions.

You had a Pre 3?! I always wanted to get my hands on one of them... but ended up defecting to Android (bought a Galaxy Nexus) when HP killed off Palm's hardware development. Still have and like my firesale Touchpad, too.

This is why I trust my old car with a cast iron engine block more than new ones with aluminum.

Or a diesel Mercedes-Benz from the W123 era (or before). Usable lifespan is 500,000+ on the OM6xx engines.

I own one of MB's older diesels 300TD), which have a certain reputation for durability. It really makes me sad how cheaply made their cars now are. I wouldn't touch a Benz made after the W124 era, they just seem like cheap junk that requires frequent and expensive service.

Tesla is doing damn near everything right in order to grow a brand. There is nothing more desirable in the price range today. My old oil burner will last me long enough to see a Tesla model I can afford (It'll take a while to fill in those next 300,000 miles) thanks to the kind of quality Mercedes USED to offer in a vehicle.

America's new health care plan: "tourism" to the UK.

I've been there, and I've clawed my way up a bit, but it's still very hard sometimes (I get paid well hourly, but work on call as many as 65 or as few as 3 hours per week, can't rely on it to be regular at all). How'd you do it?

That would be my job, except that it was 30k per year, not 200k.

You seriously think they give a damn? I live in an apartment complex with package lockers, and I had a lazy mail carrier break the key off in one of the locks, making it unopenable. They chucked the key in my mailbox and left it there for three days. My options were to call USPS or take power tools to the locker. The latter would be a felony, as it was supposedly USPS property. I spent two hours on the phone before I got to the regional postmaster, and even then, they refused to do anything until I threatened legal action. I just wanted my goddamned package... And people wonder why I ship everything I can via FedEx.

Unless you are obscenely overqualified, and have either huge saving to pay rent/other expenses or don't have them at all (mom's basement?) being unemployed for several months while looking for a job that pays better than starvation wages (not an exaggeration at my last one, I had to choose between gas, food, and rent on a regular basis) isn't exactly an option. Since most people like not going hungry, building huge amounts of debt, or being homeless, we tend to keep the jobs we have.

Cube-shaped satellites silhouetted against the Earth, and no one makes a joke about Borg cubes?! This is not the Slashdot I remember...

...NYC outlawing remote-controlled planes/helicopters/etc in 3...2...1...

One of several reasons why I bought an older high-end car. It still has all the benefits of being made well, and still cost far less than some modern American or Japanese made plastic peice of crap. I'll buy electric one day. But until then, I have absolute confidence in my old Mercedes to keep clanking along. Regardless of how many years or miles between now and then.

I've owned various Apple portables (as well as PCs) since the Powerbook 170. Until I owned a G4 iBook, Apple's battery longevity was nothing different than the PC counterparts. I bought a used G4 powerbook when that model was 1.5-2 years old. When I got it, the battery was good for about 6 hours of solid average use. I had it for five years (only replacing it with this Macbook I have now last year) and in all that time, the battery only ever lost about 30% of it's capacity. I still saw a solid 4 hours of use out of it per charge. It was by far the longest I've ever had a laptop battery last (even keeping the comparison to Li-Ions). Comparatively, this Macbook never got great life (maybe 3hrs tops) but in over a year, I've yet to notice it losing any capacity. And in the past, a year is about all the time it ever took for previous laptops' batteries to hold zero charge at all. I had a Sony Vaio that killed it's battery every nine months, and before I bought the iBook, I was just used to a $50 replacement cost annually or so.

From this article (as well as what I've heard from others) at some point between this Macbook and the current models, the batteries or charging method Apple's used have significantly shortened the usable lifespans. Which will probably prove annoying when it eventually comes time to replace this machine in another 3-5 years.