The need to meet mileage standards these days is so pressing that my recent vehicle purchase omitted a spare tire. Omitting the <50lbs of spare tire, jack, and associated equipment has a pretty insignificant effect on mileage, but it's not zero, and when every drop counts...

I wholeheartedly agree with you about EMI shielding, for what it's worth, but the FCC has precious little control over automobiles. The EPA and NHTSA on the other hand.... :(

How well will your crystal radio work inside a metal box that significantly attenuates the desired signal? How well will it work when literally surrounded by sources of EMI? It's the shielding against EMI that adds weight to an automobile, reducing range whether electric or gas powered, plus the not insignificant design challenge of incorporating a decent antenna into the vehicle without ruining the aesthetics that most consumers value.

Read this article as a primer and continue deep diving EMI if it doesn't answer all your questions. The broadcasters aren't the ones that want to get rid of AM. It's 100% the automobile manufacturers. They want to be in the automobile design business, not the antenna/radio design business, and they (quite correctly) think that the next generation of consumers is streaming music from their phones, not radio.

The public safety argument is a valid reason to mandate automobiles retain AM/FM radio, although, as someone who has lived in both tornado and hurricane ally, I've often wondered why NOAA Weather Radio isn't mandated for automobiles. It's FM and close enough (161-163MHz) to broadcast FM (89-108MHz) to not require a wholesale antenna redesign. Mandating NOAA Weather Radio would probably do more for public safety than mandating AM radio and it's a lot easier to shield FM from EMI than AM.

It absolutely adds cost and complexity to the design of a modern day automobile. Effective AM antennas are not exactly small and you have to incorporate one into the design of your vehicle in a way that minimizes interference (much harder with EVs) without ruining the aesthetics of the vehicle. If that was as easy and cost free as you think there'd be no incentive to remove it in the first place, your tinfoil hattery notwithstanding.

Now, the additional cost isn't really all that significant in the grand scheme of a five digit automobile, but the margins on non-luxury automobiles aren't huge, and if you're thinking like an MBA asshat and multiply the individually insignificant cost savings by the millions of automobiles you hope to sell....

I can see the argument for the mandate, even as someone who virtually never uses AM radio, but don't pretend the mandate will be cost free.

Found the winner of the thread. :-)

My added emphasis to your text. You're arguing for basically what happened, at least with Windows. Windows 7 introduced the search concept but kept the old Start Menu structure. Windows 10 obfuscated it a bit more but it was still there. It's only in Windows 11 that it really went away and went away is relative because it's STILL THERE, if you care to dig deep enough to find it, but in the day to day why would you have to?

I call it "muscle memory" and it's not like you can't still take advantage of it. Programs I use in the day to day are pinned to the task bar / dock regardless of the OS I'm working with. I'm not using Spotlight to launch Chrome or Excel. If it's not something I use in the day to day, muscle memory isn't going to be terribly useful for finding it, and that's what search is helpful for. Neither OS requires you to remember the full name of whatever program you're looking for. The first letter will get you there more often than not. Our access control system is managed by this crappy user space application whose name I can't be bothered to remember, I only use it once a month or so, but I know it starts with an 'E' and that's enough to find it with search.

Look, this is very much an IT Guy complaint in my experience. Over the years, I've transitioned thousands of end users to newer versions of Windows and macOS where search displaced the traditional means of navigation. Nearly all rapidly adapted and were happy with the outcome. The few outliers weren't exactly slaying productivity on the older OS versions. The people I've heard the strongest bitching about it from are all IT peers/colleagues.

It may not even be needed. If these people already have connectivity, I think the ISPs are more likely to offer lower priced services, otherwise they're just leaving money on the table. Even at lower prices, running a last mile ISP is generally highly profitable.

I see you're quoting a law that you don't actually understand. First, it isn't specific to student loans, rather the intent is to guide institutions on how they should determine student need. That helps determine the amount given by pel grants and how loan amounts may be calculated.

None of that. I'm anti-stupid. I get that this deeply offends you, but that's not my problem.

The law you cited very clearly states that it's intended to cover the cost of attendance. The personal expenses mentioned are intended to go towards that end, not partying. I see that you disagree because that's how you spent yours, but that's just why you ended up the way you are.

No, it's much more simple than that: I bring in an income on a W-2 as regular wages, and it gets taxed. I don't run a business so there aren't any accounting tricks I can use. Besides, in about six months my net worth is going to breach the seven figure point. That's not what bad financial planning looks like.

Having six figure student loan debt and no material assets because you decided to party during college while gaining no marketable skills is what bad financial planning looks like.

Don't worry, I have no intention of compromising your only income sources. Though to be totally honest, I think you'd be better served in a halfway house because then at least somebody will hold your hand. If you don't get help at Charter, please, get help somewhere.

Buying gold is in no way comparable to a safety device or transferring risk. Gold doesn't offer any sort of promise or guarantee. That said, you're a retard, so just shut up already.

First, it wasn't a "war with England" (Britain to be more precise) so much as a de-facto civil war seeking independence from the monarchy as most already considered themselves to be British. Second, there were 27 grievances against the king listed in the declaration of independence, and taxation was only one of them. Third, the taxation was on all sorts of goods, not just tea, and it was used to fund a war with France that most of the colonists didn't even want. During the course of which, by the way, the king's Army was ordered to impress property for military use (basically just taking whatever they wanted, usually horses, livestock, wagons, etc.) This was the motivation for the 3rd amendment and the "just compensation" clause of the 5th amendment.

I lived in the Southern USA for 5 years as an adult and 3 as a teenager. It's depressing how much MODERN DAY politics in this South still relies on these tactics. We'll convince poor whites to vote against their own economic self-interest by turning them against the n***ers. Yeah, you're living in a trailer park, and your oldest kid just died from an opioid overdose, but at least you're not black.

Every modern OS will index the CONTENT of documents along with the FILENAME. No modern OS makes it impossible or even particularly hard to browse the file system, through GUI or CLI, if you find doing so easier to wrap your head around than using search.

Next easily dismissed complaint?

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how a program can be critical to your daily workflow but not worthy remembering the name of.

You're not the first person I've heard with this complaint on /., which I find richly ironic, given the large number of people here who are comfortable with both Linux and its various shells. Tell me, if you're working from a terminal, how effective can you be without knowing the name of the program you need to execute? Oh gosh, what was that text editor called? Something with an 'e', if only I had a menu to help me get there....

You don't need a 1590 on the SAT if your parents went to the school and continued writing checks after they graduated. :-)

You should look up the phrase "legacy admission" before you casually dismiss my point by taking a cheap shot at reading comprehension.

I'll concede you said nothing to confirm that you were yourself such an admission, however, flaunting your privilege of having enough money to pay for an Ivy League education out of pocket certainly confirms that you entered life more economically advantaged than most. I suppose you could have been both born rich and smart, however, it seems far more likely that you're a nepo baby that had everything -- including Ivy League admission -- handed to him on a silver platter.

I doubt you're stupid. I just don't think you're as smart as you think you are. If you were, you'd have a bit more self-awareness.

Have a good day, Anonymous Coward. :-)