This is actually a feature that Teslas have that I find particularly compelling. It might actually replace generators for shorter-term power outages.

Here in central Florida, our power got knocked out for almost five days due to Milton. I actually considered renting a Tesla to essentially use it as a house-powering battery. Would have given the generator a break instead of having to run it non-stop, and allowed us to stretch the gasoline supply.

I look at it like this: mandating power output for EVs is like being able to syphon fuel out of the tank of an ICE in an emergency. It's something that should always be an option.

People react negatively to ads, so what does Amazon do? Double down on ads. Amazon is a true retailer in the grand tradition. They found a way to abuse customers, and they didn't immediately jump ship, so they're going to do it more. Just like Walmart and general grocers with the "inflation" and "supply chain" price adjustments.

Same happened here in the Tampa Florida area. Frontier's customer service has been incredibly hostile in the face of changes (refusing to allow me to sign up for the "new customer" pricing even if I'm changing plans in the process) whereas all I ever had to do with Verizon was to sign a new contract. And then there was the fight with the "equipment rental" charge for the router I didn't have... I'm rooting for Verizon on this one.

One of things I've always appreciated about the Model M (aside from the sound and durability) is that it's a full-sized keyboard. Everything is compact now, and I have big hands. I need proper spacing, dammit!

Tests like this exist to find serious problems and flaws before we have incidents that cost lives, I understand that. But it certainly seems to me that we have reached an era where things are simply not engineered like they used to be anymore. I've been up close with an Apollo capsule that survived re-entry (KSC has one on display) and if we could do that 55+ years ago, why are we having trouble with it now? I don't understand why there's a difficulty simply doing something as well as we've already established could be done. Is it budgetary constraints? Lack of engineers as talented as we used to have?

We seem constantly amazed that old things last. Voyager 2 was built to last for five years, and it's operating today, 47 years later. Refrigerators from the 1940s still work astonishingly well to this day (if a bit inefficient compared to later models). I drive a 40 year old car with a diesel engine that gets 28MPG and still runs fine with 350,000 miles. Sure, "they don't make 'em like they used to" is a trope, but why does it seem to have so much truth to it?

...you run out of fucks to give. And it's liberating!

FYI: sales taxes in the US are handled by state, not at the federal level. Some don't actually even have sales tax. So advertising a pre-tax price makes sense for us.

I've been a Sprint customer since 2004. They have been the only consistent game in town for unlimited data (and I've used as much as 85GB/mo with nary a peep). That and pricing is the only reason I've stuck with them for so long. The last 5-6 years, Sprint has basically given up. They don't fix anything, they don't improve anything, and they don't deliver on promises that they've made. They are the only major carrier that can't do VoLTE yet (it's 2020, FFS) and it's been "coming real soon now" since 2015. I used to be a staunch defender of them because I felt that I got great value. They have stagnated a great deal. Nothing's gotten done while they were courting a buyer, and every customer they have suffers for it.

How many roads must a man walk down? Still 42, eh?

I went through this with Frontier a couple of months ago. I even filed complaints with the local public utilities commission and the BBB. After the BBB complaint, I heard from some higher-up who gave me this sob story about how they can't do the pricing that they've sold, and actually admitting that the $10 was part of the service pricing. Which if they'd been honest about up-front, I wouldn't have minded so much. But telling me that it's a "router rental fee" when in reality it's something else is is fucking FRAUD. If any of us pulled that shit on a company, that's what they'd call it.

I've noticed several comments on here about how parents should "just stop giving kids sugar" or something to that effect. There is NO scientific evidence whatsoever that sugar causes hyperactivity in children or anyone else. This is very dated misinformation, and I expected better from the folks here. Sure, it's a good idea to limit children's sugar intake from a general health perspective, since we (especially Americans) consume far too much of it. But that doesn't mean that it's the cause of ADHD.

I've used Linux and Windows server, and my experience with Windows server was far and away the best. Easier to get it to do what I want, easier to fix when it broke, major updates didn't trash the filesystem the OS was on (Thanks, Ubuntu). Also, there's not 18 million flavors, each with a bunch of weird quirks and incompatibilities. Obviously, if I was doing one specific task that demanded insane amounts of reliability, I might have considered Linux. But Windows server has been running on my home server in multiple roles very well, on very modest hardware.

Four years on, I'm still waiting for a real VoLTE rollout. It's 2019 and I have a flagship phone... Why can I still not call and use data simultaneously? Because Sprint is dragging ass behind the other three. Only reason I'm still with them is because they're still the cheapest for true unlimited. And I've topped 80GB/mo of traffic.

Ever since Sprint switched to SIM cards, they managed to fuck that up too. "Oh, this SIM won't work in that device, we need to give you a new one... But wait, we don't have one that will work in that... Oh, yes we do." And then, even switching from a Pixel to a Pixel 2 took a visit to a Sprint store and them doing some voodoo for half an hour. Switching devices is a huge pain in the ass these days.

I know it's anecdotal, but I've seen it over a dozen times now: person "wants to quit" so they buy a fancy vape gadget, which eventually they break. When that happens, they may switch back to actual cigarettes if they can't afford another fancy vape gadget. The majority of people that I know that claim to be using vaping to quit switch back and forth with some fluidity. That doesn't happen with gum/patches because the delivery system is different.