I'm so car-dependent, living in (desert) Suburbia, that i maintain my xeriscape myself, perform small repairs around the house, and take my bike on 3 mile errands, usually 3 times a week.

I also enjoy dining out regularly, and seeing movies in the theater, which stretches the bike practicality, not for distance, but because I do these things with my wife.

My real complaint? I regularly present as at least 20 years younger than I am, not the result of any deliberate effort on my part, and even my physicians claim I am in excellent shape, despite my knowing in myself I am as soft as a grape. But I do what I've known to do for 40+ years, which is weight training with deliberate, careful form, stress that form over the weight, and do what enables me to continue living life and doing what I most want to do. The printed advice would tell me I am doing most of it wrong.

The most important exercise you can do is the one you actually do.

How about you just let me ride my bike to the gym, starbucks, and back home for a 7.5 mile round trip, and keep your urban lifestyle advice for those who don't want to reach for what they want?

Getting shot up does that. But it was my equipment that annoyed them the most. Until a missile flew by.

"Half of people are below average drivers. Those beeps and bells help the idiots..."

It's deceptively easy to assume you implied that below-average drivers are idiots. But what criteria?

- Warnings about vehicle state such as fluid levels are helpful and useful.

- Other warnings, such as detected vehicles in proximity, these are interesting warnings. Not so distracting to me as the lane-keeping steering hints...

- Simply put, if you're so easily distracted by these warnings etc., you're not an 'idiot', you're just not very good at multitasking.

Actually, I don't care about my mod points, either, I'm here to cost *you*, the rest of you, mod points.

6- digit UIDs used to be able to read and comprehend. Prove it. Typos are insignificant.

Implicit in your argument is, I think, that 'record profits' are an inadequate or unacceptable condition for layoffs 'in droves'.

Among other things, your characterization of these layoffs as ' laying off people in droves' also implies that 'these' layoffs are, in fact, noticeably more in number.

FTFA: 'The year closed with the fewest announced layoff plans all year'

And, since statistics lie:

2020 2,304,755
2001 1,956,876
2002 1,466,823
2009 1,288,030
2003 1,236,426
2008 1,223,993
2025 1,206,374

I see a trend. 2022, 2023, 2024 did not make the list. Comment?

ps - Do you believe we should, somehow, prevent layoffs when the employers enjoy profits? And how?

Any excuse is used to cover for layoffs. The truth is, for a profitable enterprise, reducing the headcount by removing unnecessary employees is always proper and justified, unless your profit relies on excess employment.

Not many corporations provide useful services by relying on excess employment. The ones that do suffer when their clients realize they should reduce expenses.

Layoffs are not a fault, they are a reasonable response to changing circumstances; economic or other.

"That is why our constituion says that the negro shall be count as 5/9s a person."

The instruments are called 'amendments'. They are used to modify our Constitution for various purposes, to remedy errors in the original, to adapt to current conditions, correct injustices, for instance. Our Constitution is remarkable for this process. To claim it any longer requires that 'the Negro' be counted as less than a person is not merely inaccurate, it is untruthful. A lie.

The wise change their minds when the facts change, or conditions warrant re-examination of their previous beliefs. The fool clings to the discredited.

Now, re-read my sig as you consider your responses. And remember, mod points are not merely ephemeral, they are cheap.

ps - what is a 'sever recession'? A split of the economy? That works better than I thought at first...

--
I'm here to cost you mod points.

"That is why our constituion says that the negro shall be count as 5/9s a person."

The instruments are called 'amendments'. They are used to modify our Constitution for various purposes, to remedy errors in the original, to adapt to current conditions, correct injustices, for instance. Our Constitution is remarkable for this process. To claim it any longer requires that 'the Negro' be counted as less than a person is not merely inaccurate, it is untruthful. A lie.

The wise change their minds when the facts change, or conditions warrant re-examination of their previous beliefs. The fool clings to the discredited.

Now, re-read my sig as you consider your responses. And remember, mod points are not merely ephemeral, they are cheap.

ps - what is a 'sever recession'? A split of the economy? That works better than I thought at first...

Possibly. And after all this, I neglected the most obvious modern example of rent-seeking; John Deere's repair lock-in. Farmers have begged for right-to-repair legislation. This problem isn't limited John Deere, and in that the other examples are also instructive.

A less obvious use is to add charge to your house batteries, extending their capacity for those long nights.

How well this works in the frozen North remains to be understood.

It's been an increasingly &($ experience since about 1998. Doubleclick.com...

No, they are trying to equate intrusive software notifications with some sort of automobile safety hazard.

Not much software covers the speedometer in your car. In fact, annoyance isn't much of a vehicle safety issue, or we would not have on-ramps on the highway without traffic lights in the right-hand lane (in America, that is...).

I think we may agree that artists in any medium deserve to be paid for their work when they make it available for pay. And they are very right to keep it themselves if they wish to it, or set whatever limitations, restrictions, or requirements they have in mind. The GPL is a good example of this, copyright. The more remarkable one or more common. My complaint with copyright is that it extends beyond the life of the artist, and that doesn't strike me as Fair, unless the artist arranged for those rights to be held by someone else. Else. And then we get into the whole corporate copyright argument whether or not corporations should be allowed to hold copyright in. Definitely. Probably the thing to remember about that argument is that if the original artist, and if the cooperation employed the artist then the corporation as owner holds it for their life. Life. Well natural lifework corporation as infinite in concept. A mess

To me, while this is a union issue, there, of course seeking to protect their membership. I think this reaches into they a situation where they want their membership to be compensated for work they either lost, or were denied access to? I'm not sure I like that idea. But it doesn't really matter what I like, is it fair?

And we keep coming back to modern lease agreements where a commercial landlord makes us part of the lease payment. A share of revenue of the lessee. Or me. This is another business negotiation. In most cases that I'm familiar with, the commercial landlords would negotiate a lease without a share of revenue, it would just be a higher payment. Ultimately, they're looking for some value in return for providing the property. They're setting the value. Their Les c has to decide if it's tolerable or not. That's a business decision

A late comment, but I think this seems to be rent-seeking, masquerading as some form of protection or 'necessary' regulation.