Trucks (In the USA)

I'm in this FB group that does financial advice with a little sarcasm and jokes mixed in. Suggest that someone should downsize to a car or get rid of their gas guzzling truck they have no real utility for and it's like you've insulted their religion. Never seen such a group of grown adults throwing temper tantrums like that in my life.

Part of my job still is to help people connect their work email to their personal smartphones, if they want to. Many buy Samsungs because their carrier's store still sells them up front compared to other brands of Android. Though it's mostly A-series phones.

The problem with it is that Samsung doesn't put the access to the features in convenient or intuitive locations so many users just get used to not using them anyway. The only feature, I as a Pixel user envy over Samsung is the right side menu thing. But anyone with iPhone experience or experience using an Android that has gesture nav enabled by default, wouldn't think to try it even with the spen because that is the gesture to go back.

Ofc Pixels can do multitask yet many don't realize that because you have to click the app icons at the top of the recent apps screen to access the menu for it. So I guess I don't have room to talk about that aspect as a Pixel user.

But Bixby? I honestly think it's a waste of resources for Samsung when they could have just used Google Assistant like other brands. I mean Bixby is okay but still lacks in some areas, but Samsung invested a lot of resources and effort into it just to come up with something that barely keeps up with Google's Assistant.

Also I'm not a huge fan of their app drawer still. I guess I'm more of a "I just want to see an alphabetical list of all apps" on the app drawer type of person.

You're the only one I've heard of who was happy with it. One of the guys I worked with, traded a new at the time Galaxy S-series phone back into his carrier to exchange for an iPhone because it was very laggy. After seeing one in action I didn't blame him. It was laggier than my cheap Moto G series, which had a lot less processing power and slower storage. And this was back in 2017, so not too awfully long ago. But maybe things have changed since then.

Tbh, might not be a bad time to do it as long as you don't sink yourself into debt too much or have to take out high interest loans. Because if the crash happens while you're studying and by the time you graduate things might start recovering again. I guess we'll see.

Sadly I don't think greedflation is an official term. Stagflation was the closest I know about anyway.

Samsung isn't on planet earth with their prices. I was avoiding them anyway because I believe TouchWiz is an inferior interface than stock Android. Just way too much bloat.

Good phones used to be around 400, taking me a few days to think about it and say yes. Now they are beyond 1000

I'm not sure what you mean by a "good" phone. Like yeah, they came up a bit. A Pixel 7a costs $499, and if one wants wireless charging and a better camera they can go with the Pixel 7 for $599. Regular non-Pro iPhones are around the same price.

Like yeah, folding phones are well over $1,000 in most cases, but personally I think that's a gimmick, my hot take. But for me and 99% of the people I know, we're sticking with our slab smartphones.

The electrician I'm talking about also has a work area in the front (side closest to the vehicle) which has a workbench and a charging port for a laptop. Actually works very well for him because he can unbox panel and meter boxes and prep them right there without having to make a mess in a client's house. Probably better than an oversized truck.

I also like the idea of trailers because if you haul something which breaks or damages the trailer, it's probably cheaper to fix/replace the trailer than a truck. Maybe just me though.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

This is a sign of an upcoming recession if we aren't already in one. People are starting to run out of their savings due to stagflation and are looking for areas to cut. Buying a new phone every year or every other year and replacing laptops every 5 years are among the first things to go in anyone's budget.

So currently the only people refreshing their devices are the people who NEED new devices.

Capitalist economies always need spends out of desire and not just necessity.

Worst part is instead of reversing the gouging these companies will probably just go ham on the planned obsolescence.

One of the electricians in my town has a minivan and I've seen him use it to bring an entire 5x14 enclosed trailer full of gear to a jobsite a few times.

There's one guy around town I see sometimes who has some sort of thing that goes on the hitch receiver of his minivan. If I see him around I might be able to ask him where he got that if I remember to. Saw him use it and it too was a non-folding power chair. He pulled up to it with the power chair, pulled ramps down, drove up onto it, pulled himself to his feet using the rear windshield wiper, stowed the ramps and leaned against the van to get to the driver's door. I'm guessing he has some sort of spinal injury.

I agree that most craftsmen don't need the truck on the left, a few that I know need to tow a trailer with about 3,000 pounds of shingles for some roofing jobs. I'm pretty sure the one on the right might struggle with that kind of weight.

One of them I know do drive a Ranger which is somewhere between the two in size at least.

I'm a client-side technician working in a predominantly Windows environment for the last 8 going on 9 years.

Out of all the issues I have seen on Windows, filesystem issues is rather low on that list as far as prevalence, as I don't recall one that's not explainable by hardware failure or interrupted write. Not saying it doesn't happen and that ext4 is bad or anything, but I don't work in Linux all that much so me saying that I never had an issue with ext4 isn't the same because I don't have nearly the same amount of experience.

Also ext came about in 1992, so 31 years so far to hash out the bugs is no small amount of time. Especially in terms of computing.

I guess that's a different perspective than I was looking at it from. Thanks.

True, it would help for minor earthquake damage. But nukes, even in the auxiliary blast radius, it tends to implode the glass. Unless the window panes are higher than all the desks getting under them isn't the best way to protect oneself. Best way is to either get to an interior room with no windows or an interior wall and use things like flipped desks or desks with covering backs as shields.

Maybe some more context.

At my particular alma mater, the window line was below the desks a bit. And a lot of them were close to the windows. Using the ducking under the desks as protection against the auxiliary blast radius would still be a bit dangerous, as one would still catch glass shards in the head and possibly the neck.

Better idea IMO, gather the students along an interior wall, have them sit on the floor, and tip a few desks over to protect them.

Edit: From my understanding nuclear bombs detonate pretty high above the ground. That would push the glass shards downward when they implode. My school had the safety windows which probably wouldn't open enough to keep them from shattering from a force like that. So yeah, at least for the first few rows from the windows, it would ricochet a bunch of it between the floor and the desks. Essentially turning that area into a walking glass wind chime making zone.

Honestly, if I was at work or at home and got a message that there was an incoming nuke which I would be in the aux blast zone for, I'd find the most interior room or closet I could, and just chill in there. I think that's the best place. Hard to get impaled with broken glass if you're not in the same room as glass.

Since I have a Kindle if I feel like reading anything paid, sometimes I'll subscribe for a month or two to Kindle Unlimited, read it, then unsubscribe.

Nope, some of the ones I have seen the "base" version is $70. But to get a good experience or have a better chance at beating it, for the in-game upgrades one has to go for the "deluxe" or higher which is usually $80+. When I bought Riders Republic the cadillac tier of that game was like $140 or something.

I'm not completely against licensing, especially software. I'm against companies licensing buyers away from being able to use what they bought.

So if a license states "You own this as long as you don't make and distribute copies to other users. Also some lingo allowing for reasonable backup copies." 100% good in my opinion.

But a license that states "You paid for it but we can take it away for no good reason, such as a few months of inactivity." BS IMO.

Heat kills more people especially these days. Only time cold seems to kill in winters where I live is if someone goes without power for a considerable amount of time, so their furnace or wood stove circulation fans don't run.

I think a while ago our county and later state passed laws to where power and gas companies can't shut customers off for non-payment during the winter. They have to wait until spring to shut off someone who hasn't been paying.