Agreed. I think both are part of the picture. Consumers are buying the wrong kind of car (or manufacturers are selling the wrong type of car), too big and too inefficient, and there is price gouging, especially during the pandemic shortage. It’s telling that car prices were the fastest to come back down of almost any consumer category last year. Shows how much they could come down.

Cars have also ballooned in size since the 90s. In the 90s, sedans were the most common type of car. Now, it’s SUVs and light trucks, which use tons more materials.

This was my thought as well. A lot of these games are never made, even when the ads do very well (as evidenced by the ad continuing for years). Someone actually made the bait game for real, in recognition of the fact that the games have been advertised for many years and never made.

Even if OP’s explanation is sometimes correct, it doesn’t seem typically correct. In fact, it seems like a rare edge case, at best.

I buy iPhones because they’ve been much cheaper. The purchase price of flagship iphones are similar to Android flagship prices, but they’re supported for years longer. My last iPhone was the 6s, released in 2015. It’s still receiving security updates today in 2024, more than 8 years later (last update Jan 22, 2024). When I stopped using it, it ran as well as the day I bought it. The resale price was also decent.

Meanwhile, android phones from that era typically lost support within 1-2 years of release.

I agree, but just to clarify a minor point: small rural towns are actually some of the most walkable and bikable because they were built before cars. If you’re staying within a rural town, you don’t need a car.

As an interesting side note: I have heard multiple times that Gen X is the Trumpiest and most conservative leaning generation, even more than Boomers or Silver. I find it plausible. The silver generation has old progressive labor movement diehards, and boomers have hippies. But Gen X never really had a progressive culture movement. They came of age during Reagan and Clinton.

When I looked into it a few years ago, I found that, contrary to the stereotype, Japanese homes are surprisingly big. Smaller than the US or Canada, which are some of the biggest in the world, but actually bigger than most of Europe.

The result of a quick search: the average Tokyo apartment is 65.9 sq m (710 sq ft). The modal apartment size is 19.7 sq meters (212 sq ft), so maybe that’s what you’re referring to. But that’s only 21% of Tokyo apartments.

The Trolley problem doesn’t go away in the air (not that it’s that big of a deal to begin with). In fact, it might even be worse. Your car is falling. Do you crash into the crowded street or the crowded building? Which one? The destructive potential is much higher. If safety is really a concern, don’t you worry about giving every person a missile?

Flying cars “solve” a non-problem, because long distance highway travel is already the least dangerous. Most accidents are at intersections and points of conflicts. But eventually flying cars need to land and be near other cars and people. There will still be traffic jams, vast fields of parking lots, and cities made uncomfortable to actually walk or exist in.

Yeah, flying cars are even worse than land cars. Imagine how much less efficient parking and take off would be. Imagine all those cars circling the sky waiting to park. Would we need to cut down all the urban trees? Would we build even bigger parking lots? Huge runways and landing pads everywhere? It sounds like hell.

Big oof, I had no idea that critics liked that. 91% on RT! OK, that might be the first major exception I’ve come across.

The critic rating is better than the audience rating. I’ve never seen a film with a high critic rating that didn’t have something worthwhile about it. But I’ve seen a lot of audience hits that were garbage.

One of the common definitions of “regularly” is “frequently”. E.g. “We used to meet regularly, but less and less as time went on.” This is also why frequent customers are called “regulars”.

edit: “Happening or doing something often” is even the first definition of the Cambridge English dictionary. Misinterpreting OP’s use of “regular” just feels like Stack Overflow level pedantry.

I agree with you. I feel like there is too often a “throw the book at them!” reaction to every wrong or mistake, maybe especially in the US. Which explains the hyper punitive justice system and the highest prison population in the world.

Why is Consumer Reports considered a rag?

Yes, Obsidian is great. The app itself is proprietary but the files are portable plain text. I feel like that makes it pretty future proof. If it ever shuts down or enshittifies, there will be alternatives.

I actually can’t understand how most people live without a password manager.

Thank you for the response. Alas, the monetization question is key to enshittification. I’m left unassuaged.

Let’s take a concrete example. There are a bunch of neo-nazis inciting real violence on Blue Sky. People will die. Does anyone have the power to do anything about them? Or can the neo-nazis " mix and match services and switch quickly" to escape any consequences? It’s a dilemma either way. On one fork, BS has no control, which means bad actors run free. On the other fork, BS does have control, which suggests they’re not as enshittification resistant as it may seem.

I know and am happy with how Activity Pub (Lemmy/Mastodon) deals with both forks, as imperfect as the system is. What about Blue Sky?

It’s more robust against enshittification than your average Mastodon server

I’m very skeptical of that. What makes Mastodon so robust against enshittification is that it’s hard for a single or small set of players to have so much control that they can act as gatekeeper to extract money from the user base.

Blue Sky is a for-profit corporation. How do they plan to make money? Who controls access to the network? These are genuine questions.

Yes, French sea salt especially for desserts! Put that sucker on some decadent butter cookies.

Black Diamond salt for me, which is what a lot of restaurants use. Worth the extra cost, especially given how potent a small bit of salt is.