Thrashy

In fairness(?) Ford bet big on small cars in the wake of the Great Recession, and that worked well for a while, but by the time they decided that the only non-truck (from a CAFE standpoint) that they were going to keep selling was the Mustang, they were losing money on every Focus and Fiesta they sold.

A lot of that was their godawful automatic transmission that was forcing them to spend zillions in warranty repairs, but at the end of the day the margin on economy cars is so slim that you can't afford to make mistakes. Rather than bet on perfect execution in a market that was already shrinking in the US, they decided to focus on higher-margin products... and that's fine in the short term, but as you mention it's going to leave them exposed once nobody can afford to spend $50k+ on a horrifically overpriced big pickup anymore.

My family’s first computer was a 68k Mac, specifically a Quadra 605. I tried (and failed) to teach myself C++ using that system at the tender age of 9, but eventually moved over to Windows PCs. Had a Linux-based web server running on spare parts as a teen, though, and did succeed at teaching myself PHP and later Python well enough to hack together my very own blog software. Not very good blog software, mind you, but the critical thing was that it worked! Even spent a few years as and SMB sysadmin even though my degree is in [building] architecture.

Since then I’ve drifted away from the very deep end of tech world, but I would never say that first Macintosh stunted my skill.

(100% autistic tho, so ymmv)

Well then I hope I can have your vote, because my platform will be to use the sweeping new executive powers carved out by the current administration to throw every member of said administration along with every employee of ICE ERO into the “unextraditable foreign gulag detention” black hole, and only then work with Congress and the courts to make that impossible again.

Still is, at least to an extent. Bought a house 10 years ago for $110k, and while I’ve paid down about $30k of that between my modest down payment and 10 years of mortgage payments, the house has appreciated ~2x, meaning that I could potentially bring a $100k down payment to a new property. Even with everything else appreciating in the meantime, that makes viable many more options than I would have had if those mortgage payments had been rent checks.

In AEC work we’ve moved almost exclusively to a competing PDF tool called Blubeam, which is proprietary but very worth the price, with tools for scaling, dimensioning, and producing material takeoffs from PDF drawings. Much of what you’d use Acrobat for in a more typical office environment are absent or limited, though.

Got a reference? Pro-UBI and anti-billionaire as I am, I’ve done the math and I don’t think that checks out. Meaningful UBI has an annual price tag in the trillions, and even if you assume 90%+ top bracket tax rates there aren’t enough billionaires in the US to foot that bill. Other programs would have be discontinued and/or rolled in, and tax rates increased across the board.

If the parties involved wanted a clear moral solution there's a very clear precedent in the form of South Africa's truth and reconciliation process. For that to happen, though, Israelis would have to be willing to acknowledge Palestinians' fundamental right to exist, and as I noted above they're currently opposed to that by a 2:1 ratio, and Palestinians do not have the power or tools to force the issue. The international community would have to drag Israel to the negotiation table kicking and screaming, and as long as they've got the US on their side that's not going to happen. Realistic political solutions seem remote right now, sure -- but if you're just talking about a moral one, it's shockingly simple.

If I could pick a nit or two, Jewish people internationally are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government. Israeli citizens might be -- and while Netanyahu and Likud are extremely controversial in Israel, they do represent a significant and very vocal portion of the Israeli voting public. Worse, general Israeli sentiment towards Palestine and Palestinians is not good -- 60% of Israelis still support the war after 18 months of wholesale civilian slaughter in Gaza. 70% support the ongoing settlement and annexation of the West Bank. The positions of the major Israeli parties on Palestinian lives and rights differ from Netanyahu's "kill 'em all" approach mostly in degree rather than in kind.

To put the rotten cherry on the shit cake, Israel has one of the highest rates of dual citizenship in the world, with ~10% of Israelis holding two passports. Unlike the other countries you named, a significant fraction of Israelis could just leave if they no longer wanted to co-sign their government's genocide in Gaza. I am perfectly willing to hold the Israeli people responsible for the actions of their government, moreso than I am for the other countries you mentioned. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine was not forced on them against the popular will. They chose this, and continue to choose this, by a large majority.

Microscopes, too!

All the people mentioned in the article are alt-right lunatics and/or Trumpworld grifters. The only other place they might conceivably take their schtick is Truth Social -- this is really only interesting as confirmation that the thin-skinned and insecure FrEe SpEeCh AbSoLuTiSt running that shithole is absolutely willing to silence anybody who annoys him, over the pettiest of disputes, regardless of political affiliation.

Frustratingly, these are required now because a significant number of American high school grads didn't actually absorb any of that information in high school. College professors have long bemoaned the declining educational attainment of incoming students (not surprisingly, starting around when W signed NCLB into law) and these remedial introductory classes are an attempt to bridge the gap between what freshmen are actually bringing in to college and where they need to be to actually grasp more advanced concepts.

As ever, working to build the post-apocalyptic wasteland that would finally justify their insistence that they need 500 guns and a fleet of milsurp Humvees to traverse the miles of crumbled roadways between their compounds and the last operating Fortress Hospital in the Dakotan Oil Wastes.