skuzz

Using so-called “red flag” laws, local police could have potentially prevented DeLucia from obtaining a firearm if they were made aware he was dealing with mental health issues, Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said Monday.

And if we had a PreCrime unit like in Minority Report, crime would never happen. What a pointless addition to the article and pointless statement by useles police. These kinds of mental issue are rarely caught in time as the person "seems normal" until they don't. While long guns are insanely accessible and cheap in most states.

With the frequency that crazy errant behavior seems to occur with boomer-age people, I truly do wonder if there is a common thread. Leaded gas? Covid causing long-term brain damage from plugged blood vessels? Micro-plastics? Having to face the reality that their retirement is going to erode away because of the climate change they naively accelerated with their spoiled ass lives?

Like how an 18-21 year old woman that murders gets called a woman/adult in the headline, but if she's the victim, she's called a girl/young adult. (Similar with guys too.) News author or editor injecting bias (intentional or otherwise) into the article. That's always annoyed me.

A mere jape, it was!

I truly LOL'd at that hah! It was actually a deep ref to the beginning the movie in DC where they did have telegraph stations all over the place in the white house. But the movie not explaining that they also were listening because it was completely irrelevant to the plot hahaha.

My phone already has data, my car doesn’t need LTE.

Actually that's one arena of technology that should have taken a different course. Auto manufacturers should have an upgradable modem module that you can swap out with the latest "G" (as the modules are already self-contained) and the car should have antennae that cover as wide swath of the RF spectrum as possible. Cars are Faraday Cages. Cellular reception on a tiny little rectangle phone in your center console won't ever be as good as a dedicated modem and antenna. Also, the car's dedicated modem can transmit at higher power levels (up to 3 watts, vs a couple hundred milliwatts) so you'll get cellular reception in places your phone will just say no service. It also moves the higher-powered RF outside the car with the Faraday Cage shielding the human, for those that are concerned about such things. (Also, also, phones have to limit their total RF output to the sum of the current transmission rate of the radios, so when you're doing Bluetooth + cellular, the cellular modem won't be allowed to transmit at its maximum power level, further reducing range.)

Bonus points, there has literally been a Bluetooth SIM profile in existence for decades, although very few car modem have ever been designed to support it. This means, if this was implemented as standard, when the phone pairs with the car, the car inherits the cellular account of the phone while the car is turned on. So you're not paying for two cell bills, you get better reception, same phone number, better data speeds, better voice calling, etc. The phone also has supremely better battery life because it doesn't have to be constantly screaming at cell towers.

Of course, automakers and cell carriers would never implement these things that already exist because they'd eat into their precious profit margins.

Solar panels on houses aren't the win they seem to be unless one lives in a market with an unstable grid and requires self-powering. It's nice to feel like you're "helping" but grid-scale solar will always win. Plus the whole home solar market is a complete scammy racket now unless one can find a reputable local company.

Looked into it a while ago, oftentimes the agreement has the solar company leasing your roof space for 30+ years, and during construction they have a carte blanche permission to access any part of your house at any time. After install, you have to then seek permission through them if you want to do anything to your roof. Hail storm caused a roof leak? Well, you'll be waiting a bit to have that taken care of. My favorite agreement was one with a California firm, you had 72 hours to cancel after signing and the only way to cancel was to telegram their California office.

They also do a piss-poor job of factoring in things like the expense of having to rewire your utility panel or the necessity of lopping off the tops of trees (which then reduces the carbon sink they were doing, and shade on the house) in the initial estimates and try to wave away the mushrooming expenses. If the company goes under and there's not a transfer of stewardship of the generating equipment, it can arbitrarily be disabled until the homeowner finds a way to manually override or a new vendor takes over in their stead.

Who knew that a person from a party of lies and doublespeak, a party set on a warpath of subjugating those they don't like, a party creating hypocrite rules that they themselves don't follow unless convenient would not want to admit to the existence of happy emotions. They're so caught up in a web of bullshit that they have no concept of which way is up, right, or good, let alone happy.

Doubtful. Smaller cars are ~~more~~ aerodynamic and much higher fuel economy.

You know your maintenance schedule well!

Most of the bullshit exists because of federal regulations requirements that they ran away with. Even backup cameras (which are arguably useful) because of shape/size/economy restrictions causing rear windows to be less easy to see out of.

Lane keep assist is annoying AF when you live in a place where you're required by law to cross the double yellow when going around bicycles. You get in a steering wheel fight with the car until you find the menu to temporarily disable it. After next stop-start cycle mid-errand, it's on again by default thanks to US law.

That would be amazing. I miss the days of swapping my head for one I want. Blaupunkt MiniDisc here we go!