Do not the bees

Fun fact, old interurban cars in the states had a mechanism on the front that looked like a bed frame that would scoop up any pedestrians on the road and prevent the car from running over them. Some even placed this under the tram but before the drive train so they could still be coupled together as needed but still not kill innattentive pedestrians

This video kinda shows a few designs but I’m not immediately finding the under train ones I’ve seen on cars at the Illinois Railway Museum. I learned from a volunteer at the Orange Empire Railway Museum that they were more commonly actually used for scooping passed out drunks off the right of way

The amount of drives I’ve seen who are completely incapable of parking within generously sized painted parking spaces is genuinely concerning. You can even see in the above photo that it’s parked over a foot away from the curb so the driver really parked like shit and some lines on the road probably wouldn’t make any difference

My kids are old enough to start using computers and smart devices but young enough that the best thing we can do is limit them to certain sites, so basically they only poke around on pbskids.org and play games or watch shows there. I’m not sure what I’ll do when they start learning to explore more, but we definitely keep a loose eye on what they’re up to whenever they’re on any kind of computer no matter what.

Only parental controls we use currently is there’s an old phone that the kids sometimes use which I locked down with Google Parental Controls to block most apps, downloaded some kids games (play pass is super good for kids games and can be shared amongst family members so $20/yr for all family members to have access to a ton of paid apps) and time limit them so they can’t spend too much time when we aren’t looking on the phone

In HG Wells The Time Machine, the main character travels all the way to the very end of the world and the last creatures on the planet were some gigantic crabs before he travels forwards and finds a completely bare world

Ehhh depends on the kids. For kids on the spectrum or with ADHD there is actually growing body of evidence and anecdata showing a strong link between sugar and poor behavior

Nah there’s not enough sugar there to noticably impact kids behavior or bellies. It’s basically just a peanut butter banana sandwich with a dash of chocolate, which is downright health food for 5 year olds.

If you really want to punish parents go for one of the “snacks” my MIL gave the kids: captain crunch cereal covered in frosting. I took one bite and the sugar concentration was enough to upset my stomach and leave me feeling very unhappy from the sugar spike and crash

Less sugar than most of the “healthy snacks” I see my kids classmates having at school or see in the store at least!

Honestly I might have to make some of these for my own snacking because I really need calorie dense and nutritionally complex snacks right now

Not to dogpile, but it sounds like your needs could be met a lot more affordably with a trailer that you hook up to a more fuel and space efficient vehicle

1500 miles a year towing 8500lbs

That sounds like a camper. I never understood campers, either you want to stay in a building with a real bed and running water wherever you’re going or you want to camp as close to the outdoors as possible sans bugs crawling on you, and campers just give you the worst of both experiences. Again its almost definitely cheaper to just rent a cabin or buy a decent tent to pitch wherever you’re going than to haul a big $10-50k camper around

I’m feeling similarly. Require a minimum sight lines for shorter humans in front of the vehicle, and lower weight/size limitations on vehicles for a standard Class D license, and a short 1-2 year grandfather period for folks who already own a vehicle that they’ll require additional licensing to continue driving so that they can either trade it or get their ducks in a row and continue driving their vehicle legally.

These gigantic trucks and SUVs are unacceptable on our roads and they keep adding extra wear to our roads due to the increased weight, require larger parking spaces and of course are far more deadly to those outside of the vehicle in any kind of collision. They need to be regulated back into the niches their classes were originally designed to fill.

And for those saying “oh but I need a bed for this that and the other” guess what? you can buy a trailer. Drive around an efficient vehicle then hook up an 8 foot trailer (bigger than basically any truck bed these days!) when you need to haul shit

I couldn’t agree more. My pet theory is that those who enjoy slots haven’t tried better video games yet, and that the mainstreaming of video games will slowly kill slots off.

The issue is that people ‘follow their passions’ and then later find out there are no liveage wage jobs in those areas, and act outraged and like life is unfair.

We should be building a world where this is not the case! We should be building a world where people can become skilled at something without significant cost and shift careers when they decide they need to. Even better, a world where careers are optional and people just do what they need to to contribute to society and can otherwise enjoy life

Sorry, I just have no empathy for the tons of people who get an edcuation, then throw it all away because they didn’t get the dream job they think they are owed who actively refuse to apply to jobs that are ‘below’ them.

Remember these are life-changing decisions made by teenagers, a cohort specifically known for making poor decisions and not considering long term ramifications of these decisions. Yes everyone can name someone who made poor decisions in college and is paying the price for them, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t build a world that’s less harsh to people who do so!

Your friend went into a field were jobs are scare and difficult to get even good times and you often need a masters or better in any science field to get an entry level position.

I love the projection here as you make up a story for someone you never met. I met this individual when we both worked at a callcenter making $12/hr. He did everything right, he got his Masters from a good university, he published research while in college, continued to do what independent research he could outside of college, yet because some idiot in power who themselves never graduated college decided to demolish state funded university research with a single stroke of a pen, my colleague was left to fight for whatever scraps he could get after doing everything right. He did everything right and still ended up royally fucked, yet he still continued to do the right thing and eventually found himself finally in a job in his field a decade after graduation. This is not a system that’s setup optimally, this is a system that badly needs to be fixed!

How do you know what loan you can afford before you have any income? How do you expect a 17 year old who’s never lived on their own and only financial experience is maybe a part time job to be able to comprehend money on the scale of 10s of thousands of dollars?

Sure you can try to be smart and look at the BLS data to get an estimate of your income after college, but a ton of minutae gets lost when doing so, such as what you’ll make early on in that position vs after 20 years in that position, regional pay differences, etc. that also assumes you’ll graduate and get a job like you researched in your field but maybe you picked a field that’s about to collapse for reasons outside of your control, maybe the field you picked is already saturated with talent, or is experiencing some other significant shift.

I worked with one person who had gone to university to be a biologist just to graduate right after a significant number of university research positions were closed and laid off, leaving him fighting with folks who have 20+ years of experience for a handful of job openings

Student loans are the one type of loan you can’t simply perform a debt to income calculation to determine if you can afford the loan. There’s a million and one things that can happen between when you accept the loan and when you start paying on it that can greatly impact the affordability. The risk of course grows with the cost of education, but so does the potential reward.

My first car loan had a 26% interest rate. Over that 36 month loan I would have literally paid over twice the total value of the loan if I didn’t refinance it after 6 months.

I learned a lot through the mistakes I made that day and have endeavored to not repeat any of those mistakes (and so far I haven’t!)

So there’s two types of food deserts: rural and urban

Rural food deserts are typically some small dying town populated by overworked commuters (who primarily work in an agriculture or agriculture supporting businesses, since that’s what exists near these towns) and tax- and price-sensitive retirees. It’s a small town of less than a thousand people and everyone just drives to the Walmart the next town over because that’s what they have for options now.

Urban food deserts are typically in poorer sections of the city (areas whose poverty was reinforced by historical practices of redlining and broken window policing for example) so any businesses that do sell food tend to be dollar stores which due to their margins can’t afford non-shelf stable food, or gas station convenience stores which both can’t afford non-shelf stable food and might not have the space to dedicate to some fresh produce. Grocery store chains will generally aim for locations with some wealthier clients since they’ll spend more per trip, and they fear that opening locations in less affluent areas will lead to more crime.

Some cities have responded to food deserts by directly subsidizing the opening of a grocery store, or subsidizing the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables at existing stores, but that requires a level of civic engagement that not all cities are willing to put in, and more affluent citizens may turn their noses up at such neighborhoods and just want them to decay out of existence (which isn’t going to work) or worse they try it and find that most of the people who could be supporting a small local grocery store still go to the big grocery store/Walmart that they have to drive to instead, so the local grocery store goes out of business despite the subsidy

I have been a good bing 🤗 and you have been a bad user

My metabolism is funky. If I lump around all day I’m usually at the low end of this scale, but start doing some cardio and I leap into the ideal zone.

Case in point, last week I was traveling so I got no real walking or biking in for a full week. First day back I get a good walk and bike ride in and immediately back to the good zone. No transition just an immediate leap back to where I should be

On the upside my metabolism will automatically reduce to asking for a less than normal adult amount of calories when not exercising then start demanding a normal amount of calories once any exercise enters my routine, so I am constantly very skinny no matter what I eat

I went to a casino once to see what it’s about. Ultimately just felt like I was staring at a visual stimulation machine more than anything (my local casino is basically only penny slots)

I spent an hour that felt like 3 there and turned $40 into $60 and I don’t feel like I ever need to do that again. Also worst of all was the ice cream place I was hoping to go to afterwards closed

I attended one of Corey Taylor’s solo concerts at a casino once and as all of these rock and metal fans come out of the oldies concert (because he was performing the music of all of the bands who inspired him) and walking out at midnight from the concert I got the dirtiest looks from the old people pressing the buttons at the slot machines and it was honestly kinda hilarious being judged by retirees spending the night gambling for heading home after enjoying a concert. Also absolutely nobody looked happy to be there as they started glass-eyed at the screens

Go buy a cheap $20 bookcase at $bigboxstore find the nearest thrift store and buy $20 worth of picture books. Read one every time the child is being out to bed and you’ll figure out which ones go back and which ones become favorites pretty quick. It’s one of the best things one can do for their kids (and once they’re in school teachers can immediately tell what kids have parents who read to them and what kids don’t)