The shopping cart argument is a great place to start managing the human race. And I don’t mean in a binary manner - let’s just start with those who never bother returning the cart. To a startlingly large majority, they tend to demonstrate traits that are wholly incompatible with a polite and empathetic society.

Things must have changed in the last five years, then. The 800 my wife and I got back in 2000 has none of that malarkey.

They’re also not good for the dishwasher. Or the environment.

Agreed. In the IT industry as a tech since 1997, and even now everything except for my iDevices and one wireless bridge to the far side of the house is hardlined. I absolutely despise WiFi, from long experience.

What about them?

Or for low tech bulletproof reliability, a vintage HP 4050DTN. Mine has lasted a quarter century and two degrees on only 3 toner cartridges, a JetDirect module upgrade, and paper. It’s still working with the original fuser and rollers, although they’re beginning to need replacement.

You need to look into something thoroughly classic, like an HP 4050DTN. I’ve had mine since 1999 and it’s lasted me through two degrees with only 3 toner cartridges. I get the ones that can do 20,000 sheets at 5% coverage. And while yes, other parts like the fuser are now clamouring for replacement, to date the only things I have ever done are replace the toner cartridges and upgrade the JetDirect module to keep pace with my wired network.

Not bad for a printer that’s a quarter century old.

Edit: JFC I feel old now.

When you have the money, get a Bosch 800 series.

Like, my god it’s practically perfection. Don’t use pods, you need to use HE powder, but otherwise this is the best consumer dishwasher I have ever seen short of an industrial model.

Find an old 70s Amana Radarange on Marketplace or whatever local selling forum is available to you.

I have both 1972 (analog rotary dials) and 1976 (electrostatic push button) models, and they can bring a cup of water to boil in less than 30 seconds. Most any modern microwave I’ve tried this on needed 2-8 minutes to do the same damn thing.

at 54,

What, your body isn’t sounding like Rice Crispies every time you move? 🤣🤣🤣

Yyyyyyup. Baby back ribs, my absolute favourite.

First time I ever had racks outside of home, was at a local restaurant called Kelly O’Bryans. I was in my mid-20s at the time. Decided to “Irish size” the order to two racks, not aware that they were already running a special that doubled the racks. Entire party stared in shock when four f**king racks came out balanced on a single platter. And I ate them all. Including all of the pachos (cross-cut fries with a house dip sauce).

Second time was when Montanas came to town a few years later. At the time they were still doing six bones a refill, instead of the current 3-4. Had the whole initial rack (something they also stopped doing, only half a rack to start these days) and then did 12 refills. So seven full racks of ribs. I still have that receipt somewhere filed away in my bookkeeping.

I had the “hollow leg” of my youth clear into my 40s. But by 45 I could feel it noticeably collapsing, and by the age of 50 it was almost completely gone.

In my late 20s I polished off 7 full racks of ribs in one sitting. These days I have trouble getting completely through one full rack.

This ignores that the inventor has less motivation to actually invent. Author have less motivation to create.

Tell me you haven’t read the entire book without actually saying you haven’t done much more than browse a few pages.

Businesses were innovative long before patents and copyright became a thing. In fact, evidence shows that society was more innovative without patents and copyright than with.

For your reading pleasure:

• Against Intellectual Monopoly

As someone with deep roots in the sciences, and good access to the latest data and evidence surrounding anthropogenic climate change, I seriously doubt that there will be much civilization left by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil. All indications used to point towards widespread economic, societal, and ecological collapse in the latter half of this century, well past my effective lifespan, but recent (and strong!) evidence has moved that up considerably to not much past 2035. So no, I am not worried in the least about “burdening” anyone with my collection. I seriously doubt that there will be anyone left who will care. The few who remain will be too obsessed with surviving another day to give two shits about books. I just want to live long enough to read most of them in relative comfort.

My mother

…WAT…

or sees a visible map of time in their head

Like how a day or a year is like a rollercoaster, coming down in the first half to rise back up in the second? It’s like a really odd sine wave for me.

eating hamburgers and hot dogs with flatware instead of on buns.

That sounds so German. I know the bun-less burgers as “frickadellen”, my own parents (both German immigrants who met each other over here) used to make them fairly frequently.

My goodness, I am so much like you.

I’ve been using a book tracker app since the iPhone 4s (2011) just to keep track of what I buy - I don’t track anything else - because even way back then I had trouble remembering if I had a book or if I had just browsed it elsewhere.

In 2018, various functions (search, sort, stats, etc.) took a permanent dirt nap just as I was nearing the 3K number of entries. And these are just the books I own.

The size of the DB backup file has nearly doubled since then.

Now granted, a number of books I get need to go straight into storage before I can even read them, as I have not yet built my library. It’s already gone through several redesigns to stay ahead of the size of my collection, and right now I’m looking at movable library storage stacks - the kind that roll on miniature railway tracks and have wheel-like dogs at their ends that a person turns to easily move them back and forth (opening and closing an access corridor between the stacks for access to the books). I’m hoping to eventually have almost half a linear kilometre of shelving in my library once it’s built.

I cannot imagine the horror of being even semi-illiterate, much less fully illiterate. I absolutely love reading.

Canadians are generally considered super nice and polite by Americans

That’s actually a common misconception. We aren’t really all that nice. We just do passive aggressive really, really well.