Gotta bring over his fan group, all those sofas he promised to travel the world

The worst part for me is

Should federal resources be allocated to states according to how much they pay in federal taxes or should some states subsidize others?

You just know the donor states, those who could financially benefit are also the ones with the empathy to want to help everyone. Meanwhile some of these welfare queens would vote for such a proposal, despite losing all that money keeping them afloat.

As a resident of one of the top donor states, my only objection is the generational poverty. If there’s a recurring pattern of them not using the money effectively to improve the lives of their citizens, perhaps they need to be placed in receivership. We can bring them out of their poverty despite all their efforts otherwise

I’ll also vote to reconsider WiFi. Home Assistant supports a variety of local mesh networks that by default can’t connect to the cloud and whose devices are cheaper and lower power.

I use all three of zwave, Zigbee, and thread; ha works with whatever you need.

I choose to pay for remote access, but it’s for convenience and to support the developers. You are free to configure it yourself in a couple ways (and there is decent documentation) or do without remote access

I don’t know how you set up remote access for OpenHab, but from a quick glance at the web site it looks similar

Cowboy chicken. Recipes are all over online, but I love it, usually presented as a one skillet meal so easy, and very filling!

Cut up chicken, coat in chili powder and smoked paprika, then sear. Dump in corn, beans, veggies and simmer for a bit. That’s it.

I used to love the black bean soup at Panera before they discontinued it and the restaurant started going downhill. But recently I made some from a random online recipe; it’s easy to make and it’s excellent!

I even got a baguette so it’s just like Panera used to be, only better, less sodium, more veggies, and much cheaper

I never made soup before because my family only ever made chicken noodle soup, but it was easier than expected

One of my favorites, Japanese curry. My grocery has a box of spice paste which is extraordinarily convenient, tasty, and means I don’t need to buy all the spices nor follow a complex recipe .

Box gives easy directions: dice potatoes, carrots, onions, and chicken. Brown the meet, throw in the veggies, a little water and simmer 15 minutes, then mix in the paste.

Tastes excellent, made from actual ingredients, easy, make in bulk, stores well.

That’s ok, I’m sure anyone using them for transportation can easily use Houston’s excellent subway, right?

Ahh, one of those websites that continually redraws the content to try to display more ads

Plus software seems to be dropping 32bit support. While I usually appreciate the benefits of 64 bit architecture, that’s uncalled for on most of the things I’d use RPi for

He thinks our people are idiots.

… then proceeds to list evidence

Even pre-war. Every once in a while I notice some older infrastructure, discover it was WPA and am amazed how well it’s held up, but why don’t we do that anymore? Sure their approach was intentionally labor-intensive to get people back to work after the Great Depression and we don’t need to follow that part, but why doesn’t anyone seem to care about making the world a nicer place

Had a somewhat similar scenario at an airport.

I wanted to go to the parking garage. It was a nice day out and it was right there. While there were a lot of lanes of traffic, they had cross walks, and pedestrian lights. The signs all said to go up two floors to the pedestrian bridge, but it looked so doable ….

Got all the way across and there was no way to enter the parking garage. Then a cop came by to yell at us

I also liked a friends Toyota that had screens on the pillar near the side mirrors, that showed that side when you click on your blinker

Before the current chaos, it really didn’t even make sense to have that distinction. My Toyota and my Honda were both built in the us. Not just assembled, but with a higher percentage of us-manufactured parts than my old pontiac

Why do we care? I can be a shareholder either way, if I had money. The executives dont care about me either way nor do they directly affect me. But it’s nice when the factory is here, employing thousands of my fellow citizens.

Having lived through it, I also understand this was a hard-won battle for local labor, fought for in previous trade battles

It was a fight though, and that’s probably still going on in some states. There were many lawsuits trying to block them. At one point Tesla was opening locations on native reservations to escape state level protections of car dealerships.

I think common sense won out, believe it or not. Given the dealership model, it makes some sense at least historically, to protect dealers from manufacturers. But when you have a manufacturer that doesn’t have dealerships and never had, where does your argument about protecting these non-existing dealers go?

The problem is the sticker price typically already has excessive dealer markup built in. A line that says that is pure scam , never pay that. But even if you consider the list price, there’s an entire industry around trying to figure out the dealer actual cost and how to pay only a reasonable markup. Meanwhile you have these scammer who are paid commission based on how much they can con you out of. Their incentive is to be predatory

For example Tesla does not have dealers. They have to have similar functions but they’re owned and operated by Tesla, not a third party

• they have showroom, including visible places like malls
• they have service centers, somewhat regional. I have two within half hour drive, but also do a surprising amount of service visits mobile
• they have places to pick up your vehicle, typically a service center, or some of the time they are delivered

New car experience you go to a dealer, independent middlemen, where they attempt to steer you toward higher profit choices, and the prices are all negotiated where they’re the only ones who know the cost and they have a practiced skill to extract money. It’s exhausting and time consuming

New car experience with Tesla: you may look at the vehicle in the mall or online. you schedule a test drive from wherever is nearest: mine was at the mall they had a showroom in the shopping area and a small section of the parking garage for test drive. You buy online and pay list price where all the options, prices, and financing are visible before you choose to buy. They schedule a pickup time, which might be from a regional service center. Much simpler and easier, and you never feel exploited or scammed

You’re not spending any time getting exploited by a sales-bro, none of that stupid thing where they “have to speak to their manager” so you can stew or second guess. No games with interest or tradeins, surprise incentives, bargains with the devil

Things like that and tariffs are absolutely useful tools for trade issues: TARGETED, TEMPORARY tools. There would have been nothing wrong with temporary protection for Harley Davidson if it were temporary, if there was a deadline where they have to start competing again.

I think you mean this as deserved punishment and I agree, but maybe there’s also a silver lining: we deserve this, to break up the dead dinosaur cartel, to restart innovation, to free consumers from a prison of protectionism around overpriced legacy vehicles and help light the way to future technology