Order a Slate pickup. Buy what you want and only what you want. And add things later as you want or buy that tablet from amazon and a bluetooth speaker and install it yourself.

I think the issues is that you can’t pick and choose exactly what you want in your new vehicle. You can’t say, get just a simple AM/FM radio and get bluetooth. You buy a package of accessories.

So if you want just that simple radio, not only don’t you get the bluetooth, but you have to give up the power seats and windows too. It’s an all or nothing choice.

There was a time you would order your new car with individual accessories and then a couple of months to get it. I’m pulling for Slate to be successful and bring that freedom of choice back.

OK, I’ve heard conflicting reports if it was moribund or active. Always an issue with one man shows.

Yep, and we thank you for the word soccer too.

No, but many needed to protect those passengers from bandits and other assorted outlaws.

Best I can say is if medical care is an important need for you, then you will need to look at the Minneapolis/St Paul metro area. Rural areas lack much of the health care you might need. As a retired medic that worked in rural areas, I’m not lying when I say if I were to have a heart attack at home, I’m probably very dead before help can arrive.

While Minnesota shows as a mostly blue state, that is because we have one large metropolitan area that dominates the rest of the state. And outside of that metro region, the rural 80% of the state skews from purple to red.

Otherwise, plan on long cold winters that can grind some people mentally and what to us is warm and very humid summers. We are an outdoors people that enjoy the 3 months of summer and spend as much of our time outdoors as possible. Preferably on a lake in a boat, we own a LOT of boats. Even in winter we find snowmobiling, skiing, and ice fishing as popular hobbies. We are all about the outdoors for sure.

As far as the denizens of the state go, we are Minnesota Nice^tm to everyone, but as individuals we are mostly stoic and often wary of outsiders. And the farther you get from the cites, the more that becomes apparent. So it can be difficult to build friendships. You can live in a town for 20 years years and still be considered the “new people”. Or you can be accepted and welcomed immediately. YMMV for sure.

If you decide to move here, I wish you luck. As a whole, we are a good and helpful place to live. But there can be bumps on the road of life here also.

Nor will we create a better society if we let tyrants rule either. For most people, the choice is about how you choose to die-- kneeling in front of the pit you just dug or on your feet and fighting for something that might not be much better.

But no matter which you choose, you will probably die.

Another answer to question that no one asked…

Is there any new work being done on SuperSlicer? Or is it orphaned yet.

It’s a subscription based software. And it appears that it doesn’t much care for my old Nitro 5 laptop and Fedora 42. With 16Gigs of memory and the old 1650 nVidia chipset in it. It really slammed the brakes on.

I’m using Fedora KDE 42 and I found that to run Orca well I had to switch to the flatpak of the nightly builds. It still crashes sometimes, but not very often.

Bambu Studio was stable, but I have ditched it for Orca. I also use Prusa Slicer to run my Klipperized Mk3s. Prusa Slicer has always been rock solid for me no matter the distro or OS.

Have you tried starting Orca from the command line? It should show the error of a lib you are probably missing.

To maybe add a little bit of perspective on the why of his hunting a Cape Buffalo.

The danger of getting maimed or killed is an integral part of the hunt for people like him. This time he lost to the hunt and the Buffalo won. And this is not considered the most dangerous land animal in Africa to hunt. That honor goes to Hippos. Evidently they don’t much respect getting shot with .500 nitro Express…

I won’t shed a tear for him, but I do understand his thoughts.

I did plainly state that revolutionaries tend to not be very good at governance if they win. They are very often captivated by the absolute power and refuse to give it up.

It’s been 50 years or so since I read Thoreau. And honestly, it was a bit of a slog for a teen. Some of what I read I didn’t understand in the moment of my age. But I vividly remember being disappointed in the end that he packed up and went back to town and all things he thought he didn’t want. Why go back? But his words and view of the world did resonate with me and I still think about ol’ Dave now and then.

So come on over this afternoon. I need to pull the grey water pump out of my septic tank to replace the burnt out motor. At least it’s summer and not -10F. And tomorrow we can pull the left rear wheel off the big tractor and drop the fuel tank so I can replace the sender unit for the fuel gage. At least I don’t have fluid in the rear tires and the tank ain’t full of diesel.

These are the types of things most people from the big cities who think about the “idyllic” life tend to not understand are a part and parcel of this life style. If you think you would be fine with those kinds of days, then come out! This is the life for you. And honestly, we also need you.

No, it’s not here just yet. People still aren’t ready to risk dying because they are starving and have no hope for tomorrow. As long as the bread and circus are here, there will be no bloody revolution. It takes a very long time to push people that far and we aren’t quite there just yet. But you and Korg and start the revolution today if you wish and call all to your banner.

Oh, and one thought to keep in mind as you start that bloody revolution is that historically, revolutionaries make for poor leaders after the revolution. Because they are mostly very unwilling to give up the power the revolution gave them. Best have a solid plan for the transition to peaceful government after the revolution.

As someone who lives out in those boonies in the middle of a forest, (groceries are a mere 100 mile round trip. I did that yesterday), the internet has had a funny journey here. We pretty much went from dialup to fiber, sometimes it’s good to be last. We’ve had fiber now for 6 or 7 years. While it’s only 2.4G, still fast enough for most people. But weather can make internet and electricity somewhat spotty as winds can blow trees over and the lights go out.

But we still very much behind on cell service. Due to the trees and and hills, towers can be far and few between. Many places have poor to no service. I can sometimes get a text message out in my yard, but making a phone call isn’t happening. And most places I forage or hunt in have no service at all. If I have a heart attack, ain’t no one dialing 911 for me unless they use the land line in the house. Weirdly enough there is one spot one the lake I live on that I can get 5G. It seems to be about a 200 yard circle.

What all of these swaive, 'fisticated, and urbane Ubanites will miss is the “quality of life” they are used to. “Fun things” like movies, concerts, plays, shopping, fine dining, are either miles and miles away or non-existent. Best we can do for you is Brodini being in town for a one Saturday afternoon comedy magic show in the summer. And for shopping, you can always use Amazon and wait a week or two for the shipping.

But I get to sit here this morning, breathing in the smoke from the Canadian forest fires, (we are not quite in the promised orange yet today), and drink my tea over looking a quiet lake and listen to the loon out in front of my house. I think it takes a special mind set to live like this. And most people don’t have it because they don’t know anything different.

The tree of Liberty must refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots from time to time. I do agree with you. That time is perhaps drawing near.

By the threat of killing you if you disagreed with the USSR’s directives. Plus those satellite countries were meant to provide a buffer to the USSR if another world war was triggered. Better to fight a war in someone else’s home rather than your own. A hard lesson learned from WW2.

Putin is pretty much trying to re-establish that buffer while pillaging his neighbors of their wealth. It doesn’t seem to be working well for him.

Legislation is a poor way to force populations into changing away from something they choose to do/use. As the saying goes “It’s hard to talk someone out of something they weren’t talked into”.

Example: See France or Somalia