??? The cheapest new vehicle I've seen is $18k. If you're talking about used vehicles, you can get used EVs even cheaper since they tend to lose value faster. I just checked autotrader, and they have a Leaf with only 40k miles for $9k. You're going to have a hard time finding a decent vehicle of any kind under $5k. I really don't understand what kind of point you're trying to argue about. Yes, vehicles are expensive, but many people need one. I spent most of my life only being able to afford vehicles that barely ran, and repairing them myself (often improvising without having the correct tools).
Fucking Ridgid got me, because on paper, they have lifetime warranties on their batteries. But after buying an expensive combo, they made it an absolute hassle to register my tools, so I kinda doubt they'll honor their warranty. Now I'm Ridgid + Dewalt. My corded tools and hand tools are whatever brand; harbor freight or walmart if not used often, Milwaukee, DeWalt, etc if I expect to use them often.
I'm not sure you understood what I wrote. EVs can pay their own difference. Depending on where you live (what your gasoline and electricity costs are), an EV can save $10,000+ in fuel over their lifespans, making some EVs cheaper than comparable ICE vehicles. I.E. you can get a new Chevy Bolt for $27k, then you'd save $10k on fuel over its lifetime. $17k is cheaper than a comparable car. I believe you'd also get a $7.5k tax credit.
46% of Texans voted for Biden. Before the election, there were (wishful) talks of Texas becoming purple. It's much more blue than Florida, for example. But, the gerrymandering is pretty egregious.
Here's one district that contains black neighborhoods in both San Antonio and Austin, which are about 100 miles apart.
Oil price is determined by the global market, so it's nearly the same everywhere. If for some reason oil was much cheaper in the U.S., the oil companies would have tankers export it to other places, simultaneously increasing the price in the U.S., and lowering the price globally until it's about the same everywhere. I'm pretty sure it's actually more abstract and instantaneous than that though, using the futures markets to set the price, which is why gas stations change their prices so often. I.e. we will never be insulated from oil supply problems.
And the footage from the cameras in his cell were coincidently erased?
I think the guards testified they were busy looking at motorcycles and vacation spots when this happened. You know, things people may look at when they suddenly came across a lot of money to spend, lol.
I think all presidents handled it very poorly. They didn't really push back much against the claim the students were calling for genocide. I think they agreed that the language was hateful, which, as far as I can tell, it was not. Considering their jobs, they should've handled it better. They should have protected their students from slander.
Depending on the EV, the total cost of ownership is cheaper than a comparable ICE vehicle (due to fuel savings, and being mechanically simpler to maintain and repair). I'm pretty sure personal vehicles are the largest source of personal CO2 emissions, since it takes an EV 34kwh to travel 100 miles, and ICE vehicles are 4x less efficient. Pretty sure that would produce more CO2 than a typical household's heating and cooling.
Google has a great advantage in the SEO cat-and-mouse game (being able to hire and pay many very smart people). I think part of the problem is that Google has an incentive to not penalize pages with excessive and intrusive AdSense ads.
Yeah, I'm curious how it helps them politically too. Don't get me wrong, it seems like a good thing to do, morally, but I can only see negatives politically. Could be an attempt to save money on ER, but I'm not sure if it's the state that picks up that tab. Could be an attempt to keep their working population healthier, saving money on productivity. Could've been lobbied for by the healthcare industry to reduce their costs, or industries that employ undocumented workers to make them more productive. Could be to secure the votes of citizens with undocumented parents/relatives.
I'm not a Californian, but it seems like a lot of the Democratic politicians there are grifters, and only care about themselves, getting re-elected, and climbing the political ladder; especially Newsom. So, I suppose they think this benefits them in some way, but I'm not sure how.
Wow, that's a little too impressive. I'm guessing that image was probably in its training set (or each individual image). There are open training sets with adversarial images, and these images may have come from them. Every time I've tried to use ChatGPT with images it has kinda failed (on electronic schematics, plant classification, images of complex math equations, etc). I'm kind of surprised OpenAI doesn't just offload some tasks to purpose-built models (an OCR or a classification model like inaturalist's would've performed better in some of my tests).
Yeah, I don't trust the infrastructure around me very much. I get multiple boil notices a year, and the last water quality report said I had a "safe" level of uranium in my water. I just run all the water I drink and cook with through a Zero pitcher filter now. Not sure if it filters out uranium though, lol.
My tap water noticeably stunts the growth of my plants (and probably contributed to some plant deaths). It could be because my tap water is alkaline (and all soil around here is also alkaline), or contains fluoride and chlorine. Chlorine is toxic to plants and the bacteria and fungus in the soil that plants rely on. A lot of water treatment plants are switching to chloramines, which you cannot off-gas by leaving water sit out, and are probably worse for plants because they take longer to degrade.
Traded-in vehicles don't go to waste. Vehicle life cycles are actually pretty efficient. If a car runs, and is street legal, it will likely be bought and used by someone. Once a vehicle does not run, it will go to a salvage yard and used for parts. After a while, whatever metals are left will be recycled.
Edit:
Yes, I don't think everyone should just ditch their ICE cars to "help the environment." I don't know if anyone is arguing for that. And, all new cars are bought by wealthier people because all new cars are way too expensive and have all kinds of "features" with dubious utility. I do think this is a problem. Until a couple years ago, I've never bought a new car. The only reason I bought a new car is because I couldn't find a used car that was worth the price (used car market was pretty fucked up back then). Coincidentally, I ended buying an EV, lol (a Leaf).
It's normalized by CPI, so a flat line would be no wage growth.
Depends on the the sector, obviously. I'm guessing service sector wages have not kept up with inflation, since it seems like every place is understaffed (they're not offering enough to attract workers). I also don't think it accounts for part-time and gig worker wages.
Gloves were one of those things that were very hard to find for a while (I remember seeing boxes of gloves on Amazon for $60 or something like that).