mynameisnoone

Americans "want" big SUVs because they're cheaper than mid-sized sedans. Unfortunately, they pollute more and they're less safe.

The SUV protectionism of import tariffs, safety exclusions, and pollution carve-outs must end because they're killing us on the roads, killing our health through more pollution, and killing the planet.

Should sell mostly prints but some originals on Etsy.

It's "nerd-sniping bait" needs a more succinct metaphor. "Nerdbait"?

FC and Slashdot. There was a lot less traffic in the Bay Area in 2002 than 2000, and it was easier to find parking in downtown Palo Alto, but the eBay parking lot on Hamilton Place in San Jose still looked like a supercar showroom of the PayPal mafia. (Probably because eBay was used to liquidate the detritus of speculative economy like :CueCats and Webvan promotional materials.) Silicon Valley (San Jose - Santa Clara - Sunnyvale) commercial real estate vacancy rates hit around 25%. I opted to return to finish my EE/CS undergrad and do security research and IT consulting in .edu to pay for university.

When precision composite or aluminum parts don't fit, just jump up-and-down on them until they do. Record on paperwork as "everything fit perfectly". A little lost durability or strength sells more repair parts! /s

It's all well-and-good to know about local cuisine, but sourcing them affordably and easily in other areas of the world is the key gotcha.

Middle America has greatly improved over the past 20 years in international ingredient availability. It used to be impossible to find organic vegetables or tahini (fresh or canned) in middle America, but this is no longer the case. One notable regression is with Whole Foods that doesn't carry any SKUs of pita bread in their flagship headquarters location, while H-E-B contains far more variety of SKUs (not everything WH carries), exceptional customer service, and lower prices.

Better security theater through marketing.

Balsamic vinegar (TBV, TBVM, TBVRE), olive oil, maple syrup, wasabi, and more are all ripe (pun intended) for counterfeiting and deceptive marketing of inferior products. This is why PDOs & appellations for agricultural products exist. Caveat emptor.

Pretty much the Saudi sphere of influence in a nutshell.

Parts of the maintained colonial vestiges within proper China are also equally absurd in splendor: marble from floor-to-ceiling, chandeliers as large as medium-sized aircraft, hedge mazes, indoor and outdoor sport shooting, and individual bungalows in the back by the lake filled with swans... and even the "cheap" rooms came with barber service and a "masseuse".

In many things, Americans don't realize how substandard or how (sometimes similarly) unequal their standard of living is relative to the rest of the world. I don't think most Americans have an accurate perspective because 2/3 don't even have a passport, and probably 70% of the only 1/3 who have one just have it to go to tourist traps like Tulum or Tahiti, or to be assholes in another country during Spring Break more-or-less the same as Miami Beach domestically who got tired of it.

If you want to see the world, get a backpack and ride trains across Europe, Asia, Russia, Africa, and all of the Americas too. Maybe join an international humanitarian NGO. Some people join the military, but that's a bad idea as per Smedley Butler.

An inevitable conclusion of extreme corporate profiteering and reckless and absurd inequality: a populace too poor to afford to pay into the consumption Pyramid Scheme. The skewed, power-law like distribution is now more lopsided than the Gilded Age. Even American millionaires (not billionaires) are asking to be taxed more because "Who wants to live in a poor country?", but have seen little traction because the billionaires' lobbyists have regulatory- and legislative-capture of the political class.