This was me, last week lol. Already had the card, but criminally underused it. I love philosophy, but haven’t read most of the actual works, so I picked up some Camus and Kafka. Just finished The Fall, and I’m so glad to have done so.

I also signed up for Libby, thinking audiobooks on hikes would be dope, but so far my mind wanders too much to absorb the words, so that’s been challenging.

We’re like pandas in captivity. We’ll fuck if the conditions are right. They haven’t been right in a loooooong time. A little bit of enrichment in our enclosures would help tremendously.

You’re listing specific examples that literally no one has a problem with. Yes, if you’re moving large equipment you need a large tool to do so. The general public doesn’t do this, like… Ever. The dude in the photo has almost certainly never towed anything with it. These kinds of vehicles serve a purpose, but the vast majority of them are sold to people who will NEVER use it for that purpose, who just take up excess room in lots and on the streets, rolling around with visibility that makes a fucking TANK look like it’s got a clear line of sight.

There’s a whole host of political and cultural reasons that these vehicles are as popular as they are. Almost none of it is actual, practical requirement. No one cares about the worker using the tool to do a job, we’re pissed at the pavement princesses who drive around like they own the place without doing an honest day’s work in their lives. Hope that cleared some of the confusion up.

To me it’s like… Piracy is ethically neutral. Not really a good thing not really a bad thing. Streaming services are dealing with the devil, and my name’s not Faust, so I’m out. Pure evil.

Yeah, I pretty much hung up my flag for a few years. It was good, you could find the thing you wanted at a reasonable price.

Now, on principle, the only streaming services I will pay for are independent ones. Dropout and nebula off the top of my head. Sorry, Netflix et al, not sorry in the slightest.

Easier. Cheaper. A better experience. There’s no reason to keep dealing with these particular devils at all.

Oh, simple. It’s never about the issue, it’s about the opposition.

I have not bought a Sony console since the PlayStation 2. I’ve “missed” a fair few games already. The ones that end up worth playing always seem to make their way to PC eventually.

Everything is politics. The only way to avoid politics is to completely remove yourself from society. Sorry it hurts your feelings to see, but that’s the reality of it, so get over it.

I’m not invested in this conversation from 2 years ago, but I’ll simply reject the premise that landlords have to make a profit. That’s a big maybe at best.

Something like the climate is a centuries long process to change. Your vote moved the needle one way or the other, absolutely. But something like the climate takes generations, multiple administrations, choices, processes…

So like… You didn’t vote for it to be cold, no. You voted for a person who had a set of policies that will impact the world, moving things in a certain direction. And further, the fact that the world is as it is now is the result of all of those previous votes throughout history. You live IN politics. You are not exempt from it, your world is literally molded by it.

It’s not about sides, in this context. It’s just -political-. Whether you vote conservative, progressive, anything in between, you, me, and the whole rest of the world has to deal with that decision.

If you buy the current science on global warming, literally yes. The politics of generations ago still affect us to this day, including such things as the fossil fuel industry’s massive prevalence.

Even at home. The luxury of indoor plumbing and utilities in general are pretty firmly political.

Pooping itself, no. Probably not political. But getting to the point where you have indoor plumbing, provided by a utility company you probably pay significantly less than the actual cost of said utility? Yeah, that’s the direct result of politics.

Men really will do anything to a avoid therapy.

Mine is “network unavailable”.

never understood this sentiment. For single family homes the market sets the price. It’s not like when you buy a house and use it for a rental all of sudden it’s cheaper or more expensive in some way. You could make a price/demand argument but then again the underlying demand is housing not money hungry landlords. If there was not an underlying housing demand, no one would rent and it would fail as an investment.

Close. You’re right there’s no profit without demand. Now, consider what happens when certain entities with way more money than most of us comes along and decides they want to induce artificial scarcity by buying up and leaving empty a ton of houses.

Lastly, 2 of my rentals were foreclosures. If anything I’m performing the city a service by buying these properties and adding value. If you had to choose, would you rather live next to a vacant house or a rental?

They both kinda suck. I’d rather live next to someone who is invested in the property.

To answer your question, it’s fair for a renter to not build equity because they don’t pay for upkeep or have the risk associated with the loan. You have to put skin in the game at some point.

I could agree with this if rent was pegged to a percentage of the mortgage value. The issue is that the landlord makes a purchase and now owes, let’s say, 1k/mo for everything. Rent, taxes, fees, etc.

They want to rent that place out, great. Maximum rent should be LESS THAN that 1k, because the landlord is already getting theirs, they’re getting equity, and the only thing they have to do is upkeep they’d have to do regardless.