For me I say that a truck with a cab longer than its bed is not a truck, but an SUV with an overgrown bumper.
Those big SUV like Ford f150 should be illegal, for real. They are super long and tall, the driver can barely see what’s right in front, it’s dangerous for everyone not in the car. Cars should have stricter limits on size, if it’s bigger, you need a special license.
I’m 6ft/183cm and those things are taller than my shoulders. If I can’t see the drivers, there’s no way they can see children. Ban these trucks!
In the US anyone with a basic driver’s license can drive a huge Recreational Vehicle (RV) the size of a bus with 7 passengers. They’re super dangerous and it’s insane!
A 2,500-pound car and a 10,000-pound RV are the same from the perspective of the vehicle “class” on the driver’s license. This is not OK.
Let’s go one further and just… basically ban all cars. Almost nobody should be driving all of the time in a city, and when you start to think about how many problems and how much of a nuisance cars are it seems painfully obvious.
Yes, there’s problems that we’d need to solve in order to do this, and some things would just be a little less convenient… But cities would be so much safer, quieter, and have much better air quality if fewer people were driving. Bikes are very effective for getting around for most people (especially if you don’t have to worry about cars murdering you), e-bikes make it a little more accessible, and you can’t tell me we couldn’t have an absolutely bitching public transit system if 1) we didn’t have to account for so many cars, and 2) even a small fraction of what everybody spends on their own personal motor vehicles went towards public transit infrastructure.
Sometimes we need cars to haul stuff, it totally makes sense to have motor vehicles for emergency situations and stuff, but pretty much nobody needs a giant SUV to commute to an office job by themselves. The amount of huge cars you see driving around with only one person is super depressing when you start looking for it.
For the United States, I agree mass Transit should be a much more prominent thing than it is, but suburbs and mass transit is difficult to deal with. 50% of the U.S. lives in suburbs, 20% of the U.S. lives in rural areas.
I couldn’t live where I live without a car, and we literally have no mass transit. My nearest tiny grocery store is 3 miles away. I’m not putting a family of 4 on bicycles to make a run to the store to buy groceries, loading it on a bicycle, then hauling it home.
Part of the issue of mass transit, cities, and cars, is if I’m in a suburb 5 miles from a proper urban area with access to amenities, and I have no mass transit to get there, I have to take my car. And if I have my car when I get to the city, why would I park it to then take mass transit?
Mass transit actually has to become a realistic option for the 30% that live in a city before we even start to talk about mass transit for the other 70% of the U.S.
And realistically, those cities need major redesigns to support a mass transit-style system. The fight for public transportation starts with zoning and districting. Get mixed-use neighborhoods up and rolling, some medium-density housing developments with townhouses, duplexes, and triplexes. The fight for a bike system (Why do we need bike lines along car road? Screw bike lanes, I want bike networks.) and buses come shortly thereafter.
Yes, obviously with how things are currently it’s not always practical to live without a car, but I don’t think it means we should be defeatist about it and assume that that’s the way things have to be. Yes, change will have to be gradual, but I think it’s reasonable to look into changing zoning laws so suburbs don’t have to be barren wastelands without any nearby shops. Yes, biking to get groceries is a little less convenient, but realistically many people and families can manage this just fine (especially with a bike trailer), and a 3 mile bike ride is like… 10 or 15 minutes?
Obviously things need to improve for these to be more reliable options for more people, and there will be inconveniences along the way, but I kind of think it’s worth thinking about shifting things in this direction, instead of cementing things the way they are? Like, walkable neighbourhoods are great, and having good public transit and biking infrastructure makes a city more accessible and gives people more freedoms and makes it so not having a driver’s license or car (e.g., due to disability or finances) isn’t a death sentence… And it’s probably better for the environment and people’s happiness and safety too. I’m really just kind of tired by how much money and effort is spent on catering to cars, which in my opinion makes our public spaces so much worse.
And if I have my car when I get to the city, why would I park it to then take mass transit?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have to do this? From an individual perspective it’s obviously better to just be able to drive everywhere and park near your destination, I can totally empathize with you there… But there’s plenty of situations where you end up with sub-optimal solutions when everybody tries to follow their own self-interests. When everybody drives into the city all of the time that’s more carbon, more vehicles, more pollution, more noise, you need more infrastructure, more maintenance, and more parking… Things have to get further and further apart to support all of this infrastructure, and there’s more traffic and congestion which makes everything less efficient.
I mean, to be clear, I’m not saying this always makes sense… And I don’t want to see you suddenly have a 3 hour commute either. I want you to have good options for getting into the city… But I also don’t want you to be trapped in the suburb unable to come to work if you lose the ability to drive all of a sudden either, and I don’t want you to have to deal with finding parking or sitting in traffic either.
I get that these are unpopular opinions — people like their cars and they’re convenient for many things, and the thought of transitioning away from needing them as much seems scary because cars are basically people’s life blood at the moment… But I kind of feel like cars are killing us (often literally) with how expensive they are, how they limit access for people, how they shape our cities and make communities more isolated, and how they damage the environment.
Don’t mistake me, I would much prefer to just hop on public transit and get to where I want without having to drive. Whenever I travel I take great pleasure in being able to use public transit that actually just “works” and not having to rent a car or drive my own car around
That being said, I think bicycles and “walkable” cities are the stupidest pursuit people who want to change the system pursue. It’s easy to make a bike lane to point to and go “see! progress!” when no one will end up using the bike lane with any real consistency because the city is still laid out like garbage and getting from one end of even a small city to the other by bicycle lane is frustrating at best and dangerous/suicidal at worst.
I don’t think bicycles and walkable cities are a stupid pursuit at all, but I do agree that often times bicycie infrastructure isn’t given the care or respect it deserves! That said, I think sometimes these changes are incremental progress that can get better over time… Sometimes you end up with bike lanes that aren’t great to get to for instance, but they’ll eventually make more sense when the network expands (and each additional bike lane makes this exponentially better). Plus, I get the sense that drivers often don’t have a good sense of how much other transit infrastructure is used and relied upon by other people. I’ve often heard complaints about having to wait for trains at lights, for instance, and it’s a bit silly because the trains have hundreds of people on them, so they really should take priority, even if the traffic waiting at the light looks bigger because it’s so much less space efficient. I suspect in a similar way the usage of bike lanes is often underestimated because they’re quite efficient at getting people through in a small amount of space with little congestion. Bike lanes support some pretty serious throughput, so even if they get some pretty heavy use they might seem empty and unused… You just never really have a traffic jam or anything on them because they’re so effective at moving people through.
I’m interested to hear your plan as to how we transform the entire country such that no one needs cars and everyone has equal access to public transport. Banning them now would be disastrous for the poor. Not letting corrupt auto industry barons kill alternative transport would have been the play, but that horse has sailed.
I kinda agree and disagree with this POV. I think it’s more of a cultural issue and not a legal one. At least in the US, people think it’s trendy to buy a big truck, but as someone who worked in a blue collar field for years, a lot of these people that drive trucks do it because they need it for their jobs. Trust me, most of these people don’t like spending thousands on repairs and $100+/weekly. for gas
Not sure what the solution would be, but I don’t think banning them would be it. I think it would mostly affect the blue collar worker and not the people who are actually the problem.
Also, I used to drive one of those big ass trucks for work, and I can assure you that visibility is not an issue. They are tall, open, have huge mirrors, and have seats that are high up. I could see a lot more and a lot better than in my current sedan.
What kind of jobs mandate the use of a pickup instead of a regular old van? Maybe tree surgeons and gardeners? Not sure who else specifically requires an open bed. Even then the open bed vans are far more spacious and practical so still not sure where a pickup is ever the correct choice.
Anyone who lives in the suburbs where doing lawn maintenance, tree trimming, and other such stuff is required due to HOAs and other such nonsense typically requires either owning a truck, or having a friend with a truck, because every now and then you have to pack it full of lawn crap and haul it off. I have to do yearly fire protection on my property, that includes cutting out bushes, trimming trees, and creating defensible space. Loading that into a van would be a pain in the ass, loading it into an SUV means I’m never getting the sap out of the carpet. Throwing it in the back of a pickup bed means I don’t even have to think about it.
I don’t own a pickup, but I have multiple friends with pickups, and you get into a beneficial “I’ll buy you a tank of diesel if I can borrow your truck for an afternoon” relationship. They get 100 bucks in fuel, I get my lawn crap taken care of.
In many places outside the US, people just rent a trailer or a truck if they need one once a year. Obviously people who need these vehicles for their daily work should be able to use them, but driving a massive pickup truck because you have one task for it annually doesn’t seem like a good solution.
People go camping twice/year and buy a trailer and F350 to haul it, leaving the trailer vacant 50 weeks of the year and using the F350 as a commuter vehicle. But they nEeD a tRuCK fOr HauLiNG.
It’s insanity.
I understand the general use case what I don’t get is where a pickup is more suitable than something like a flatbed Transit - https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTAyNFgxMDI0/z/VmIAAOSw6DNcrKoD/$_86.JPG
Which has a bigger bed, a far more economical engine and is overall far more suitable as a work vehicle for carrying those kinds of loads.
Also do you not just have garden waste collection services?
Just hire the above for the few times a year you would need it. Honestly I do find it baffling.
I’d definitely consider a flatbed transit personally, but there is definitely a “cool” factor that is lost on something that looks like that. Not that “cool” factor is a good argument for something to exist, but it is what it is.
And I could probably do that, but I’m in a pretty rural area and services like that tend to have a very long wait list around here because there’s too many people that need the same work done, and not enough handymen/services willing to do it. Not to mention the cost tends to be several hundred dollars.
My version of the “could care less” pet peeve (which is annoying but tolerable) is when people reverse the order of the cases in a “let alone” phrase. The entire point of “let alone” is that you fail to meet the general case, so of course you don’t satisfy the specific case.
For example, if I asked someone “Have you ever been to Germany?” they might answer “I’ve never been to Germany, let alone Europe!” As is, this is nonsensical, but if you reverse the order, all is well. Most examples in the wild aren’t this obvious, but they’re commonplace once you start looking for them.
I actually still don’t understand how this phrase is supposed to be used. Can you explain what is meant by reversing the order? Which parts are supposed to be switched?
The ability to spell well has nothing, or very little, to do with intelligence.
Vanilla is NOT a boring flavour. It is the best flavour and most versatile flavour!!! Describing things as vanilla should not be synonymous with boring and I’ll fight anyone who argues otherwise
And french vanilla is a top #3 ice cream flavour
I always considered Vanilla to mean default and not “boring”. I feel like only a minority of people interpret it that way and even fewer use it that way.
It’s “I could not care less” not “I could care less”. If you could care less, then that means you care. If you can’t care less, then that means you are all out of fucks to give.
I’ve read somewhere that English teachers and grammarians agree that “I couldn’t care less” is the correct one, and it makes more sense to me too.
Although, I can see how “I could care less” could mean that: you care so little that if you wanted you could care even less, but you don’t care enough to do that.
Yeah, I’ve always thought it could be a good retort when someone is dissatisfied with the amount of resources you’ve already put towards some thing.
“Wow, thanks for getting me only 20 bucks in my birthday card”
“you’re only volunteering for a day? They are volunteering for at least three”
“Gross, you’re got me a used laptop?”
I could care less but barely.
This is more of a meta thing, but relevant to a lot of comments I’m seeing here. Having an opinion about pineapple on pizza is the most uninteresting cultural phenomenon. I’ve spent the last 4 years on dating apps, and at least 1 in 3 people write in their bio about this “issue”. It’s not something that people truly have strong feelings about, it’s like straight men saying Ryan Reynolds is attractive, or people arguing over the definition of a sandwich. It’s an opinion that people hold as a proxy for being somebody with strong opinions.
Pineapple on pizza is kinda like a lot of people suddenly having issues with the existence of trans people.
There’s just no need to have such strong, negative opinions about something that doesn’t actually affect them in any realistic way.
How about “pizza is quiche”
Pizza is cake. Quiche is cake.
I would say they are pies. Are you saying pies are also cakes, or that cakes are a type of pie?
I know it has a long history of not being used literally, but I think literally should only be used to mean literally.
Chris Traeger gets a pass though.
Microtransactions are not acceptable in full retail single player games. I don’t care if it’s only cosmetics. If i pay 60 bucks for it, i better get the whole damn thing. Looking at you, Diablo 4.
Further, I’m convinced the term “microtransaction” was introduced by corporations cynically and insidiously knowing full well they would ramp the price up over time deluding the meaning of the term.
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Absolutely. But you can see it the other way, the “micro” now refers to what you are getting and *not *what you are paying.
Agree 100%. I’d honestly argue there shouldn’t be microtransactions in any single-player game, unless it is free.
I miss the days when you unlocked cosmetics, etc. by actually playing the game and doing achievements rather than needing to buy them through "micro"transactions.
If someone uses the phrase “assless chaps” I will not rest until they admit that if chaps had an ass, they would be pants.
Fight me.
Never in my life I thought I would spend time thinking about assless chaps. But I will die on this hill with you
You don’t choose the fight, it chooses you. Welcome!
Ok, but, what if the chaps had an ass but still had the front open? Would those still be pants?
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I… guess? The point of chaps is extra leg protection right? (And some pizazz) And there’s one type with all front and no back called Armita. So it probably would be chaps, albeit a poorly designed one.
It’s not a biscuit, it’s a scone. Biscuits are cooked twice (it’s in the name), you bake them then dry them.
TIL: “The Old French word bescuit is derived from the Latin words bis (twice) and coquere, coctus (to cook, cooked), and, hence, means “twice-cooked”. This is because biscuits were originally cooked in a twofold process: first baked, and then dried out in a slow oven.”
Exactly. So, many cookies are in fact biscuits, as they’re dried out to give them a longer shelf life.
The Oxford comma is an absolute requirement unless you prefer to be intentionally vague.
Fuck yes. Only people who argue otherwise are illogical traditionalists.
Phones are for talking, navigating, and casual content consumption. Desktops (and laptops) are for actually getting things done. Both are useful, but the former is not a substitute for the latter.
Tablets are oversized phones that can’t even phone. I don’t see any use for them that isn’t better served by something else. They’d actually be useful if they ran a desktop operating system, and some early ones did, but modern ones don’t.
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Tablets are good for reading comics as well as PDFs that don’t fit very well on an e-reader’s screen.
What about when I want a larger screen than what my phone offers without the added bulk of a physical keyboard? What should I use then?
Funny you should say that. I would very much like a phone that has a physical keyboard, like my old Droid 3 had.
Tablets do have a singular purpose, being drawing.
Of course, most tablets that aren’t specially built for it (or are from Apple) are terrible at it, but I definitely wouldn’t want to draw on a phone or with a mouse.
I seem to recall there being purpose-built drawing tablets that are only drawing tablets, and act as a peripheral to a computer rather than a computer unto themselves. That sounds good on paper, since then you can still use the keyboard and mouse for everything other than drawing, but I’ve never used one, so I wouldn’t know.
Also, there are laptops with touchscreens and full-range hinges. With that, you could do your drawing on an actual, fully-functional laptop. I haven’t used one of those, either, though. I do have a laptop with a touchscreen, which could in theory be used for drawing, but it has a normal laptop hinge and can’t be held like a tablet or paper notebook, so actually drawing on it is cumbersome at best.
Cats are an environmental disaster and if you let your cat roam outside or feed wild cats, you’re just a bad person and directly responsible for hundreds of bird deaths.
I adore cats and I could not agree with you more. Better the wild cats die than hundreds/thousands of potentially endangered birds.
Subscription services are not worth it, period. Phone and internet bills are all you need to get everything you want at the best possible qualities in the best possible formats. Subscription services are only convenient for the lazy who don’t know how to use the internet.
I hate it when mobile apps are advertised as free only to reveal that you need a subscription to use them. Not everything needs to be subscription based. I miss actually owning software.
Free to install - Sub to use
I agree 100%. Subscription services have ruined plenty of good software, among other things. I don’t know how people can stand the feeling of not owning anything, just basically renting them and being at the mercy of the corporation that owns them.
Are you essentially saying you pirate movies, games, and tv shows?
There’s plenty of games you can just buy and not pay a subscription to. Hell, any game with a subscription is usually impossible to pirate, due to being server based.
Movies and TV shows almost invariably do require a subscription these days, though, unless you take to the seven seas.
I wish adobe didn’t have subscription.
Game-wise, that’s fair. I mean things like Humble Monthly, Netflix, PlayStation Now, and Game Pass are getting bigger and bigger. Most of the time those services save people a lot of money over buying every game they will play once and put down. Either way, I highly recommend buying games outright. That said, I don’t see myself buying movies or TV shows outright like I do games.
I subscribe to a VPN though
Microsoft Word is a bad piece of software that is poorly designed, laughably unoptimized, and mostly dysfunctional. It’s like a passenger car with seven wheels arranged in an irregular septagon, a 1 gallon gas tank, and a kitchen stool for a seat.
Also hype clothes are a tremendous waste and reveal the hollowness and meaninglessness that underlies most fashion
Microsoft Word…
That’s neither an opinion nor petty; those are just straight facts.
Do you have a suggestion for a replacement? I’ve been looking for something to write in and didn’t want to buy MS office.
@GraceGH @Nanokindled LibreOffice. Great software, works as you would expect.
The UI/UX leaves a lot to be desired though.
