I mean, anecdotally, I do know someone that bought a new build in mid 2008 for about 60k-ish less than what everyone else in the neighborhood bought for (earlier or later). The company building out the subdivision was pretty desperate and he had a solid stable job as a trucker. He managed to get all kinds of perks and stuff too.
Oh yes, thank you for the clarification
Ummm… Billionaires are people? Imma need a source on that.
I find this is also a great way to decide if you even need it. I have a tab on my phone for stuff to buy. It collects so much crap I eventually deleted because the desire was fleeting.
I keep a paper list of large ticket items that I actually need so I can save up for them over time. I spend a lot of that time while saving shopping for the best option. I saved a lot while furnishing my house by buying secondhand because I had weeks and weeks to shop around.
Sometimes adding things to my online cart is enough of a thrill that I don’t even think about the fact I didn’t check out until the website sends me a coupon lol. Then I deleted it anyway because if I didn’t go through with it then I don’t really need it!
This is so so true. I cancelled prime ages ago so I don’t get fast shipping at all, and I only get free shipping if I spend over $35. Even in the cases where I decide it’s worth buying the thing on Amazon, I’ve got to wait to need more than $35 worth of stuff. Surprise surprise most of it just gets deleted out of the cart anyway.
That being said, I have only been able to find filters for my vacuum on Amazon (some no name brand I bought off there a few years ago) so they’ll still get some money out of me, but most stuff I can just ignore now. Next vacuum will be a big brand name so I can avoid that, but it will be a while before there’s a next vacuum, hopefully. Because in my mind it’s more ethical to keep using the old one as long as it works even if some more $ goes to Amazon vs buying a whole new item I don’t actually need yet.
The missing reason is that you should just buy less anyway and if you avoid Amazon it is slightly harder to just buy stuff.
That being said, if you need it cheap, quick, and you cannot source it locally, just buy it on Amazon. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. You are not guilty of a moral crime by using them when the need exists.
They go so far over budget because of lawsuits, usually. Vogtle was announced in like 2011 and didn’t even get to break ground until 2017, then got caught up in even more lawsuits, if I recall correctly. And while conventional nuclear plants will probably always have huge upfront costs that take 30 years to offset, SMRs are darn close to a full reality and those will be a lot cheaper, and will get cheaper over time, like solar panels did.
There’s a plant in Phoenix Arizona that uses city wastewater to cool the reactors, so they can hold up to hot dry climates just fine if designed to do so. (Fun side fact, the plant has to clean the rad waste out of the water before they use it - the rad waste from medical procedures that get into wastewater would be enough to exceed their allowance of acceptable release).
I’ll give you the waste issue, but it’s 100% a matter of politics. You’re going to have to convince a state to take it on and none of them will. But on-site cask storage isn’t the worst option. It’s worked for a long time. There’s also a lot of research going into other stuff we might be able to do with it. (In fact, waste isn’t an issue in France because they already recycle it; the US doesn’t because some of the recycled materials could be used to build bombs).
By footprint (in terms of land and waste) nuclear is the best option still. It’s still the most stable output (save perhaps geothermal, but you can’t do that everywhere) One day we might have batteries good enough to make that less of an issue but right now it’s probably not a good idea to abandon nuclear.
Do you actually think they’re shutting down USAID because they’re going to redirect those funds to fixing American poverty or infrastructure?
Your take on soft power is as ignorant as Trump/Musk’s. The game is being played no matter what. Russia and China are always playing. We just walked away from the table and any chips we have will quickly be stolen. As a rich, powerful county, we don’t have the option not to play (and stay powerful anyway).
As someone who has never paid a dime in interest on any card I’ve ever had, and shops around for the best reward options… Yeah, give us the 10%!
If the job requires you to be at your desk then presumably that means you have work to complete. Judge people for what they get done, not how often they mindlessly move a mouse and this wouldn’t be a problem!
In a similar vein, I was trying to find something on Facebook (yeah, I know, but it was a funny work thing) today and went to use the search function to look for the FB page in question (searched the exact name) and if you just hit enter the new AI assumes you’re asking it a question. It’s FB! It’s not a search engine! Why is it trying to give me a phone number for the police department I’m looking up to see their insane post?! I want to see the page! The page with the name I searched! On the app I searched in! Now you have to click a separate button that specifies you’re looking to search through FB… In the FB app!
This AI crap is already k.i.l.l.i.n.g. me.
I mean, the containers are steel filled with concrete. We also leave our bridges and buildings outside, exposed to the elements.
The place in the world you are most likely to know the exact amount of radiation you are receiving at any moment is probably at a nuclear power plant. Its not like they just abandon them and never check on them or anything. They sit out in the open just… chillin. Being generally monitored but mostly just… chillin.
WIPP is for low level transuranic waste from DOE projects, just FYI. Not super toxic stuff. They ship it in these super tough containers that they test by dropping on a spike and putting in a furnace. Wild to watch.
Difficult considering social security isn’t a tax. Without looking it up my guess is that number rolls up the 14-15% of SS and Medicare taxes so the real number is lower.
I’m sure that will make people feel super safe while ubering.
I hate mine. Got the glitch that ruins the camera and the only way to fix it is to send it off for a few weeks. Happened after only having the phone about 10 months. Can’t go that long without my phone so I’m just dealing with it by only taking wide angle photos, but it’s a real bummer. I usually keep a phone for at least 3 years but I’ll be ditching this around July after less than 2. I love their computers but I’ll never buy a phone from them again.
While I don’t disagree that it’s going to be too late, I do think SMRs are likely to go the distance, at least abroad.
The reality is that we aren’t going to hit 90% carbon free by 2030 without a huge social and political shift. There’s just no way that is happening in 6 years. I really hate being a downer about it but I think we need to face the facts on it.
The storage capacity is the hard part. Batteries aren’t really a viable option (we don’t really have good enough batteries, limits on how many can be made with current resources, etc).
Dams would be good (pump water uphill when electricity is cheap and release when you need the energy back), but dams are not a viable option everywhere and also have a high environmental impact and are arguably not the safest thing for a community.
I read somewhere recently about the idea of putting smaller batteries in individual homes, basically distributing the power ahead of time to a certain number of places so they are not taking from the grid in peak times, but it would be hugely expensive still, and I also question if we have the ability to make so many batteries, much less get enough people to install them.
Very technically there are two (at least down here in Dixie Alley). The two months with the most tornadoes are April and January.