Doesn’t that list also include Iran?

I don’t have to like it, but it’s sort of a sound strategy. The Red Sea is on the way to the Suez Canal, and the world had a demonstration a few years ago about what happens when you block the Suez canal.

Protesting is a threat. The problem is, when you don’t get what you want, you’re supoosed to foklow through on that threat.

Interesting how effective a strike is.

One of the most satisfying things for me is driving my wife’s little Mirage in the snow. With normal all season tires it does great, with proper snow tires it’s completely unstoppable - that is, until you need to stop.

It turns out that accelrating and stopping a 2,000 pound car on ice and snow is easier than it is with a 4,000 pound vehicle.

I wish I could get my head around programming. I’ve tried learning from books, I’ve tried learning from codecademy, and all I can do is follow the lessons, I don’t understand how I’m supposed to turn all these lines of gibberish into a program that does something. The most common bit of advice I get is “Just make up a project! Find something that you want the computer to do, it’s easy and fun!” And I’m over here like… “OK, how?” It’s like someone pointing to a pile of metal and a welder and saying “Build something!” Sure, someone who knows how to weld can do that, but most people are going to need more information.

Thay only works when the food at the grocery store is cheap. And it really isn’t. I’ve been cooking at home, and even growing some of my own food, and someone who works two jobs or a lot of overtime isnt going to be able to do it, no matter the cost.

Ask for napkins, if they won’t give you any, pour a soda out on the counter and steal some of the paper towels they use to clean it up. (Actually don’t, this method isn’t nice for the workers)

It’s going to be a fun next few years. Corpo dickheads keep trying to make another nickel next quarter, but more and more people have had enough. If food is too expensive, people will start stealing it, and the police can’t be everywhere. Better hope there isnt 't some global pandemic or something that would suddenly make it acceptable to wear a mask in public.

This one seems silly, but one really useful cheap thing I bought that I use much more than I thought I would is an electric kettle. (I should point out I’m in the US) I use it to make iced tea, my wife uses it for hot tea, and we both use it for boiling water for whatever cooking project needs it. We have a gas stove, and it takes about twice as long to heat up a liter of water as this kettle. It uses a normal US 120v outlet and I think it draws 1,000w. (Edit: I looked it up and it’s 1,100 watts)

I use my printer for making replacement parts for things, and for making simple stuff I need like tools, and also for prototyping.

An example: I used to have this motorcycle. The mount for the taillight broke. A new one was $100, and it would break again the same way. So I measured the socket in the fender, measured the bolt holes, and designed my own, which worked flawlessly the rest of the time I had the bike.

There’s this weird little SUV that’s been in my family for years.

My dad and brother were given a bunch of Suzuki Samurai parts in 1998 or so. They assembled it into a running Samurai, and dad drove it to work for a couple of years, before my brother started driving to school. Eventually my brother took it over, and being a young guy he sunk some money into it - crawler gears in the transfer case, lockers, lift, 30" tires, crate engine, and a sweet camo paint job. Some time in 2017 the engine started knocking so he parked it until 2022, when I took it over, fixed the engine among other things, and started driving it myself. The engine is still in bad shape, and I’m trying to decide if I will buy another crate engine, or if I will do one of the many options for an engine swap.

I want a movie based on Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I’d call it gritty steampunk fantasy. Basic plot of the book is a bird-man has been punished by having his ability to fly taken away from him. He goes to the city to find someome who might be able to make him fly again. The person he finds is a bit of a rogue scientist, and he researches flight at first by collecting flying critters, and things that will change into flying critters like caterpillars. He ends up accidentally getting ahold of a caterpillar that turns into a dangerous and terrifying flying critter.

There’s a lot to the book outside of the above, such things as evil politicians, organized crime, strange drugs, a virus in steam-powered automatons that makes them self-aware, underground newspapers, a race of people that can make water into solid self supporting shapes, various different races of intelligent beings, and people who have been punished by having machinery or parts of animals magically attached to them, and in general a lot of good world building.

I have one in the kitchen, and one in the vehicle I drive to work. I haven’t had to use either one. Yet.

GW Basic

If I’m out by myself and I see someone hassling an employee, I get some enjoyment out of being a Large, Unpleasant Man™ and hassling them right back. It’s funny how little they care about their little problem when some random weirdo who doesn’t work there gets involved.

You can’t have a new border wall until you finish your old one.

Definitely get yourself a treat on occasion… just be smarter than me and don’t get it every day!

When the door alarm goes off, most people keep walking - and the store employees often don’t care.

I save so much money with my 3D printer. Broken parts are easy for me to design and print, and I’ve kept a lot of appliances out of the trash when they just need some little plastic part.

Something that I will claim I did to save money was get a new motorcycle. I traded two bikes, one that was exceedingly hard to grt parts for, and one that had a ton of miles, a ton of abuse, and had reached the point where it needed something fixed once a week. So now I have just one, and it actually works.

The other, more reasonable thing I’ve done has been more cooking at home. No more getting fast food, because it’s no longer fast, or cheap. A really interesting side effect of this is my wife and I losing weight, me not needing to medicate myself to sleep anymore, a drastic reduction in antacid/tums intake, and a stark reduction in the amount of junk food I crave. I used to want a soda all the time, now it’s water or maybe tea. I was originally tired of the way the prices kept going up, amd just tried to cook for myself, and I started looking up recipies… now I have a collection of recipies that I might turn into a family cookbook, and I’m adding to it all the time.