Unfortunately, it’s pretty true at least internally, though their dumpster fire reputation is changing that. I’ve worked at a number of Tier 1 automotive suppliers and OEMs, and I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve had to listen to “We should do ‘thing’ because that’s what Tesla does”. It’s leading to a lot of shitty and anti-consumer practices, but fortunately I think some of the smarter leadership is finally seeing that they were shitty ideas all along, and was nothing more that techbro bullahit.

As someone who’s extremely left leaning, it’s so goddamn infuriating, because there are so many pro-gun Dem leaning voters that wind up voting ® down the ticket, almost solely because the Democratic candidate went on an idiotic speech about AK-15s and their 30 caliber per second clipazines. It’s not like the anti-gun Dems they’re pandering to are going to vote Republican because the Democratic candidate said nothing about guns during their campaign.

It’s literally one single issue that the Dems could just not say a word about. Literally, no work involved. No campaigning, canvassing, or fundraising. Just don’t bring it up, and it would massively improve their odds in some of the most critical swing states. But no, they just have to virtue signal to the areas that are basically ultramarine blue, and it fucks them over every goddamn time.

I wholeheartedly agree, to a point. I don’t think it’s good to stipulate a “need”, and I have no problem with gun ownership being normalized, but you hit the nail on the head with the lack of seriousness. As darkly hilarious as it is, the fact that I’ve visited someone’s home where they literally just had a loaded handgun in a fruit bowl on the kitchen table was frankly disgusting to me, and certainly highlights how many people will buy a firearm but just really don’t understand the responsibility, and it gives a lot of responsible gun owners a really bad image.

I make it a huge point to take people shooting, show them how to handle firearms responsibly, and try to get some education out there so they can not only handle themselves, but potentially call out irresponsible firearms behavior they may see and teach others.

Gun buying is not really the issue, it’s people getting unauthorized access to firearms from people who did go through the process of buying them legitimately. Stealing a gun from a family member who leaves them in the glove box of their truck, or in an unlocked case under the bed is much easier than trying to do a straw purchase.

Or, just target the thing that is used in over 60% of gun crimes, and focus on handguns rather than sporting rifles. They’re way easier to steal and conceal, easier to accidentally drop/leave somewhere where unauthorized people (i.e. kids) can access them, and from the perspective of the very pro-2A side, are far less useful against tyrannical state actors.

Don’t forget the Saudis! They’d love to entice Trump with a tacky golf resort in the middle of the desert in exchange for some more environmental deregulation and looking the other way on human rights violations

Another adjacent life hack is when assembling flat pack furniture, use a quality wood glue on all the joints and connectors, but especially those little wood dowels. It won’t make it indestructible, but it’ll hold up far better over time.

With some rounding, we can get that up another 3% ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I mean, that’s one interpretation. The other one is the reality that the Soviet Union didn’t always treat political prisoners particularly well, and being a former/current western spy, he was pretty smart to err on the side of caution in case they were the ones in charge.

It’s honestly a great joke just because it can be so multi-layered given the character of Austin Powers being a free-love, hippy-ish, world-class spy. He genuinely could have both genuinely hoped that communism won, but also a smart tactic to potentially avoid being sent to a gulag, knowing that if he was wrong, the potential repercussions would probably be less severe.

*Reich kind

I assume you’re probably thinking of all the “pre orders” they supposedly had. However, the take rate of zero-commitment “pre-orders” from 5 years ago for a product that was 50% cheaper with significantly better specs has been pretty low, especially given that far better vehicles have become available since it was announced.

Yes, but imagine they’re as prolific as Starbucks and with 5x the amount of sugar as a normal soda. Everyone thinks the south is the sugary drink capital of the US, with Coca-Cola being in Georgia and sweet tea being the official drink south of the Mason-Dixon, but compared to the shit that comes out of those dirty soda shops in Utah, they’re like LaCroix and plain black tea by comparison.

Since they can’t do “hot drinks”, my coworkers there would typically drink 2-3 Monsters or 20oz bottles of Mountain Dew in a typical workday. It was absolutely insane to see.

Definitely should share what gym so people can avoid it at all costs

World War Z is phenomenal as an audio book. Absolute all-star cast of readers with a great story, 1000x more entertaining than the movie.

Uh, you’re off by a factor of 10 there. Population of the US is closer 330 million, so it’d be 5.7%

This was one of the really interesting plot elements in World War Z, where towards the end of the war where they couldn’t really afford to be wasting resources on prisons, they brought back corporal and public punishment. They’d put people in stockades to let the entire community know they were caught doing something like stealing their neighbor’s firewood, or publicly lashing executives who were war-profiteering, and only imprisoning the absolute worst offenders who were incapable of integrating back into society.

For a silly zombie novel, it honestly has a phenomenal amount of prettt interesting social commentary, and is absolutely worth a listen to the unabridged audiobook.

Given how difficult it can be for a trained teacher to successfully manage lesson plans and teach one or two subjects, it’s not hard to see why homeschooling is a disaster for a lot of kids who wind up being taught by a single parent with minimal to no education credentials.

Best-case scenario I’ve seen is that the students wind up pretty un-rounded, and wind up excelling in one or two subjects, while neglecting basically anything else. It makes sense from the perspective of the parent as well. That might be the subject you’re most familiar with, and therefore can, even unintentionally, give it the most attention. Another aspect is wanting your kid to succeed, and if you see them excelling in a subject and doing poorly in another, there’s a tendency to just keep focusing on that since they’re doing so well on it, rather than “wasting time” on other subjects they’re not excelling in.

Only 2 people I’ve ever known have managed to be what I’d consider “successful” after homeschooling. Both went to the same engineering school that I did, and did extremely well overall. However, they suffered many of the same issues in terms of over-specialization, which becomes really apparent when you talk with them for an extended period of time. Usually they also tend to be incredibly socially inept, but fortunately for these guys their parents gave them a ton of opportunities for socialization with clubs and social hobbies, so that wasn’t as apparent, but still something that a lot of homeschool students miss out on.

Realistically, I think the only way you could feasibly manage a truly quality homeschool education is with both parents having an in-depth education of 2-3 subjects (like 5-6 years minimum), in addition to at least some formal educational training. Then, bringing in home tutors for the subjects they likely won’t be able to cover nearly as well to supplement them. Finally, having them enrolled in an absurd amount of sports/clubs/hobbies to make up for the 6 hours of social contact with other kids they’re missing out on.

With that being said, it’s a fuckton more effort and money than almost anyone is going to actually put into a homeschool education, and 98% of the time it’s going to be a stay at home parent with minimal to no credentials buying lesson plans off the internet, brushing up on them the night before, and likely giving lackluster instruction on most subjects.

I’m approaching 30 and will gladly use all of those both ironically and unironically.

Or are just straight up propaganda accounts, which seem to be more than a few of them

Just like cable!

Just look at what happened when they tried that during COVID. Elon is a loud idiot who’ll screech about how he’s being oppressed, and unfortunately still has a lot of equally loud idiots as followers who will gladly harass the underpaid government employees who actually have to enforce the shutdown on his behalf.