Credit scores are universally hated but they make it possible to offer lower interest rates to more people. Without credit scores, fewer people would have access to credit.
Similarly, people often don't like it when insurers track and score their driving. However, this allows insurers to offer lower insurance fees to more people by _not_ offering lower insurance fees (or instead charging higher fees) to people that are driving in a risky manner. This does of course assume a competitive market for insurance but I think in most countries that's a reasonable assumption.
There's nothing fairer than user-pays, especially when users can choose to pay less by changing their behavior.
> Credit scores are universally hated but they make it possible to offer lower interest rates to more people.
That's probably true in theory, but not in practice, given how high US credit interest rates are compared to European countries for instance.
> Without credit scores, fewer people would have access to credit.
Too many people having access to credit is exactly how we got the worst financial crisis of the century, so it's not really something to brag about… People talk about US public debt a lot, but private debt is even more worrisome.
>There's nothing fairer than user-pays, especially when users can choose to pay less by changing their behavior.
If user pays is so fair why does anyone who could access credit or liquid assets in excess of their state's minimums have to pay hundreds to thousands per year for auto insurance?
Most states allow you to go without insurance by fronting the cash. It's called self-insurance. You put up some minimum amount, file a form with the state DMV, and keep the approval certificate in the vehicle like normal.
It's relatively unknown for individuals because most people have no desire to lock up tens or hundreds of thousands of spare dollars just to avoid car insurance. As far as I'm aware it's primarily used by rich collectors who need to insure large collections that don't fit more traditional insurance profiles. Much more useful for businesses.
>Most states allow you to go without insurance by fronting the cash.
That's BS on it's face. Most states don't allow it or they restrict it to big business and government agencies.
>because most people have no desire to lock up tens or hundreds of thousands of spare dollars just to avoid car insurance.
Most people's money isn't making a return greater than what insurance would cost them.
Second, this completely ignores my point about credit. I can easily get hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit secured against my house or tens of thousands in unsecured credit (credit card). Why must I pay to keep the lights on at some insurance firm?
And I'm not particularly rich. If the numbers pencil out for me then surely they must pencil out for millions of people.
That's BS on it's face. Most states don't allow it or they restrict it to big business and government agencies.
It's 11 states, covering roughly a third of the US population. There's a quite few more if you own significant numbers of vehicles. You can s/most/many/ if it makes you feel better.
Most people's money isn't making a return greater than what insurance would cost them.
You wouldn't be making money on a self-insurance bond either. It's locked up with the state or in a surety account. You can also expect to pay a significant fraction of your regular insurance costs to maintain a surety bond.
Second, this completely ignores my point about credit.
Credit lines expire when you die (say in an accident), they're not guaranteed to pay out the full amount at any particular time, and the courts probably shouldn't go around binding third parties to pay out on your behalf.
States' interest here is in guaranteeing that there will always be a minimum amount of money to compensate victims, regardless of what other financial shenanigans you have going on in your life. That's not a standard that lines of credit and investment accounts meet. Self-insurance is simply a terrible option for most consumers, so no one does it.
That's an entirely separate issue, isn't it? In my country (New Zealand) there are no requirements to have auto insurance. If you don't have insurance and you hit a million-dollar car you're gonna be in an awkward situation, but that's a risk you're allowed to take.
Note that you _are_ legally required to pay your annual ACC levies, which fund no-fault cover for injuries. However that doesn't cover property damage.
Mostly it's a consequence of population density. There's just not enough large cities close together.
I think it's probably also correct to say that New Zealand could sustain a larger passenger rail network if made the right investments. For example, Auckland <-> Hamilton <-> Tauranga could profitably support at least a few trains per day in each direction... _if_ it was electrified, with passing loops where needed, and with well-sited stations, and with the ability for trains to run into Britomart or at least Newmarket (both being stations close to central Auckland). However, there's a chicken and egg problem: unless you make investments like that, the service you can offer will be pretty crap and no one will want to ride your slow trains.
Professional surnames tend to reflect trades that were common when surnames were introduced to a culture. In English, that means ~1066. In Turkey, that means 1934. For whatever reason, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of tentmakers that established family names in England during the Norman Conquest. Not so in other places, though:
The Arabic surnames Kheyyam/Khayam/Khayami are all derived from the word for tent maker, Plachta is Polish, but more closely aligns with canvas-maker, mostly sails. And then theres Zeltman, which is German for tent man (which is ambiguous between "man who sells tents" and "man who lives in a tent")
If each human body needs 0.2 acre of land to grow the food necessary for subsistence, what happens when the price of intelligence keeps dropping and one person's intelligence (even when directed towards the highest-value use!) is not enough to afford the use of that land? In other words, what happens when humans are no longer economically viable?
Jevon's Paradox means that the demand for intelligence will keep rising as the cost drops, so I can't help but expect a steady increase in the economic value of land _when used for AI_. It'll take a long time before it exceeds the economic value of land when used for human subsistence, but the growth curves are not pointing in encouraging directions.
AGI / human overlords that cater to AGI won't need earth resources for more than a few decades. There will be a bootstrapping period, reliant on earth resources but soon it will be much cleaner to have solar/nuclear in space and have robotic mining of raw resources from asteroids.
> "In addition to help prevent the pen from leaking, [...]"
So maybe the hole somehow prevents leaks, which would prevent drying in the sense of no more ink :) Maybe it prevents leaks by making the ink at the tip dry out.
I grew up in rural New Zealand, on a dairy farm. I agree that the needs of suburban and rural communities are very different from the needs of urban communities, but what confuses me is why Americans (and increasingly, Kiwis) need a vehicle the size of a Dodge Ram rather than one the size of a 1990 HiLux ute [1].
Let me help you with that. They don't. If 1 in 50 1500 owners ever hook the thing up to anything heavier than a utility trailer (these can cheerfully be towed by a VW golf) I'll kiss your ass. They're also bullshit for hauling materials since a big chunk of the cargo space got eaten by the now pervasive luxury full sized back seat. The following is an abridged list of tells that a truck owner would be better off with a station wagon:
- the wheel wells are clean
- it's got a tonneau cover on
- no hitch receiver, it's empty, or there's no rust on the ball
- no dents, major scratches, or foreign materials on the bed or tailgate
Full disclosure: I have a Dodge 1500 in the driveway right now. In my defense the used truck market is fucking insane, I got this basically new for 60% of what a thoroughly used mid-sized truck would have cost me, and I actually do construction and timber work so the thing gets worked.
Back in Sacramento I saw a 1500 with a decal of mud on their shiny spotless truck. They went out of their way to announce how useless the vehicle actually was.
Mine is also used to haul a bed full of gravel when my drive needs repair or dirt for lawn correction. Not to mention I have a family.
Rear facing child seats while being 6 feet tall. Most cars I've tested don't support this. (Prius) Or no children can sit behind me because my front seat is sitting so close to the back seat that legs don't fit between. (Camero/Mustang)
Camry and Pasat seem to work, but warranties wouldn't cover things like bad child safety locks.... Not to mention, you can't haul things like gravel. =/
How frequently does your driveway need new gravel that you are justifying a vehicle for that purpose? Do you transport gravel more frequently for your driveway than your children?
You go from full truck down to flat cars, completely ignoring the vehicles in between like soft-roader SUVS or the venerable minivan. Does none of these vehicles meet your people carrying needs?
We have an SUV also and that does pretty well for children and shopping. We need 2 vehicles as jobs are different directions and I bought the most fuel efficient small truck (colorado) on the market at the time of purchase (which is more fuel efficient that the SUV we have, by 2-10 MPG).
The gravel isn't for the driveway, but the road. However, we have hauled gravel for flower beds. It's about time to replace fence and some wood around the garage.
No, I don't haul daily or monthly, but more like quarterly and as-needed. (Tillers, Lawn mowers for example)
I went down a similar path where I considered getting a pickup for hauling the occasional project material around. I ended up with a hatchback that covers 90% of use cases. The other 10% I can just rent a truck for a few hours to cover.
People pay double (or more) for gas every year so they can drive around an empty bed and maybe save $50 on a rental once a year.
The reality is that many people with a Ram are towing toys (boats, ATVs, etc) or, as you say, a travel trailer, not a work trailer. Which brings us to the question of need vs want.
Plus, if work vehicles became lighter, work trailers would be forced to as well.
> Plus, if work vehicles became lighter, work trailers would be forced to as well.
Try shopping for utility trailers. Anything affordable is very heavy steel & lumber. You can get light(er) trailers in aluminum but the price is much higher. I've never actually seen a contractor with one of those, too expensive.
And of course there is all the materials & equipment they're towing on it for the job. How do you suggest any of that become lighter?
> Well depends what you need to do with, of course.
given your example it's "want", not "need"
> 3300lb is very little, even our tiny (19ft) and light travel trailer is over 4000lb
Quick googling tells me that most European caravans are sub 1500kg / 3300lb, even the more spacious ones, "very little" and "tiny" are really subjective
San Francisco owes its growth as a city to the fact that the Bay provides a connection between the Sierras (and their goldfields) and the Pacific Ocean.
Regarding Boston, the interesting thing is that it used to be connected to the Merrimack via the Middlesex Canal. My understanding is that this is silted up now (which you presumably already know) but it shows how many more connections we used to have.
I've watched this being built and it's been really cool seeing how well SolidJS works. I was initially dubious ("No one gets fired for picking React", right?) but it seems like it made for really easy development.
How hard would it be to add a choropleth view showing metrics such as 1-year 24-hour depth across the globe?
#/media/File:1990-1997_Toyota_Hilux_(LN106R)_DX_4-door_utility_(2007-09-28).jpg){kind=link}
Similarly, people often don't like it when insurers track and score their driving. However, this allows insurers to offer lower insurance fees to more people by _not_ offering lower insurance fees (or instead charging higher fees) to people that are driving in a risky manner. This does of course assume a competitive market for insurance but I think in most countries that's a reasonable assumption.
There's nothing fairer than user-pays, especially when users can choose to pay less by changing their behavior.