You don't HAVE to. In a no fault case you can just take the insurance payout and live with the damage.

> What really makes me mad is how bumpers were made to protect the car and now they are these expressions of design that you have to protect

Bumpers today are made to protect the car's occupants, not the car.

They are the start of the crumple zone, whose purpose is to absorb and release most of the energy transfer of the crash by deforming, rather than transferring it to the passenger compartment.

These F-91W projects inspired me to buy one, but I found it to be so small (and I don't have a particulary big wrist). So I gave it to my 12 year old and bought a W-217H, which is almost identical but larger.

I don't think the US has any interest in a democratic and stable middle east.

It's much easier and cheaper to extract resources from a balkanized region.

There's very good restaurant in my neighbourhood that I order from regularly. I tried ordering directly from them after hearing about how nasty the delivery app company was. I thought they would appreciate it: they wouldn't have to pay the intermediary. But it turns out they prioritise the app and my orders took longer to arrive.

So I'm back on the app...

It may be that they have no choice since it's their biggest source of customers. I spoke to a hotel receptionist before and she said the order of upgrades was: booked direct, booking.com, Expedia and all the rest after. The hotel couldn't afford to piss off booking as they would suffer a lot in occupancy, the other platforms couldn't match. I think it's worth giving the feedback to the restaurant direct and see if they can fix it. It's always a delicate balance depending on time and the app may penalize them.

Once I've walked into the hotel and asked for a room. They said price 20% higher than listed on booking.com. When asked about this the receptionist said I can book there.

Booking.com maybe pre-booked the room and was willing to take less profit or even sell it at a loss where the hotel itself wouldn’t.

I ask them what they prefer, sometimes they say call, sometimes they say app.

I wish people would think long term. China should be friendlier with Taiwan and maybe in 100 years there could be some sort of Chinese Union.

It reminds me of the Falklands. Argentina should have invested in wooing the Falklanders who weren't getting much attention from the British then.

Why would there be a union? Taiwan is not equal to China.

The EU kind of works. It doesn't mean Germany has to be equal to Malta for example for that to happen.

The EU only works cause there is many countries.

The Germans follow the rules too strictly and in South America we ignore the rules too lightly.

I wonder if there's a country somewhere with the right balance.

I think for all of our problems, the US does get this right - we know when to be formal and when to be informal, and its something that is well culturally ingrained - that is the spirit and intent of the rules should be considered as strongly as the actual words.

France, while not perfect, is still balancing it +/- correctly.

France has a reputation of being permanently on strike, but is perhaps the only European country that is simultaneously northern European and Mediterranean at the same time.

No idea if there still is, but there definitely used to be. These things change over time, as culture does. Half a decade ago, pretty much everywhere in Europe followed rules less strictly. The balance was almost surely better.

A lot of what goes on in government, for good or bad, has nothing to do with who's in power.

this was automated specifically because DOGE ridiculed the previous process

This was automated because the need to do so has been recognized for decades. DOGE had nothing to do with it.

I don't feel it's immoral, I just don't want to use it.

I find it easier to write the code and not have to convince some AI to spit out a bunch of code that I'll then have to review anyway.

Plus, I'm in a position where programmers will use AI and then ask me to help them sort out why it didn't work. So I've decided I won't use it and I will not waste my time figuring why other people's AI slop doesn't work.

Probably because their CEOs are focusing on their job and not fooling around.

Plus:

Waymos are safer - they have Lidar and Radar in addition to vision

Waymos have human fallback to remote operators

Google takes responsibility for Waymos, vs Teslas being privately owned

Google took a more regulator savvy incremental approach

I really like my GLi microrouter.

https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-usb150/

I bought it for my vacations, so I wouldn't have to configure my kid's gadgets, but it is really useful as a wifi adaptor too.

And you can run it from a powerbank.