One of our tuxedoes only has white under his chin and on his stomach, so he can do a pretty good imitation void… Especially in a dark hallway, he’s excellent at picking the least visible spot to lounge.

I can see those kinds of things working in or near cities, but out where I am - fairly rural - there’s just too many miles of road to install a bunch of speed humps or similar things. It would take a monumental amount of money. They don’t even have shoulders on most of the roads. I admit even I speed when I’m driving them, although I’ll slow down for bends in the road so as not to clobber a deer, cyclist, pedestrian, etc. that might be lurking out of sight.

(I got into a fun argument here on Lemmy a few months back with someone who insisted horse and buggies should have lights, and I was like, “What happens when you come around the bend too fast and there’s a tree laying in the road?” He just couldn’t accept the problem is the driver, not the horse and buggy. Basically, that’s what’s wrong with drivers in the US: We, as a group, have a bizarre expectation that things will always go to plan.)

I’m also nervous about these solutions for another reason - I’ve seen towns install those kinds of calming measures in a way that hurts cyclists. In one example, they extended the curbs out to the lane, which does slow down traffic - but it forces cyclists who could previously ride on the shoulder into the lane, thereby further enraging drivers. I had one asshole pass me in that very narrow section some years ago, so now I make sure to ride in the middle of it, so they’d actually have to hit me. They won’t do that because they don’t want to damage their precious car, so I’m safe.

And I say this as someone that lives in an area that’s actually pretty good for cycling, that is, most drivers are actually pretty good about passing safely and all that.

Interesting. Mostly what I see is people slam on their brakes near the camera, then take off again after it.

My theory: There’s so little enforcement of the traffic laws here, they might as well not exist. You’re almost certain NOT to get caught, so people will do whatever they want and will practically always get away with it. I don’t really want to argue for more cops, but when I’ve driven in areas with more traffic enforcement and visible police presence, people tend to drive much more sedately.

I drive and ride bicycle, and I would LOVE if the cops came riding with me some time. I see some of them doing the 100 mile ride for charity in our county, so I know they have people on the force who ride fairly seriously. Join one of our regular group rides wearing cycling clothes (not police gear), get another cop stationed ahead in a car or motorcycle…and start pulling over some people who buzz us or roll coal. Word would get out very quickly.

I was talking to some friends last weekend, and one of them said that they had previously owned a house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I said, “I love the Outer Banks, love visiting it, but I would never buy real estate there.” He said, “Yeah, it took a couple years for us to figure that out.”

Of course, the islands are basically giant sandbars, and there’s the sea level rise issue. But I hadn’t considered that the environment is just that much harder on houses - roofs need to be replaced more often, wood rots more quickly, and so on - and that’s not even including a hurricane coming through. When the kind kicks up, which happens pretty regularly there, the house is getting sandblasted. The maintenance costs are much higher compared to an inland house, and I assume insurance is much higher, and so on.

They rented it out to vacationers to help offset that cost, but they found that they weren’t breaking even - they have to charge competitive rates to get customers, but those rates weren’t covering all of the major upcoming expenses.

But, there’s still a market for houses there. I imagine the recent images in the news of houses collapsing into the water have to be having an effect, but the bottom doesn’t seem to be falling out like you’d think.

I didn’t see anyone link to the original!

In a lot of places, that only happened because people banded together and made it happen for their area - the existing suppliers weren’t interested, even with federal loans available. That’s where the “Electric Co-op” companies came from.

Wasn’t he on some sort of advisory committee during Trump’s first term? My memory is that they disbanded basically because it was a waste of time, for obvious reasons. Let me search…

Yes, he was.

I don’t do much mountain biking, but I have clipless pedals on my old hardtail, too. When I ride without clipless, I have to constantly remember not to push too hard and be careful, lest my foot slip off. With clipless, I clip in and no longer have to think about it.

I don’t really care what other people use. I’ll stick with clipless, you can stick with flats or whatever you use, it’s fine with me. I use electronic shifting on my road and gravel bikes, and disc brakes on the gravel bike, and I know some people hate both of those things, too. Personally I really like both, but if others still want to use cable shifters and rim brakes, that’s fine with me.

There’s a huge difference, because I occasionally ride other bikes without them. My feet slip off the pedals without the cleats. I wouldn’t ride seriously without them.

Can confirm. Last week, I got home from a ride, stopped in front of the garage, couldn’t unclip, and promptly fell over. It turned out one of the bolts fell out from the cleat during the ride, so the cleat just rotated, instead of unclipping. D’oh. Fortunately, I mostly landed in grass, though I did scrape my ankle a bit.

Can confirm - I have an RV and whenever guns comes up in the online groups, it is clear that these people are absolutely CERTAIN they will be attacked. No “if”, it’s “when”.

I assume these are the same people that end up murdering someone who knocked on the door of a house they thought was a friend’s place, but were mistaken, or needed help in the middle of the night, stuff like that.

Why do people think a dozen eggs costs $12?

A quick search turned up this 18 count of eggs for $9 at our local chain. And that was just the first result I found that had the price on the page (you have to click a button to see it, unfortunately, but it is there).

The first time I saw it, I laughed for a few minutes. It still cracks me up. I think the woman’s face in the past panel really adds to the punchline.

My 56k modem was internal, so not much to look at.

But the Hayes…

Surely you can’t be serious.

I still have a Hayes Smartmodem 1200 here. Aluminum case and all. It’s a work of art.

A useless work of art. But still…

puts on headphones

Yeah. That’s my favorite movie, so this comic played right into it.

Essential people will, but non-essential people will not work.

On January 6, yes, but they don’t stop working. The shutdown only affects the rank and file government employees that do things like run the government agencies, air traffic control*, Smithsonians, etc.

*Air traffic controllers would be considered an essential function, so they would actually get the joy of continuing to work without pay, until a budget is passed, then they would get back pay. (There’s also a possibility of some agencies having money, for various reasons, to continue to pay essential employees.)