[spdrun]

Isn’t the UC system guaranteed-admission to at least one school for the top 10% of California HS grads? It’s easier to get a high GPA in an HS that’s not top-ranked.

[spdrun]

Why do you need to send your kids to the best high schools? Save the fucking money, spend it on after-school enrichment programs, books, and travel with the kids.

States like CA, NY, and NJ tend to have good public universities that aren’t hard to get into if you’re in-state. Why shoot for Stanford, Hah-vahd, Princeton, or Yale when you can send kids to an decent but not top public school system, have them get good grades, and have them go to a public university. High-end private universities are better for grad school.

I’d sooner my kids finish Rutgers, SUNY, SDSU, or one of the UC schools with low debt than graduate with a basket-weaving degree from Hahvahd.

[spdrun]

Some of their other policies (aggressive application of the death penalty, concentration on cleanliness, etc, etc) are less nice though.

NYC isn’t bad — you can buy property for much less than you’d think right outside of Manhattan. Or even in Manhattan above 110th St.

[spdrun]

i need very reliable cars…

Electric cars as mentioned by the other poster should be more reliable than gas, assuming the battery is good. They’re less complex. No shifting transmission, just a single gear set and differential, electric motor basically has one moving part (the armature or rotor) vs the hundreds of an infernal combustion fossil fool engine.

[spdrun]

Buy fully depreciated, spend the minimum required to keep it running and legal (don’t be a p*ssy, do the work yourself), and sell it on Craigslist “for parts” when something too expensive breaks. You’ll come out ahead.

That’s why we’re talking about spending sub-$5000, not $13400 on a used car.

[spdrun]

I’d rather support local mechanics and auto shops than union auto-assembler parasites in the Midwest or producers of new components in China.

[spdrun]

Why not buy a $5000 used car and spend the other $9211 on titties and beer? Used Corollas and Tercels are bad ass and last forever.

Or spend $1000 on some excellent bicycles and helmets 🙂

[spdrun]

Would this work as a reason to jump out of contract? “My Feng Shui expert said the house was oriented wrong.”

[spdrun]

Personally, I hope that North Korea will explode a few EMP nukes above CONUS well before we get to the point of light bulbs spying on people, frying 90% of unshielded electronics. Setting technology back fifty years would be a laudable goal in that case.

[spdrun]

Well, they’re not armed and don’t have general policing powers, so one can get away with being pretty crude to them so long as no physical violence is used.

I’ve used unprintable invective against the driver of a van full of “NYPD Traffic” people (aka meter maids), which cut me off while cycling. Legally or physically, they couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

I actually regret it a bit, but I didn’t at the time since the driver came close to causing me to hit the van.

[spdrun]

Census-defined urban areas don’t mean dense cities, they can mean suburbs or even small towns. People in larger cities spend more time in public — on the subway, in parks, etc, and have conversations there. Many of them don’t want the local piggery recording all private conversations in open air.

That’s what the Soviets tried to do in the bad old days…

[spdrun]

I use cash for all purchases other than online and business.

[spdrun]

I don’t think any of us have a right to privacy in public – that’s the difference between “private” and “public”. !!

I think GOVERNMENT surveillance in public should be restricted. Strict time limits on retention of footage and especially audio, punishable by serious prison time or even public hangin’ if violated.

There IS an expectation of privacy in public — e.g. no one expects a conversation on a park bench to be recorded and retained forever. Sadly, most Americans don’t live in cities, so they don’t see the need for privacy in the public domain.

On the other hand, government officials themselves should have no expectation of privacy whilst on the job. Get a job with that much power, sign away your rights.

[spdrun]

To be clear, the guy’s sister wasn’t an actual cop, she was a school safety agent. Basically a cross between a meter maid and a mall cop.

[spdrun]

It’s not rocket science if you have half a brain for business.

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