I volunteered driving ambulances. Started in high school, 2003-2004. Our rigs at the time were a '97 Chevy van with a box and a '99 F250 with a box. They were the biggest things I'd driven at the time.
Moved away, did life, came back a decade later. Newest rigs were now 2015 F450 Super Duty with a box you could legit stand up in. Thing was unnecessarily large. All the things you're saying are correct. The rig we purchased while I was there ended up being a slightly larger mod, but came with front, side, and rear cameras, because you're absolutely right, can't see shit. Blind spot in the front is legit 10-15 feet from the bumper.
You know what didn't change in that interim? People's windy, tiny driveways. I won't toot my own horn but I'm a good driver, I frequently tell my wife "You could fit a Mac truck through there" when she's driving and won't squeeze through a gap. So when it came time to back these rigs up these narrow, curving driveways, up a hill, it was difficult. I'd have my crew get out generally and go begin assessment so I could get the rig in place for takedown. Problem is that I couldn't drive all the time, and so the rig would frequently get left down on the road. And I don't blame anyone, they were difficult maneuvers. I knew a few members who outright refused to drive the newer rigs becaude they were so massive, so now we've neutered our manpower.
For me, it was AIM chatrooms and ebaums forums, maybe the super early days of Skype (before being sold to Microsoft obviously). Shit did feel more real, and while content maybe didn't come out at the same frequency, and there sure was shit, you just knew you were talking about it with other people. Made some good friends back then, would've been cool to stay in touch, but 20+ years is a long time.
I've noticed, on ones I've seen in person and online, the paint job makes a huge, huge difference. Black ones look pretty good. Someone has a dark red one by me that's just less bad.
You know what they mean though. This isn't someone who was a car who is now an ebike. This is someone who was feet or four or two wheels who is now doing 25mph on the sidewalk with no insurance. Once again, infrastructure is stuck catching up with technology, and that's normal, but we are in the middle of it now.
Do you and I live on a different planet? I grew up when you downloaded actual poor quality music. I stream Spotify at the highest bitrate it has, and it sounds fine. I have a nice system at home.
You talk about features and whatnot, and admittedly I am a simple user. I have albums I like, I turn on album and listen through cover to cover. I throw on Smartless, because for some reason I find Jason Bateman and Will Arnett's abuse of Sean Hughes to be endearing.
As per usual, people on Lemmy seem to make up problems, and it ruins any sort of argument against anything. Spotify's audio quality is not the issue. The issue is obviously the artist remuneration. To create this fake argument is to dilute any worthwhile argument, but Lemmy and Reddit before it seems to take this tack wherever possible.
I have discovered numerous artists because of Spotify. Spotify has linked me to their tickets (albeit Live Nation and fuck them) and merch stores, and I've bought their shitty tshirts and vinyls. I would say that's a benefit. And I like some obscure nonsense.
Is it perfect? I don't like how Spotify has handled its personnel. I think they can make their business model related to plays a little more friendly, but holy shit, the idealism here is ridiculous. You have people demanding perfection, without recognizing the alternative is nothing.
Yeah, those days are generally behind me. I want something that always works and I don't mind paying for a functioning product. I don't think comparing an actual service with ways of essentially stealing that service is a fair comparison, but I appreciate what you're saying.
I think I'm just saying that it's okay to pay for a service when it gives you what you pay for. And if you don't want to, that's fine, and for much of my life I did that. I haven't used either of the services you mentioned, but I think it's safe to say setting them up is not as streamlined as just setting up a normal Spotify account would be. And beyond that, as Spotify pushes updates, these services presumably not to respond to those updates, but again, I don't know, haven't used them.
I also think it's a bit beyond the discussion, and like I said, not a fair comparison. Tidal v. Spotify v. Apple Music are, I think, better discussions to have.
I swear to God Vancouver had the absolute most shit luck this playoffs. They were my west team 100%, but the hockey gods said nay. Fortunately, Canadians respect the hockey gods and will not riot.
Yeah, that wasn't the hockey gods. Gotta riot. Both your goalies going down, Boeser having fucking blood clots are just hockey gods fucking with you, and it's not a rip table offense unfortunately.
It is. I watched it with my daughter when s1 came out, and it was well beyond just tolerable, which is the baseline for kids shows. Good story, well acted, great animations, good music.
I just got into guava recently. I live in Jersey and my local ShopRite started stocking clamshells with six guavas or so, ranging in size from a goofball to something larger than a goofball but smaller than a baseball. Maybe like billiards ball sized. I'd never eaten them before like a month ago, and so the seeds threw me T first, but I've got the technique down now and shit, when they're ripened, nice and soft, they are fantastic. I worry about the day when I get to ShopRite and the guavas are no longer.
Funny, I'm in NJ, and within the past month I've seen guava and rhubarb for the first time ever on the shelves. Haven't gotten rhubarb yet, I really don't know anything about it.
Netflix has managed to annoy a good number of its users with an announcement about an upcoming update to its Windows 11 (and Windows 10) app: support for adverts and live events will be added, but the ability to download content is being taken away....
It's literally the thing that keeps me coming back (to the seas). I have paid for the services, and the service they provide has been steadily degraded. I still have Prime because they haven't fucked up delivery to my home (yet), but I don't even open the app on Roku anymore, I just download whatever it is, because I have no interest in dealing with their shit interface and then having to watch ads after.
If a service can give me a simple, easy to use interface, good search feature, good quality, and decent enough content, you've got my money. That's just too much to ask these days, so I'll just donate to the site(s) that provide alternative services.
I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I'm accidentally disparaging when I don't mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I'll start:...
I'll say, haven't been in a while, but my brother lived in SF and then Palo Alto for a bit during and after law school, so 2009-14 we'll say, and I had a blast every time I went to visit. I haven't been back since, and obviously people say the city has changed a bit, but back then it was such a different lifestyle from the East Coast.
I always go back to this story, at that time Dunkin Donuts's catchphrase or whatever, at least in the NEC, was America Runs on Dunkin, but when I went out west they would say America's Favorite Coffee, and I always found it a pretty apropos juxtaposition of the coastal mentalities. In NY/NJ, we were all about work. Everyone works, you go out after work in your fuckin suits, you talked about work. It was a culture, and it ran on coffee (sometimes Dunkin). But out west, people seemed to be more interested in taking in life, the sights, the food, and yes, the fucking coffee.
And the catchphrase for the middle of America was "drink it or don't, nobody cares about you".
including places whose current inhabitants I would not want to publicly associate myself with.
Long way to say Staten Island.
And a giant dick from JC sounds like someone who moved in sometime after 2000. I feel like the old timers, the real legit JC people, are anything but dicks. That city went through some hard, hard times, and it's in its golden age right now, it's nice to see.
I think NJ tends to be a love it or hate it kinda place. I lived outside of NJ a couple of times, but it pulled me back in, as they say.
As for South Central PA, closest I've gotten was probably King of Prussia, perhaps. Don't really know much about it, but I'm always interested. Got a family now, and being able to pop them in a car to go to some kind of experience, versus the cost and hassle of flying (i.e. doors fall off), is appealing to me. And I'm at a point in my life where I can bring my kids to places I find interesting but they find incredibly boring, but when they get to my age they will continue the cycle (barring the apocalypse, of course).
And as for OC, MD, I feel like if you have a beach place you go to, that's where you go. I've been going to essentially the same place for 37 years, at this point. On our way there, we pass Ontario license plates for all them who head down to Wildwood or maybe to MD too. I'll probably take the family to Rehoboth or Ocean City, MD, at some point, just for the sake of checking the box (barring them being underwater, of course).
This makes the most sense. Sell them here. Built elsewhere? Tax the shit out of them. You can avoid the tax by creating American jobs and having them manufactured here.
Yes, why not? They aren't prohibited, they're just being given a disadvantage compared to American made vehicles being sold in America. A tax for notoriously poor labor standards, we can call it. If they want to use a union shop somewhere in middle America they can avoid that tax altogether.
Everything is a science problem. Big refrigerators. Really big. Cool the whole world. Store heat in barrels and shoot them into the sun. Time machines. A whole host of solutions!
Watched dudes install a countertop. Apply caulk, one wipe, beautiful. After countertop installed I put in trim (it's a window to a patio) and need to caulk literally a straight fucking line six inches long. Caulk, wipe, looks like ass. Great work!
I did an indoc for scout snipers. The shit is no joke. Sitting on a hill is easy. Crawling to that hill and remaining in that position over the course of days with limited food and water, nowhere to piss, no shelter from any effects of weather or bugs or anything, that's the hard part.
In February, HouseFresh managing editor Gisele Navarro called out publishers like BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone as some of the culprits that publish content about air purifiers despite a lack of expertise — but Google rewards these sites with high rankings all the same. The result is a search results page filled with SEO-first...
I dunno, I had this conversation in another thread recently. I was 13 in 2000. The web was a disaster then. Sure, there were good parts, but every website was an outright attack on your computer. Java and Flash were everywhere and they were so easily exploited. I'd go to websites and they'd pop up 100 different windows of hardcore porn, audio on, the whole nine.
The Internet has been gentrified. Sure, there were some tough places that you had to be careful about wandering into, but there were great experiences. Now it's this homogenous, cultivated experience.
67.5 is I guess what the retirement age will be to collect "social security." So only another 30 and change years, on top of the 16 I've been in my field. I pray I can work from 2008 to 2054 and that my job doesn't disappear into nothingness, that or the world ends. Working forever is unfortunately not the worst case scenario!
My grandfather, great guy, loved him, but I don't remember him working, ever. He retired when I was very young, maybe four or five. Back when the retirement age was 55. Full pension, call it a day. It's just crazy to me. 67.5 will be the retirement age, and I'm just hopeful I'll be lucky enough to take advantage.
I am a stenographer. I cover board meetings with lots of people speaking about moderately technical subjects. I do my best work when I can watch a hockey game while I listen to what people say. When the night wears on and fatigue starts to set in, having a distraction like that is a huge help.
I agree with you to an extent, but, like, what about my local farm that pasture raised pigs and cows and, yes, eventually slaughters them, how do they compare to what I think everyone agrees are terrible, the meat processing plants of the Midwest?
You can fit two cars there ( lemmy.world )
New Study: At Least 15% of All Reddit Content is Corporate Trolls Trying to Manipulate Public Opinion ( medium.com )
Is it generally safe to walk through a field of cows?
City boy checking in....
Happy Juneteenth everyone! ( lemmy.world )
And here I am just wanting to spray paint "bitch" on my sub's car :'( ( lemmy.world )
The NYTimes is once again trashing the most promising mobility innovation of the 21st century ( lemmy.ml )
Link to original Tweet: https://x.com/DavidZipper/status/1795048724021862898
Most annoying feature ever ( lemmy.world )
Canada is out of control ( lemmy.world )
What to watch?
Sick and feel like I've hit the end of Netflix, Prime, ... Is there a community about what everyone is streaming/recommending?
What vegetables and fruits do you wish were commonly available in the US?
Netflix Windows app is set to remove its downloads feature, while introducing ads ( www.techradar.com )
Netflix has managed to annoy a good number of its users with an announcement about an upcoming update to its Windows 11 (and Windows 10) app: support for adverts and live events will be added, but the ability to download content is being taken away....
Hearing is be-leafing: Students invent quieter leaf blower ( hub.jhu.edu )
Listen to those funny accents ( lemmy.world )
It’s always with my best shirts ( lemmy.world )
Shut up mike ( sh.itjust.works )
USA Lemmies: Where do you live?
I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I'm accidentally disparaging when I don't mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I'll start:...
Biden really, really doesn’t want China to flood the US with cheap EVs ( www.theverge.com )
‘I am starting to panic about my child’s future’: climate scientists wary of starting families ( www.theguardian.com )
A fifth of female climate scientists who responded to Guardian survey said they had opted to have no or fewer children...
What looks easy peasy lemon squeezy but is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult?
[serious] If Project 2025 becomes a reality. Would you fight in a civil war?
Google Search is getting even worse for independent sites ( www.theverge.com )
In February, HouseFresh managing editor Gisele Navarro called out publishers like BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone as some of the culprits that publish content about air purifiers despite a lack of expertise — but Google rewards these sites with high rankings all the same. The result is a search results page filled with SEO-first...
¡Ay, caramba! ( lemmy.world )
Truth ( infosec.pub )
When I die, turn me into soup ( lemmy.world )