Some states make you take off your glasses and tell you not to smile in the photo because it is supposed to make facial recognition easier. Texas is one of those states. 

I’m sure it will be here before we know it, but we don’t need to make TSA even worse by suddenly having random people get arrested because the database says they look like someone else who may have committed a crime. 

Increase pole & line inspections to identify aged poles that need replaced (or lines brought underground) and identifying where trees are growing over power lines and pose a risk if the tree/branches fall. Then actually carrying through with all of that preventative maintenance. This storm was a unique disaster…

People do that in Houston too. There were also cooling stations set up in various areas for people that had gone a while without power that all had no incident. However, when a small region has 7 million people, which is more than the entire state of Alabama, it turns out there will be a few that cause problems.

They’ve basically been common since the post WWII housing boom. I was surprised the number wasn’t higher. Depending on the area, there is a real chance the only way you can avoid an HOA is to either live in the hood or live in a house that has no landline fiber connection, uses septic for waste, and a well for water.…

Racism. They first formed as an easy way to make an entire neighborhood whites only. After the Civil Right Act passed, all the racists had to find new ways to either keep people out they don’t like or sue/fine the ones who get through into the ground. The same reason American states have been slowly passing CROWN Act…

Sounds like my HOA, and a big part of why it wasn’t a deterrent to buying here. We have pretty thin rules, and I don’t mind dealing with the ones we have, so there were no life adjustments I needed to make. In order to change anything, including the HOA dues, it requires a 70% approval in each district (there are 9…

backup camera location? 

I understand the pain that is trying to find a house while dealing with HOAs. They are everywhere and it can make your options incredibly limited by flat out avoiding them. I’m pretty sure every house in our school district is in a neighborhood with an HOA and I generally care more about the schools than HOA rules.…

California having the most sounds reasonable, simply because of their big population and lack of road salt, but quite surprising that Texas is so far down in ownership/capita after so many have been sold here. I do recall seeing a surprising number of trucks with some kind of Texas dealership logo on them when I lived…

That’s very much a Texas thing, where I believe ~25% of all trucks in the USA are sold. Other states don’t dominate a market like that enough to routinely get their own editions. Anyone with a BEV with 2-way power flow should start calling them Texas Power Outage Editions.

I’ve never done it, but I have had dealers offer it to me. If it is a good dealer, they don’t care enough about the couple of percent compared to getting the deal done however the customer wants to pay. 

I had a Corolla Cross rental and that thing suuuuucked. Altima, Elantra, or just about any other regular sedan more spacious and comfortable than that slow POS was.

The Jeep lifestyle things might be silly, but their kid stuff is excellent. That chest style baby carrier was by far the best one I’ve ever used and they have an awesome wagon/stroller that my sister has been using for like 5 years with her 2 kids, despite the kid’s best efforts to destroy it. Great baby stuff from…

These hackers recognize that if they sell what they steal, fewer companies will pay in the future. Pretty basic economics that they can continue to get more money if they honor the deal. Also, most of the time these hackers don’t actually get raw, unfiltered data. It’s more common to simply lock someone out of their…

Technically speaking, almost everyone did a tax cut. The issue is that middle class people saved a few hundred to a few thousand while millionaires saved millions in taxes. So, most people got a cut, but the wealthier you are the bigger your tax cut was. 

It can be a pain to find, but every road project is public. You can see the DOT budget and what every project cost. If you really want to, you can often find the drawings that went with each project to know exactly what was supposed to be done. 

When the interest rate is lower than the asset appreciation, paying back the debt is pretty easy. Depending on the loan, the interest paid can also become tax deductible.

All discussions on tax shortfalls should start with the buy/borrow/die loophole. My favorite part is where an asset’s value resets once it is passed on. So, an asset’s value can increase infinitely and if the heirs sell it off as soon as they receive it, they get 100% of the gains at 0% tax.

Instead of a fleet of giant drones, would be able to get by using smaller drones for the recon and primarily send out the big drone after a swimmer has actually been spotted?