When I first brought home my e39, I took out the jack to make sure I knew its proper placement and operation.

That thing was a joke. It tipped over on the perfectly level floor of my garage. Twice.

My own personal time is worth more than the labor rate to install the new struts. I would need to bring it in for an alignment anyway.

That is one pissed off looking Cylon.

Spring compressors.

Nope, I’ll let the shop change out my struts, thanks.

“Mmmmm....Shai Hulud.”

You were told incorrectly, then- they’re sold in the states in quite small numbers.

Even without the stick, it’s worth it.

I’ve owned three Volvos and an e39. When it comes to maintenance costs, there’s simply no comparison.

If I had to drive one car for the next ten years to do everything well...

Really? Every single one I’ve ever seen has been yellow.

Why? It’s got one job to do. Would a missile silo be improved if it could run Angry Birds and apply Snapchat filters?

Somewhat. There’s obviously a bunch of FAA regs and certifications we deal with, but the biggest obstacle is cost of replacement. Ripping an avionics suite out of a 20-30 year old bizjet and retrofitting in a new system is pricey and time consuming, and there’s an STC (Supplemental Type Certificate) process to go…

...and finding an Apple IIe or DOS machine on eBay is still cheaper than a contractor.

Heh. I wrote a couple of answers to AMC questions this year- one of them specifically around obsolescence and CRTs.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. I work at an avionics company and we support stuff that was designed 30+ years ago (if it’s still flying we’re still supporting it, even if we haven’t built it for years.) We’ve got a lab for our first CRT-based display/integrated avionics system that runs on an Apple IIe. Our IT…

Named after Athol, Massachuetts? I really thought that was the only one.

Everyone knows that Idaho is a cartographic rounding error, anyway.

I’m willing to bet this guy has never been to Starbucks.

I was thinking of renovating a decommissioned phone booth.

What about the occasional short fiction piece, on a strictly per-piece basis?