I hate automatic dimming mirrors. I’ve got one on my Fusion, and it does ok at night, but at dawn/dusk, it generally doesn’t darken the mirror, but the headlights are just as blindingly bright then.

Give me a manual flip switch any day. The auto ones are crap.

1st:
Now if only having “good” headlights didn’t mean you had to blind all oncoming drivers and increase the risk of crashes...

Not a valid analogy.... utilities generally enough redundancy to have the ability to provide continuing service with a section of line/pipe out of service, and when they don’t they only shut down that limited area with no effect on surrounding areas. That is NOT the case here. Shut down one line and load picks up on…

Close one of the two tracks and you’re going to have to eliminate 2/3 of trains and the remaining 1/3 will be running much slower and with heavy delays.

It really would help if people understood the complexities (or rather lack thereof, but rather simply effects that aren’t commonly understood) of queueing theory.

If…

But then part of the problem is that demand is so high they’re running trains frequently down the tracks as is. You cut the capacity in half, you end up with delays. It’s very basic queueing theory, but most people don’t understand that at all...

(not to mention that there isn’t exactly a lot of room to work safely…

I suspect that the real reason they want to push the infrastructure spending to states and local governments is in the tax structure of various levels of government.

The federal government has a progressive tax structure - the more you make, the higher the % you pay. Virtually every single state in the country has a…

Just as a starting point for discussion, the AVERAGE car lasts about 16 years before it is scrapped. That includes all the accidents taking cars out of the fleet for no fault of the vehicle itself.

So yes, the odds are with you that a used car 9 years old or newer would last 84 more months or more. Odds are also pretty…

Unless you’re getting the earned income tax credit or something like that, you should just restructure your withholding so that you don’t get a refund or owe anything at the time you file taxes, but instead, take that money throughout the year through lower withholding and use it then to pay the loan early, every…

Not really the same on the bond market. You can buy bullet funds or individual bonds - there’s no direct risk from rising interest rates with those. You buy in at a set rate, you get paid at that rate until maturity. The only interest rate risk there is an opportunity cost to have invested in something with a higher…

Agreed... there’s way too much at stake here to oversimplify things and look at just the term.

Last big ticket item I bought I could have paid cash for. Instead I took out a 60 month loan for as much as I could (MSRP of the item, which was well above the actual purchase price). Why? Because that loan came with a…

2nd:

It’s hard to understate how stupid these plans end up being. Take the ATC issue. In exchange for not putting up the capital upfront, we give it to an unaccountable non-profit that borrows to put up the capital? Granted, the federal government would borrow for it, too... but the federal government is guaranteed to…

Oh, so rarely does shipping seem to ruin it for me at RockAuto.

Example: radiator replacement on my old Camry - Shipped quality radiator and hoses from separate warehouses, and it cost $20 in shipping. Cheapest radiator in town was $90 more than RockAuto’s price including shipping.

Or my last bulk order - light bulbs…

Do I ever feel bad for someone who pays way too much for a car?

Generally, not in the least. Sure, I feel bad for someone ripped off by a dealer charging $3k for a used Neon, but if you’re buying way more car than you can afford, then no, I don’t feel the least bit sorry for you.

Sure - but you want to pretend nothing has changed, when in fact forests now are growing all over areas where seeds couldn’t even survive before, lakes have virtually all returned to normal pH levels, wildlife is thriving, etc.

Is it pristine? No - but pretending that 97% cuts in emissions haven’t had a drastic…

My anecdotal data fits with yours for battery life, but statistics I’ve seen point to longer lifes than 100-120k, even though I know a few people who have needed replacement in that range.

Here’s the catch, though: rarely is the battery actually entirely bad when they need to be replaced, though - usually it is only a…

No, I don’t hope they are recycled - there’s no reason to rely on hope. The things are packed full of valuable materials and easy to build a supply stream of, just like cars in general, which have some of the highest recycling rates of any product in the world. You don’t think people would pull a valuable battery and…

Beyond the correction deezler gave, the idea that trading in a car for a new one is more harmful to the environment than a 30 year old import held together with duct tape is a little absurd.

Say I had a 2012 Prius and traded it in for a 2017. What do you think happens to that 2012? It doesn’t get scrapped. It gets sold…

Ah, and there’s the prisoner’s dilemma creeping into this.

We ALL would be much better off if we ALL used 10% less energy (hell, that alone would get the US nearly the rest of the way to the Paris Accord commitments that Trump just idiotically backed out of). However, on an individual basis, we don’t have the…

That’s oversimplifying it a bit (though I do consider the point to be somewhat valid) -

If I bought a Corolla 5 years ago and then went to buy a Prius, it isn’t that Corolla that gets taken off the road. It gets sold to someone who drove a Malibu Classic, who sells their car to someone who drove a Cirrus, who sells…

Or do the opposite on drying - my HOA doesn’t allow line drying (which wouldn’t work in the winter, anyway) - we dry down to damp in the drier, then hang on a rack indoors - it’ll go down the rest of the way to dry quickly. Probably saves 10 kWh a week.

Clothes dryers are unbelievable energy hogs - and unless you get a…