In my entire life I’ve never bought from a street dealer. I hardly know anyone who buys from street dealers. We buy from connections that we make through word of mouth, even if sometimes the transactions occur in public places. That’s an important difference, as I always know who I am meeting and where.

To clarify a common misconception, ammunition is not nearly as dangerous when it is not within a pressure vessel such as a gun barrel (with the bullet acting as a seal). In an unconfined space, such as in a magazine, the small explosive powder charge doesn’t have enough energy to be hazardous beyond a very short…

If you’re going to spend $55k on a SUV then you shouldn’t have to worry about fuel economy. Otherwise you should get a Highlander or something instead.

The high-end aspirational Toyotas are all SUVs and trucks: the Sequoia, the Land Cruiser, and the Tundra (excluding SR trims). The Avalon will never touch those models on MSRP.

My grocery store doesn’t, other than endcap displays and a small open area at the front of the store. The dry goods and refrigerated arrangements haven’t changed in years.

It’s the “it’s bad because it’s illegal” hand-wringing nonsense. An age-old tactic for old rich guys and their lackeys to control “undesirable elements” of society by tricking the public into believing the rules are there for good reason. It’s the same tactic that was so cruelly employed against blacks and Mexicans in…

It’s an intentional design feature, intended to convey that this is a functional car rather than a rolling sculpture. Since it is almost certainly an electric switch and actuator rather than a mechanical linkage it would be trivial to hide anywhere on the car.

On top of this, there is only so much scrap steel available to recycle in the USA. Practically all of this scrap steel is processed though “mini” steel mills that have been optimized for economical intermittent operation using a relatively pure input material. These mills are small and cheap enough to operate that…

3/7 hall of famers ain’t bad at all

Since when is US transportation infrastructure a boondoggle? The interstate highway system was the most expensive project in history and it has been a massive stimulus to the US economy. Dollar for dollar, infrastructure investments are just about the best money that the government can spend.

If they owned Tesla outright it would represent around 15% of the fund, at current valuation. In reality CalPERS has allocated approximately 0.01% of their assets to Tesla shares.

That’s about $50 million worth of Tesla stock right now. CalPERS has $350,000 million in assets. Tesla is 0.01% of CalPERS’ portfolio

This is the dumbest thing I’ve heard today. At current valuation CalPERS could buy Tesla outright with an allocation of just 10% of their assets. Obviously CalPERS does not currently own Tesla, so their true allocation is even less than that.

I’ve never bought a new car either but it’s not only about the money. A new car generally has better provenance than a used car, as it has next to no wear & tear. For people who need their cars to earn a living (e.g. most new car buyers) an unexpected breakdown can impede their ability to make money. On top of that,…

At this scale the 20 year old riding high on credit cards is what keeps the economy going. GDP is basically a measurement of the rate that money flows through an economy, and if people save too much then GDP will decrease which can lead to a downward spiral from the resulting low productivity of leveraged assets.

Even if he walks away from Tesla and it folds immediately, he might still make a trillion dollar company out of SpaceX (which has a world-class offering that generates positive cash flow, unlike Tesla).

Sergio was a lawyer, and a car guy. He did well as CEO of FCA.

Make America colonial again!

We don’t have Top Gun style dog fights anymore because technological advances have made them obsolete. To this point, potential adversaries are continuously advancing their fighter and SAM/MRAAM capabilities. Without a jet like the F-35 to maintain air superiority then a jet like the A-10 is useless.

The problem with the A-10 is that it’s a one-trick pony. It’s a very capable one-trick pony but it’s totally dependent on air superiority, which makes it useful for fighting asymmetric wars and not much else. It also hasn’t been built in 34 years, so those airframes are becoming less and less capable as they age. The…