Yup, they’re just a bit hard to get ATM because they’re super popular, so I’m not going to be able to haggle much to get a better deal. Used Rav4s go for the same if not more than new Rav4s.

The Ford Escape, however, is pretty decent and a lot more available than the Rav4, so I can probably get a decent discount. There are several 3-4yo Ford Escapes at $10-15k less than new that look interesting in my area.

That said, neither the Rav4 or the Ford Escape has an option for a third row/jump seats, which sucks.

I really just want a station wagon…

Your photo and docs

At least in my case, it’s really handy to share photos with other family members. But certainly you don’t need all of them available on the same public service.

Utah isn’t a major swing state

Agreed. My point is that this isn’t really a conservative/Republican thing, at least not broadly across the US. It’s simply a strategy to win close states.

EV won’t work because we do road trips quite a bit, charging infrastructure in the US sucks, and range would suck in the winter. If I’m going to get an EV, I’d need about double that range for a family car since we regularly go about 300-400 miles between charges, and often 800 miles in a day (takes about 13-14 hours driving). An EV would add a day to those trips, as well as require longer stops.

I’m planning on getting an EV for my commuter (only need about 150-200 miles of range), but not for our family car until range improves significantly.

Is a vpn always safer then a reverse proxy?

Depends on what you trust, I guess.

A reverse proxy on a standard cert is a bigger target for automated scripts than a reverse proxy on a non-standard port. A VPN runs through the VPN’s authentication, whereas a reverse proxy relies on whatever that app’s authentication is. So whether it’s secure enough depends on the VPN configuration, what you’re hosting, etc.

I’m behind CGNAT, so I have limitations you don’t, but here’s my setup:

• VPS at the edge for my public services - basically the same as a reverse proxy because the application is directly exposed
• self-hosted VPN at VPS to facilitate reverse-proxy - I could shut down public access any time and just login w/ the VPN
• static DNS entries on my router so I can use my domains inside my network (TLS also works properly)

I like this approach because I can eat my cake (nice domain names instead of IPs and ports) and have it too (fast connection inside LAN, can disable reverse proxy if I want better security). You could get the same w/o the VPS, and if you require WireGuard VPN access outside the LAN, you get better security than a public-facing service.

he’s an intensely selfish narcissistic dickbag

I really don’t understand what people like about him. I mean, most politicians are narcissists, but Trump takes it to an entirely new level. I thought we collectively hated politicians, but somehow people seem to like Trump?

It boggles the mind…

Eh, that’s more limited to the vocal minority. Unfortunately, that vocal minority is being supported by the quiet majority.

There are some reasonable conservatives in Congress that aren’t big Trumpers, but they don’t get the spotlight.

I don’t want pedophiles working anything from the inside…

Lol. In my very conservative state (UT), it’s incredibly easy to do mail voting, and I would be surprised if it doesn’t count for the majority of votes this election.

Some details about this election and 2020 election (updated as of this morning):

Elections staff across Utah have processed nearly 829,000 ballots as of Monday morning, according to Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.

That’s 46.2% of the ballots mailed to Utah’s 1.8 million registered voters, she said in a post on X.

Early voter turnout was higher in 2020, Henderson added — about 54.1% of voters had returned ballots the Friday before that election.

And from 2020 election:

• Trump - 865,140
• Biden - 560,282

So almost as many people have voted early this election as voted for the winner in 2020. So there’s a good chance we’ll cross the 50% threshold again this election if we get another 4%-ish to drop off their ballots today. I imagine a number will drop them off at polling places tomorrow as well instead of actually going into the booth to vote, but I don’t think those count for the statistics here.

So at least in my very red state, mail voting is super popular. I have actually never voted in person, every vote has been by mail or early voting. It’s super nice.

I’m not a big fan of almonds by themselves, but I love almond butter, almond milk, and roasted almonds.

Wait, why go to the deli if you need chicken? Why not just get some pre-packaged chicken instead? It’s way easier…

Idk, the jury is still out on that one… :)

It’s basically UBI, but with income caps. So if you make above a certain threshold, your benefits reduce and completely disappear by a second threshold.

Milton Friedman was a pretty notable supporter.

Can confirm, Bob Ross had dark hair.

Yup. I have no trouble running modern games on my Ryzen 5600, which doesn’t even have the massive cache of the 3D chips. I’m not spending >$1k on a GPU, so my CPU is likely more than sufficient for quite a while.

Ah, makes sense. But I still think he was holding the baby while driving a motorcycle in the dream.

And for some reason my state still doesn’t have properly reflecting paint, so everyone drives with their high-beams on because otherwise you can’t see the lanes. The net result is that nobody can see anything because they’re constantly being blinded by oncoming traffic.

It sucks all the way down…

We’re looking for a new car, but unfortunately there’s nothing between “sedan” and “minivan” that we want. We have three kids and a minivan, and we hardly use the extra seats or storage. It’s still working fine (it’s a mid-2000s Sienna), but my wife and I hate driving it, it has terrible gas mileage (20-ish MPG), we don’t need the space 99% of the time, and we never need the storage space and people space simultaneously.

What I want is:

• AWD
• >30mpg, ideally 35+
• flip-up third row (will be used like 1-2x/year, if that)
• >30 cubic feet storage w/ third row unused (Prius is super close)
• as small as possible
• if I have to get an SUV, at least 1500lbs towing capacity (prefer >3000lbs)

If they still made them, a station wagon would absolutely fit the bill. But now, I can’t have that, so I’m stuck in SUV-land.

So my plan is to completely abandon the third row and get a compact hybrid SUV. If we buy new, it’ll be a Rav4 hybrid (the CR-V hybrid has a dinky 1000 lbs towing capacity, and if I have to get an SUV, I want the option). If we buy used, it’ll probably be a Ford Escape hybrid, not because it’s good, but because it’s cheap and good enough (Escape and Rav4 can both do 1500lbs towing). I don’t want either, but since there’s pretty much nothing in the sedan w/ storage space market (and I want more than suitcase storage, we camp quite a bit), I’m essentially being forced to get an SUV.

I hate SUVs, but I guess that’s what we’re getting. I’ll probably get an EV for the second car (currently a Prius), if only for the convenience of never having to fill up gas again.

Well, there are some strategies:

• data collection - remove/disable the antenna/broadcasting chip - in some cars it’s as easy as removing a fuse, in others you need to take things apart to remove the TCU or modem
• subscription-based features - don’t buy them and look for hacks to enabled them w/o buying
• death of sedans - buy sedans

Unfortunately, that’s a drop in the bucket since it seems the market in general wants larger cars with more spyware, and aren’t pushing back enough on subscription BS.

I’m actively looking for a car, and unfortunately the process is:

1. find models we want to try out
2. look up online about how to disable the spyware nonsense
3. actually go look at cars
4. repeat from 1 as necessary
5. play dealership games because the private used market is essentially gone
6. actually remove spyware

We’re on step 3, and I’m not looking forward to step 5. I’ve actually never purchased from a dealer before, because I’ve bought everything before now from a private seller. Wish me luck…

Yup. “Capitalism” has become a punching bag for people who are frustrated about some form of government protectionism or lack of interventionism. If you ask someone to define it, you’ll get wildly different answers based on whatever they’re frustrated by. The real problem is cronyism, where the “haves” get special treatment from those in power so both sides benefit.

Capitalism is intended to be a system where the market is largely separate from the government, but everything is co-mingled and people point to the knotted mess as “capitalism,” when really it’s a mess of different political ideologies all messing with market forces. What we actually need is for more capitalism, as in less government interference w/ the market, so market forces can actually fix things.

“More capitalism” doesn’t mean screwing over the poor either. In fact, if you look at the Nordic countries, they’re actually more capitalist than the US ins many ways, and they have solid social programs. The difference is that there are clearer boundaries between government and the market, so you don’t end up with as much weird “collaboration” between companies and the government.

I personally believe in UBI/NIT (Universal Basic Income/Negative Income Tax) instead of most welfare programs (perhaps keep Medicare/Medicaid, but replace Social Security, food/housing assistance, etc) to minimize the disruption of natural market forces. That would be a very capitalist-friendly solution where the government and the market stay in their own lanes.