Re-read Persepolis. RIP Marjane Satrapi :(

Didn’t know about this community; checking it out! Thanks :)

Another quick & fun daily puzzle: minutecryptic.com

Word play rather than logic puzzle.

There’s always Mississippi!

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. Sometimes called “Extended Range Electric Vehicles”. TLDR: has a smallish battery you can plug in and charge that gives you something like 30 to 50 miles of range. Then a gas engine to use when the battery is low.

It’s a good option for anyone who has limited daily driving and the ability to charge overnight. Sadly they’re pretty rare. People will complain about “paying for 2 drivetrains” but cost-wise and feature-wise they make a lot of sense for people with occasional needs to drive longer distances.

If you search on cars.com it’s a filter option under “fuel type”. For my zip code there’s currently 3.9K hybrid, 2.4K electric and only 19(!) plug-in hybrid listed.

I heard this as: “You can’t wake someone who’s pretending to be asleep.”

There’s been a recession start during every Republican presidency of my lifetime (I’m in my 40s). I predict that will continue and am planning my finances accordingly.

Leading economic indicators are slightly down: https://www.conference-board.org/topics/us-leading-indicators/

Economic sentiment (one example https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/ ) is sharply down.

Predicting the economy is difficult, many different people bet real money both ways.

The best summarization I recommend considering is the discussion of the “K” shaped economy. Standards seem to be shifting, those with wealth seem to be doing well if not growing. Those at the margin or poorer seem to be getting worse. So you can have two true statements that the stock market is soaring and GDP is growing, AND most people are facing declining economic prospects.

I’m a stranger on the Internet, so don’t put too much weight on my analysis. Check historically reputable resources and even then take their predictions with a grain of salt.

The positive signs: Beto got within a 3 point margin against Cruz. Latino support for Republicans has tanked (after swinging more R than historically in 2024). There’s a net immigration to urban areas that skews more Liberal. The national sentiment is strongly against Republicans given inflation and the Iran war.

These make me hopeful.

The Negative signs: Texas has averaged 8-10 points R outside of Cruz v Beto. Texas is gerrymandered (as another user points out). Voter suppression and misinformation are significant (Texas turnout is sub-par: about 5 points below the national avg). The Texas Democratic party has repeatedly flubbed things over the past few decades.

These things keep me pessimistic.

I’ll still donate some time and money this election season, but the 2024 results really knocked down my enthusiasm for Texas turning purple.

What do you call a cow with one leg?

Steak.

Yum said the technologies developed in partnership with Nvidia will focus on three areas: drive-thru and call-center voice AI, computer vision to analyze operations and AI analytics at the restaurant level.

That second one is disturbing.

Duncan is asking Democratic voters to consider what the off-ramp for Republican leaders should look like in the waning days of the Trump era.

I certainly don’t trust them in any form of leadership. They need to find ways to make amends for the harm they caused before they should expect any level of power or responsibility given to them.

I hope GA can flip blue this cycle & stay there for 2028… But I’ve lost so much faith in the electorate I’ll not hold my breath.

Work on learning cooking techniques rather than recipes. There’s plenty of content. I’ll drop this as a starting point as it has a fair amount of content and focuses on moving away from just recipes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srMEoe_5y6g&t=75

Many other resources are available; it’s easy to turn $30 of varied ingredients into many different meals rather than just several portions of one thing.

If I was taking an emergency long trip… I’d probably buy a plane ticket?

I’ve only had my EV about 2 months; but for all the driving I’ve done (even thinking back over the past few years) it’s more than sufficient. With 2 kids and a house; long trips in the car are pretty rare. And the ones I’ve taken we need 30+ min stops every 2-3 hours anyway: for food, bathrooms, and just keeping the kids happy.

Shout out to Buccee’s for putting in a ton of chargers! They realized people will spend money inside if they have to stop for 20-30 min anyway. The gas customers are stopped that long and spending that money as well anyway it seems!

I’m super happy with it and kind of wish I bought one sooner (but, part of what made me buy now was a great deal on a used one). No regrets!

Good read. I’ve not heard of this site before, so now I’ll check out some of their older stuff! Looks like a few years of content history to browse 🙂.

Thanks for sharing!

More detailed background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(economics)

Price is rarely 1% for 1%. Some things people will still use in similar quantities even if there are high price increases (e.g. life saving medication). Others people will stop using even if there are small price changes.