Between photography, motorcycles, and tools (woodworking/metalworking/automotive) this does seem accurate for me - I have ended up spending a fair chunk of money between these over the years. The tools do mean I can do stuff myself though rather than paying someone else so they at least are less of a money pit.

Every now and then I think paragliding would be an interesting thing to try but I have to tell myself another expensive hobby is hard to justify when I’d like to actually own a place to live some day.

Wouldn’t these all be, matching the theme of your definition, basic coordination exercises

Correct. I would not expect people to know how to do these things but I would expect a competent person to be able to learn them.

if you couldn’t drive with a manual gearbox, you shouldn’t be issued a license

For people who’ve had a genuine opportunity to learn and couldn’t figure it out then I would kind of support this. If someone can’t figure out a basic coordination exercise then I don’t really trust them to handle the controls of a couple of tons of moving vehicle.

I do realise though that many people don’t have a proper opportunity to learn (no vehicle to do so in or a poor instructor) so most get an exception from this judgement.

I could see the benefits of using Arch just so almost every function my system has is near-perfectly documented in Arch Wiki.

That is literally the main reason I started using it - over time I kept running across helpful Arch wiki articles while looking for info on stuff so when I got a new computer I figured I might as well go with Arch.

I had an old Series era Landrover as a paddock basher when I was a kid, that had a manual choke. It also had a backup crank handle for starting the engine which I had to use occasionally as I was using starter batteries which had been retired from usage in the family cars, a gearbox with no synchro on first/second, and the foot brake didn’t work. Would recommend, I definitely had fun.

Can’t say I saw that coming, particularly after Microsoft bought them. Nice to have a surprise be pleasant once in a while.

That’s one with big potential but not one to lead off with, best to wait until you’ve ‘invented’ a few obvious game changers and established your philosophic credentials before attempting to introduce basic medical hygiene…

Electricity is a hard ask to even attempt to do in ancient times. Luckily there’s a variety of other simpler things to establish yourself as a genius inventor - strirrups, wheelbarrows, magnetic compasses, the idea of a crank handle, and how to use triangular bracing to make a strong truss would be good options.

ai slop

Not everything odd is AI, and I don’t believe this image is.

It’s consistent with the era of the monitors, has controls in believable locations on them, has a variety of angles that look right (including the supports underneath the base), and searching tineye with this image returns results with the same photo going back to at least 2015.

Better not let any clean freaks see this - they’ll have a cow!

Descent was one of the first games I had to play, I remember it fondly. It came bundled with my family’s first computer (along with Lemmings and Simcity 2000) so I spent a fair amount of time on it. The freedom of motion you had in Descent was impressive - albeit easy to confuse yourself with - and something I have rarely seen since.

Presumably a reference to the town, or more specifically the road sign for it.

The basics are easy - half an hour with someone who knows what they"re doing should be all you need to get out and about. Getting to the point where it’s instinctual and you don’t have to think about shifting is probably beyond the limits of a short trip but depending on how much driving you do you can be fairly smooth within a few days.

The main risk you run with learning manual is that once you get the hang of it it spoils automatics for you - you might end up having to buy yourself a manual car to avoid being annoyed by the missteps autos tend to do.

The Japanese brands are generally a safer bet for reliability. Toyota is one of the best reputation wise but that comes with an increased price due to that reputation.

A manual transmission is best for reliability IMO, but if for some reason you really must have a automatic look for one with a standard auto transmission rather than a dual clutch box or a CVT. Run away from VW dry clutched dual clutch and Ford Powershift transmissions.

Ideally you would have proof of regular servicing, though a completely good record is harder to get on a low budget. Not only do you want it to have the engine oil changed at the service intervals (depends on the vehicle but often ~10k km) but also the other regular stuff that often gets ignored - e.g. brake fluid, coolant, transmission/diff oils, brake pads/rotors. Keep an eye out for big ticket maintenance items such as timing belt changes (typically due around every 100-150k kms) as these are expensive so are often ignored at the risk of major failure.

If you’re not confident in spotting issues try and bring along a friend or acquaintance who is more familiar with cars to look it over.

Since you’re in Canada where I believe road salt is common check for rust under the car and in places like wheel wells where moisture is likely to be trapped. It’s hard to avoid some rust in such an environment but you don’t want rust holes anywhere or large sections of flaking rust.

It’s not a recent thing, but I would say there has been a decline over the last decade or so. Not only does it seem like spelling and grammar are getting worse but I feel it is much more likely these days to find comments defending improper English rather than correcting it.

I saw someone spell “extreme” as “extream” which is just kind of baffling, I actually can’t even imagine how one would make such a mistake?

Maybe they had just come from dealing with large quantities of paper? Or enlarging a bunch of holes?

My brain first interpreted SQL as ‘squirrel’ and that now refuses to relinquish its claim as default pronunciation in my mind.

I think a wombat would be cool to have around the place, assuming domestication allowed for some level of trainability.

One of my old uni lecturers was very keen on the idea of domesticating the spotted quoll. He reckoned they would make a great pet for those who would otherwise get a cat (a convincing argument actually).

My unicorn phone would be one that is both small enough to use with one hand (currently have a Zenfone 10 largely for this reason) and has a secondary camera lens that’s a telephoto rather than an ultra ultra wide.

It bugs me that phones with a long lens are so comparatively rare, it’s always just wide (verging on ultrawide) as default and when a second lens is added it’s even wider again because people love distortions or taking photos in tiny rooms or something. Sometimes I just want to take a photo of something further away than a few metres and actually have it visible without zooming in, I’d even take a normal lens FoV as an improvement over ultrawide. Those phones that do have one tend to have it as a third lens and also tend to be huge, so get disqualified by the ‘usable with one hand’ criteria even before I reach the massively expensive part.

I’d also like an Instax back for the Hasselblad V series that was cheap enough that I could actually justify the cost of buying (say ~$200 AUD or less) though I will admit that’s a pretty niche thing to be after.

The only time I’ve resorted to the screwdriver technique (due to not having enough room to tighten and then turn a strap/chain wrench) the screwdriver shank just tore through the filter when I tried to turn it, a broader tool like a wide chisel might have a better chance of success.

What I ended up using that time was an air hammer with a broad headed chisel (pushing on the side where the impact would unscrew the filter). The angles wouldn’t work well for this in OPs case but if you have enough side access to get the air hammer through it’s a decent last resort.

Because men are statistically more likely to commit violent crimes.

So you’re saying it’s ok to make negative statements about a subset of people as long as they are statistically more likely to commit violent crimes?