Getting loans for things is part of the reason why it’s expensive being poor.

The average US credit card charges ~22% interest and there are a crap-tonne of sub-prime loans that prey on desperate people that charge a hell of a lot more than that! A ‘cheap’ $500 dryer will end up costing close to double that by the time the loan ends up paid off.

This isn’t a ‘have you tried just not being poor?’ comment; I’ve been in a similar position for the entirety of my 20s and a good chunk of my 30s, before I learned that there was nothing wrong with going against consumer culture and buying an older, quality second hand product.

Becoming financially mature is probably the most painful part of becoming an adult, in multiple senses of the word.

Bit of a straw-man argument there: firstly you don’t need to spend that all in one hit; the break even point is a lot sooner than 30 years; and lastly, paying to replace cheap shot that breaks quickly with more shit that breaks quickly is one of the traps that keeps prone living paycheck to paycheck.

My two examples below:

Samsung dryer died after 3yrs, out of warranty, broke in our 20s, couldn’t afford to replace it. Lucked out finding an ANCIENT Miele condenser dryer on Marketplace for $50. Not only did that thing last us another 3 years before it started tripping the circuit breaker, it was cheaper to run than the old unit and ended up saving us enough money that we were then able to invest in a brand new Bosch unit that’s still going today (7+ years).

LG refrigerator died in a little over 3 years, due to a known compressor fault; uneconomical repair even though it was still under warranty, so we got a full manufacturer’s refund. We bit the bullet, did our research and went with a Made in Japan Hitachi model. It’s always outlasted the LG, and is again more energy efficient that we’re saving a few bucks a month on electricity.

I will reiterate; it’s expensive being poor. Buying a better quality second-hand unit rather than a new ‘commodity brand’ appliance is just one of the small ways to make things a little less expensive.

I mean, having to replace a fridge every few years because it constantly breaks in a way that’s uneconomical to repair will cost you a lot more in the long run.

That’s the thing, it’s more expensive being poor.

You’d be better off getting a 2nd hand quality brand from a wealthy suburb when they remodel their kitchen every 5ish years or so.

Epson & HP stocks in free-fall following this revelation.

Think of it as a “terrorists on a plane” analogy. You need to prevail each and every time in order to keep everyone safe, the terrorists only need to get lucky once.

The classic Republican-flavour of conservatism is dying out in the US amongst the younger generations, which means that the GOP is like a wounded, cornered animal: now is when they are the most dangerous and likely to lash out violently.

…and as luck would have it; the last three US presidential elections have been QUITE important. Again, Trump 45 seated THREE Supreme Court judges! Literally one third replaced by someone who NEVER held the support of the majority of the nation.

Biden 46 managed to curtail 45’s corruption, and begin to undo some of the structural damage inflicted onto the nation. The GOP choosing to re-run the same loser candidate for the third election in a row is what makes it yet another “MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION” in a series of them.

I come from a nation with mandatory voting, even for us every vote is the most important election so far - as it determines the path our nation will take over the coming years and what challenges we should prioritise. I can barely comprehend how almost half of the population of the worlds most powerful nation can’t be bothered to participate in a core principle of democracy that will directly impact the quality of their lives, and the lives of their loved ones.

Hard work is exhausting, but ensuring a better world for our children’s generation and beyond should be reward enough.

It takes seconds to shatter a vase, and hours to glue it back together. That’s the difference.

As an outsider watching US Politics in abject horror - this pervasive both-sides-bad arguement is utter bullshit.

Hillary Clinton was an imperfect candidate, but she would not have appointed three bat-shit crazy judges to the Supreme Court who would the. Go onto gutting almost a century’s worth of civil and environmental rights.

Complaining that Dems aren’t doing enough is media spin, owned and paid for by Billionaires and the corporations they control. A lot of good work gets done that you don’t hear about, because if you did - you’d actually be incentivised to vote for Dems, and the 0.1%’ simply can’t have that.

This upcoming election is without hyperbole the most important since the US’s founding - this is your Fall of Rome moment. Trump needs to be defeated in order for your nation to continue to exist in any manner that you could continue to recognise. The very ideals of the Constitution- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - are at stake.

So make sure you get out and vote, as this could very well be your last opportunity to do so while it still matters.

And if you manage to do the right thing - get involved with politics on your local level, and participate in the primaries. Help pick the candidates that should run, who share your agenda - but when it comes to the general elections, vote against those who share none of your values.

There’s a saying that Democrats need to fall in love with a candidate, while Republicans fall in line. You need to fight them on their terms, the high moral ground is built on sandy foundations and your opponent is armed with shovels and an intent on seeing you destroyed.

we have the money

With the way things are going for the lower and middle classes, that’s a bold statement…

When ‘next gen’ (eg. PS5) becomes the new ‘current gen’, then the old ‘last gen’ becomes retro.

Probably safe to assume that the streaming app on your phone is collecting the same data about your viewing habits, whether or not you Chromecast it to another device.

Or literally never, ever connect your TV directly to the Internet (seriously, don’t do it).

My Apple TV does an infinitely better job than the half-assed built-in native apps; more services are supported and for longer, features are properly integrated, and the additional smart phone functionality (AirPlay, AirPods sync etc.) is a godsend in a busy household.

Plus the added bonus of not risking my network getting compromised, and one less company collecting and selling data about me to unscrupulous marketers and shady middle-men.

I honestly think it will not live up to the levels of hype that the community will build itself up to.

Coupled with my suspicion that the single-player game will be as barebones as possible, with the goal of funnelling as many players into the next iteration of GTA:Online as quickly as possible, to sell more Shark Cards.

The good news is that in the end I’ll either be proven right, or pleasantly surprised.

Cheap yes, but a person should also be asking “would it pass with the same ENCAP safety ratings as the above?”.

Well, at least you can expect it to be a long supported, overpriced accessory! 🤣

If/when it happens, so be it - I’ll eat crow. But for the time being, Apple at least has long set/surpassed the standard for support lifetimes.

At some point, you just have to have a little bit of faith that not every company is going to immediately screw you over the first chance they get; otherwise you’ll never end up buying anything (new or otherwise), with the fear that the moment you do - they’ll drop support.

I mean, some companies do deserve that level of scepticism - but honestly, for all their other faults Apple is not one of them.

There are a lot of legitimate reasons to hate on Apple, but not supporting their products long-term is not one of them.

Eventually they stop providing new OS updates, but they don’t brick/abandon devices.

Hell, I turned on my old iPhone 5 recently for the first time in over a decade and it happily connected to Apple’s servers and updated to the last supported OS version.

Even now that my Apple Watch isn’t receiving any more major OS updates, it can still interact with my up-to-date iPhone 14 without any issues.

I’m still using an Apple Watch 3 that I got in a bundle with my iPhone X from my telco.

I need to charge it twice a day for ~30 minutes each, but it’s still chugging along.

I think I’ll finally upgrade to the new generation this year, but at that point it will be 7 years old - which is commendable for tech.

Wait, isn’t this just the plot of that Sam* Rockwell movie - Moon?

In general, I would love for any OEM to step in and provide similar build quality to a Mac… doesn’t even have to be Lenovo (who IMO are a pale imitation of IBM’s line of laptops).

RTS are inherently limited to PC.

I agree with everything else you said, bar this. I first got into RTS’s on the PS1.

To me, RTS’s peaked around Red Alert 2 (pre-Yuri’s Revenge); I just wish I could find more voxel-based 2d RTS’s with that same ‘arcade-y’ feel.

I mean, all recent coverage seems to have been about Boeing planes…

…but stuff like this is likely more due to shoddy maintenance than production faults, right?

It’s just that everyone is hyper-vigilant currently for anything that goes wrong on a Boeing flight currently.