It's more that people expect door to door delivery and for cheap.

The US still moves an insane amount of stuff by rail.

But nobody collects their purchases personally by a rail depot anymore and carry's them home. Or do all their shopping within carrying distance of a train station. That is at one point how commerce in the US was done. Everyone expects a truck to take it to their house, or at least bring it to stores in their freight rail free neighborhood.

There's a pretty compelling argument for banning free shipping, and perhaps minimum shipping fees. Small businesses have been arguing it for years. At the very least it would help smaller businesses. But it would encourage combined shipping and create more efficiencies in the system.

Yup. It actually increases revenue by reducing the milage of a backup and thus reducing traffic getting sent through not Turnpike routes (like the Skyway). There's a reason they sped up that project when the Skyway construction winded down and things reopened. They didn't want that revenue to go away.

And Fulop could have played his hand on traffic downtown, but chose not to because he's done with JC and wants to be governor. He could have offered to back the expansion on the condition local governments could restrict through traffic on local streets when a highway exists (which is the law in most of the world by the way). He'd have gotten lots of mayoral backing around the state (especially places like Fort Lee, but even some more conservative areas that have been having this problem for years with things like the GSP), and political capital to actually pull that off... but piss off some more conservative democrats in the state he needs to win Mayor.

Realistically that would reduce traffic downtown, and since the footprint of the Turnpike doesn't change, it has no real impact on anything for the Turnpike. Traffic on the extension would be relatively constant since the tunnel isn't getting bigg.er Since the Turnpike is funding it themselves, there's not even a financial issue at play.

The only reason he didn't play this card is it would hurt his run for governor.

Also groups like Bike JC have been against any effort to cut down on Turnpike traffic using downtown as a bypass because they feel it will hurt their funding. People annoyed by it support them. People less annoyed less likely to do so. That's the real dirty laundry people don't like seeing written.

It's not a problem that can't be fixed. It's that there's nobody who cares enough to fix it, even if it's not beneficial to them personally.

This is a fake argument. Something like 80%+ of Hudson river crossing are > 50 miles. Way beyond the size of NYC or JC. Hell Philadelphia is only about 90 miles away. It's metro area is actually way closer.

Airbnb should technically be cheaper.

They pay illegal labor in cash for things like cleaning vs employees who you pay things like payroll taxes on. Hotels also pay for things like insurance.

Investors on Airbnb have basically extracted all the value they could at this point.

That space is a couple thousand square feet. It’s a little more than an average single family home.

There are Wawa’s bigger than it.

Because they built a new station. Which is because they built a new stadium. Which is because… well soccer is possibly a more corrupt sport than any on earth including horse racing.

There’s more to this story… there’s dumb people in this world, but not so dumb they break their own door vs calling a locksmith. Even on Christmas Eve that will be cheaper, faster, easier.

Not buying it.

It also buys time for more tax breaks.

He’s not going to be able to lease the space, which means money is tied up in that project and high interest rates.

Much better to leave money in the bank, spend the time insisting he needs tax breaks to help “create jobs” then try to time construction with the emergence out of a recession.

He’ll get $100M+ out of this move.

There are garages that do this: they know everyone isn’t there all at once so they sell 5% more than they have capacity for.

Fine print says they don’t guarantee a park. You’re monthly pass is just the right to hunt for a park.

I think in some places this is actually banned now (LA maybe?). They gotta track how many cars enter/leave and not let it go over capacity. Malls can pull this shit around holidays. They let people go in even when full, find there’s no parking and leave having to pay to exit and go to another lot. Holiday surcharge and all.

I suspect for residential parking lots around here overselling isn’t the norm. I feel like we’d see regular threads if that were the case.

There’s been an increased risk of election interference/violence from reports. Same as 2020.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/29/1132537240/government-warns-domestic-attacks-midterm-elections

So places where candidates like to go to shake hands, and supporters hand out flyers get more eyes right now.

I see a pattern with all those places listed falling in those buckets. Was the same in 2020 too, but less people likely noticed due to being out less.

I don’t like pendants in the kitchen for cleaning reasons. Things splash (or just flour lands on it) and either you clean them which is a time consuming PITA or you’re gross.

Recessed lights are far enough that occasional cleaning is enough as they won’t accumulate much.

I agree with this for recreational areas (bedrooms/living room). Ceiling fan + lamps are ideal. For task based areas (kitchen for example), I think recessed lighting is often very practical and then accessorize with under cabinet or whatever makes sense for the space.

Yup.

It’s not worth losing a job over something so trivial to get other ways.

And someone that stupid to risk a job would likely take it to a liquor store, or Walmart for impulse purchases. Order online with the number and pickup. Not something more sophisticated as you suggested.

Years ago I had a card that was likely cloned to be used at a liquor store, which was apparently down the street from where I legitimately used the card.

But back then magnetic strips were widely used, and cloning is trivial. With emv cards, it’s the default and beyond gas stations few places are even possible to use magnetic strips now.

Yup.

Way easier to purchase credit cards on the “dark web” than steal them in person.

No chance of getting caught online (there’s not enough resources to investigate, it’s just an insurance thing built into credit card fees).

Just buy numbers online and keep your day job.

There’s really no reason to lift a credit card to use yourself.

If you do lift cards, put a skimmer on a gas pump, collect a bunch and sell them. That can make financial sense.

But just stealing a couple is too stupid to be likely. The economics don’t make sense.

Since the pandemic Newport Mall clearly cut back on security. Way more homeless and clearly mentally ill wandering around outside and in.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling it dangerous from what I’ve personally seen, but they do have an obligation to keep their property properly secured and safe.

It feels to me like it’s just cost cutting. Maybe cut a shift and do with one less security person going around.

I thought the same thing.

Like they ran out of time, needed to close the barricade and get the trucks back in time. So dropped it and split.

There’s a huge shortage of skilled labor. Good luck finding a licensed plumber or electrician for a smaller job. There’s not nearly enough people in those industries, and the numbers are shrinking as most are aging and few enter.

You need a liberal arts major, yea there’s 100k of em for every job posting.

If NJ allows for self-pumping gas, I want the law to also provide some concessions. Maybe require gas prices to always be 15% below neighboring states and a minimum contribution per gallon to the state transportation fund... so it's gotta come out of their pocket.

They'll lay off thousands of immigrants who will end up on unemployment, with all of us paying the bill.

They WILL NOT lower prices. They'll just keep it as profit. If that's not the case, then lets agree with the above and codify it into law rather than trusting companies to "do the right thing".

Maybe it’s not a phone number… maybe it’s a clue.

I’ve watched too many movies.

Yup.

It was always the most questionable of Manhattan parks.

Washington Square Park is also famously a junkie hangout, but less seedy more collegiate than Tompkins Square Park.

Depends how much you rely on it, and how often you leave the urban cores... their coverage is like 1995 once you're outside of cities. Hence most of them don't even let you subscribe unless you're home zip code is within certain cities.

For home internet, the economics seem to be so that they'll be oversaturated, but as long as there's people who can't afford better, they'll deal with 10% the performance for "only" 50% of the price.

I kinda wish the FCC regulated this stuff better and provided a minimum performance standard they would have to live up to like is common in the EU and Asian markets.

There's a whole boom of wireless broadband resellers starting up. Going to see a lot of these. They buy wholesale capacity of lower priority bandwidth, and resell pretending it's their own network and somehow superior to everyone else who's doing the same thing, or the carrier with higher priority on their own network.

It will. State will contribute less to BOE so even without inflation taxes will need to go up.

Then the city hasn’t fully accounted for inflation since most of this years budget is retroactive. So that’s on next years budget.

That’s the minimum.

This.

Chiropractics is about as scientific as flat earth bullshit. Just costs more money.

The manual for every major car manufacturer strongly recommends top tier fuel.

As I understand it, it’s just a higher standard of detergents in the additive package beyond the federal standard. It’s otherwise the same fuel.

And yea, DFI is going to be more impacted since traditionally fuel is sprayed so it cleans the engine. DFI kinda prevents that effect.

I don’t think premium fuel would have any difference regarding detergent additives. That purely comes down to the additive package. Premium fuel is just a higher octane.

The article I linked to above shows some of the results from the AAA study. It’s pretty interesting.

Since reading that, I try to stick with Top Tier when possible, which 9/10 times is no real effort since it’s most stations. It’s not like I’m really making a serious effort.