The 30 year fixed mortgage is an insanely good deal, and I say this as a guy who has one. The monthly cost can only stay the same (and decline due to inflation) or decline if interest rates fall and you refinance or adjust the loan. If interest rates go up, you're completely protected.
A mortgage may be more than rent for a similar place now, but I suspect it won't be that many years before the lines cross.
The shoppers at costco vary drastically by location. If you have more than one warehouse reasonably close by, it may be worth your while to try them all.
Dollar General and their ilk are behemoths compared to the shops that might have served these areas before they rolled in. It's possible they're the only game in town because they engaged in dumping or other dirty/illegal tactics to drive out established businesses.
I'm not an expert on the topic, but I don't think it's a reach to think that they might have engineered this situation.
Absolutely. I work at a school where the food is OK, but just, and the school across the street has very good food. One of our students used to sneak into the other school in the mornings for breakfast. He made the mistake of bringing the food back to our school where people asked questions, and pretty soon the other school knew he wasn't their student and banned him.
Something seems really off to me about different kids within a couple hundred feet of each other getting drastically different quality of food.
There are some extra weird things going on, though. Many people are simultaneously getting poorer by economic/financial stability, and have less access to medical care and safe housing, but at the same time enjoying more luxurious vehicles than ever and ordering door dash multiple times per week.
I'm not criticizing people in that situation. Many people close to me wouldn't have a chance no matter how thrifty they were.
This is not some "revealed preferences" situation either. Something very harmful is happening, and it's not easy to see exactly what it is or why it's happening, though I suspect increasing wealth inequality plays a big part.
I have an old card printer that I only use occasionally, and firing up a windows 7 virtual machine is (was?) the most convenient way to do it. I think it's not so uncommon to have old devices around that don't work with newer versions of windows.
Perhaps a Macbook is now fast enough to just run Windows 7 in full emulation? Haven't tried, though.
Edit: Checked on Youtube. Yeah, Windows 7 seems to be fast enough on an Apple silicon Macbook in full emulated mode. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9zqfv54CzI
So it was with PowerPC, Sparc, SGI CPUs, and a bunch of older now obsolete architectures. I don't think we should be limiting the technological potential to keep old Windows drivers afloat, and they weren't native to the platform to begin with. You can always get a PC and virtualize Windows 7 just fine.
The direction of wind and shape of terrain has a huge effect on noise, too. If a noise source is down wind of you the gradient in wind speed wrt elevation effectively makes the noise curve upwards, and even very loud things can sometimes be inaudible at ground level.
One went in 1/4 mile from my home a couple years ago. I ignored the notices of development because I thought it was far enough that it wouldn't affect me, but it blocks the view of the mountains that I used to enjoy, and sometimes I can hear noise from its cooling system (I assume).
I wish I'd known what was coming, and gone to the meetings to oppose it.
Large buildings 1000 feet from you are going to have some impact, but your complaint has little to with being a data center specifically. They could have put in a large warehouse and your view gotten blocked just the same, similarly the noise from the cooling system can be managed well or poorly on any building.
usually large warehouses will appear where there’s good highway connections and lots of cheap unskilled labour. A DC might catch a lot of people “in the sticks” by surprise.
I appreciate that my view isn't the only consideration for that kind of decision, but when a new building goes up much larger than anything else in the area, and affects the skyline for thousands of people, I think that should be one of the considerations.
>The "government" is just the set of people who hold power over others.
Often, yes, but in a more functional society it would be the mechanism we collectively use to prevent a few people from amassing excessive wealth and power.
Just for example. When the elite drives all their opponents into poverty and sends them to rot in prison for the slightest outcry, that's anything but democracy.
"Soral was convicted repeatedly in France and sentenced to jail time in 2019 for denying the Holocaust, which is a crime in France."
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
That's the paradox of tolerance for you; we must be intolerant of those that are intolerant... but you probably already know that Karl Popper theorized that [0]. Just looking around globally, we seem to be at that inflection point where this isn't mere hypothesis, but theory or law:
"Popper posited that if intolerant ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices."
That's not a paradox of tolerance, it is the anti-democratic practice of fascism.
> they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices.
This is exactly my point: an emerging fascist government through authoritarian or oppressive practices destroys tolerance by silencing people for any words that go against their agenda. There is no paradox here.
Visited there the first time ever a few months ago, you're lucky to have both that and the new Micro Center in close proximity. If only every city could be so lucky.
A mortgage may be more than rent for a similar place now, but I suspect it won't be that many years before the lines cross.