Proven ads? The dirty not-so-secret is that proven ads don’t exist. That’s why these companies employ PHDs to think of new and interesting ways to modify your behavior and influence your future. This is just another step in that evolution

What do you mean by “the economics” here? I barely drive but I have a toll transponder, I set it up once and haven’t thought about it since.

Toll collection used to be much worse in terms of collection efficiency (revenue-cost)--perhaps 50% as I understand it. With all the automated toll booths I assume it's much better today.

I don’t even have a toll transponder, OCR these days is good enough to detect your plate number and charge the linked account.

Don't they charge you more if you do pay-by-plate though? I always see signs that have a price with local ez-pass, a higher price with out-of-state ez-pass, and an even higher price for pay-by-plate.

Yes, bill for plate OCR is typically a lot more expensive in addition to having to logon to a site etc.

Ez pass billing is all over the place, each state/authority does whatever it wants.

If you reg a secondary car’s plate to an ezpass account without using the transponder, a lot of states will just think it was a read fail and charge you the regular rate but it depends.

The less honest states (New Jersey, probably others) will charge you a punitive fee (which doubles if you don't pay on time) for not having an EZpass on that vehicle. And then when you call customer support they'll argue with you, until you call on the last day when they finally agree that everything was good and proper.

In Washington it's just 25 cents higher (if you're registered -- $2 higher if you're not registered) than without a pass. Not a huge deal.

25 cents for me. I can get a sticker for $5 sticker that negates that (no transponder I think for Seattle’s first 520 bridge, maybe for carpools?). Oh, supposedly the sticker is a transponder, so I can save 25 cents if I buy a $5 sticker. Even though I don't use the bridge that often, it makes sense to buy.

Ussally if you don't have an account they charge you more. But at least for the systems in my area they'll charge your account wether you have your toll transponder or not (because they OCR your plate and charge the linked account)

The gas tax hasn’t kept up with inflation, EVs are only a secondary contributor to the shortfall. Most states have been leeching from their general funds to keep up with highway maintenance. California has raised theres fair aggressively, though.

We have not been “drifting.” People who benefit from the consolidation of power have been pushing the US towards oligarchy.

This post is essentially the premise of the Adam Curtis series “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.”

Okay, I’ll bite. Tell me the linux laptop to get, and the distro to use. Cost is no issue, but suspend/hibernate has to work and so does fractional scaling. Also WiFi.

I have an Acer Predator Helios 16. I have been running Kubuntu on it for around a year with almost zero issues. The only one I had was issues with secure boot and Nvidia drivers. I play WoW, Helldivers, and a bunch of other smaller games with no issue.

Nothing. Both are exploitative. An economic system that does not maximize human flourishing by enhacing an individual’s ability to choose how they spend their time and energy is at its foundation inequitable and exploitative.

Homelessness people are especially vulnerable to being used for the ends of others.