Don’t forget the massive property tax increases and home insurance increases. Both have doubled in less than 10 years. At least they have here in FL with our wack job governor.

There goes Hyundai.

Since the 1950’s, particularly in rural america, it’s been common for a family to have 1 truck and 1 car. Cars have become less desirable in these areas over time. Everyone wants a truck. There’s more to it in rural areas like where i live. Our roads suck. It rains a lot. The closest town is an hr away. I use my truck every day to haul, tow, and get to where i need to be. Couple that with i’m a big guy. And i’m not young. Getting in and out of an average car is a challenge. Riding in an average car for more than a short time is torture. I never asked for trucks to get huge. I never asked for 400+ hp. I would gladly trade these big, tall trucks for trucks the size they were in the 80’s with enough power to pull my trailer and get decent economy. But for some reason that’s not an option. I just bought a new Ram with the base 3.0 turbo. It’s very impressive. We took a 1k mile trip and averaged 22mpg. That’s impressive as well. But i remember an Isuzu Pup diesel in the 80’s getting 38mpg. It was slow. It smelled like diesel. But it ran for 300k miles needing nothing but a clutch. There were some futile attempts recently at putting diesels back in 1/2 ton trucks, but come on. Toe nail clippings for engines that had zero reliability across the board. I guess for me, the summary is I have to have a truck. I can’t afford 2 vehicles. There are many people in this country in the same situation. I do think there’s a market for economical trucks over these modern monsters but until manufacturers start listening, we’re stuck with what we have. On the other hand, all vehicles are doing better with their safety systems. From a pedestrian perspective, that is going to be a bigger help than anything. It doesn’t matter what a person is driving if they are not paying attention.

Seems like they can always find something. Or make up something to fire a person over. “He was 5 minutes late for a meeting in 1975” or other bullshit.

Is.. is that a smile or a strain from taking a huge, orange shit? I can’t tell…

Ivana Fuckacouch

The printer doesn’t really matter. The slicer is what is os specific and most any slicer will work with Linux these days. It’s easier if you find a slicer with a premade profile for your printer but not a big deal. I’ve used prusa slicer for years with my printers (creality, voron, biqu, elegoo). Find a printer that’s in your budget and meets your needs then see what slicers have a profile for that. For modern printers klipper is a big plus. I just got a kobra 3 and it’s a decent machine. My ender 5 has been a workhorse but there are better printers these days. I don’t know enough about bamboo labs but they seem to be the new fad (well… sorta new now).

The Ram REV is due out before the end of the year. Stellantis has also committed to an electric sports car to replace the Challenger/Charger line. They has axed the hemi line in favor of a more economical i-6. Ford and GM are doing fairly well in the ev market. The main hold-up here in the states is infrastructure and price. I have hopes that both situations will be addresses in the next 4 years or so. While I don’t expect the situation to be perfect in that time, progress is progress.

I’ll take it! I love my trodon 2.0. It hasn’t missed a beat. I’ve been running it nonstop for about a year.

Remember the 80’s diesels that got near 40mpg? No power but great economy.