Ehh if you are on a reputable tracker that has scene releases it’s generally downloading a torrent, copying a crack into the game directory or running some crack software, and play. It’s not in the least bit difficult.

Realistically most people don’t care about things like automatic updates enough to justify spending money on it.

Many games are trivially easy to pirate and this has been the case for decades. It’s literally as easy as downloading it from Place B.

People still buy the games.

Yeah I agree with all of that.

One of my pet peeves is giving safety critical items like this a couple gut-feel ugga duggas instead of following the right procedures. I recently had a body shop destroy half a dozen studs on my car zipping them on with air tools.

It’s crazy how much we have normalized half-assed wheel installations.

Jesus that’s bad.

Honestly, though, if you don’t grow up working on cars seemingly obvious things aren’t obvious. A part of me wants to applaud him for learning to work on his car himself.

I am kinda shocked that wheel wasn’t vibrating like crazy driving down the highway though.

Only if we value safety and convenience over freedom.

Personally, I’ll take the freedom.

If you think that’s a satisfactory replacement for the average person you don’t know much about motorsports. The costs alone are outside the reach of most people.

It makes sense though if you think about it. From talking to the locals, of the small cars seem to be either tourists or citydwellers because much of the country is inaccessible in the winter without large low pressure tires and high clearance.

What do you mean small cars have never handled well? Honda built their entire brand on small, affordable, reliable, well handling cars. Small cars have less mass to get in the way of good handling. What mass small cars do have is lower to the ground, which improves handling. Unlike large American vehicles, small cars have innovative features, like independent suspension. That improves handling.

I agree with most of your points except this.

Innovative features like independent suspension? Almost every single sedan or crossover since the 90s has been equipped with fully independent suspension. This isn’t the least bit unique to small cars or foreign vehicles. Even many large American SUVs like the Expedition and Tahoe have IRS these days. The one common exception, besides pickups and off road focused SUVs that need solid axles for practical reasons, is small cars. Many small economy cars have torsion beam rear suspension which is generally bad for ride and handling but lightweight and cheap.

You are right that it’s easier to make smaller and lighter cars handle well, most of my vehicles have been light sports cars like the Miata. However, damper design, suspension geometry, weight distribution and chassis design are every bit as important. Cheap econoboxes often suffer in this regard.

You can make a tall and heavy vehicle handle remarkably well. See sporty SUVs like the Porsche Macan. The Honda Performance Development team has road raced minivans and mid size SUVs, and they are quite quick.

On the other hand, you can make a small vehicle handle like absolute garbage. The issue with very small family cars is they often tend to be cheap and sacrifices must be made to hit a price point. Many of the lightweight econo cars I have driven have handling as bad as my lifted, solid axle, 5000 lb Land Cruiser. This includes the base Toyota Yaris, Fiat Aygo, Suzuki Jimny, and Dacia Duster to name a few.

I really think the Duster could be a huge hit over here. I rented a turbodiesel duster in Iceland and that thing is dog slow but they’re around $12k with loads of ground clearance, 4WD, plenty of interior space, and gets around 45 mpg. I went on some pretty gnarly “mountain vehicle only” F-roads and it handled them like a champ with only a little rubbing on the rocks.

Ironically, though, Iceland competes with the USA in size and number of SUVs and trucks. The country is crawling with “superjeeps” on big lifts and 44”+ tires that dwarf the average American brodozer.

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When I was in government my work life balance coming into the office two days a week was better than now when I am working full time WFH in private industry, so I guess that’s very subjective.

At NASA they regularly told us, “the rocket won’t crash if you clock out at 40 hours. Go home to your families.” A lot of government positions you could literally just check out and sleep all day for weeks at a time and nobody will even notice.

That’s really a modern thing. It used to be that you’d buy a nice PC and 3-4 years later it can’t play new games at an acceptable frame rate and resolution.

Yup. I am an engineer and have worked government and private sector. Private sector pays way more and is more exciting because of the hugely reduced bureaucracy. If you have a fun career you love government can really kill the passion.

But if your goal is stable employment with good work/life balance and guaranteed raises? Government is fantastic.

I mean, you can Google it and find countless sources, if you really care they are readily available within seconds.

The Tl;dr is that his methods are based in dominance theory. Dominance theory has been widely debunked and the methods that arose from it are widely considered to exacerbate fear and aggression related issues in dogs. Caesar’s celebrity status has contributed to its persistence in the popular imagination.

Cesar Milan is considered a hack by almost every reputable dog trainer, and his methods conflict with every modern study I have seen on how to effectively train a dog.

Regardless of your ownership history, many Subaru buyers buy them over alternatives because of an actual desire for capability in snow and dirt roads. Come out to Colorado, you will see tons of Subarus at “high clearance 4x4 access” trailheads. Many of them have small lifts just like the wilderness trim.

A 1” lift is very useful if you actually go in the dirt. If you just want a crossover for the street there are far better options than the outback IMO.

give me an outback sport with the wrx CVT, lowered, and a decent set of tires

If you ask me, this sounds terrible. To each their own. We all like different things, and just because you don’t see the value in a lift doesn’t mean it’s not useful to others.

How do I know you’re not a Subaru guy?

I would argue most buyers in the market for an off roader are far better served with a Subaru than a more dedicated off road rig. My current vehicle is a triple locked, solid front axle, lifted Land Cruiser on 33s with rock armor all around. I previously had a Subaru built with upsized all terrain tires and a 2” lift.

The Land Cruiser is undoubtedly more capable, but my Subaru went 90% of the places the LC80 goes, including severe/difficult trails that most Jeep people avoid for fear of body damage. The Subaru in the hands of a skilled driver is already far more capable than most people need, and is 10x more livable day to day than any body on frame SUV.

For someone that simply likes exploring easy/moderate trails with their daily driver, the Subaru is the ticket. This describes almost every 4x4 buyer. A more “serious” 4x4 only makes sense if it’s your second car or your primary hobby is rock crawling on difficult terrain.

If you believe this than you are woefully uninformed about American food culture.

You can get good authentic food from every region of the world here, but we also have a culture that deeply loves to create new and incredible things inspired by that foreign influence.

Look at American third wave coffee, for example. American coffee culture was inspired by the Italians, but has seen a renaissance of experimentation that makes it uniquely American. It’s now among the best in the world.

Spanish cuisine is great

But French is every bit as good

Outside of Europe? Nobody can compete with America in depth and breadth in terms of incredible food options.

GR86