Ace-Garageguy

Just face it and embrace it. Everything is going to poo. It's not just eBay. I don't know what lala land those folks who say otherwise live in.

Nothing new, just that muh technology is making it oh-so-mo-easier. It's called "progress". And if you don't embrace it with open arms, you're a past-it old Luddite shouting at clouds. Just ask any tech bro.

Age tends to make you get older.

"Right to Repair" isn't just about individuals working on their own cars. I'm still in the independent repair end of the car biz, have been for most of over 5 decades now. My background is mechanical engineering. I left the white-collar world to work on the machines I loved, but even as a shop owner/manager, I was always on the front lines, with dirty hands. To me, the "technology advances" other than sophisticated engine management and improved combustion chamber and porting designs that have enabled impressive fuel economy, emissions, and performance improvements simultaneously, are largely just useless bell-and-whistle add-ons that do nothing but enhance a vehicles marketability (to those who think they need 5-way adjustable heated vibrating illuminated cupholders to successfully and safely commute to work or take the kids to soccer practice) while adding layer upon layer of increasingly poorly thought out, failure-prone complication...that's often also poorly supported by the manufacturers from either a parts or service standpoint. I don't care much about owners who want to do their own minor repairs and maintenance, frankly, though I DO believe the information and parts to do so should be readily available. What I AM concerned with is a blatant attempt on the part of manufacturers to freeze independent shops out of the repair business by making access to data prohibitively expensive for the smaller ones...the ones that are also very often the most competent, and that are also often vastly more competent than most of the current crop of vehicle "technicians" employed by dealerships...at least in my area. EDIT: And while we're at it, somebody 'splain to me why a single headlight for a late-model Porsche Cayenne costs $8 THOUSAND and has to communicate with the vehicle's computers. Yeah, I know...bla bla bla multi-individually-controllable LED bla bla bla safety bla bla bla anti-dazzle bla bla bla bla. We're NOT driving these things 220 MPH down the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans, ya know.

Rate-increases are insurance and utility execs favorite dreams.

Peemed.

Scrooms and Morlocks may have a lot of genetic material in common.

Finally saw Blade Runner 2049. I couldn't imagine a sequel even coming close to Ridley Scott's staggeringly original and beautiful film, but I gotta say it was pretty decent.

Kits that aren't anything but basswood sticks, scribed wood sheet, some wire, a few small cast detail parts, decals, and instructions don't appeal to the masses...but they're pure joy to this guy sittin' here at the keyboard.

"Sense" doesn't apparently rank high with what developers are trying to achieve with AI, which is really no surprise seein' as how most people accepted Google's often just-flat-wrong gibberish for years with no complaints, and after getting something equally clueless from AI, those same people can now be even more convinced of their instant no-effort expertise.

Products marketed specifically to geezers are so universally unappealing, it almost makes me hate myself...until I look at the stuff marketed to everybody else.

Probably a rare Rolls Canardly. Rolls down one hill, canardly make it up the next.

Pressure and temperature can adversely affect arthritis pain.

Ford's early OEM I-beam axles were forged of vanadium steel, and this one was part of a demonstration at a World's Fair. The Speedway axle on the wrecked red car above is ductile cast iron, has a lot of miles on it (the spindle bushings are flat worn out), and it took a pretty good wallop to break it. HOWEVER...we've seen other "offshore" cast iron axles break similarly while in normal service.

There are a lot of things in life that make no sense whatsoever, and trying to understand them in rational terms is an exercise in futility that will drive YOU crazy. When you encounter something that insists on ignoring objective reality, or trying to twist it into something it's not...just walk away. You will NOT be able to show anything to those who simply will not see, or are so rebleatingly indoctrinated as to be unreachable by any conventional conversational means.