Glendale, Colorado is the quintessential example of this. Like 2,000 people live there due to insane gerrymandering, but there are tons of businesses and money moving around. The mayor gives crazy zoning benefits to his wife (strip club and dispensary on the main road, right next to target and chikfila) among other controversy. Dunafon controls the county with the help of other powerful players.
Lack of engagement in local elections and politics is a major issue in the United States, there is a huge amount of low level corruption like this because its really easy to game things when 20 people vote.
* optimizations. Some of these restaurants don’t have a counter, or any customer facing staff. Select your meal and pay at a vending machine, get your ticket number, wait for your order to be called.
* onsen/community center: it’s entirely feasible to own less things and have fewer sq/ft at home if you can go to your local rec center to shower/spa, watch tv, sit on the couch, eat dinner, hang out with friends, etc. as a tourist my meal+spa+etc was maybe $10?
* public transit: a lot of these shops are viable in Tokyo because rails move people en masse quickly
Easier to just use your preferred llm with image editing capabilities. Nano banana was better than any tool I found when I used AI to come up with landscaping visualizations.
I like the idea of a slate but the truck bed just makes no sense at that size. I don’t understand why it’s not defaulted to another row of seats or hatchback, with the option to convert to truck. 5 ft bed without extension is kind of pointless as a bed, but huge as a trunk.
That's effectively what it is, but reverse. You buy it as a truck, and can buy seats & cap and turn it into an SUV. I see it as the closest thing you can get to a kei truck in the US without importing. Relatively cheap, good payload capacity, (better than a lot of trucks out there) effectively unable to tow, 5-foot bed, which is the same or larger than most mid-size trucks, and a tiny form factor.
It's certainly a niche vehicle, but it looks exciting if it can fill you niche.
Agreed - check out for example a Toyota rav4 le. This is the base model with effectively zero modern “subscription-esque” fancy features. It’s got a touchscreen and power windows, but otherwise it’s all the reliability/etc of Toyota and that’s it. About half the price of what most rav4s are listed at and $20k+ cheaper than a 4Runner.
Remote start isn't a luxury feature unless you also classify remote unlock as a feature. Toyota (and many manufacturers) used to use the key fob to also start the car but they disabled that so they could charge for it as part of the subscription.
My point was you can buy a car that is primarily safety+capability and not luxury+subscription. My rav4 has a touchscreen and power windows but that’s literally it as far as convenience/luxury. ~28k a couple years ago, no subscription.
Anything heated, remote, touch to start, etc is in the luxury category what gp was asking about avoiding.
This comment section went from “I don’t understand why car makers don’t sell a cheap stripped down car without luxuries” to “Heated mirrors and seats are very important” very quickly.
HN comments discovering in real time why the stripped-down base model vehicles don’t actually sell. People like those luxury features and they choose to pay extra for them.
There is a more feasible future IMO that paints AI as the washing machine, calculator, computer, spreadsheet, automation, etc. Jobs AI can complete don’t lead to people getting let go, but rather those people sit on top of the AI who can do their job much better (sometimes at larger scale, sometimes not). Better outputs for the same cost (well wage+AI costs) -> more purchasing power, more efficient business, etc.
I don’t know if this is how AI will go, but this exact thing happened to me with deep learning. I did stupid math to optimize algos in 2012, but in 2022 deep learning was 100x better than me. I just babysat the AI, as it (and llms) still can’t talk to clients, understand business/culturual nuances, navigate an org, politic, innovate, etc
I know lots of broke-ass people who manage to travel and have a cup of coffee while there. It's choices, not privilege. Author of the piece sure is insufferable, though.
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/04/21/glendale-election-coro...
Glendale, Colorado is the quintessential example of this. Like 2,000 people live there due to insane gerrymandering, but there are tons of businesses and money moving around. The mayor gives crazy zoning benefits to his wife (strip club and dispensary on the main road, right next to target and chikfila) among other controversy. Dunafon controls the county with the help of other powerful players.