TitanLaGrange

joined 1 year ago
[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

some of these American travel trailers

Can't forget the boat! For reference, while this isn't typical, it's not uncommon. That's a pretty small travel trailer and boat. I've seen this setup with much bigger trailers and boats several times.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

Part of the issue there is that for a large number of people the 'few times a year' are major holidays when everybody else wants to tow their house-sized RV and boat to the lake for a day or two. The rental fleet just isn't big enough to service the surge demand.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (6 children)

FTA:

The so-called plug-in systems involve routing the direct current generated by the panels to an inverter, which converts it to an alternating current. They can then be plugged into a conventional wall socket to feed power to a home.

So, yeah, almost certainly illegal in pretty much any grid-powered home in the US.

The basic problem is that if the grid power goes down the inverter can back-feed the grid enough to electrocute the people who are working to fix it.

Utilities require an approved isolation system of some kind that prevents that happening. They are pretty strict about this for various other technical and political reasons too, but evidently it is mostly a safety concern.

I've got some good locations at home for panels, and about 500W in panels that I use for camping, but the equipment I'd need to handle easily and safely consuming the power at home is kind of expensive (just running an inverter and a battery for an isolated system is easy enough, I've got all that, but it's not cheap to seamlessly connect it to my home power system). Would love to have a safe and approved system like what is described in the article.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

He has claimed the bathroom sink as his bed. While this is very convenient for petting the cat while using the toilet, he tends to sleep in the morning and evening which is also the most likely times I want to brush my teeth.

Fortunately, the kitchen sink is just around the corner, so it is not necessary to disturb the adorably sink-napping cat.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world -5 points 6 months ago (4 children)

This is why I pay for YT Premium. No way in hell am I watching ads, but I do want to be able to use the platform, and the money has to come from somewhere. So far it's been pretty good value, although SponsorBlock is of course still required.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It's English, so it's difficult to be wrong, but that phrase do be weird.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It is! I enjoy it, but I've mostly cut it out, along with a bunch of other foods, just to keep my calorie intake down. I try to only use it where I see it as a necessary component, like when making lattes or on breakfast cereal. Where in the past I might grab a giant glass of milk I now substitute water. Except with brownies, obviously.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's how our household was when the kids were little, 1 to 1.5 gallons a day. Now that they've moved out it's more like a gallon a month.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not familiar with this guy's technique. How did he go about baiting potential targets?

The usual methods of the past used text and staged images, so the targets didn't see the real person until a meetup. I'd suppose though that with the advancements in live video filters over the past several years there's no reason this guy couldn't just dress in drag and apply appropriate filters so he appears as required.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It wouldn’t meet the safety standards.

This may partly be because basically all of them are legal for highway use, so even if all you need is a car that is safe to drive a couple of miles to the grocery store at 35MPH, the safety features and engines (and thus emissions system capabilities) have to be designed with the expectation that the vehicle will be used at 80MPH beside all the other vehicles out there.

It might help to have a wider variety of vehicle licensing options to allow for low-speed, lower-spec 'city cars'. Though enforcement would probably be an issue, and the safety standards would still need to be robust enough that people in small cars wouldn't be too badly killed by the gigantic pickup trucks they have to share the road with.

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

As long as you don’t need to get a new loan for 7ish years

Yep, and depending on the severity of the debt and other factors you'll mostly just pay higher interest rates on loans for several years. You have to fuck up pretty bad before nobody will loan you money (though that probably depends on a lot of demographic factors too).

[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

They'd legally still on the hook for the difference, and if it's a large enough amount for the creditor to care about they'll come after you for it using the variety of means available. In the US that can include taking the money from the debtor's bank account or having their employer take it out of their paycheck before paying the debtor.

There are some ways around that. You can self-employ and ignore the garnishment request, but that works best if you have a constantly changing client list, like a roofing contractor or wedding-dress-maker or whatever. You have to be careful about keeping cash in your business because they can show up with the sheriff and take any cash, or in extreme cases they can seize non-exempt property (like, they wouldn't generally be able to seize the lawnmower you use for your lawnmowing business).

Also, just not having any money is a pretty good defense. There are limits to wage garnishment for example.

But yeah, in a lot of cases it's not even close to being worth the effort to chase someone down to collect, so you get a ding on your credit report for a few years, and then almost nobody cares.

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