spongebue

I don't think we really disagree here. You're focusing on what people are. I'm focusing on how they see themselves. They're not necessarily the same things.

Doesn't mean you don't call yourself middle class, because at least you're not homeless. At the very least, "lower-middle class"

20-something years ago PBS had an excellent documentary called "People Like Us: Social Class in America" to show, well, social class in America. If you can find it, or at least clips of it, I'd recommend it. There was one cutscene with a bunch of people being asked which class they see themselves as, and pretty much everyone felt they were "middle class" - but you could tell by the way they presented themselves (clothes, jewelry, etc) that they were all over the place.

Pretty much everyone calls themselves middle class. Outside of the extremes one would expect, there will always be richer and poorer people among you, meaning you're in the "middle" - whether you're struggling to make rent or debating whether or not to go to the vacation home this weekend.

Use it or lose it is very common, even in (US) government employment.

I thought Bernie Sanders from 30 years ago

The same government that has no authority over them because, uh, reasons

For what it's worth, I picked up Radio Australia on shortwave from Denver on a recently-restored tube radio (albeit a higher-end one). It was surprisingly clear too!

Ask anyone who works support how fucking stupid the general population

They're going to have a huge selection bias though - much of the "general population" will start elsewhere with things like documentation or brains.

It takes less energy to move heat than it does to produce it. A heat pump basically runs an air conditioner backwards, so rather than moving heat from inside a structure to outside, it moves heat from outside to in. With the right units, this works even in cold weather for the same reason a freezer gets warm on the outside - it's moving heat from inside the (freezing) unit out.

Geothermal energy takes this concept a step further by putting the outside unit underground. Underground temperatures are more stable and moderate, so it's easier (more efficient) to expel/collect heat, but also much more involved to install.

I can understand if you want to call any kind of Fiat currency "fake money" - doesn't mean I think it should be abandoned in favor of some arbitrary metal or whatever, but I can understand it.

That said, any kind of currency works when it's standardized. Obviously it will be regionalized by country or whatever. Making up multiple cryptocurrencies as alternatives to what we have now slides us in the direction of a barter system ("I don't take Bitcoin, you'll have to get that converted to Ethereum. Oh, BTC is down against that? Sucks to suck!")

And let's say the cryptobros get their way and we end up with (whatever crypto you choose) as a standard currency for the country/world/universe. Who would benefit most from that, and why should they? The way I see it, the early adopters would live like kings and if you didn't gamble on the right crypto early, you better hope you can get something for your assets, including the cash of today.

I forgot about that! And most songs sound like ass when you hear it over a phone, especially before whatever they did in the last decade to make voice calls more clear

You know what would make it better? If we had dozens of them!