u/Goose306

There is a lot of market between a Snappy cab and a US General cab. You are comparing a top of the line, highest-priced, professional product delivered to you to a heavy duty consumer cab you walk into a store and buy.

US General's value is they cost the same or slightly higher than entry level and performance is on-par with heavy-duty/commercial grade. Thing is, lots of manufacturers make commercial grade, and it doesn't cost what Snappy costs. I don't know what Aus has, but I have to assume you can get something like a Milwaukee roller down there (probably in the $5k aud range) and its not going to perform measurably different.

For tool boxes in particular, Snappy has always been about flaunt. Not that performance isn't there, but there are a lot of manufacturers putting out "good enough", even for heavy duty, commercial use.

EDIT: It's also been a few years since I looked at them, but the biggest difference used to be that US General had significantly thicker gauge material on their rollers than the cheaper ends around here. It seems they have taken to the same shrinkflation as everyone else lately though, as the newer versions have thinner gauge than the older models, which is going to reduce their value proposition, because the other models haven't shrank the same (they are already about as thin as you can get to still be functional).

FWIW, I assume you mean import, at which I have doubts you will find any of that value that exists for these products. They make (generally) good to great products but they also generally aren't better than higher-end gear from name brands, the sales pitch is the value. Paying shipping/import will kill any of that and it would be paying for the novelty and less benefit than a high-end tool locally you can service with warranty for same price.

Speaking through this as I live in AK which, while in the US, is a similar situation as there is no HF up here. HF is privately-held and family-owned, it is not a franchised business, and they are actually fairly conservative in their growth strategy (another reason they have managed to retain their value proposition).

They get sneaky too. I get them from Kodiak PAC, which sounds Alaskan, right? Maybe even something grassroots?

No. It's a PAC funded by entirely by another PAC, in this case the Republican Governor's PAC, which is a national PAC funded entirely by Outside.

Under our current disclosure laws, this has to be provided on the mailer. If 2 passes, this goes away, and they are free to hoodwink and just call it Kodiak PAC or whatever and make it look grassroots.

Remember that Hart was a sub-brand of TTI, so I'd start by looking at comparable size Ryobi/Milwaukee blades as a potential match. TTI keeps a lot of their brand stuff pretty separated, but something as basic as blade cross-compatibility least from a mounting standpoint strikes me as an economies of scale thing where it's basic enough they might just use the same thing across all of them.

EDIT: I didn't follow the links to validate, but yeah, that's looking the same chief:

https://imgur.com/a/NE1UalR

Greenworks might also be cross compatible too just looking at mounting. Same with Ego 20", though the shape is quite different. Sometimes the side holes are slightly different shape or location so I'd consider taking the old one in the store to double check (or buy somewhere with a return policy) before committing.

What type of pupper is that? Looks sorta like the Bouvier we have but less boxy up front, least from this angle.

It's Lowes. They have a contract with Flock. Same thing happened with Anchorage Lowes and there was a link to Lowes saying they contract with Flock.

It's a Lowes thing not a Wasilla thing. Same thing was at Anchorage Lowes and someone linked to where Lowes said they are using it for corporate security.

UNRWA has over 28,000 staff members operating in the Palestine area. These people are largely local Palestinians delivering aid and have to be trusted within this highly traumatized community to be able to do such actions. You are telling me you are surprised that 0.04% of them may have either been terrorists or become radicalized as part of their association with Palestinian sufferers? I'll be honest, I'm surprised it's that low.

Every organization on earth has folks who aren't doing right, the stakes are a lot higher when it's life or death on the line but humans are still humans.

What matters is what they did with the information, once known. Did you even read the article or just headlines?

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Friday that he fired several employees and launched an investigation “in order to establish the truth without delay.” 

Of the 12 employees who were implicated, nine were immediately identified and terminated, one was confirmed dead and the identities of two others were under investigation, the U.N. said in a statement Sunday.

“Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” the statement from U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres added.

That makes it quite clear that the UN does not agree with these actions and this was a small few rogue operators.

I shouldn't have to point this out, but the ones who found Israel to be committing genocide were not the same 12 above. It was an independent commission of non-involved bodies, and it was based on Israel deliberately targeting children for killing in Gaza.

I'm not pretending Hamas doesn't have blood on their hands here. But Jesus Christ you have to be a ghoul to be defending Israeli security actions here. The Hamas action in 2023 was 1,200 dead 250 hostage. Since then Israel has killed 70,000 Palestinians (over 51x, if you include hostage as dead) and have made it explicit they are targeting children as part of population control for Palestinian people - over 20,000 of those 70,000 are children, far more than basic population dictates. They have specifically targeted maternity and neonatal units. None of this is secret.

None of Israeli military leadership has decried these actions, they have encouraged them. Military members shooting children in the street for no reason and letting them bleed out has been both witnessed and recorded multiple times, and these Israeli military members face no repercussion. Again, a small percentage of this occuring? Sure, it's been an ongoing, violent conflict that is generational at this point, some level of horrific atrocity is probably going to occur. That isn't justifying it, just stating the obvious that it's war. What matters is what occurs after - the UN took steps to hold accountable, Israel has at best tried to sweep it under the rug.

What about the UN? Do they not understand the definition of a genocide, too?

I only go into Lowes nowadays for Ego stuff after HD dropped them several years ago... AIH carries them too tho so I can go there.

Couple years back they also carried Knipex briefly in-store and I had some hopes but that disappeared pretty quick. Don't see a lot of unique reasons to go in there unless you are bought into their tool line and if so, why? (Outside of Flex/Ego which are Chervon and not Lowes and you can find elsewhere anyways).

Sounds like this may have been placed by Lowes themselves.

To be frank a lot of it is also SBMM and its general prevalence across all modes for most shooters nowadays.

Unless you were playing ranked back in the day, Halo, CoD, etc had much looser MM in the social playlists. You had the choice to sweat, or chill. The unfortunate aspect of this is there was always an underbelly of players getting consistently stomped, because they were below average and CBMM/speed-based MM made them never able to compete with others in their below-average skill.

SBMM means we all get tight games. Those below-average folks play with below-average folks, average gets average, above above, etc.

There is no way to escape it, even if you sandbag it will be a sweaty sandbag, then once you actually play to your skill you will go right back up.

This isn't an argument for or against SBMM, there is a perfectly legitimate discussion to be had that without it, half the population ends up consistently losing games, on average, which isn't a great experience either. But for those who are above average, which I'd imagine is most folks taking the effort to engage in online forums and discussions, it's had the effect of getting rid of those easy games. Instead it being hard for the bottom half of average, it's how hard for all.

I do think a salve would be a return to server browsers, which let people choose their experience and skill level, albeit with some trial and error. Unfortunately those seem to have almost completely gone the way of the dodo in the AAA shooter space.

WTAF are you referring to here - "hundreds of thousands of vehicles".

Most districts own near 0 vehicles. Buses are most often contracted private corps. Maintenance vehicles are typically borough, not district nor state.

I'm involved in our district finances. Vehicle costs are basically nil on the bottom line.

Try going to Microcenter's site and order something to AK. iirc shipping was several thousand dollars... pretty sure it's just placeholder to say they don't service Alaska but it did raise make me cackle the first time I saw it.

No HF in Alaska unfortunately.

If/when they were to come up I'd assume it would be Anch/Fbx first. But like all companies they'd have to build the logistics to service up here and they haven't shown an interest.

Which is really too bad because I've been in the market for some new sliding boxes and US General are pretty indisputable bang for buck...

I'm biased but Soldotna isn't comparable in the slightest to either Wasilla or North Pole. A big issue with both of these is they are essentially bedroom communities for larger towns, which always have culture problems because their population is transient.

Soldotna is basically Palmer on the peninsula at worst. There isn't a direct comparison, because Soldotna isn't "boarding" to anywhere, and I'd argue that Soldotna might actually have more civic activity, though admittedly I don't pay close attention to daily happenings in Palmer - but Soldotna just bonded and built a Field House for tens of millions next to their sports center, along with several different weekly markets, large clean well-maintained parks, river boardwalks, Tsalteshi/Slikok, etc... and most of that is more well-maintained because guess what, we have at least some form of taxes paying for it around here.

There are always issues if you go looking, and small towns amplify that when everyone knows everyone else's business. But IMHO Soldotna (and to a lesser extent, Kenai) don't deserve to be put in the same breath as Wasilla or similar towns.

It wasn't financed by dark money lol. It was financed by Outside money.

Dark money is money you can't track. The original campaign was quite clear of its funding source being Outside, which made people attack it (and still do to this day, clearly). Outside money isn't dark money, it's just Outside money. The Yes on 2 folks keep trying to say it's the same, it's not - word definitions matter so we share a common reality, and twisting them is how we get one group living in reality, and the other living in this weird parallel twisted fantasy we've had since 2016.

Here's the reality though - every campaign in this state gets money from Outside. It has always been this way. The Yes on 2/Repeal campaign is also being bankrolled by out of state billionaires. The difference being you know it because of the campaign disclosure laws included with the original bill passage... oh, and the fact that it (the Repeal campaign) also violated campaign finance laws several times by not disclosing this fact by trying to mask it funneling money illegally through a church in Anchorage.

Vote yes on 2, you increase Outside funding. Right now, there are lot of rich folks Outside who are not contributing money because they don't want their name tied to it. They want to make it seem and feel like local, organic action, and the dark money disclosure lets us see and know the fact that for example, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, is giving money to try to influence our voting systems. That's what they did before this disclosure law, that's what they tried to do with the original repeal by illegally funneling money, and that's 100% what they will do after, even moreso than before, given we've only seen this increase in intervening years in races where dark money disclosure laws are not in effect.

So feel free to vote yes on 2 if you want to increase Outside funding, and be blind and influenced by it. But let's not pretend and equate dark money with Outside money. The original campaign never aimed to block Outside money, and Outside money has always been a part of our politics, before, during, and after, on all sides of all issues.

I grew up in the NE in the Blues outside Pendleton/La Grande. It's rural out there, but there is like, ya know, towns.

Fucking Burns and the SE is a whole other ballgame. We had a cabin outside of Spray and we spent a lot of time down that way. There is just nothing. I spent a lot of years in western MT and live in AK now and still have to explain to people how fucking desolate it can be out there.

I'm actually pretty surprised this is only sitting on 80 acres. Land's insanely cheap out there, for this price it should have hundreds, hell even thousand acres. Not like you can do much of anything worth cash on it. Too sparse to graze well, too dry to crop, no trees to log.

$10 might lure in the BP/monthly players which is a big part of stable revenue. You don't get big spikes from whales, but stable revenue is important and you may add another ~$10/mo from the low spenders, which is another 2/3rds of what they pay now, and that is steady, reliable income, and might lure them into paying a bit more for E2.

As one of those players, I actually think $10 would be a pretty evil amount. $50? Even $20? Nah, I probably wouldn't fuck with that. $10? Ooooh that's much more tempting...

I just want Resogun on PC.

I guess we could RPCS3 or maybe someday PS4 emulation but a real native port would be amazing.

It's basically perfect and will stand the rest of time regardless of initial release date, and the voxel art more than holds up.

Sadly with the PS pullback I don't see it (or the perhaps future sequel, were it to exist) occurring.

Like you, that game has a seemingly permanent rent-free spot in my head. It was one of my early PS4 titles and I spent hundreds of hours pushing scores on it.

SRAM is more like, if you're not buying the boutique end of the spectrum, screw you.

I'd say that largely holds up until the last year. With advent of Eagle 70/90 you can get into decent quality SRAM at around the $1.5k/$2k minimum prebuilt full cost bike.

It's still not competitive at the budget end, but at least they (seem to) be working towards the middle with the lower-cost mechanical T-types now.

Not relevant to this particular bike comparison, but Salsa's more trail-focused Timberjack came with an eagle 70 this year, same with Xtrada 7, etc.

Federal employees can WFH with various levels of "secret" clearance.

This leak has nothing to do with WFH and everything to do with infosec, most corps now operate on-site the same as off-site from an infosec perspective, and data exfiltration does not measurably change for digital assets no matter location.

RTO has always been more about "control" (visible, over people, not assets), fiefdoms, and/or layoffs that bypass things like WARN act rather than actual infosec. The fact all of these developers rely on a large party of outsourced contractors prove it as such, as clearly then can distribute it to other parties, which is significantly higher risk than their own internal network.

7 series were fine. I'm still using one today, with original battery and all. It was the 6 series that had the Tensor G1 which had quite a bit of documented modem issues. 7 (largely) resolved that, to the same point they are today... not as good as the best, but serviceable.

I can't speak to the single adult numbers but the family of four number is absolutely whack, least for road system. I have a family of five and we are at least comfortable and family income is well south of that number.

The budget method described is long-since irrelevant due to ballooning housing costs for decades (it's how it should be but the % hasn't changed for decades despite housing increasing far more than other costs) and is probably not being well-controlled for outliers dragging the average way up - the bush or similar.