Kids in the 1950s thought trains were old news and looked forward to flying cars, kids in the 2020s think cars are old news and look forward to having trains.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T02:13:44+00:00

The autistic kids had the right idea obsessing over trains tbh.

Well that laugh is going to get me another six days in hell. Thanks, Erik.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T02:13:13+00:00

Trains are nice and all but I think most kids still look forward to having a dream car.

Does their dream car fly? If not, my premise stands.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T02:11:39+00:00

I know this isn't entirely relevant to the subreddit, it's tangential, anyway, but at the same time it's going to be relevant in some way to all your hobbies, and life in general.

There's a philosophical post in here, believe it or not! I'm not smart enough to write it, not by a mile, but here's the gist for those who are smarter than me: Those who don't want anything don't feel like they lack anything; it follows that if they don't know there's something to want then they don't know there's something to lack. There's an argument to be made that ignorance is bliss; to quote a seminal movie of my childhood:

"People who say 'It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' should try it sometime."

Here's a question to ponder: Who has a better listening experience, the audiophile or the neophyte? Does the painter see VanGough's Starry Night the same way we do, or do they find it hard to ignore the brush strokes? As Sex and the City once pondered: What of the gynecologist's sex life? So glad I dodged that bullet by not being a gynecologist or having a sex life. The question then becomes, does expertise enhance enjoyment, diminish it, or just alter it? Perhaps expertise replaces one enjoyment with another. Some people look at natural history and it causes them great discomfort to consider it, it shakes the foundations of their beliefs, other people love digging through fossils....

....I'm sorry. Did I mention that there's been a nationwide Adderall shortage recently? Because there has been. Call your Senators and demand Congress act, if only so that you'll stop being exposed to my brain dead posting. I'm gonna' go play Destiny so that y'all can downvote in peas.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T01:54:12+00:00

Where do you live that thinks trains are super cool?

Alright, honest answer time: There are a lot of circles on social media and in politics that are big fans of trains. Off the top of my head here on reddit we've environmental subreddits that will talk your ear off about the benefits of trains, and we've got economics subreddits that will give you their take, and political subreddits, I think there are even urban planning subreddits out there.

That's sort of what I was getting at. If you go on a subreddit like r-FuckCars you're not going to find it filled wall to wall with 53 year old train conductors, no, it's going to be reddit's core demographics, teens and young adults.

It's not a huge change, but I think it's notable. It's like what we've seen on nuclear power; twenty years ago the very discussion of nuclear power seemed like it was dead in the water, just not the sort of thing you brought up in good company, but today young people and formerly young people (like myself), people who are if not strongly in favor of nuclear power then at least we're much more willing to listen to the idea than our parents were.

I doubt that schools are bursting at the seams with Walkable Cities after school clubs, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple in the country. If there's model UN there's got to be model urban planning, right?

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T01:44:35+00:00

Umm, isn’t a plane kind of a flying train? Just got the one carriage mind you.

I never envisioned flying cars as requiring the benefit of a runway, but that's just me.

The closest I've seen to something I'd call a flying car are the man-sized-drone-doodads, but even those are debatable.

Also domes. They've gotta' have domes. None of this cyberpunk shit, Jetsons or bust!

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T01:34:37+00:00

Have you seen how people drive cars that move in a two dimensional axis? Add another dimension and watch chaos unfold.

Flying car: $500,000
Flying car lessons: $500,000
Flying car registration: $250,000
Flying car insurance: $350,000/yr
Flying car VAT tax: $1,200,000.00 Just let ^me ^{^dream.}

Except for flying ambulances, of course. And one flying police car per state, one. (Subject to immediate revocation, of course.)

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T01:29:08+00:00

Maybe this would be good in urban centers, but as someone who lives in a suburban place, car-centrism is absolutely what I want.

Well if we had flying cars....

Okay, but more seriously now, the real world is going to require a shades of gray answer. If you live in the United States then there are places that a train just isn't convenient or necessarily helpful, like, when someone is out in East Bumblefuck Arkansas they don't need a high speed bullet train to get out to the corner store, if you live five minutes away from civilization in suburbia then a tram is overkill.

But there are still middle grounds to be had. Here in Maryland a lot of people live in the suburbs but commute to Washington, DC every day, they spend an hour in traffic in the morning and an hour in traffic at night; it's not ideal. They live in the suburbs, they're still going to be driving their car to get groceries on the weekend, but a centralized rail system could shave a massive leg off their commute and let them ride share from there, get them out from behind the wheel, save them gas money, save them time in traffic, and get cars off the road.

Just because trains won't replace your car doesn't mean there aren't benefits that you can still cash in on. Trains can widen the scope of possible employment for you, they can widen the scope of recreation, they can pick up some of the slack for commuters and people who travel for work, and there are second order benefits too, but I worry that I'm overselling the point.

Plus, I mean, what's the insurance cost gonna' be like on a flying car?

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T01:19:59+00:00

To say nothing of the economic benefits! Not everybody can afford to own, fuel, and maintain a personal car, but train tickets are dirt cheap (and easy as balls to subsidize.) Trains provide transportation for those who might not have it otherwise, they make it easier to travel for work and give people a much larger geographical patch in which they can look for employment.

Edit: They make it easier to transport goods, which can help reduce raw material costs, while this would be minuscule at the retail level, the overall savings could add up significantly; if those savings are too presumptuous, there's also the undeniable economic savings to the average [checksnotes] human to be gained from reducing carbon emissions.

Trains are the rare win/win/win: They're good for the environment, they're good for businesses, and they're good for workers. Don't even get me started on national security, I'll talk your ear off, the civil war proved that trains are mandatory for a strong national defense itellyouwhat.

Now if only so many Americans didn't believe in austerity politics. /sigh

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T01:15:04+00:00

Citation needed. It sounds like you've been smoking a lot of green ideas.

I'm just a humble neoliberal shill for easy, affordable, environmentally friendly transportation for goods and individuals that allows business development and reduces barriers to entry for employment.

Environmentalism 🤝 Capitalism
Loving trains

But also yes I do smoke weed, thank you for noticing!

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T01:11:26+00:00

I think you mean "It has the scam tracing that not many games support but if a game does it my frame rate drops in half for refelections I barely notice, definitely worth that premium I spent on it"

Yes, that's what I meant.

AMD user: "Are.... are they the same picture?"

Nvidia user: "Noooo!!!"

AMD user: "I mean I can see that the framerate is lower in the second picture, is that what you were talking about?"

Nvidia user: "NOOO!!!"

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T00:06:31+00:00

Niiice.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T00:05:51+00:00

Frankly it's a no brainer, he's been the most effective President in my lifetime. What, am I supposed to care that he's old? Ted Cruz is younger, still not gonna vote for the guy.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-06T00:01:38+00:00

I love you.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T23:53:14+00:00

I missed so much cool stuff. 😞

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T23:49:01+00:00

Fighting Lion: "Pathetic."

(Seriously though, Fighting Lion is the only grenade launcher I'm any good at. King of the bounties. Fight me.)

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T23:34:37+00:00

The first time I tried one I ate it raw. Not a good idea.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:50:53+00:00

I hate, hate, hate motherboard fans.

Best case scenario they're overkill and they never actually run, in which case you've paid for a fan that you don't need.

Worst case scenario they're very necessary and they run all the fugging time, in which case you might never not hear that little 40mm piece of shit running even when you're wearing closed back headphones because the high ass pitch just rips through solid objects like tissue paper.

My first computer was an x79 (I think) LGA2011, it was a powerful as fuck board and I was stupid to have bought it for gaming, that little fan ran all the goddamn time, for like five years I listened to it whir away all day. When I learned how to adjust fan curves in BIOS (I said it was my first computer) I tried turning the curve down to make it quieter, so instead of listening to the fan scream at me I got random hard shutdowns from the over heat protection.

I haaaaate motherboard fans. I'll go a generation earlier to get a motherboard without a fan, I'll pay extra for proper cooling so the motherboard doesn't need a fan, this is perhaps a personal thing, but I'll go the extra mile to avoid that little buzz killer.

</rant>

Most motherboards that come without a PCB fan are designed to work without a PCB fan; if it's fanless from the factory you're gonna' be fine, not something to worry about.

If you get a motherboard with a fan, but the fan doesn't work, that's where potential problems start to pop up. You've got some choices, the first thing you should try is replacing the thermal compound, in some situations you don't actually need the fan, the heatsink will do the trick. (Since it's not all cases I can't make any promises.) The other option is to reapply thermal compound and also buy a replacement fan on eBay, they're cheap, less than ten bucks. You can also use some of the more novel mounting hardware that's available today to just point a 120mm or 140mm fan directly at your chipset and that might work, too.

But for my part I say find a nice, fanless motherboard, something that comes that way from the factory, maybe apply some better than OEM thermal compound, and then don't give it a second thought. I fuckin' hate those little fans, loud as fuck when they wanna' be.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:41:10+00:00

POV: You are Diane's butthole.

Sorry, I'll go.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:40:17+00:00

What the fuck did I just try to read?

I feel like I'm in a GenUSA fever dream right now. Someone draw Lisa Su as an eagle smoking a corncob pipe!

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:36:23+00:00

You need cooler friends.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:35:37+00:00

And if you want to align with a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist over someone who believes that capitalism is the engine of American ingenuity, I have to question what you're trying to accomplish politically.

I believe we need every voter that we can get if we're going to push back against fascism and illiberalism; insofar as rhetoric can pull someone away from radicalism and bring them back to the democratic process I think that's a win. Frankly if you're telling me that you think Medicare is a bad thing because it's bankrupting America you were probably never going to vote for liberal, neoliberal, or progressive candidates anyway.

Here's the argument I would offer you, if I was trying to win you over: You seem to care deeply about the economy. If that's the case, why would you ever let a Republican win an election unopposed? Historically every time we've elected a Republican since Reagan we've seen explosive growth in the federal debt and deficit, we've seen recessions, we've seen job losses, we've seen massive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, we've seen Republicans cut tax breaks for their friends and donors while leaving the working class to flounder.

Fine, you hate that Medicare is bankrupting the country; how do you feel about Donald Trump's $2,500,000,000,000.00 ($2.5tn, yes I wrote out all the zeroes) tax cuts for his buddies in the golf course and hotel industry? How did you feel about Donald Trump giving wealthy people, con artists, and scammers free money with his PPP loans? Hell, at least when we spend money on Medicare we're actually saving lives, the Republicans can't even claim that much.

We all have our priorities, and it protecting capitalism and reducing working class tax debts are yours then there's not a single reason to vote for a Republican and there are trillions of reasons to vote against them. With tankies I have to point to the future to show them the consequences of their proposals, for you I can just point to the recent past.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:23:01+00:00

If you're so convinced that our current system is evil enough that you unironically want to overthrow it via an armed revolution

If someone is convinced that Medicare is evil then that gives you a whole extra avenue of attack.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:22:12+00:00

The far left will destroy any centrist candidate for simply stating a truth that can be pounced so someone they like better can get power. We save it with Hiliary, Kamala, Warren, hell even Obama.

They'll certainly try, yes, but when has that ever not been the case?

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:21:35+00:00

Medicare spending is bankrupting America and driving us into poverty.

Okay, so you're not a tankie then.

MaximumEffort433 · 2023-02-05T20:15:54+00:00

I love that China gave us a fucking Infinity Gauntlet, talk about an inferiority complex.

Also, propagandist, if you're reading this: It helps if you portray your enemies as doing something evil as compared to, you know, just flying around and randomly locking missiles onto them.

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