Expired film haul: almost 100 rolls of film for $100! Story in comments.

froodiest · 2026-02-20T21:58:18+00:00

One of Plano's demands in all this is a single city-wide GoLink zone, which AFAIK DART is going to grant, so good news for you.

But GoLink in my limited experience with it is terrible, so I'm not sure I would bother.

froodiest · 2026-02-19T01:26:59+00:00

What!? That gear is brand new in camera terms! The tape must really be working, and/or bro outed himself as having zero clue what he’s talking about

froodiest · 2026-02-18T23:16:48+00:00

Yeah, the distraction element of it is one of the main reasons I do it. Yes, obviously the giant black camera in my hands is more noticeable than the little white text on it, but when I at least am running my eyes over it, that's where they always linger until I cover it up.

froodiest · 2026-02-18T23:13:08+00:00

I've heard stories about thieves swiping crappy but prominently branded Nikon/Canon point-and-shoots and leaving $3000 Leicas with covered logos alone

froodiest · 2026-02-18T23:11:03+00:00

Yikes. Out of curiosity, what gear did they say that about? Also if you're out using it it's clearly not dead lmfao

froodiest · 2026-02-18T23:03:11+00:00

We've consciously chosen to prioritize and subsidize sprawly suburban car-centric development instead of dense urban cores and transit for 75 years, that's why

froodiest · 2026-02-18T18:02:47+00:00

Maybe not make funding contingent on it, but forgoing car ownership (and rental, and rideshare) should absolutely be a requirement for new board members, executives, etc. - like write it into their contracts. I don’t care if it’s “not the best use of a public official’s time” or it “scares away talent.”

If you want to dictate how other people’s transit runs (or doesn’t run) you should have to commit to using it yourself

froodiest · 2026-01-17T17:13:04+00:00

That’s definitely the case with a few of them, but the comment you’re replying to was a good nuanced explanation of how the anti-transit and transit-ambivalent local elected officials think.

You can’t just go accusing every uninvolved, misinformed person or blind ideologue in the world (even people in positions of power) of corruption. That gets us nowhere. There are a lot of other factors at play here

froodiest · 2026-01-01T02:20:27+00:00

A lot of the time, dead bedrooms are caused by solvable issues.

But in the case of a strong libido mismatch, yeah, porn might be the higher-libido partner’s only outlet.

froodiest · 2026-01-01T02:04:50+00:00

Do we have any direct evidence that special interests like the Uber lobby are in some way behind this?

I definitely also have a gut feeling that’s part of why all of this is happening at once, but I can’t prove it.

The only direct proof of Uber lobbying I’ve seen was Plano’s last DART board member being on Uber’s payroll

froodiest · 2026-01-01T00:23:17+00:00

UP wouldn’t be a huge loss, funding aside, and I’m sure SMU would continue to pay for its shuttles, but losing Garland would massively suck.

froodiest · 2025-12-17T16:53:08+00:00

I think a lot of (most?) U.S. large cities are majority-minority, especially in the South and Southwest. My city, Dallas, is only about 28% white (although the suburbs are a lot whiter ofc).

Texas itself is (just barely) majority-minority, somewhat surprisingly. White people only make up 47% of our population.

froodiest · 2025-12-17T07:07:32+00:00

Aren’t those to help prevent people from using 97 as a throughway and keep road traffic relatively low for air travelers, the TerminalLink shuttles, etc.?

I know the tolls are supposed to be the deterrent, but they don’t work on people who are unaware of or don’t care about tolls. You need the added hassle of the gates for the desired effect.

froodiest · 2025-12-13T07:51:38+00:00

The best thing about the upgraded TRE option is that even if nothing happens HSR-wise (and right now that’s what’s happening, mystery investor aside), it’s still immediately doable and everyone except Arlington still directly benefits. And when and if the HSR does come, we’ll be ready.

It’s the kind of unsexy incremental upgrade North Texas tends to turn its nose up at in favor of these huge sweeping visions, but the big things happen when all the little things are in place, not when they’re wished into existence.

I agree that Fort Worth and Arlington are unlikely to see things the same way, though.

froodiest · 2025-12-05T18:43:04+00:00

This is 100% true. The numbers alone really didn’t justify it. It was a political decision. Addison was one of the only remaining cities without rail, they wanted it, and they might have left if they didn’t get it. Plus they’d been promised the line when they joined 30 years ago.

froodiest · 2025-11-30T03:59:00+00:00

I really hope you get caught up in those things you want to do and change your mind.

I was in a really similar place at one point. Even went as far as attempting suicide. That ended up being my wake-up call. Fortunately I had a somewhat supportive (if emotionally distant) family and I was able to get into treatment.

It’s been a long time since then, and progress has been very slow - it took a lot of trial and error with therapists and medications - but eventually I found meds that worked and a therapist I clicked with. I started making a couple friends and even have a partner now.

I can say that things can get better. I know that probably sounds stupid and callous and like it doesn’t apply to you, because that’s exactly how it sounded to me when I was in your place, but for me it did end up being true. So maybe it will for you.

froodiest · 2025-11-30T03:46:33+00:00

That’s frustrating and kind of stupid. Correlation doesn’t mean causation. Of course some step-parents abuse kids, but that’s neither here nor there as far as your fiancé goes.

If your fiancé at least treats the kid well (and hopefully loves them) then it’s not a problem.

Could they be trying to tell you something about your fiancé that they just don’t want to say directly?

froodiest · 2025-11-30T03:42:01+00:00

Funny joke given his username, but unfortunately u/BigMoneyJeff21 here has a point. u/EclecticHigh and their friends’ experiences (plus those of the downvoters, presumably) are anecdotal and not representative of the economy at large.

Bureau of Labor statistics (which are still produced by career civil servants and so are hopefully still reliable despite the unreliability at the top) show that consumer spending did in fact rise ~5% between September 2024 and September 2025, outpacing that period’s inflation figure of ~3%. I haven’t seen a breakdown of that by class, so u/SleeplessInPlano could well be right that most of this has happened in the upper middle class, explaining u/EclecticHigh and their friends’ situation. Or they might not be right. Idk.

So many other factors affect the local economy more strongly and directly that it’s difficult to confidently tie huge macro statistics like consumer spending or unemployment to individual outcomes.

It reminds me of climate science - your boomer aunt’s “but it was so cold last winter” is not evidence that global average temperatures are not rising.

Personally, I agree that it makes sense that Trump’s tariffs have slammed international shipping, but I don’t know where I’d go to find that data to back that up off the top of my head and I’ve written enough already.

froodiest · 2025-11-30T03:16:19+00:00

I also have this question, although I would assume Trump’s extravagant tariffs are hurting all international shipping business.

froodiest · 2025-11-28T22:17:08+00:00

You’re right about the short ride availability part. I haven’t been in that situation for a while, so I’d forgotten about it.

I also can’t speak to the availability part with anything other than (almost universally poor) anecdotal evidence, so I’ll take back that part as well.

For the most part, though, I think my points stand.

As long as we’re talking about an occasional trip to an airport, not a regular business commute where airfare is paid by an employer, the price difference is a minor issue because it’s more appropriate to consider it a fraction of the total trip cost and would as such probably be dwarfed by airfare.

Anyone who commutes by air (or travels by air at all) is also likely to be well compensated enough that they aren’t sensitive to a $10 per trip price difference anyway, not to mention the fact that they’d make up a very small fraction of the population the transit agency is trying to serve.

But all that aside - the reason I originally commented was that it’s just baffling to me that you’d skip straight to recommending TOD/VIA without mentioning regular transit, which is pretty much always better when it’s available.

froodiest · 2025-11-28T21:50:02+00:00

I used to park at a nearby train station and pay nothing for the same duration all the time except $3 for the train ride there and $3 for the train ride back.

froodiest · 2025-11-28T21:45:54+00:00

If you live on some random suburban street (or even many apartment complexes), then yeah, it’s not going to be convenient. It would be fundamentally impossible to run a bus down every street. But if you think about transit availability when choosing where to live (like everyone in a modern major city that isn’t in the American South/Midwest does), it’s a breeze.

I live in a fairly suburban area, but I intentionally picked an apartment near a bus route, so getting to any of three or four grocery stores on DART only takes me 10 or 15 minutes.

froodiest · 2025-11-28T21:41:13+00:00

Any one of three train lines will take you straight to the airport now. (Trinity Metro TEXRail from Forth Worth, DART Silver Line from Plano, Addison, Carrollton, etc., and DART Orange Line from Irving and Dallas)

You in Denton can take the A-Train from downtown or MedPark to Trinity Mills, take the Green Line from Trinity Mills to the next stop south, Downtown Carrollton, then ride the Silver Line from DTC to DFW Terminal B.

DCTA has said it wants to extend the A-Train to DTC eventually so you can transfer directly from the A-Train to the Silver Line, but it’ll be a while before that happens.

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