Parking minimums are utter madness, and a big part of the issue in the US.

True.

However I was simple talking about an apartment complex in a relatively rural part of the country without access to public transit. There were about 55-60 parking spaces for 7 buildings of 46 apartments.

A comment he made to me once was “Nobody builds low-income housing. a mid-rise luxury condo will only cost a bit more to build than low income apartments, but you make a shitload more”

Yeah, I completely believe it.

Space-efficient middle housing for the poor and lower middle-class is not something we can rely on private companies to do in America. It’s something that is going to have to take government intervention.

The apartment complex I was in took up as much land as around 5-7 average sized new construction homes yet it housed 42 46(I actually remember two of the buildings having 8 apartments each) apartments. It was also in a part of the country where a car was basically required. There was space for every apartment to have at least 1 car and have space to spare. Realistically probably about 1.5 cars per apartment could fit parked in the complex.

Single family houses are an incredibly inefficient use of space and naturally cause greater sprawl, which means more cars and more roads (and consequently more emissions).

Trust me, I completely agree. I just have very low expectations of the American market and the American consumer. I figured that lots half as wide and half as deep could fit 4 times the number of “tiny” homes in the same area and it might entice many people who want a single family home to something more land efficient rather than a 2500sq-ft place.

I used to live in an apartment complex that had a number of buildings and each building had 6 apartments. I really liked it. One of the best places I ever lived, but unfortunately the management company decided that they need to constantly raise the rent. They ended up forcing a lot of people out.

True 😆

Smaller homes cost more or have HOA fees they can’t make work. Most all options have taxes they also can’t make work.

It’s pretty insane that America has virtually no supply of inexpensive small homes. It’s all about the 2500+ sq-ft behemoths that cost $400,000+.

Even though it’s a “worse” deal per sqft I think the market for sub $200,000 homes in the 500-750 sq-ft range would be absolutely booming if it existed.

Freeze the banana and then blend the frozen banana with peanut butter and a little almond/oat/other plant milk and it’s like a milkshake without the dairy. Amazingly good!

Unfortunately there’s a larger than you expect percentage of people out there who just think “fruit healthy” and that’s where the thought ends

Totally fair point. As usual I tend to overestimate the general public.

This seems like it would be really obvious, no?

If you are simply buying fruit juices at the store you are getting zero to virtually zero fiber. So you are getting a bunch of calories but without feeling any sense of fullness that you would get if you instead just ate the fruit.

Fruit is healthy but you are much better off just eating the fruit and drinking water. If you really want to drink the fruit juice you should just blend the fruit so that you are also getting all the pulp. The fiber is excellent for you and will help prevent you from turning all that juice into “empty” calories.

No worries, I wasn’t trying to imply that to be honest. I liked your comment and was simply trying to add some extra information for anyone else that stumbled upon the thread.

I think statistically speaking the absolute best value is a 5 year old car that has been at least reasonably well-maintained. The vast majority of depreciation happens during those first 5 years.

For those that do need to finance a car, a three year loan term should be the maximum. I think you are 100% correct on that. There are people with car loans that have terms of 7 years. It’s sad that people are setting themselves up for failure like that. If you can’t afford the monthly payments on a 3 year term then you really can’t afford the car at all.

Those are good rules.

American cities used to be designed around reasonable things like walking and using Streetcars but then were bulldozed to make way for the automobile.

Cars have always been relatively expensive to own and operate and the American way, unfortunately, has been to take out lines of credit in order to purchase vehicles they could just barely afford.

It’s insane to think about but the average car payment for a new vehicle in 2023 was $726 and the average loan term is nearly 70 months!

Call me whatever, but Valve does so much for Linux gaming that when I do buy games I make sure to get them through Steam. Between Proton and the Steam Deck it seems like Valve is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Linux gaming is in a great place right now and Valve deserves a lot of credit.

They also have Steam Input which is incredible. The customization and control you have over your experience is insane.

Epic Games on the other hand can’t even be bothered to support Linux properly. Valve earns their cut.