How dare people write fiction with icky things in it.

Private school is not automatically better. I live in a million dollar house and very much intend to use the public school district here.

I’m also okay with harsher penalties for people that demonstrably can’t be trusted to do the right thing, for example by panicking and fleeing the scene.

The term was always tongue-in-cheek.

A bit of both but the root is that land is comparatively cheap. Building out is economically incentivized over building up. Municipalities can put their thumb on the scale by raising land taxes based on acreage but zoning restrictions are the actual solution (and these tend to be unpopular because the immediate effect is that development costs rise and bring rents with them)

You could be trying a little harder. We need the farmland and you need the port and tax revenue so it would be really nice if we could trust you actually are normal people but you aren’t making it easy.

They asked, on the internet, when using a search engine is the same amount of work with no waiting.

https://ericvery.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/the-texas-doughnut/

Spokane is a very sprawling city. It’s the second most populous in Washington but a third the density of Seattle. Including the “metropolitan area” of both Spokane is a seventh as densely populated.

There was a while when the US was on top, revolutionizing automotive manufacturing. Ford’s Model T and later Model A sold like crazy.

Damn near the entire internet is “social media” but people usually mean “social networking sites”.

does suck for upper middle class kids who’s parents suck

There’s no solution that doesn’t suck for somebody.

“Nature” is every state of being the universe has ever been. There is no before or after Nature. Nature is not Life.

Currently? The “British Invasion” era? “Rock” is an extremely broad genre.

My controversial opinion is that you shouldn’t be able to opt out.

If someone takes hormone blockers for several years before deciding to stop, does puberty proceed the same as in a younger person?

Pretty much, yeah. There’s legitimate concern regarding bone growth (height, density) but it’s usually fine and nothing compared to the known problems with being forced to live in dysphoria.

I was pretty ambivalent about my gender
Gender kind of partly feels like a process you go through vs an identity.

Gender is a lot of things and different for everyone. I remain very ambivalent about my gender as a man in my 30s. It’s probably most accurate to call myself agendered but biologically and socially I’m male so I don’t think it’s worth the fuss. It strains my imagination to contemplate “feeling masculine/feminine”. The point is that you can’t necessarily apply your (perfectly valid) experience to others and making trans people go through natural puberty dooms them to irreversible changes that can cause severe psychological distress.

This isn’t “controversial” this is straight up hatred and bigotry.

Disposable plastic. It should never have been a thing, but by now it really shouldn’t be a thing. No plastic food containers, no plastic textiles, damn near everything should be in cotton bags or paper boxes or glass jars or unlined metal cans but we’re so damn accustomed to convenience that the permanent externality is seen as necessary. I’m willing to make allowances for safety and medicine but even there the focus should be developing good biodegradable plastic.

The local environmental impacts are horrific, we really shouldn’t build more hydroelectric dams if at all possible. (And should be actively transitioning away from and dismantling old ones, but that comes with lots of new problems) Yes it’s great having consistent, reliable renewable energy but we’re putting everything that relies on healthy salmon populations in danger of extinction.

Looking at the Pinball Map there isn’t a listed Whirlwind table within 3 hours of me but I’ll keep my eyes peeled. The spinning board elements look familiar but it’s possible I played something else with that gimmick. Taxi has somehow evaded me despite being somewhat common. Pin-bot I know well (Bride of Pin-bot too!) it’s a solid mid-80s table that’s always worth a few rounds.

I’m pretty blind to the scores other than as a free game goal, I’m in it purely for the experience.

Now here’s a man who knows how to marry his cousin!