Product Complaints

[Inversion]

We have exterior roll-up shades to dampen the heat. You can't buy the cheap ones anyone with the cord and locking mechanism. They have more expensive versions, but they're out of our price range. The new ones have cheap clips that are aggravating to deal with or nylon straps that break within a week. I'll use carpenter's string to reproduce the roll-up and loop them through a steel ring and use the metal tie-off to lock it in place. The problem is The Home Depot no longer sells the old string and it was replaced with a very thin version. I'll have to look for a spool of quality cord on Amazon.

Share any negative experiences you've had with products. Yes, covid and the economy have changed a lot of things.

[Inversion]

I ordered a replacement tri-foil head for my electric razor and the blades don't cut as well. I'm thinking of switching back to the old head.

I've been having trouble finding decent T-shirts. The ones in clothing stores are too thin or synthetic. I found that just using the keyword cotton you can find inexpensive generic shirts.

Link

National brands cost 25 to 50 percent more than similar-quality store brands, Consumer Reports said.

"Name brands cost more because those companies spend money on research, development, as well as advertising, and generics ride their coattails, so to speak," said Robyn Moreno, author of Practically Posh.

[JackMcThorn]

Posted by Inversion (here)
I've been having trouble finding decent T-shirts. The ones in clothing stores are too thin or synthetic. I found that just using the keyword cotton you can find inexpensive generic shirts.

I find that it is much more difficult to find t-shirts online. You cannot check the quality nor try them on. I try to find shops locally which helps; many times the products I find are on sale. Clothing is tricky online anyways and I find I have to try stuff on to size it right.

Posted by Inversion (here)
I'll have to look for a spool of quality cord on Amazon.

Since I am in Ireland I am directed to amazon.co.uk. Amazon just opened a distribution centre in Dublin but they do not have an Ireland IP yet. Anyway, I was just searching for cordage and it is really expensive. For a small bit they wanted €2o which was ridiculous. You might find it cheaper at amazon.com in america but I am thinking of checking with the local hardware store for some decent rope.

I do not really have any product complaints. I do not have much stuff to begin with, and the stuff I have is ideal.

[Inversion]

Posted by JackMcThorn (here)

Posted by Inversion (here)
I've been having trouble finding decent T-shirts. The ones in clothing stores are too thin or synthetic. I found that just using the keyword cotton you can find inexpensive generic shirts.

I find that it is much more difficult to find t-shirts online. You cannot check the quality nor try them on. I try to find shops locally which helps; many times the products I find are on sale. Clothing is tricky online anyways and I find I have to try stuff on to size it right.

Posted by Inversion (here)
I'll have to look for a spool of quality cord on Amazon.

Since I am in Ireland I am directed to amazon.co.uk. Amazon just opened a distribution centre in Dublin but they do not have an Ireland IP yet. Anyway, I was just searching for cordage and it is really expensive. For a small bit they wanted €2o which was ridiculous. You might find it cheaper at amazon.com in america but I am thinking of checking with the local hardware store for some decent rope.

I do not really have any product complaints. I do not have much stuff to begin with, and the stuff I have is ideal.

Thanks. There are a few mom & pop hardware stores in the area, and I might check them out. I just checked Amazon and they have a 328 ft./100 m shade replacement cord for $12 USD.

[onevoice]

I had to replace the cut-off valve for the hot water side of our kitchen faucet today. Over the past several months the pressure on the hot water side has slowly dwindled to almost a trickle. I figured the only thing that may cause this is the cut-off valve. After removing the cut-off valve, I saw that there was a rubber gasket that sealed the water after it has been firmly screwed down. This rubber gasket was wearing off and pieces got trapped into the kitchen faucet's hot water supply line. I had to disconnect the end of the kitchen faucet and rinse it under pressure to remove the rubber pieces of the worn gasket. I connected a new quarter turn cut-off valve, which has a brass ball that rotates to either shut off the water or allow water to flow through. The quarter-turn valve has superior design where the parts don't wear like the multi-turn valve.

[Inversion]

Tape has been an ongoing issue with their diminishing ability to stick. Duct tape was super strong and now it barely sticks. Electrical tape is now poor quality, but still effective if adhered to itself. Two-inch sealing tape is awful and of poorer quality. Normal office Scotch tape seems okay, but thinner.

duct-tape-vs-gorilla-tape

[Inversion]

It seems a global group got together and gave the order to reduce the size and quality of everything manufactured.

Hummingbird (liquid) food- It was a bright red color and now it's orange as if diluted.

Clothes pins- You would think something this simple would be somewhat problem free, but nooooooo. The wood is a cheaper and the spring is loose. They sell larger ones in craft stores, and I might check those out. The plastic ones break or are destroyed by the sun. I'm thinking of using the old-style ones that have no moving parts.

Dawn dish soap- It doesn't cut grease anymore and I'll have to find something else.

[Satori]

They charge more and we receive less: both in quantity and quality. This is another sign of monetary inflation, economic depression and armed conflict. Concerning, but nothing new in the scheme of things really. Peace and prosperity are to be prized and treasured indeed.

[Innocent Warrior]

Yeah, with so many small businesses closed and the chains either selling cheap crap or overpriced items, with very few options, I’ve been on the lookout for alternatives too.

I’ve been fortunate because two warehouse sized discount stores have been built only a short distance away. One’s a supermarket and the other sells all sorts of great quality goods at great prices, so that made it easy. The other great marketplace I found is Etsy, it’s online.

Have you seen Etsy? It’s amazing. It sells everything I’ve searched for so far, great quality, huge ranges of options on a lot of clothing items, competitive prices, so much of it handmade and I get to support small businesses. It’s like a revival of the kind of shopping it appears you could do before globalisation (I like to browse vintage stuff), local, high quality and all that. I’ve linked a results page of cotton shirts for you, Inversion. I chose USA settings so it should be showing you USA stores in USD. It’s a great time to discover it if you haven’t already, with Christmas coming up, it has to be the very best marketplace for gifts, especially if you’re browsing.

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=cotton...stmas+t-shirt+

If the settings have changed you can just select the USA on the top, right hand of the page, click that Aussie flag to do that if that’s happened.

P.S. Please avoid Amazon if it’s at all manageable (I refuse to buy from there).

[Sue (Ayt)]

The quality of kitchen/cooking tools has gone way down. Potato peelers, mashers, spatulas, etc.
I love to visit donation and resale stores, and score great quality vintage kitchen items.
Many of the items I treasure and use most often were the implements my mom used and handed down to me from when I was a kid.

[Hym]

The solutions live in bringing many of the outsourced product manufacturing back to the states and making your own products here.

When we forget that it has been just as much the outcome of consumers and professional supply users NOT complaining, not taking the time to complain to the stores...at their corporate sources, we get all of the crap that the middlemen, the buyers of products from foreign manufacturers, purchase outside of the country.

I've seen it for years in the construction trades and very little of it is of good quality.
OSB/oriented strand board is a good example, and it's crap. it is thinner than most common plywoods, thus has less strength, and it is full of very unhealthy binders that are inhaled when it is cut....and we cut it all day long.

I have seen only a few builders refuse to use poor quality sheeting, quite a rarity now.
I saw a fast food outlet, from a nationwide company, being built with only 1/2 inch CDX plywood 6 years ago and noted how cool it was that the contractor or the company itself decided that it wanted to keep the known integrity of it's builds up to a reasonable standard. It was not O.S.B..Even as simple, 3 layer plywood it is more dependable and healthier to use.

O.S.B. used to be stamped with "This side exposed", the slick, treated side, until so many roofers fell to their death from the slippery nature of the treated surface, and the surface getting slippery when the sawdust lays on the surface after cutting, that they put that warning on the untreated side and changed the stamp to say "This side not exposed". I'd duplex nail a 2 x 6 on the eve end of the roof, at opposing angles into the rafter tails and high enough when removed for the nail holes to be covered by the drip edge later on, as a safety stop to give myself a place to foot stop in case I began to fall.

There are many applications where it cannot be used, but builders without thinking much still mostly use it. Very few professionals complained. They 'adapted' to poor practices. That's not adapting. It's giving up, at a time when our sustainable forestry practices just began to take hold enough to supply real plywood to the many industries that use it....Again, too few builders and workers were vocal in the face of it all going downhill.

We were at an amusement park in SoCal years ago when I was shocked by one of the squishy toys I found in one of the small stores there. It was filled with kerosene, yes the flammable fuel kerosene, and it was from China. I demanded that the manager remove all of those toys and ripped them for not even being aware of all of the dangers that the toy, and likely others, posed to children playing with them. I asked to borrow a lighter just to impress them of the danger, but by that time they too, the workers and the manager could smell the odor by handling the toys themselves. Take a little time, folks..Be heard. It doesn't take that many people complaining to stop bad practices.

I could go on and on about the dangerous products that have been imported from China, and there are many examples. What EPA is there? What consumer protection agency, even in liberal california, really cares about consumers and professionals whose health is affected by the collusion between the CCp, buyers and politicians who are deliberately killing american workers and the industries that employ them?

Be heard by those in the stores. It gives them something useful to do beyond the boredom or doing the underpaid work of two for the price of one. Contact the corporate h.q. of the company, the store. Go somewhere else where the products are of better quality, and tell the store that you are leaving.

Be grateful for those who serve us. They are the ones working to serve us, in case we ever forget.

[shaberon]

Posted by Sue (Ayt) (here)
Many of the items I treasure and use most often were the implements my mom used and handed down to me from when I was a kid.

This is called Planned Obsolescence and is intentional on the part of manufacturers.

Yes, most of these items can be made to outlive three human generations, like guns. Same thing, if grandpa's Winchester rifle can be passed down, or sold to someone else, it does not generate new sales. One time I saw a Snap-on Reverse Torqueometer from 1920 that still worked perfectly. Chinese stuff is not "low quality", that is the product they were asked for--the good stuff is not for export. It would not be difficult to supply 80-90% of our needs for hard goods with things that don't fail or wear out.

So, they give you cheap, defective junk, so you either have to replace it, or turn to some kind of repair person for assistance. You can see the turning of the trends around the 1960s, when Japan was first exploited for knickknacks like plastic sunglasses. Then you got Ginsu steak knives, and when you tried to claim your warranty replacement for a new one, the company had become Ginsu II and there was no one to talk to...

I have a Japanese officer's sword from the 1930s that would probably cut through about six of the replica swords made today.

Low quality tools of any kind are really dangerous. I have broken some on first use. Recently, I have started destroying things simply by picking them up.

Planned Obsolescence is nothing new, but now accelerated and quite standard, and in most cases the package is superior to what's inside it.

[shaberon]

Posted by Hym (here)
The solutions live in bringing many of the outsourced product manufacturing back to the states and making your own products here.

When we forget that it has been just as much the outcome of consumers and professional supply users NOT complaining, not taking the time to complain to the stores...at their corporate sources, we get all of the crap that the middlemen, the buyers of products from foreign manufacturers, purchase outside of the country.

I've seen it for years in the construction trades and very little of it is of good quality.

Is Koch Brothers/Georgia Pacific an example of good quality domestic sheetrock?


Georgia-Pacific's product quality score is a 3.7 out of 5 as rated by its users and customers.


According to a slightly dated review from Birdeye:


I've worked here twice and it was consistently awful both times. It is by far the most toxic place Ive ever worked! In training the preach integrity, safety, open communication but that couldn't be further from the truth. I had people screaming profanity at me, you get pushed to work overtime till you drop so there is no work life balance. Some of the co-workers will report back that you're doing a poor job to make themselves look better by trying to make you look bad, and higher ups will use this against you at their convenience, working hard and doing a good job will go unnoticed.

The benefits are expensive and bare bones. there is no sick time, minimal vacation time, and the starting pay is just over $5. an hour less then there competitor less then 2 miles up the street. The raises are minimal if at all, I worked there in 2012 and the wages have only increased slightly in 2020 and to add insult to that, there's people there that have been there for years that do an excellent job that are making less than the new hires.



From a tranche of "1 out of 5" very recent ratings at Simply Hired:


Cedar springs Georgia is the worst place to work.
Start off by saying it’s a 7 day rotating shift. Often times i work 80 plus hours a week. There is a two tier pay scale. So one guy that hired in before you doing the exact same job may make 10$ an hour more than you. Constant layoffs. Management rides you like no other. It’s a dangerous place to work. They preach safety only because they have to. But safety comes behind production. Also, the gossip is worse than a middle school locker room. There are several times that you will work your off days. Overtime is a must. You can’t plan anything because your work schedule may change. The insurance plan is a joke. Basically covers nothing. They are always trying to cut jobs...



And, this is better than plaster, because?

Almost everywhere in Europe has houses that are older than the United States.

The place I am in is an odd mix of hand-cut trees that stood on the spot, and so the lower walls, posts, and lintels are pretty amazing, and then it is finished with sheetrock, which turns it into the awful quality of living in a ping-pong table. All of the lighting is "modern", which means you can't change a lightbulb, so we don't. One time I was commanded to "pull", and ripped the fixture out of the wall. The washing machine "automatically locks", the kitchen sink cracked, its wonky swiveling faucet is rusted into position. I replaced the dishwashing machine with my own money, and then someone else installed it but lost the mounting kit, and the stupid thing just has an "on button". The optical (?) stove is completely possessed, and acts on its own, as if somehow that is better than replacing a resistive burner. All modern appliances (and cars) are trash by design with these electronic pushbutton features. I'm told you cannot even get any normal stuff anymore.

Mechanical dials and manual control at any instant desired are far superior.

The dishwasher is so quiet, I can't even tell it's running, which is irrelevant. Some of the newer cars are so quiet, I can't hear them at all. It just starts moving and I have almost gotten run over several times, because I guess the people are telepathizing "get out of my way" and I am too dumb to understand it.


Concerning multiple brands of tape, and tires, they all come down the same line, and then get a different name stuck on it. At least at the plants around here, which make at least a handful of the nationally-known brands.

I never buy anything, the dish machine was a request. Almost everything I have was given to me, and the things I have purchased were mostly second-hand. In terms of anything "substantial", new cars, furniture, houses, etc., absolutely zero, probably never will.

[Hym]

Warning from the author! This post contains some harsh assessments of this and related topics. The expressions written here match the foul nature of making sense of the things we experience in our careers. Read at your own discretion:

Your detailed call out of the poor quality of even some american products rings true. People in this country are trained to be quiet and accept their fate by paying more for something better made that lasts, or by going without.

Give me an early Chevy Nova with an easy to work on engine before I ever spend a penny on an over complicated and expensive, car dealer dependent repair, just to keep a plastic replica of a car around to travel in. I'd not even buy one if money wasn't an issue. And Musk? Has that player, ever revealed how toxic the EMF field of his cars are to the DNA of everyone who spends any time in them? And if he doesn't know why it is so toxic, why is that the case?


You're describing the film union in this state, to a T. It's good to end my morning laughing, but it seems at our expense, as people who actually don't play that kindergarten, playground crap while working. Drama queens with little, mental cokxs.

Embarrassing if I gave an F beyond why I left them a couple of years ago. My semi-active 5 years, each on their own, were a test of constantly dealing with foremen, gang bosses and others berating everyone while I worked circles around them. Mix in some genuine cool people, men and women alike, who have become lifetime friends and I leave with those pluses. I'd say I came out with both of my heads in tact.

My advice to newbies in any union is to move on....Don't tap that bitch, bro....Don't go there, Sister! They don't deserve your time, nor your personal gifts. You won't come out clean. The diseases contracted in that atmosphere are borne from the soul of corruption and darkness, not ever worth touching with that 10 foot pole.

Like my very good friend quotes from another union member, the local film union is a 'Sodomy Conga Line' of butt kissing, brown noses, from every ethnic, religious, and sexual orientation there is, as it is 100% an equal opportunity abuser, all are welcome into the servitude. If that union wants to challenge any of this, my challenge to them is to open the books that have documented it all from the beginning, to see who was and wasn't hired, even after being blacklisted.

More to the point, I challenge the union to pay for an open ad and questionnaire in major newspapers in the area, open to all former and present union members to share their experiences, both good and bad, both legal and illegal, both ethical and immoral, on a completely transparent forum, open to all of the public.

Even as I'm for all intents and real world purposes gone from the scene, I, like many, many, many others have survived the abuse. Many others did not, and that has often been the result of union malfeasance and a great lack of the union leadership not living up to the spirit and public promise of unionism, which is fair and equal treatment, equal opportunity for career advancement, and basic human rights to bodily health choices. B.S. in bunches is it's history. However, in a union full of weak spirits, it is not unusual.

After almost 3 years of volunteering to help non-profits and friends, paying my own way to do so, studying what little rear off I have left on the issues now at hand, and listening to how the union's totally illegal, immoral and inhumane bend-over to the producer's guild has destroyed what little hope and humanity was left in that outhouse......

l'm not waiting to receive the promise of getting my expulsion letter from the union for not paying this years' dues. That expectation of my being recognized for standing the F up for my rights, by the union removing the option of paying for dues by serving, lasted about a few seconds. I've told them that I have a place for the letter on my Wall of Honor, even as I reserve the right to use it as kindling for the cold winter ahead. I must caution that anything from that union should not be used, even in an emergency, to wipe your rear end.

And during all of this....I just love doing my active work days. Some weird inhumane sh*t it all is. And seeing your experiences, it isn't anything out of the ordinary...this deliberate deconstruction of the social and producing structure in the country. Sad as F.

We move on.

My son spent a week as a set dec on a crew I was on, only to conclude that it was a very dehumanizing work structure. "Dad, I didn't come here to work with drama queens", was his final answer.

When I finally got the opportunity to run a small crew and move that into being a working coordinator, all of the SHTF..... a blessing in disguise. And a Big Middle finger or 2 to all of the studios and their addiction to the profits, and kickbacks, from all of the CV mandates.....human rights be damned, federal health law protections, HIPPA privacy guarantees be damned, constitutional rights be damned, international human right guarantees dismissed. All from the bend-over bitches of American unionism, the stalwart of globalist controllers.

I'm not surprised, B**ches. Not surprised at all. We move on in challenging times, watching friends wake the F up, finally....which in many cases is way too late.

Been invited to Georgia to work in their local 479, where they often work 7 days a week and they are paid well.....but at the expense of so many of their rights and their health. Not worth it at all. However they, like most unions, are just whore houses for the global agenda....milked down to the local level. And every single touted, advertised human right is just dressing on the pigs arse, without the lipstick.

These last two weeks I helped out a union member with an old union friend running a fix up on his house. It was a test of my ability to listen to a formerly very caring, brilliant and skilled craftsman show how much of an arse he had become by being the exact person he complained about while working in the union.

I worked it, while listening to him berate me daily.....without reaction, just work, until the entire crew yelled at him, very loudly, for yelling at me. The only other stand out thing was how many of the crew were addicted to one thing or the other, which I understand knowing some of the trauma they each have survived, either self-inflicted or from others. This has forever been the mark of many unions in the country. In fact, I haven't been hired on some crews because the coordinators know I don't snort or get blasted on or off the job.

For me the only solution was to be the one controlling the work. I even contacted the cool Christian producers, few that they may be, for work and have had not one single offer. You'd think that a clean, hard working, coordinator, even one wearing a sikh's turban, would be a plus....not so. The myth of an even field being hired for ability and attention to crew safety, job completion, etc. would be the scale....not ever so.....

I'm cool with that. Being rejected is always an open path to better solutions. It's perspective, even now when the deterioration of building practices is commonplace across the country. Now, the only difference is that, like the for-profit wars the country has exported, we get to see first hand what the rest of the world has had to deal with.

And your talk of poor quality products reminds me of a federally funded rebuild after a hurricane a few years back. In that reconstruction, which ended up having, in many cases, to be torn down...again..., they provided trailers for citizens and workers alike which used particle board cabinetry inside.

The devastating and illegal use of unsealed cabinetry produced interior air that was permeated with formaldehyde gases, making everyone sick who spent any time inside, both while in hot weather and in the cold weather when any heating system activated the chemical release of those toxins. Add on all of the drywall that came with a bad odor from the ingredients used to make the sheets, producing mycotoxins from the mold that grew on the drywall itself. Here they survived having to completely gut their homes and apartments from all of the mold producing, flood drenched walls, only to have to deal with it all AGAIN !!!

I feel your angst, personally.
I also prefer a simplicity of living without the complication, which is the biggest result of living in a world of planned obsolescence.....
If I ever meet an old high school buddy, RB, recruited by GM out of high school, I'll grill him why the company made their car door locks and handles out of plastic, keeping them the same way for decades, before addressing the issue. Really? Such A-holes that they needed the income from us all having to replace the pins and crappy copper sleeves that hold them in so often?

And on....

I f'd up a slim hammer tacker, the ones we use to tack down felt on roofs and walls, by ignorantly using staples from the chinese owned toxic airs of a local harbor freight hardware store. Before that, this German made stapler lasted me thru thousands of uses. God and Godesses bless the workers there...and give them all blood tests, screening for all of the toxins they absorb in their lungs, their skin and in their organs. Does anyone appreciate them?

I feel you Brother..
Let's keep up the discussion about SOLUTIONS.

[Inversion]

I returned a large jar of M&M's to Costco because they had a burnt taste. I was thinking carbon/graphene.

I found a pack of ten metal bag clips at Home Goods & TJ Maxx for $6-7. The cheap plastic ones at Walmart break when you squeeze them. The military gets military grade stuff, hospitals get medical grade and the rest of us get crap grade. I've heard from whistleblowers that Terrans and humans on Mars make go stuff which probably only feeds the coffers of the Draco. They should reverse that, so we get the good stuff. Kent Dunn said aliens want to trade for coffee or chocolate. Another big item is used children's clothes probably because they fit Gray aliens.

post#5 & 6

He describes the evolution of Solar Warden which patrols the solar system, the Secret Space Program (SSP) which was in the 80’s funded through the Star Wars initiative, the Dark Fleet which is a Cabal/Nazi controlled group that primarily operates outside the solar system & The Global Galactic League of Nations that’s controlled by the United Nations. There are colonies on Mars that manufacture goods as barter items with over 900 off world civilizations.

[Johnnycomelately]

I once found a butt of a Beedi, after eating halfway through a deep fried masala snack of some kind.

I went up to the counter, showed the man the butt and the half snack with the Beedi butt shaped half indent, and he handed me a replacement like it was no big deal. I always wondered if that was because it happened often. Lol... in looking up pics and vid for this post, I think I was right.

Wikipedia says that Beedies made up 48% of tobacco use in India in 2008, and somewhere else I read that 30% of Indian adults smoke. That is a LOT of Beedi butts. ~8O

BEEDI (Full Song) RB Gujjar | KDDesi Rock | Kuldeep Rathee | New Haryanvi Songs Haryanavi 2021
27M views 1 year ago

Nav Haryanvi
8.77M subscribers

For heavy smokers, please skip to about halfway through. Culture hounds can watch the whole thing, and ponder how tobacco has drawn (arguably) even with cannabis since the 16/1700s in India. Cannabis goes back thousands of years there.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3eiursnWjHE

Attachment 49928Attachment 49929Attachment 49930Attachment 49931Attachment 49932

[shaberon]

Posted by Hym (here)
Give me an early Chevy Nova with an easy to work on engine before I ever spend a penny on an over complicated and expensive, car dealer dependent repair, just to keep a plastic replica of a car around to travel in

True enough, my uncle had one of those out at the farm. And actually the most reliable vehicle we have had was an early 2000s Chevrolet...um, big truck, can't remember the name of it, but the only problem it ever had was a flat tire. Despite skipping the inspection for two years. It was sold because the owner thought...oh this 2012 Ford must be better, the kind with the central computer screen, which went out permanently. That thing has other serious problems with the timing or that Coil-on-plug stuff, repeatedly, making it shake like the chick from The Exorcist.

With a Nova or something, we can install a Brown's Gas booster which can improve fuel performance by 50% or more, using about $30 worth of hardware. You can't do it on a computerized car without a much more difficult installation of diode interrupts to fake out the O2 sensors, and injection does not really improve fuel economy that much.


Similar to film, I posted an article around here somewhere about how Disneyland invented "plastic face", so that you romp around all day for minimum wage in the Florida heat, offering artificial saccharin sweetness to everybody. Lose the thrill, and you lose the job. The rest of the big retailers copied from them.

Unionization is something I find difficult to fully understand. At the base level, protecting workers from capitalists is kind of important. Labor Day actually derives from a teenager who was working on the NYC docks and was brave enough to speak out. But I suppose once a Union gets going, it is like many organizations, infiltrated and co-opted by other interests, and turns into something else.

The first "solution" that comes to mind, is really quite adverse to General Motors, because in the 1930s, they bought all the rail and trolley systems, quit doing maintenance, so they fell apart, and people were pressured to buy their cars. This really happened. Where I come from, it was so forgotten, that when they renovated downtown, they jackhammered into the old rails by surprise. In fact there only was a downtown due to the train lines. Now we don't really have public transport. I can go almost anywhere in Europe by a combination of trains, and I think that system would have been really, really helpful. Subways in big cities here feel more like taking a chance with your life.

We have been flailing around with putting in a single line for forty years, since no one can decide how to build it to pass the highway. Even at that, there was no clue about actually connecting it to the airport. We have, I think, a total of two operational passenger lines statewide. There is actually a small train yard near here, but this is the kind of thing that just hauls some pulp and maybe chicken feed for a few plants. So it is hardly feasible to live without a car.

All of our infrastructure is rotting: plumbing, bridges, dams.

Suggest terminating the military, put those people and the money to work on trains and that other stuff, and that would sound like actually investing in the country in a useful way. Doesn't have to be high-tech new inventions. Just things that are actually useful.

[mojo]

Hi inversion, great idea for a thread. I recently had a major issue with a well known company called Peloton. They bought out another great exercise company called Precor. Last March my exercise regimen was going good and then the touch sensor went out. All together the parts cost less than 30 dollars. The cost of the elliptical is over 3K but Peloton would not continue manufacturing or helping to get more of these cheap parts. Many people know that touch sensors go out easily on things like washers & dryers so it was a surprise that Peloton would not help a paying customer.

I will say that elliptical machine improved the quality of my life greatly and was saddened for 3 months until I could fabricate some cheap sensor parts from China. Now a month back on the machine it feels great to keep going.