Mostly I get printers at the thrift store. For some reason people donate perfectly good working printers. They cost like $15 and all you need to do is find out what kind of ink they use and get some

I have internal curtains and blinds and this actually still works well, at least better than keeping them open. Maybe it would work better with externals but this is still worth doing if all you have is internal

I used to not have AC. I found the best strategy was to open up all the windows at night and let the cool night air in, and then as soon as I wake up I close all the windows, curtains and blinds to trap the cool air in and prevent the sun from heating it up through the windows. If you live in a house that has a basement and central heating, you could add some intake ducts down there and turn your furnace on to fan only mode to circulate the cool basement air into the rest of the house.

GM W-body and GMT platform cars from around 2002-2008 I’ve found to be decent. The GM 3800 V6 engine and 5.3L Vortec V8 are extremely reliable and easy to maintain yourself if you’re into that kind of thing. You can very easily replace the stock radio with an aftermarket unit that has Android auto/Apple Car play and won’t spy on you. Since it’s an American car and so many were sold in America, both new and used parts are pretty easy to find and pretty cheap. The biggest thing that kills these cars is rust, especially if you live in the salt belt, so just make sure you look underneath the car before buying.

Look for: Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevy Monte Carlo, Chevy Tahoe, Buick Regal, Chevy Avalanche/Silverado. A good example of these can be found for under $10k easily and if you look a little harder you can usually find good ones or ones that need minimal work for less than $5k.

Personally I plan on driving these cars until it becomes impossible to find them anymore. There’s a junkyard near me that specializes in GM cars where I can get parts for DIRT cheap.

Currently I have an 05 Avalanche (140k miles) and an 07 Grand Prix (165k miles). Before those I had an 05 Grand Prix which died only due to rust, engine and transmission still strong at 160k miles. They hardly ever have issues, and when they do they are typically cheap issues or issues I can easily fix myself.

Sure - they’re nothing flashy, but the cost of purchase + repairs is almost certainly less than the cost of a new or lightly used car alone. Also, minimal complicated computer systems, and no corporate spying.

I miss craigslist, but unfortunately just nobody uses it anymore. Everyone is using Facebook marketplace and for this type of thing you kind of have to sell where the buyers are. It sucks because the quality of people is so much worse, but at least there are actually people there. I can’t even count the number of times I’m selling something and get a “Is tHIs sTILl aVaiLAble??!!?!;;??!”, which I answer “yes, if you see the ad it’s available” and then never hear from them again. Very frustrating. On the flip side, BUYING things is actually easier because if you prove that you’re intelligent enough to reply to a message then you basically are guaranteed to be able to buy the item

My dads car was actually damaged by a touch car wash. One of the brushes caught on the edge of his hood and folded over the hood metal. It was a huge pain, had to fight the car wash company to pay for the damage (they eventually did) and even still you can tell where it was repaired. Plus they wouldnt pay for color matching so he had to pay out of pocket for that.

Between that and the possibility of some tiny rock or grain of sand being caught in a brush and scratching the heck out of my car, I now only ever use touchless or wash it myself if the weather is warm. Im in upstate NY where we get pretty cold winters, so whenever it dips above freezing ill run through the touchless just for the underbody spray to get the road salt off

Buy em back! DVDs are dirt cheap right now (sometimes $1 a pop at flea markets, garage sales, and thrift stores)

At least for movies, I’ve actually gone back to DVDs. I can find them for $1 each at the flea market or garage sales, and once I own them thats it - no subscriptions and nobody can decide to randomly remove them from my collection.

Yeah I think OP’s preferred subject has something to do with the issue he’s having. I mainly watch car and tech videos, and I even use the algorithm suggestions sometimes (bad, I know), and I rarely see anything I don’t want to or that makes me roll my eyes.

I like LTT, Junkyard Digs, Pole Barn Garage (small channel, just passed 100k subs), and Donut Media

Same, sometimes (usually while driving for some reason) I just get overwhelmed with happiness at how well my life is going. Yeah it’s not perfect, and obviously I was incredibly lucky to get where I am, but it’s more than enough for me to be truly content.

I GOT 6 ON THE SUN STARE

I’m sure it’s intended to indicate that “nobody asked for…”, but personally I find that almost all memes that use it would be better off without it. It’s honestly kind of annoying.

It does look a little dated but I kind of like it that way. Reminds me of “the good old days”™

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but the word “Fediverse” leaves a sour taste in my mount just because it sounds so much like the stupidity that was “Metaverse” (yes I know they are completely unrelated)