@Daniel Not quite that bad. No rule has actually been finalized. NHTSA reported to Congress in early 2026 that the system cannot currently measure blood alcohol content above 0.08%, the very thing it's meant to do, and NHTSA openly admitted there is no commercially available technology that can accurately and passively detect driver impairment.   Even a 99.9%-accurate system would generate millions of false positives a year across the US fleet, which NHTSA flagged as a serious problem.  Automakers typically get a multi-year compliance window once (if) a final rule is published, so even in the best case, "universal 2027" was never realistic.  Consumer Reports directly addressed the viral version of this claim: "2027 model year cars are not going to have any mandatory technology that can determine if you're intoxicated, and there's no such thing as a government-controlled 'kill switch.'"  It's also not a remote kill switch — the law doesn't authorize the government to shut your car down; any restriction would be decided entirely by the car's own onboard software, not a person flipping a switch somewhere.  So: there's a real 2021 law aimed at this, but as of 2026 no finalized standard exists, the tech isn't ready, and no camera-plus-kill-switch mandate is landing on all model-year-2027 cars. Your friend's got the kernel of a real story wrapped in an exaggerated, socially-viral version of it.

@CHAS said: A smoking section in a restaurant is much like a peeing section in a swimming pool. Are you trying to tell us the whole restaurant is a smoking section??

@CHAS said: When will the next one start? heh Within 6 years. Maybe even this year. (Bond markets are already nervous) But in 2032 or before Congress will have to change the law to cover social security shortfalls out of the general budget. If the dollar crash hasn’t happened by then it will certainly happen then.

@CHAS Actually, they came down early on Friday afternoon because the winds hit 40 mph. What a bunch of wimps/

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Link to video Yikes. Every leather product made gets torn down aftermarket and researched by someone somewhere. The same thing happens with tech products apparently.

huh? Thought it was Spanish, but Basque. It is neither.

Don't know much about Rosh Hashanah, but I like challah.

Have donated. Maybe it was a month ago, I noticed Paxton had raised over 9 million, Talarico had over 31 million. Hope that 31 is enough to put Talarico over the top in Texas.

Sabalenka was a bit of a brat and sore loser. I don't respect that.

@jon-nyc said: Not surprised. A round trip flight to Europe is like getting a chest xray or two. I remember when I was getting a lot of imaging done before transplant. When I asked about the amount of radiation I was getting a doctor put it in terms of equivalent flights and that gave me perspective. It made me realize imaging was safer than I thought and/or flying was more dangerous @jon-nyc You do a lot of imaging and flying, no? You have to live your life. That's my bottom line this topic. My brother has Stage IV bone cancer. He had six days of radiation out of seven days at one of the NY hospitals. That must have been brutal. I wish I knew the organs where it's spread. He doesn't want to to talk about it. His right. I used to worry about radiation but short of avoiding power stations and transmission lines IDK anymore. My best friend in HS became a flight attendant. Well, I hope he's OK.

I’m not baking much any more, but a new local pizzeria is making a sourdough crust, so I think a visit is required.

My experience was not as dramatic as @jon-nyc 's or @bernard 's (and I believe I wrote about this at the old WTF) but I was living in Japan at the time, so it was just before 10pm. I was brushing my teeth and my husband called me into the living room where the news was on TV. (We didn't have a computer at home at that point). I couldn't process what was happening at first, it seemed like a movie, and we watched the rest of it unfold in real time just like the rest of the world. Then I couldn't get a call through to the US for what seemed like forever, I didn't know where my parents were, whether any of my family happened to be traveling (in NYC or elsewhere)... I have family in many places in Western PA, and the Japanese news didn't use any specific place names in their reporting about that part of it. That made me almost lose my mind. I think being overseas for 9/11 was maybe somewhat similar to being abroad when a family member dies. I felt isolated from the US, and I remember feeling alienated from the Japanese people that were around me (esp at work) in ways I never had before. In the months that followed I went crazy trying to get American flags to decorate our house. (Which, in a small town in Japan, and before the days of ordering everything online, was not very easy to do). It was another year or more before I made it back to the US for a visit, and when I finally returned, I found a country I did not recognize.

@dolmansaxlil I know! I don’t see how this is life-changing, but I’m in that other camp. If anyone else reads Yesteryear, I’d love to get your take on it.

Link to video

Oh geez... crazy talk trying to say where the money that will never appear will come from!

On second thought, we met with our financial guys yesterday. They told us we weren’t spending enough money, which felt pretty weird. We live pretty high on the hog as far as I’m concerned, but with my side consulting we haven’t touched our IRAs in seven years of retirement. Maybe I do need one.

Thanks guys!

Link to video Peridot. Richard Yard. It reminds me of the old saying about the Tiffany's counter- if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. I thought that slogan was silly at the time- but it made a point.