They used to. Or rather, the industry used to. Most of those players have since folded, largely because of them becoming known for crap quality.

One trick on ratings is to sort by date. The most recent reviews are more likely to be reality, as opposed to the common bot-farm positive reviews. It still won’t help you identify if customers aren’t likely to leave reviews, however.

Good news on the EV charging part, at least in North America. Most (if not all) manufacturers have agreed to switch to NACS, and most have adapters to work with either connector. There will be a long tail as the old connectors fade away, but the future is looking standardized.

Cartman was the first person I ever heard use it, by at least a decade. These days I hear a relatively small number of people use it regularly.

Wanda Sykes did a PSA about this. It was put on YouTube 17 years ago. I don’t know when it first aired.

https://youtu.be/sWS0GVOQPs0

Now I feel old…

It was used in an old Gatorade ad. Is this what you’re thinking of?

https://youtu.be/liKnJ-ejztw

In the US, most protection comes from the breaker. It’s not common (or at least, not standard) to have overcurrent protection on extension cords, power strips, or even the outlet itself. And for typical wiring and uses, it usually works well enough. But it is possible to connect a space heater or hairdryer (1500w and 1800w respectively, due to the 80% rule for continuous draw) to that standard 16-gauge extension cord, or connect multiple space heaters to one circuit. Some homes are wired… Creatively… Making it easy to do. In these cases, you’re relying on the 15-amp breaker to trip, which would happen quickly. Not quite as quick, but still happens on a 20-amp. But it might melt a 15-amp receptacle first

If it’s a 30-amp circuit, it won’t trip at all, unless the outlet melts to a short. And this is all assuming the wiring in the wall is rated for that amperage, which is implied but not stated. There are certainly a number of stories where someone upgraded the breaker to keep it from tripping, but didn’t upgrade the wiring.

If we assume he’s talking about the wiring in the wall, this gets very simple. I once lived in a place where the upstairs bedroom and downstairs living room were on the same circuit. I currently live somewhere where a single circuit controls ALL of the bathroom outlets (multiple bathrooms), the garage, as well as outside outlets. Apparently GFCI outlets were more expensive than the entire mess of running copper all over the place.

I couldn’t tell from the article. Does the Brazilian justice system work differently than I expect? It just says he was initially convicted, but then exonerated. Does that mean the charges were thrown out for lack of evidence, procedural missteps, or something of that nature? Or was it dismissed because the judges disagreed with the law? Or am I completely misreading/misunderstanding the whole thing?

That model was a flop, but people love the feature. Just not enough to buy the rest of the car that goes with it.

It’s also not the only model with that feature.

Someone else suggested that it’s a common regional term, and (apparently) not my region. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that it’s common and nonsexual in her area. However, around here I would’ve avoided terms and phrases associated with porn/fetish.

As for how it could’ve been written, she had already very clearly established her gender, so she could’ve just said student. But that can also be reasonably inferred from her age, and isn’t really relevant to the rest of the point she was making. The entire clause could’ve been dropped. Start the sentence with “Like most teenagers”.

I presume her goal was to highlight her age and lack of obligations. That would make sense given the following details of her and her peers spending so much time on these apps. The more natural flow (again, my local dialect) would be “15-year-old high-school student”, or possibly “15-year-old girl in high school”. But these are still unnecessary.

4th paragraph:

I’m a 15-year-old schoolgirl and like most teenagers I spend a fair portion of my spare time on social media, often scrolling through short-form videos on apps such as Instagram or TikTok

There are a number of EVs that make all sorts of fake engine sounds, both to the interior and exterior. The feature is surprisingly popular.

Is it just me, or does it feel out of place that the author described herself as “a 15-year-old schoolgirl”? I don’t think I’ve ever even heard that term outside of porn, and you wouldn’t describe her counterparts as a “schoolboy”.

Those packets are shelf-stable. It probably came from a pizza place, where there’s a bin on the counter (along with red pepper flakes) to grab if you want some on your take out order.

You’re overlooking the word “exempt”, which is critically important here. An earlier section defines an exempt organization

[…]as a bona fide nonprofit charitable, civic, religious, fraternal, patriotic or veterans’ organization or as a nonprofit volunteer fire department, or as a nonprofit volunteer rescue squad or a bona fide homeowners’ or property owners’ association[…]

This restriction only applies to these organizations, and is likely intended to keep a casino (or similar) from pretending to be a charity.

The larger section is labeled

Article 37 - Lotteries, Gaming, Bingo and Raffles.

Why would you even do the calculations based on inkjet printers? Even at a simple glance, inkjet is the wrong solution. While they acknowledge at the end that laser would be the way, that was clearly an afterthought and not calculated into anything.

They introduced the Sacagawea dollar coins a while back with the expectations that people would use them for daily transactions. After an initial brief interest, they quickly fell off. Turns out that people in the US don’t really care to use coins, and used the paper $1 bills at every opportunity.

It’s not entirely true that you can’t identify him from that Facebook account. It’s just really, really hard.

Facebook almost certainly knows who he is. Like specifically, name and all. Their data mining is VERY extensive, and he likely has other accounts.

Anyway, with a lawyer’s help, you can (possibly) get a court order for Facebook to reveal what they have on the guy. They certainly have things like IP addresses and timestamps, but they also probably have name, other associated accounts, viewing history across the web (from those “share with Facebook” icons/links, even if untouched), and hundreds or thousands of additional pages.

Is it worthwhile? Probably not. But it can be done.

Uh oh, it’s caught in a loop.