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I think the typical approach is to use the regular site name (so just "Google Arts and Culture") and let people click on it assuming there's something interesting about it to justifying being posted. That doesn't work super well when the original title is vague, like this one, but I think it does correspond to this guideline:

> Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important.


In theory, this could encourage people with larger houses than they need (eg empty nesters) to downsize, which could have an observable impact on shortages.

Obviously more supply is an important part of this too though.


Downsize, how exactly?


If you assume there is some population whose house size is mismatched to what they want (in particular, the house is too large), lowering the transaction costs could encourage more people to move, which would mean that more people end up with an appropriately-sized house.


Is this based on particular evidence, or just a feeling?

I lived in Birmingham for a while (admittedly not in the downtown), and this was not my experience at all, nor have I ever heard this from anyone else I knew, including people that did live downtown. Obviously, there are better and worse areas like everywhere else, but most of the city is basically fine IMO.


There are already companies that make nice-looking, higher-end kitchen appliances though - Breville comes to mind, there are probably others. Speaking from personal experience, I have a toaster oven from them that’s lasted close to ten years with zero problems; I’d have a hard time being convinced to pay more for a “made in USA” one unless there was something truly exceptional about it.


I bought a Breville toaster and microwave when I was moving into and furnishing a new NYC apartment from scratch, and I decided to get something a little nicer, more aesthetic, etc. They were on a major after-Xmas sale so I figured why not.

What I was not prepared for was how much better quality they were by a mile. It's not even close, they're so much more sturdy and well made and they work so much better than the ones I'd had before.

Like the microwave is incredibly consistent in heating, it has a rotary knob for power level so you basically never get the on fire on one side and freezing on the other side thing if you don't want to, stuff like that. The toaster is a joy, it has an elegant little display, the toast is always flawless.

So there's definitely a market for better stuff too. Unfortunately the OP without any prior experience might not be able to hit that bar either.


Note for other readers: due to old licensing deals for names, the brand sold as Breville in Europe is not the same as the one in US, CA, and AU. The one being talked about here is known as Sage in Europe.

And they really are superior-quality devices.


I have trouble understanding your last sentence.

Is Breville EU/Sage appliances the high quality one, or is Breville US/AU/CA the high quality one?


I m making a separate reply because I understand my answer was unclear.

Sage EU is Breville US/CA/AU/NZ. Those are high quality. It’s an Aussie company.

Breville EU and possibly UK (old agreements that may well predate the EEC, so don’t know any details) not the same; have never used and cannot comment.


How do they compare to the top-of-the-line Bosch (ie. TAT861X)?

Seems to me that the Sage/Breville have more bells and whistles (a LED light count-down, bread type selector...) whereas the Bosch seems to be a more no-nonsense one with better hardware inside (quartz glass heating elements etc)?


Sorry for the late reply but been out of town and not checking. Those are toasters, not toaster ovens.

A toaster toasts bread (and waffles, or other thin flour things). That's it.

A toaster oven began as a category of device that looked like a tiny oven but was built to be a toaster that could do a little bit more than just toast bread. But it's evolved, and modern toaster ovens can take a quarter-sheet pan (it's based on US standard, so it's 13"x9", but more or less the same size is used worldwide in commercial kitchens), sometimes a little larger.

I have never owned a Breville toaster. I have owned three of their toaster ovens, two of which I've given to friends and family when I moved up in size. I don't turn my main oven on, at all, except for holidays, because the toaster oven heats up and finishes cooking the food before the big oven even gets up to temperature. And I live in the southern US, so extra heat in the kitchen is usually heat that the air conditioner has to remove - it very rarely is helping me keep warm (think AGA ranges - those would never work here).

I wait for the sub-freezing nights, of which we usually have 20-30 a year at most (no kidding), to run the self-clean cycle on the big oven.


Hey, thanks for the reply.

I was specifically looking for info about toasters (not toaster ovens) because ours (quite old generic one) recently stopped ejecting toasted slices. I've also read quite a lot of positive Sage/Breville reviews and test results so that's why I was curious about real-life experiences.

In the end, I managed to track down one of the last Bosch models ( https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/bosch-styline ), which was a bit cheaper (but still quite expensive for a toaster) and seems to work fine.

However, they claim that this model "uses quartz heating for even toasting" - yeah, no. ;)


They have really superb build quality in all the ones I've had, but I've only ever used the toaster ovens (which are so good that they're my go-to wedding gift if it's someone I'm close enough to that I'd spend that much). Glad you found one that's working out for you.


Australian company, so non-Europe Breville is the one I know. I don't believe that the European Breville sells over here.


That's why I think you need a compelling story about it. How the poor inventor struggled against the odds to fix the scourge of bad toast, to bring you an exquisite product that makes you feel good to own for the story more than any tangible reason. It needs to be a personal story to set him apart from the other brands.


You could go that one gun coffee brand and make it a camo pattern.

Or go the other way and give it a rainbow pattern? Hell, put one on each side so you can flip it depending on which relatives are coming over.


I think that kind of messaging is largely inherently incompatible with aiming for the high-margin/high-end market whether or not your buyers agree with you. E.g. I'm perfectly fine with a variety of political symbols, but I'd think a toaster emblazoned with them looked like a cheap gimmick, and would expect it to be priced as one.


throw in some tenuous connection to reviving the industrious spirit of Old Detroit ("It Never Died") and you have yourself a brand!


Especially when you can sell for more something made in France, Italy, Japan or Germany. I think the "made in" chauvinism is a hard sell if it's the USA, especially to US customer: doesn't feel exotic and isn't cheap, so what's it there for except some cheap cash grab ?

Plus, you know, there are some nice Chinese stuff now and they have an economy of scale that the US simply can't match.


It runs iOS 16, where Apple has the same policy of only providing partial fixes. From the article:

> A new exploit targeting the iOS (among other OS’) Bluetooth stack has also been left unpatched by Apple in all versions except iOS 17.


When you get an iMessage from a new contact, there's a "report junk" option; I'm assuming Apple does some kind of spam detection with that (ie if a particular Apple ID gets enough reports, it gets blocked). I've never seen any public documentation of it though.


Things can change a lot in 10+ years; it's not going to happen quickly, but you can start incrementally making zoning changes, and as the buildings in the area turn over it'll slowly start approaching something better, which should hopefully result in people making different transportation choices.

Also, a number of places in the US are still growing and sprawling outwards; reversing that trend would have a positive effect even if none of the existing places change.

> I live around 20-25 miles from the major employment centers other than medical offices/hospitals

This is sort of the problem though. Some people prefer to live that far away, and if you do that's great, but a lot of people end up moving away from cities for economic reasons. Building more housing closer to the employment centers would allow more people to live nearby, which reduces the number of people that need to commute that far.


The line-cutting is annoying, but the whole thing is just an excuse for the collection of biometric data, which is a much larger issue. Clear's business model is pretty clear - they'll annoy a large portion of America into giving them their biometrics, and once they have that, expand across the country into some kind of semi-mandatory subscription to access businesses or public spaces. How else does Clear become a "daily habit" used "12 times a day", as the CEO says in the article?

This has huge potential to track people everywhere they go. It's also not hard to imagine Clear adding some kind of "risk score" that bans people from every Clear-enabled business, which has massive potential for abuse.


Not defending the first two (physical page turn buttons are great!) but on my 2018 paperwhite, the backlight will turn off entirely at the lowest brightness setting.


It’s been a few months, but here are some issues I had using the web reader on an iPad (didn’t realize there’s an app):

- the reading controls would overlap with the safe area/home screen navigation bar

- pinch-zooming on a page would sometimes glitch out and scroll to a different page

- the slider to change pages was too sensitive on a touchscreen, and I also kept tapping it by accident

I really like openlibrary, and it’s let me read some books I couldn’t find access to anywhere else - thanks for your work on it!


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