Who could have possibly predicted that the logistical burden is much less common for people who don’t live in an apartment (me I did, it was me). Goodness. I had clearly never considered such a situation could arise (lies I said exactly that). You have clearly bested me, woe betide, etc, etc, this pretty clearly isn’t going to be a productive conversation, cheers or whatever.

Because for several years on the olympic peninsula, fentanyl overdose displaced heart disease for leading cause of death. Opiate abuse is still incredibly high anywhere on the peninsulas outside the greater seattle suburb cities, far higher per capita even than in seattle proper. It’s an incredibly rampant problem, driven mainly by the socioeconomic stagnation that makes people want to flee from those towns. I’m glad you’re surviving, but I gotta be honest, in a discussion about the total lack of charity funding because of the massive demand for their services it’s kinda weird to come in and suggest moving to places that are only slightly better, or to assume that those regions are what’s being discussed instead of the massive region full of destitute conservatives.

I understand you want to correct someone you feel is maligning the region in which you live and your lived experience and so forth, but in this case I think you have misunderstood the fundemental premise.

I’m just confused as to what your goal was, I guess. Sure it’s cheaper, but those areas are just extensions of the problem with the outrageously high cost of living and housing in the greater seattle area. Anyone that’s in a position where they can choose Port Townsend over Seattle isn’t struggling to get by - and the lack of funding for public services as expressed in the OP article really isn’t relevant to them.

… Isn’t the seagull the cheapest model BYD makes? Hyundai hasn’t even tried to compete in the sub $10k range - pretty much any other model from BYD or Hyundai would be an upgrade over the seagull. If you have reliable access to a charger it’s an excellent choice, but the teeny tiny batteries in those models and the 40kw max charging rate can make it logistically challenging, especially if you live in an apartment without charging accommodation. It’s just about as dirt cheap as it’s possible to make a vehicle without you having to pedal, which is an accomplishment, but lets not be too hyperbolic in our praise here.

(Heck, they’ve removed so many features the ad copy for that model has to celebrate such charming aspects as the vent design, which admittedly does look sorta cool, but… not really helpful in deciding if I want a car or not)

Thanks, Trumbama…

I suspect you’ve misinterpreted me? This article is extremely biased, as it’s literally the viewpoint and theories presented by one of their biggest rivals. There’s no whattaboutism in my comment either, leaving me overall pretty confused about your response.

In every example I have seen, displaying your insurance card locks down your phone until you enter a pin to prevent exactly this issue.

Sure, fair enough. Unfortunately my original point that it’s inordinately expensive to live here also still stands. It’s cheaper on the various peninsulas, but not all that much - and those various sound towns don’t have much in the way of community support infrastructure.

“Today, justice has finally been done for our grandmother, Ruth Ellis – the last woman to be hanged in England in 1955.”

“This pardon does not undo what happened 71 years ago. It does not restore the lives that were broken - the children left behind, the years lost. But it says, formally and finally, that Ruth should not have been executed; that the justice system failed her. That acknowledgement matters profoundly to our family.”

“Ruth was a victim of sustained and brutal abuse. Her children - our mother and uncle - never recovered. My uncle took his own life; my mother’s trauma left her unable to be the parent we needed. The shadow of Ruth’s execution has fallen across two generations. We have carried shame that was never ours to bear.”

"We are deeply grateful to the Justice Secretary for having the courage to act. We hope Ruth’s story serves as a lasting reminder that the justice system must reckon with the abuse that drives women to the edge - and must never be afraid to acknowledge when it has got things wrong.”

I went into this thinking it was a little bit silly since nobody would design a car without most of those but:

If you have a Model Y from 2025 or later, press the brake pedal to pull up the drive mode strip on the touchscreen. Tap the drive mode strip to shift into Park. You can also press Park on the overhead console.

You have to shift gears with a touchscreen?? WHAT??!? I knew they were shit cars but what the actual fuck are they thinking?

Yeah, I’ve got a 230V 50A outlet I can hook into easily enough once I get the wasps cleared out. I’d really like to stick a dedicated lvl 2 charger out there, but IDK if my panel can even handle the load from that outlet alone. I’ve been putting off upgrading it for ages, and all the electrician friends I’ve asked for help about it have just sorta stared at my panel for a while then quickly changed the subject to asking about my smoke detectors, which seems like a good sign.

(My Ioniq is new enough to have come stock with the newer, supposedly-fixed ICCU + the software patch, so fingers crossed that it should be fine (I haven’t heard of them failing, at least). Really love the car though - first one I’ve owned that made driving actually like… a fun thing to do. Also damn that charge time on 800v is ridiculously nice)

Upside, you can get a reasonable charge over the weekend on a Level 1 charger alone - something I really wish my ioniq 5 could do (not that I’m procrastinating hiring an electrician or anything…)

Alright. And while your anecdotal evidence is as valid as my own, I will put out that house prices in Sequim average ~$500k, and PT is around ~$650k (for reference, seattle is ~$850k. Median rent in Kitsap county is ~$1750/mo for a 1br)

Yes, being in one of the trendy neo-suburbs of seattle is likely to be more queer friendly - but it’s still not exactly affordable to live there. If the goal is “a jobless trans person can afford to live there on savings while they get established” in western wa, you start looking at towns deeper on the peninsula or western WA in general - places like Elma, Aberdeen, Moclips. I’ll freely admit that I didn’t consider places like Port Townsend in my initial cautioning - because it’s not a place someone can easily afford to move to, especially from one of the states queer people generally are fleeing from.

(edit: clarity)

… Kitsap county isn’t part of the olympic peninsula.

That’s awesome! One thing nobody mentioned to me is that EV owners tend to know each other because we’re all hanging out at the chargers, and everyone (with the very notabale exception of tesla owners) is super nice! It’s just generally a pretty positive experience socially as well as economically.

Most queer folk on the peninsula are doing everything they can to get away from there. Very pretty, but there is fuckall out there besides small town weirdness and fent/heroin…

Not to be too ‘doomer’, but It’s important to note that while seattle is fast becoming the trans mecca, thurston/king/pierce counties make up some of the highest cost of living areas in the country. On top of that, our social services are being absolutely crushed right now between the massive population influx and the Trump admin being bastards. I work with several charities and many of them are closing their waitlists because they’re thousands of people long. It’s quite a bit better out here for queers of all flavours, but it’s also one of the most brutal capitalist hellscapes in the world and overlooking that reality is the root cause of our horrifyingly massive queer homeless population.

The bottom line is that if you don’t have housing or work lined up before moving, you need to be very careful. Field depending, it can take months-years to find a job (ex: it took me almost 1.5 years to land my current position in tech) or even just to get on EBT, let alone getting into social / low income housing (many of which are turning to lottos in the interest of fairness). Even homes in Olympia, which do not have remotely convenient access to seattle (some of the worst traffic in the world during peak hours is the I-5 corridor between seattle and olympia) are averaging more than $500k.

I wish we had better (read, less overwhelmingly biased) reporting on the BYD cars. It would admittedly make a great deal of sense if they were selling at a loss - their cars are exceptionally nice for the price point they occupy - but at the same time I know most other automotive manufacturers are sandbagging their EV offerings and at the same time raising the prices. Stupid hard to find any legit reporting on this though, as everything is either

“China is coming for your JOB, WIFE and MASCULINITY so driving a [your-country-here] made combustion engine is YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY and it’ll make your DICK BIGGER”

or

"China is topping the other carmakers look they’ve stuffed the fastest car so far up GM’s ass they’re literally gagging"

and honestly, neither take is exactly helpful.

Dang that’s actually a pretty non-bastardy privacy policy. Data sharing with consent for non-operational requirements, explicit consent for 3rd party providers, minimal/no retention for non-operational information. Like it’s not great but it’s orders of magnitude better than, say, google drive.