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I rent cars regularly from Avis and find them to be so easy to work with and lax about everything. Particularly when you pickup ar high volume locations like a massive airport. Is that just true about Avis or all major rental car companies?

Cars are always available & ready for pickup, nobody ever checks that I’m qualified to use the discount code entered, and nobody I know has ever had an issue with being nickeled and dimmed for a scratch.

Such an attitude has kept me loyal to Avis, but I’m wondering if I should not be terrified of other rental car companies. Is it just the nature of the industry?

Is that possible on Amtrak?

I just filed a form to have a bunch of payments that randomly aren't considered qualifying reconsidered.

For others who have done this recently, what's the turn around time?

I'll be moving to that area in September and seeing a lot of people that don't like Hudson Yards. I'm only staying for a few months but would still like to figure out what the day to day would look like there.

For context I'm 27M, live alone and work from home. Apartment is pretty spacious and works within my budget. About a 5 min walk from Penn Station.

I've visited NYC a few times but never explored much of Manhattan outside of the major tourist spots. I usually stay in Queens (with family) but have some family in Brooklyn too.

I'd like to get a better sense of what to expect from the neighborhood while I'm there and maybe a few neighborhoods to look at for a longer term move.

Suddenly I’m hearing a lot about it

Enough that it may move by the fall?

I recently took the the lake shore limited on a Sunday night from Schenectady to NYC to get home after bike trip. Wasn’t anything like I expected, conductor was grumpy about my bike and the folks on the train were a bit impolite (screaming children, a couple cursing out the screaming child. Folks taking up multiple seats, one lady trying to convince me to sit next to her so she tell me about “the lord” and more.)

Now, I get it. I was getting on toward the end of a long route, it’s summer, flights are expensive, the train was delayed, etc etc.

My wife and I are planing a trip to Buffalo. I’d assumed we’d take the train and it’d be a fun & pretty experience, but she’d kill me if I subjected her to that for hours on end. Was that norm or the outlier and there are better times of day/week to travel?

I didn't realize the next train back to NYC after 9:42 is 11:54

Was planning to go tomorrow and would be fine missing Silverstein.

I assume the concert outdoors ends at 10PM from the Stone Pony website.

Has anyone here had success with adding a low dosage Xcopri? 50mg or so.

I’m trying to suppress the “last mile” of seizure that my RNS isn’t. 1-2 a month that have no physical signs, but can be found on my RNSz

I'm thinking of switching to US Mobile from T-Mobile. My phone is on the Apple Upgrade Program (bought from Apple not T-Mobile).

Is that an issue?

I think I'm reluctantly going to have to start taking Xcopri (cenobamate)i. While my RNS has stopped almost all my clinical seizures and drastically shortened the occasional TC I do have, it hasn't stopped them fully, and it's also revealed I'm having more subclinical seizures than anyone ever realized.

Not gonna lie, kind of bummed out by it because my life feels like it's finally stabilized after a few rough years. On the surface at least.

Before I jump down this rabbit hole, does anyone have any advice on how to prepare for the heavy side effects I may experience? Hopefully only temporarily as I titrate.

After biking most of the Empire State Trail from Rochester to NYC I’m fascinated to learn more about how upstate got from the heyday of Erie Canal to today.

The outline of it seems quite clear. Manufacturing built up along the route to move freight (first by water then by rail), only for a shrinking world and ultimately NAFTA to send it overseas, hollow things out, and the lack of reason for optimism stoked discontent among those who didn’t leave.

I’d love to learn more about the details though. What are the best books written about it?

I’m getting close to finishing the whole Empire State Trail going west from Albany. Just need to do Buffalo to Rochester and Schenectady to Albany. Curious what other long distance bike rides folks would recommend? Going north from Albany doesn’t seem so appealing as it’s almost all on road.

Looking for rides that are 80-100 miles. Preference to ones that start in NYC and end near a train station back to the city, but open to driving one or both ways.

Also prefer paved paths through nature, but open to gravel as well (don’t mind if portions are on rural roads, just not the whole thing.)

Thanks!

I’m re-watching Mad Men, which is fascinating to do now at 36 instead of 22. And in 2026 vs 2012.

There are so many new angles I’m seeing the show from, but one of them is all the youthful folks preaching “free love,” screaming against the system , control, and praising the importance of equality and socialism.

It’s almost crazy to think those folks are today’s Boomers. Most of which ultimately sold out for the American Dream of a nice family and house in the suburbs with a two car garage, vacations, etc. and are now criticized for their aversion to change and refusal to hand over the reins.

So it makes me wonder what lies ahead for today’s “Culture Warriors” who are also leading the charge to upend the system while entering the workforce at a time of great technological change and opportunity to “cash in” if you want to be part of the system.

The last two weekend I’ve done ~100 mile rides in upstate NY on my gazelle T10. They are great, but it takes me a good 10 hours to do them, excluding commuting to the paths. So the long Sunday days are killing my Mondays.

Any advice on how to learn to pedal faster without draining the battery?

Currently, I use eco mode with bursts of both turbo for huge inclines and just turning off the motor for downhill and flat. That, combined with a 30-60 minute break to recharge has been getting me to 100 miles, just with an average speed that’s slow.

Coming off a ride from Querns to Albany via the Empire State Trail, that’s what I concluded.

You have old school locals (going back generations), encroached on by creative folks looking for cheap space and genuine expression, followed by white collar money, followed by folks whose parents have that money and now they want to act very like they are suffering social crusaders. With pockets of hard working immigrant communities that will happily live much more densely than those before.

And each one of those groups keeps pushing the one before further out.

Not exactly sure this is breaking news, I’m just shocked how glaringly apparent the similarities were as I went from town to town. And how I now get some of the underlying tensions and constituencies elected representatives play to.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and to the leg of the Empire State trail going from Poughkeepsie to Albany using my pedal assist bike

Can anyone suggest a good place to stop midway and charge my bike for an hour so? Typically a coffee shop or nice restaurant

I have a removable battery so I can take it in with me while bike stays locked up outside.

Hi folks,

How reasonable is it to expect to have internet service I can use to work on the train from NYC to buffalo?

Open to either Amtrak’s WiFi or my cellphone as a modem

Thanks!

Declining need as frontier models build in the functionality that once made them valuable and about to be acquired by someone in an all-stock deal before the company loses all its customers.

I see Google or Hubspot being the folks doing the acquiring, but who knows anymore.

Reporters at the parade are saying things like the Knicks are the only team that unites the whole city around a single sports team. They literally started saying “No sleep till….” and then stopped mid-sentence

Eric Adams has agreed to be the honorary chair and head of the Albanian office.

Remember the Nets, cancel all who don’t!