I also noticed over the same period that I was getting DNS failures and upon investigation I discovered that a DNS blocklist of malicious sites had included feddit.online, probably submitted to maintainers by a malicious actor (or a clueless one).

https://github.com/badmojr/1Hosts/tree/master/Xtra

Looks like they’ve removed it now.

Anyhow, thank you so much @Jerry for the additional DB hardware! I’ll see about giving the ko-fi a bump.

In most likely scenarios the social amortization should cover everyone including production/transportation labor.

Surviving; paying attention; ensuring your family’s security and hopefully that of your community are all in no way mutually exclusive. Kooky deflective narrative.

Okay, I had a lengthy chat with the mechanic for my Audi A3. He’s asking me to consider most strongly the Mazda CRV or Toyota Corolla Cross. He loves the Honda.

And yes, I keep reading very good things about the recent CX-30 - including its top ranking for compact SUVs by Car & Driver so I’m reconsidering it strongly also. It could be the car with the ability to get me to move from sedan to (entry-luxury) SUV and thank you very much.

(Reviewed in 2024; why not more recently? Don’t know.)
https://www.caranddriver.com/mazda/cx-30-2024

https://www.caranddriver.com/compare/?trimIds=68138110f617407e339225dc%2C688ca95787d50e8069d44443%2C68c2b669b0e59b06d393e950

Hey, hopefully a last question, only because I feel like I’ve been falling into a Subaru-yay-or-nay quandary.

Anybody have experience with the Chevy Trax? I’ve seen a few in the mountains around here and they look capable for what that’s worth - and more like a sedan, which is appealing to me. In the Compact SUV category Car & Driver likes it very much. Readers have complained about the wet timing-belt.
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a68037852/2025-subcompact-suv-comparison-test/

I realize we’re talking about transmissions, and one of the reasons I’ve tilted toward the Mazda is that it does have an available manual. The Subaru model(s) I considered do(es) not. I just don’t know enough about CVT technology to compare vehicles based on their length headers, but it’s all good!

The details about CVT length headers are beyond my scope of concern but I do appreciate everything you’ve said, thanks very much.

I have. I drove one as a rental and I liked it but it did feel SUV-like and I think it goes for around $36k base if I’m not far off. Maybe I am. Anyhow it seemed comfortable if not really all that much fun to drive, but I’ll take another look. Thanks!

I should say I’m not specifically looking for a manual and am also more likely to buy new than used this time. Some models might be allocated but I don’t envision many shortages this time of year. Really wondering what people would do with my rather vaguely stated set of considerations for options and features, mostly, traction/clearance/cost-of-ownership/cargo-space/drives like a car not a van/reliability/performance/tech/and I’d like a sunroof. I’m probably going to miss my A3 but its time is nigh. Maybe there’s no perfect car for me and I should stop feeling like there ought to be. But as nice as the 2025-6 Forester ‘Limited’ trim package looks to me (including some recent drivetrain improvements beginning in '25 I think) some of you with a notable exception appear to be persuading me away from the mfgr. Continuing to read and research. Thank you all so much.

Currently reading:
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2026-subaru-crosstrek-hybrid-first-drive-review
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2026-toyota-corolla-cross-first-drive-review

And I hear that sales are poor for the Mazda 3 at least the hatch version, and they might be considering ending its production after the model year. I don’t think that should inform my purchasing decision (should it?) but it may tend to push prices down (would it?). This has really caught me eye.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/2025-mazda-3-price/

This is a concise and useful impression. Thank you. If I should consider anything beyond these two, I’d welcome any such suggestion. Leaning to the 2026 Mazda3 Hatchback 2.5 S Premium.

I loved my Mazda 323, the early model then known as the Protege, of which Mazda made versions for both Mitsubishi and Chevrolet. A very successful and durable model in my opinion. And like @[email protected] I’m cynical about Subaru reliability. I know a couple different mechanics - around here where Subarus are totally ubiquitous - who curse them for being in their shops so repeatedly. But I do like AWD, if not CVT (having no experience with the latter).

Yes, I’ve been thinking a little about the Crosstrek for years. And in terms of the deliberate cross between hatch and compact SUV, I read some appealing things about Toyota Corolla Cross. Nobody has much experience with that car yet, though. And there are others, from Kia, a new Honda Civic variant, etc. I’m interested but also getting shopping fatigue.

These are all dark themes, correct? (My general preference is for light ones.)

She needed to have directed the defendant to effectuate the man’s return rather than merely facilitate, the latter being more along the lines of hope and prayer.

The first word I’d remove is “Deported”. Reporters, editors, citizens should stop using the crimebosses’ lingo & framing. Mr. Abrego García is a (noncriminal) US resident. He wasn’t deported. He’s a first-generation American, #ABDUCTED by thugs, #TRAFFICKED by armed mercenaries, to a FOREIGN #tortureprison for profit, #slavery, #disinfo and #disruption.

Just curious whether that’s a word limit or character limit. Generous in either case, relatively. That’s a lot of words.

The Mastodon instance at which I’m a donating subscriber has a 12,000 char limit. And they block CF AI datafarmer bots. It seems quite trivial to block NSFW there, and it hasn’t got any designated special-interest allegiances:

from https://hear-me.social/about
hear-me.social "is a general-purpose Mastodon server administrated in the Greater Boston, Massachusetts area. All are welcome to sign up, so long as the rules are followed.

"We federate with Threads, some do not. Read our Threads FAQ.

"We use Cloudflare to block artificial intelligence (AI) bots, crawlers, and scrapers from scraping your content for training large language models (LLM) to recreate posts without your permission.

"While most Mastodon servers are limited to 500 character posts, here posts can be up to 12,000 characters because we think you have important things to write.

"We also relay with over 1,500 other servers, some very large. This means we share each other’s posts and accounts in real time. Your posts go to those servers immediately, even if there are no follow relationships. Servers without relay relationships only share posts when there are follow relationships. Your audience is large here, and you see more posts than you would on servers that do not relay.

"You can see the incoming messages arriving here from all over the Fediverse from the relay by going to our Live feed

"We do not secretly shadow-ban our own users (“limit” or “silence”). We will always notify the account owner of the action and the reason.

“When signing up, you must read the quick, short, set of rules presented to you. Requesting an account is confirmation that you have read and agree to abide by our rules…”

Their attitude is so great that I’m proud to donate, rhyme unintended, and I’m not usually too much of a donor guy. I just do a monthly coffee. They do not beg in any way. As far as I know it’s just one guy, spending a lot of his own time & money on the Mastodon server as well as the PieFed instance from which I’m posting, and a Pixelfed instance, and a BlueSky PDS.

Recently I have been unable to find any working public frontends for YouTube or Instagram. People keep sending me links to content on both. Piped and Invidious servers were still fairly plentiful just a very few weeks ago. Based on what I’ve only just now read here, I’ll try GrayJay for YT. If there’s a good source for persistently updated info on currently-functioning, public-facing Privacy Frontends, please post a link (or keep this thread updated?). Thanks!

I thought Comcast [/Universal/NB frickinC] gave Don a million for the inaugural, no?