Practical Survival Advice

So, the DW and I received an interesting letter from our local utility. Seems there was an error on the meter back in April, 2023 (so about a year and a half ago). Luckily the utility was able to catch the error and bill us for about $3800 Yesterday.
I contacted the utility and spoke to lower level customer service. Apparently the utility has enough computer time on its hand that they can go back a year and a half and catch errors. Now I understand how an error of $200 or so a month can…

Utility bill error?

Hospitals across the U.S. are taking steps to conserve their supplies of IV fluids after Hurricane Helene struck a critical manufacturing plant belonging to the country’s biggest supplier.
Baxter International, a medical technology company responsible for making IV fluids for most U.S. hospitals, said Sunday that it…

Hospitals take steps to conserve IV fluid supply after Helene strikes critical factory

I hope this does not happen here, the chaos would be horrible.

The port strike is unfortunate but I'm more interested in the 'ban on automation' that was included. AI, automation, digitization etc. is the way everything is going. Tractors used for farming kept our nation from starving, excavators are infinitely faster than hand digging. What's your thoughts on banning automation (from a macro perspective, in general- not just the port strike). The 77% increase in wages is not justified considering the costs pass thru to consumers and we could likely…

Ban on Automation

Does a Bravo Company BCG work okay in a S&W M&P Sporter 2 AR-15? I'd like to replace the factory BCG with the Bravo.