Worth noting that, outside of WW2, the US has never really had a large merchant fleet.

1. The US is second in the world, behind Ukraine, in military drone production.

2. The US is a close second to China in logistics + last mile drone production.

3. The US is still the only country with the proven ability to move mass anywhere in the world.

None of this means that the US will win a hot war against China. However, that has - always - been the case. The US fought against China in Korea and SE Asia/Vietnam and had the opportunity twice to move the conflict into Chinese territory. They didn't, for obvious reasons.

Geography + LOCs + population are a b***h.

Will be trying to implement a virtual bass array next.

…

Inflation is a pain in the rear.

It now costs around 8.50 USD.

The inflation adjusted value of 2.99 USD in 1990 is about 7.88 USD.

Did the price go up? Sure. Are you likely getting slightly more in 2026 than you were in 1990? No idea, but it seems plausible to me.

Inflation is the answer.

All of talk about the technical merits or demerits misses the point. I can spout of a dozen or more memorized IPv4 addresses. IPv6? Good luck.

Almost every town in the US, at one point, was dense enough to support a vibrant main street. Many (most?) of them even had tram lines and other forms of public transportation.

It's not an either or proposition. You can have cost-effective infrastructure through relative density without having to deal with all of the trappings - good and bad - that come from a city.

And this was my comparison?

That said, I'm willing to bet that San Fransisco and the surrounding communities had comparable public transportation in the 19th and early 20th century. While I can't speak for the bay area, you can still find exposed tram tracks in many US cities - Philadelphia, for instance.

The US's move from having the best to arguably the worst public transportation system in the world among developed countries is a lesson in disastrous government policy.

Something that, for some reason, people in the states don't want to accept is that - when given the choice - the vast majority of people prefer living in dense urban environments.

Rail <-> Road isn't an either or issue. It wasn't in 1850 and it isn't today. The only difference, at least in the US, is that poorly designed government intervention/policies forced low population densities.

Rail and other forms of public transport simply don't work with suburban sprawl. Large roadways also don't work - compare the state of US infrastructure against pretty much every other country out there - it's just that the financial bill from an unbelievable amount of deferred maintenance hasn't come due yet.

Codex -> LiteLLM -> VLLM

           |____> MCP

Also worth mentioning that some paid MCP providers offer an actual value added. Sure, I can use curl or a self hosted crawler for web searches, but is it really worth the pain?

Actually, yes, I do. The marginal cost for publishing a study online at this point is essentially nil.

It's gotten a lot better over the last couple of years, but stating that you were offered drugs there is like being offended that you walked past a casino in Vegas.