I saw my rotting railings as a way to fund a new hobby. Since that project I've built a gate, a few planter boxes, fence repairs, a table with the scrap wood and a few other minor things. Enjoyment aside, my cost savings including the value of my vocational time would be reason enough but like you said I have specific cases that can't be bought off a shelf.
It is also difficult to get skilled labour to perform small jobs where I live so it is almost a necessity at this time.
My woodworking journey started when I was quoted $2500 to fix my porch railings. $1000 in materials, $1000 in tools mix in youtube tutorials and patience and now I'm hooked. The sliding compound mitre saw was the life changing tool for me. It was what was holding me back all these years from doing my own projects. I was always outsourcing this type of work for simply the cutting of lumber and thought I could do better than what I paid for. My railings turned out really well and mercifully passed the wife approval test.
Another detracting factor in the ventilator value calculus is the number of doctors and nurses infected while treating intubated patients. It is very difficult to contain the contamination when removing tubes as the patient always coughs. I'm not sure ventilators save net lives.
I think all the current measures are for the purpose of curve flattening. The volume under the curve (infected people) will be the same but it will be spread over a longer time period and hopefully avoid a spike of cases that will crush health care systems.
The harm is that Facebook gains control over prediction markets that they then sell to the rich and powerful to nudge enough of the population to their points of view. These points of view are often not in the general public interest.
Many Enterprises run critical legacy apps that depend on IE and it's ability to emulate lower versions. Many large orgs would require $100's of millions to rewrite all of them. No one will fund exercise that until the proverbial gun is point at them. 2029 sounds about right.
...and accelerate the concentration of wealth and power to the point where the top 10% are starting to complain about the top 1%. Moving into developing nations is just the system expanding to extract what little surplus value they create.
I'm not sure the criteria for determining an 'average' pilot but if becoming a test pilot is a big incentive for trying to be the best you can wouldn't this drag the average pilot quality down?
There has been a bit of pain aside from the flimsy monetary damages. To date Equifax had to manage numerous lawsuits from municipal, state and federal jurisdictions. They were investigated by FTC, SEC, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, UK Financial Conduct Authority, UK Information Commissioner’s Office (privacy regulator) and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Equifax had to attend congressional hearings conducted by the House Financial Services Committee, the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Digital Commerce & Consumer Protection and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Communications. The outcome aside from monetary penalties also should factor substantial reputation damages, costs of increased regulation at both the state and federal levels, CEO Richard Smith retirement, issuance of a public apology and the IRS suspended its contract with Equifax. Further lawsuits, hearings and regulation will continue to tax Equifax.