You are confusing a “30 year mortgage” with a “30 year mortgage”. They sound the same, because they have the same term to repay the principal, but they are completely different because in the USA you usually know your repayments for the next 30 years, but in many other countries the repayments can go up a lot if interest rates rise.
In the USA, the usual mortgage has a fixed interest rate for the term of the mortgage. In New Zealand the interest rate is approximately a floating (edit:variable) rate over the 30 year period.
In NZ the mortgage interest rate (which controls your repayments) can be fixed for up to 5 years (the median is 2) but after the “fixed” period the interest rate resets to the current interest rates (edit: typically mortgagees lock in a new 2 year “fixed” rate at the current 2 year interest rate). NZ rates were around 2% to 3% since 2008 [1], but now they are closer to 6% [2] and most mortgage holders in New Zealand will have to pay twice as much for the interest component of their mortgage repayment, putting some people under financial stress (an acquaintance is being forced to sell an investment property because they were over-leveraged). The mortgage interest rate over the 30 year term is more of a stepwise approximation to the floating interest rate: I am unsure how much control the mortgage holder has over varying the principal repayments (I think I can pay 20% more principal per payment, shortening 30 year term to 24 years).
It is more complicated than that, and the USA has a wide variety of mortgage products you can buy including ones similar to NZ (not just the usual USA fixed rate 30 year). Other countries have their own quirks, so I am only speaking for NZ where I understand the details better.
I expect the meaning taken by the average person in different countries varies, without much overlap. My point is that mortgage products are very different in different countries, and the average person is very unfamiliar with the differences. Perhaps you are technically correct (the best kind of correct!)
For example, in Australia and NZ a “fixed rate”[1] mortgage is not the same as what you have called a “fixed rate” mortgage. Australia looks like it offers up to 10 years at a fixed rate on a 30 year mortgage (ANZ? some banks like Westpac only offer 5 years?). Banks in NZ offer up to 5 years, even though they are mostly Ozzie banks. Ozzie banks typically offer something called offset mortgages - that word doesn’t get used in NZ at all AFAIK (instead NZers can apply for a seperate revolving mortgage, I haven’t seen it bundled like in Oz).
What you call “variable rate” is called “floating rate” in New Zealand (and search completion hinted maybe the same for Canada & Singapore).
It’s even weirder in the UK because you agree a mortgage did say 30 years on a “standard variable rate” but then take a mortgage for say 5 years on a fixed rate or discounted “variable rate” which might last for 2-5 years. People do usually take a new “mortgage” after each period.
Imagine the mind blowing privilege of not just having a separate home office, but having being able to design it to yoru exact specifications with a window facing north, and telling people to "just add windows". Some people on here are so out of touch.
I really don't understand why there is so much money in American politics. The numbers absolutely floor me, tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Other countries have campaign financing and spending limits for very good reasons, but Americans seem to be totally fine with elections being financed by special interests??
Parent was suggesting that for sugar-per-unit-of-land, a tree will bear larger volumes. I'd observe it will take less effort to maintain, be much more resilient to drought and pests, and have several other benefits, and it's why permaculturists prefer trees to annuals.
While I suspect you're being snarky about strawberries not being trees, there actually is a strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo. I'm growing one, as it happens. They're a good looking tree, dark leaves, good canopy, lovely white bell-shaped flowers, but the fruit being reminiscent of strawberries more in the visuals than the flavour. This species appears on Madrid's coat of arms.
I was curious about this so call "strawberry" tree, the Arbutus unedo has nothing to do with strawberries. The fruits are delicious but if someone is expecting a strawberry, they will be highly disappointed.
Being prepared for disappointment is perpetually sage advice to the young.
Lots of things don't taste as you'd expect from their names -- monkfish is the first that springs to mind. I mean, sure, they're fish-flavoured, but ...
Mangosteens (my favourite fruit) are not at all like mangoes, kiwifruit taste more like a gooseberry than a chicken, dragonfruits are pleasantly delicate but way more bland than the fiery name suggests, and so on.
If you don't like the surprise of the fruit from strawberry tree not tasting like a strawberry, then the tree tomato (tamarillo) will really annoy you. : )
I learned about them a few years ago when a bought a house and was trying to identify the plants in the yard. Prior to that I had seen them in San Francisco and wondered if they were edible.
I snack on the fruits when ripe, but haven’t made anything out of them yet. Hummingbirds seem to love them and they’re evergreen, so they’re nice to have around aside from them fruit.
That's a fascinating tidbit about the tree. So the fruit is edible, just not delicious? I suppose it could theoretically be bred to produce a more sweet variety of fruit?
Louis Glowinski, a Melbourne resident, published a spectacular book about growing fruit in Australia back in 2008 [1] -- it's a marvellous read, especially for the domestic geographical references, as well as the proper alignment of months to seasons (obviously most other works are from the northern hemisphere, and the prevalence of things like 'pick these in late July' which need to be mentally rot-6'd, gets tiring real fast).
Anyway, there's a couple of probably unintended running jokes in that book -- the phrases 'highly variable' and 'good for jams' are frequently used when it feels like he's trying to be polite about good, but often far from great, fruit.
I recall he used both phrases for this species.
I think with a lot of these kinds of fruit trees that haven't been carefully selected over centuries, you don't have lots of named varieties, and consequently they're usually grown from seed rather than grafted, so in turn, combined with climate and soil variations, it's a bit of a pot-luck on whether you have great, or merely edible, fruit.
So, yes, you're right, we could start breeding better varieties, but this is an expensive pursuit for tree crops, and few are engaged in it these days.
Apples get a bit of attention (look at the Cosmic Crisp f.e.) and citrus too, but realistically most of humanity's diet today is based around species selected by hunter-gatherers ~11k years ago.
Air tools defintely don't have more torque than electric tools, they rely on speed to overcome their shortcomings in torque. The main high torque application in air tools is in impact wrenches, which use very fast hammering action. Modern battery impact wrenches can match the performance of the best air wrenches.
A top of the line M18 fuel impact (a $300 tool, before the $100 battery) is only equivalent with its air analog on the 1/365th of the year shop pressure runs at 90 because the OSHA guy is poking around and it's a heck of a lot bulkier.
When you start getting into 3/4 and 1" it's not even a comparison.
The cordless is nice to have but it's a luxury/convenience tool, not a replacement.
