As long as you avoid complicated systems–like electronic shifting, hydraulic anything, and so on–anything that’s mid-tier and above, purchased from a bicycle shop (not a sporting goods store, not a dept. store) is going to be pretty repairable for the foreseeable future.

I can still easily find parts for my 2013 Fuji Cross. Honestly, the worst part has been pedals; I had Speedplay Frogs, and when the pedals wore out completely, Speedplay had stopped making them (and had been sold a few times), which leaves me with no pedal options that combine the ridiculous float with the feeling of being firmly locked in.

Anything proprietary is going to be harder to find parts for to repair, or to replace. For instance, Cannondale’s Lefty fork, and their old HeadShok system; good luck fixing those now. Simpler is usually going to be better; suspension may add comfort, but unless you’re mountain biking, I’d skip it in favor of rigid frames and forks.

I’m not a novice, but I’m badly out of practice. Doing things like properly shaping sleeve caps for set-in sleeve is something you lose pretty quickly once you aren’t doing it every day.

[…]then the pattern is automatically adjusted to your actual measurements.

This is called grading. Except that it doesn’t actually work quite like that; you can’t just dump new numbers into an existing sloper (or block, depending on which term you were taught) and expect to be able to make it fit correctly without extensive edjustment. Grading works pretty okay when you’re talking about smaller sizes (for women, that would be commercial sizes 00-4 or so, roughly size 6-12 for true sizing), but does not work well when you’re just plugging in numbers past that very limited range.

I would be very, very suspicious of claims about this. Grading patterns and fitting them to a specific person is much harder than simply plugging numbers in to a program. You’re likely going to need to do significant fitting of the pattern. (Also, without getting too deep into the process, you’re going to need to either have a very wide format printer, or a pen plotter, in order to use the patterns. Which certainly isn’t the end of the world, but most people don’t have a 72" wide roll-to-roll printer at home.)

I’m saying this as someone that did their undergrad work in fashion design, and used to be pretty decent at pattern making before I switched industries.

I’ve used multiple flat patterning techniques from a range of authors; you can get some really weird results when you plug your own measurements in, versus the ‘ideal’ measurements. For instance, I always need to significantly pitch the back of jeans patterns for myself (like, 2-3" or more); some ways of creating a jeans sloper end up being so incorrect on me that they don’t work at all.

I just wanted to point out that Georgia has consistently had a budget surplus for quite a while now, mostly because Republicans keep cutting critical gov’t services. Seem to me like Republicans could pay for a new plant using all of the excess taxes that they’ve been saving for a rainy day.

But are they in the right places? There’s always loss in power transmission, so you can’t use reactors that are in, say, Illinois, to make up for grid deficits in Alabama (or, not directly). And Texas, being a special snowflake, isn’t tied into the national grid, so they always need their own systems.

Broadly speaking, consumers should educate themselves about apparel, and then choose to buy apparel that’s better made and will last longer. It’s not just underwear. Jeans are a favorite example of mine. Most jeans right now are in the 9-10oz range, and have 1-4% spandex woven in so they stretch. 50 years ago, most jeans would have been in the 12-14oz range, no spandex. The would shrink in the wash, so you had to be careful, but would also slowly break in and mold to fit you. Jeans with spandex are more comfortable right off the bat, and can be made comfortable even if they’re fairly tight, but as they wear, they’re going to start sagging. And since they’re a lighter weight material, they aren’t going to last as long. The changes are, in large part, driven by the need to ensure that your jeans fit a wider range of body shapes; your fit doesn’t need to be as specific when you use elastic. (That starts wading into the deep end of fitting apparel, but the short version is: patterns can be pretty easily graded to fit people that aren’t overweight, but once you get past a certain amount of body fat, distribution and shapes start varying widely enough that you simply can’t make anything that’s close to universal without making it fit like a poncho.)

There was even a brief period of time where Invista had a partnership with a mill that was making denim, and they were doing 60/40, or 50/50 cotton/nylon denims, and they had fantastic wear capabilities. I haven’t been able to find anything about that particular material in about 15 years, sadly. (Cotton/Kevlar blends are possible to find; those are used for motorcycle jeans. They’re also $60/yard for 30" wide fabric, which is insane.)

You’ve never bought a $30 drill, have you?

I use my Makita drill a significant amount. Right now I’m using it instead of a hand crank on my case trimmer (for reloading ammunition; I’m a moderate volume shooter). I’ve had it for nearly a decade. Yeah, I’ve replaced the batteries twice, and now have the higher capacity ones. But the drill is still holding up. The Festool Rotex disc sander I’ve got is easily the best sander that I’ve used.