shikitohno

Damn, I was coming here to say this. All I can add is that maybe sleep on your stomach with one of these, otherwise it could wake her up vibrating the mattress, since she sounds like a light sleeper.

Then they have a shocked Pikachu face when the people they left to stagnate and rot, turn out to be the shitty products of their environment aka the neoliberal hellscape of modern day America.

I mean, the Democrats didn’t really leave these people to rot, they’ve largely been prevented from doing anything to help them since rural areas vote so overwhelmingly Republican. What do you really expect the Democrats to have done when it’s the other party these folks keep electing to represent them? They effectively say they want the policies that have left them so exposed and disadvantage, then they have a shocked Pikachu face that “those darn liberals haven’t done anything to help us.” Heck, even in broad terms, their voting habits have screwed all of us by preventing broadly popular things like universal health care or drug reform from going forward because of the disproportionate power the self-destructive votes they cast wield at the national level. My sympathy for them is extremely limited, and my patience at their insistence in making everyone else suffer for their god-awful politics has long since run out.

It moves the discussion further to the right and legitimizes Republican talking points for the majority of people who will only hear a brief soundbite about this, rather than diving deep into the matter.

Besides, the GOP isn’t about to run out of bogeymen to trot out just because they could get what they want on the border. They can take it as a compromise and try to push things further down the line. Or they can decide this is good enough for now, and start railing against something else. Union membership rising being a Chinese plot to infiltrate the US and install a Communist dictatorship, so we better write some new laws to enable even more union busting. Free school lunches for kids from poor families turning them gay AND communist by getting them hooked on the government teat early. Woke public libraries turning kids trans by letting them check out books that don’t universally demonize it, so better put some sort of draconian funding limits on them. They’ll find something else, don’t worry.

The way you’re framing it and Congressional Democrats approach these things only work if the Republicans aren’t completely shameless, above doing things that should completely destroy any remaining vestiges for their voters, but this has been disproven time and time again by the actions of the GOP. If they think they’ll have half a chance, they’ll wring out even more concessions on this front from the Democrats by pretending to offer something they immediately renege on, just to leave the Democrats going “Aw, shucks, fooled me again. I thought you said you weren’t going to do this again.”

Some people are just stupider than you would like to believe possible while still not forgetting to breathe. My father is one of the idiots that moans about “For English, press 1” or feeling slighted that people around him have private conversations in Spanish when he doesn’t speak it. Out of all the states, where does this idiot move to for retirement? Florida, famously known for its lack of any Spanish-speaking population, of course.

A good chunk of restaurants will also suddenly close or have massive price hikes when they can’t count on taking advantage of undocumented people and paying them sub-minimum wage off the books.

You’ll wind up dealing with a bleaker outlook on democracy one way or another. Just see how long the Democrats can cry wolf with “Oh no, the other guy is going to destroy our democracy, and I swear to god, guys, just vote for us one more time and we’re totally going to fix it this time.” You can only pull this bit so many times before people stop taking you seriously. At a certain point, you have to ask how stupid the DNC can be? This was a losing tactic with Hillary Clinton, it’s not looking so great for Biden, but just keep rolling it out every few years, it’s bound to start working sooner or later, right? Definitely sounds like a winning move to me. Heck, it’s real convincing when that’s what Biden ran on last time, and he’s not exactly crushing it with his strategy of “I’ll just go talk to these Republicans like I did 40 years ago, I’m sure we can reach an understanding like we used to, back when I still wholeheartedly helped pass laws that would lock up minorities.”

I’m sure being able to say “I told you so” will make you feel much better if things don’t pan out and it turns out you can’t just nag and guilt trip people into voting for a candidate that holds views they can’t stomach voting for.

Could just be that you can only run so many campaigns in a row with “If you don’t vote for us, it’s going to be the end of the world as we know it. And at least I’m not as bad as the other guy.” With the exception of Obama’s first run against McCain, that’s been the pitch for every single election I’ve ever been able to vote in, as well as a few before it. It gets old real quick, makes them come off as insincere, and doesn’t motivate anyone when we’re still largely dealing with the same BS issues that we were 20 years ago.

Trying to browbeat people into voting with the same old song and dance has diminishing returns, especially when your candidate is increasingly out of step with many of the voters they should be courting on major issues.

who is maybe the perfect reflection of what everyday conservatives have become, ignorant, stupid, and incredibly well off while whining about how they’re not well off enough.

I wouldn’t say they’re that representative of a lot of everyday conservatives. A lot of them are doing pretty poorly, but they’re ignorant and get pissed off at the idea that anyone else might benefit from a program they personally don’t qualify for or disagree with. My father is absolutely convinced that if the Democrats had the political will and ability to implement a wealth tax, that he would somehow be absolutely murdered by taxes on his $10 or $11 an hour he’s making at a Winn Dixie in Florida. He’s also the sort convinced that welfare queens living it up with brand new cars and designer clothes are not just a real thing, but a common thing that happens that Democrats just don’t want people to know about. He’d probably also chalk up his retirement sucking due to what limited social safety net we have in the US, rather than him draining his retirement accounts while he was unemployed before hitting retirement age so he could play golf and go hang at the bar with his buddies even though he was broke. Medicare is his right, though, he worked for that and earned it, but screw these poors under 65 trying to get healthcare with Medicaid. About the only thing he’s missing for your average, everyday conservative is an unhealthy dose of religion.

Things have gotten bitter, but you can’t have bipartisan politics when the majority of Republicans don’t engage with it in good faith. As recent years have shown, it’s a concept Democrats insist on sticking to for optics that prevents them from delivering on major platform issues, which the GOP only pays lip service to in years where they don’t have the votes to ram through their policies, regardless of what the opposition thinks of them. As long as the GOP continues with this attitude that lets them pack the Supreme Court and other levels of the judiciary, while passing broadly unpopular laws and blocking policies that have majority support, insisting on bipartisanship is a losing play for Democrats. Leaving aside whether or not they would prefer to perpetually campaign on issues like reproductive right versus definitively solving the matter once and for all, it just feeds into the narrative that the Democrats are a bunch of incompetents who can’t deliver on their promises, and even flub the ones they do make progress on by compromising their stances in the name of bipartisanship, sometimes before the Republicans even raise an initial objection.

Coupled with their abject failure at communicating their actual successes to the public at large, they’re kind of self-sabotaging here. All they’re accomplishing is further demoralizing their voters to maintain an image of respecting procedural norms in the face of an opposition who explicitly seeks to undermine and subvert those same norms. Who exactly is this supposed to excite?

See, this

I care within some limits. Using a phone I don’t like aesthetically is not in that limits.

and this

No no, I would prefer privacy.

are in direct opposition. They are irreconcilable positions. It’s your phone, it’s okay for you to decide you won’t compromise on aesthetics on your own devices, if that’s what’s important to you. Just own it and be prepared for pushback when you’re commenting on an article about a privacy-focused OS and using this as the basis of your criticism.

I’ve had bad experiences with all of them, it’s just the most consistent with FedEx. Out of the major services, I prefer USPS and DHL, by far, but even they still fumble things from time to time. FedEx has just been a consistent pain to deal with, across 3 addresses at this point. Plus, I happen to get off work and get home right around when FedEx comes through my neighborhood, so I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the lady that handles this area literally hurl every package small enough for her to be physically capable of doing so the 8 feet from the sidewalk to peoples’ front porches. I buy a lot of small, delicate things. Do other couriers toss stuff around? Probably at some point. But I know it’s a 100% guarantee it’ll happen with this lady, so I’ll take the “probably, at some point,” over a sure thing.

If they don’t deliver something to me and determine I need to go pick it up, their delivery hubs are also the least convenient to reach. One is across my county, the other halfway across the neighboring county, Both are at least 90 minute trips each way on public transportation, with a healthy walk between the last stop and their location. At least UPS drops things off a 15 minute walk away, and the post office is probably a 10 minute walk.

This is still kind of reading like “Look, I know ‘pretty phones over privacy’ is a bad take, so no, but really, yeah.”

Basically all the positives you’ve mentioned have been aesthetic, with one you even admit is worse to actually use, but which you prefer the look of.

Why on earth would I want to shop somewhere that I can guarantee will ship with FedEx? I’ll actively avoid places that only offer FedEx shipping as it is.

So does Qbittorrent, if you’re unaware.

That avoiding systemd is even a choise is nuts

I really want to know what the crossover is on people who know what systemd is, much less have any actual reason to decide they wish to actively avoid it, and those who would find this the best way of determining their next distro. That has to be a vanishingly small group of people.

This is great and all, but it doesn’t mean too much if Biden doesn’t actually care to correct course. There have been plenty of protests already showing the current policy is increasingly opposed by significant sections of the population, yet they’re only making the most token efforts at any sort of real change in their stance towards Israel. If tens of thousands of people turning out for protests on the matter don’t get it through the heads of Biden and other Democrats that this stance is untenable, I don’t see why we should expect he’ll suddenly start listening for a few staffers sending a stern letter.

In all likelihood, they’ll hold the line on this, then when Democrats lose the next elections, they’ll blame it on racists, antisemites, more leftist candidates spoiling their chances, or literally anything but doing some reflection and realizing some of their long-held positions are now deeply unpopular with a significant portion of their voter base.

My sense of taste kind of came back, but severely muted for some things. Coffee never quite got back to the same level of flavor, for example. I’ve also noticed my ability to taste salt is pretty shot. I can, but I have to add stupid amounts of the stuff. For an example, I had to do a clear liquid diet about a week ago prior to a medical procedure, and drinking some broth with 748mg of sodium per serving just tasted like drinking greasy water to me.

In terms of long term effects, it’s a bit harder to say. I got covid for the first time in August 2020 (yay for being an essential peasant!), and I was out of work until May 2021. I had to do months of PT because of what my primary doctor called a post-viral fatigue syndrome. At its worst, if I tried to walk more than a block away from my apartment and back, I would wake up the next day feeling sore from my neck down to my toes. I remember a day where I slept for 12 hours, woke up and made and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and just doing that left me so tired I went back to sleep for another 6 hours or so.

Other stuff is less clear. It certainly started manifesting and presenting symptoms after I had COVID, but correlation and causation being what it is, it’s hard to definitively say what might have just been low-level and not bothering me that much before and what could have been kicked off by COVID. I developed photophobia, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and some nerve damage after being ill for the first time, which are all fun.

I guess the photophobia is the easiest to manage, I just need to wear heavily tinted glasses at all times, as I get these awful migraines if I don’t. Uncovered light bulbs, TVs, monitors, whatever can set them off. The thyroid condition I get to take a synthetic hormone basically for the rest of my life and get blood work done 4 times a year to see how it’s working. The nerve damage I get to take another medication pretty much for forever as well, thanks to US insurance. Instead of a daily pill, my neurologist could give me an occipital nerve block every 3-4 months, but insurance doesn’t want to pay for them unless it’s done at a pain management clinic. For reasons I can’t work out, every pain management clinic I looked at with my referral seemed to be out of network for everyone, so it’d run me like $700 for the initial visit and $400 every 3-4 months after that. I guess they know they’ve got you if the pain is bad enough? Anyway, my prescription has been working so far and it’s the only thing I don’t even need to pay for before hitting my deductible, so I have that going for me.

If you assume they’re all 13" wide laptops and stacked them on their side to get maximum height per unit, you’d still fall 305,752 km short of the average lunar distance. You normally only see this level of hyperbole in the estimated street value cops give for drugs they seize, pretty impressive.

Maybe users wouldn’t have felt the need for adblockers if ad agencies hadn’t made them increasingly obnoxious, intrusive and pernicious. They just couldn’t leave a fraction of a penny on the table and made sites more and more unusable without adblockers, so screw 'em. They can reap what they’ve sown.

Do they not have phones or emails? Why do they specifically need to contact you via Facebook? The whole setup sounds rather intrusive and unnecessary, just tell them to call or email you.