I leaned way in for the 2016 and 2020 elections. I literally ran for city council (and lost) in 2020 to be part of the efforts to push things in big and small ways in the right direction. It was exhausting. People were awful and it was overall a terrible experience.

Meanwhile, for years, my wife and I were in the long and frequently disappointing process of adopting children from our local foster care system; we decided that adopting kids who needed families was better than bringing any more children into this hellscape.

3 weeks after I lost the miserable race for city council to a lawyer who had lost (sorry, settled) a sexual harassment lawsuit from his secretary only a couple years earlier, we took in our now-adopted kids. In the last 4 years we’ve had non-stop challenges, especially with my daughter, with behaviors - she was recently diagnosed with RAD. And we’ve chosen to pull back on basically anything that isn’t either helping us get some sense of stability, is at least enjoyable, or unavoidable.

I agree that everyone who can should be doing anything they can above and beyond voting. But I feel like all I can muster with activism right now is voting, and caring for my kids the best I can.

I, too, am part of the smarty pants society

I highly doubt that, the compute on these tablets is straight trash.

i read the article and it didn’t seem to state. how will they target me? using the personal info I’m required to give them to book my flight? the origin and destinations and seat location? these are entirely different kinds of metrics. one is far more invasive. and is it tying into larger models they’ve purchased from like google or something? this is stupid and i hate it.

It’s actually dumber than you describe. Everywhere west of the cascades is like 99% federal land

I’m a remote worker, and work on a pretty free and respected team. I found out the hard way that our PTO accrual expires at the end of the calendar year and starts from 0 on Jan 1. I haven’t submitted leave requests this year. but i have taken time off that i’ve run by my team.

I’m aware of tithing. I’m saying that 10% of your income in a tithe is not even remotely the same thing as 18% tip for a single purchase. It’s more comparable to a sales tax than a tithe. One is percentage of a total income, the other is a percentage of a purchase.

Holy shit. They give god 10% of their income. This server is “asking” for 18% of the price of their bill. They’re not even remotely the same thing.

I’m generally against tipping, but still do it. I’m way against illogical comparisons like this though.

As an adoptive parent of two kids from foster care, I know this is biased. And actually now that I’ve got a few years of parenting kids with trauma under my belt I actually think most people shouldn’t take on this challenge, because they actually wouldn’t be able to handle it. That said, I think that’s the only real way to counter the idiocracy effect. Adopt kids of the least responsible people to those who are most responsible. It’s mostly an opt-in, self selecting process that generally only moves things in the right direction. It’s also not really enough to actually offset the problem as a whole.

Still a good thing for folks to pursue though.

you guys make calls?

lot of comments in here talking about how they’re just doing their kills some other way: cops, mass shootings, not getting caught (this one is the most braindead). But everyone is ignoring how we’ve largely eliminated regular lead exposure that used to be the norm. that shit makes you go fucking insane.

I have ulcerative colitis and this is me

Is your assertion here that United Steelworkers just fucked up and endorsed a rabidly anti-union candidate because they’re not as up to speed on labor issues as you are?

I really appreciate the “you really think you’re smarter than the people whose job it is to do this?” Energy being exuded here. Spot on.

Are you trying to convince them they’re wrong? Or just get them to leave you alone? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just tell them you’re a believer (in whatever thing they’re preaching to you) and then wish them a blessed day or whatever? That would surely get them off your back.

I got my first job at a pizza place at the age of 15. On my first day, the owner really stressed to me that the law says i had to have breaks, but that they were from laws written for factory workers who couldn’t leave their post to go to the bathroom any time, so it’s okay if they don’t follow exact timelines for my breaks because i could use the bathroom outside of the break time.

Fuck that guy.

i don’t think it’s reasonable to say “most of the people are happy with that”. Most people in the US are definitely NOT happy with how the medical industry or insurance works. But i do think it’s fair to say that most people don’t understand that voting for the guy that says they will prevent higher taxes is also working to keep the insurance system in place OR they would rather have lower taxes than better insurance (and are too dumb to realize that would be a net gain) OR they don’t vote at all.

I work for an Android OEM; i am quite familiar with GMS and AOSP versions of Android. I was unclear what i meant - software choices on Android are highly limited when trying to avoid adware and trackerware apks. It’s just unfortunately a platform where the value extracted from it is way more often from provide free but not great software that also mines your life. not too many options for great software that also doesn’t mine you, free or paid.

I’m an iPhone user, and i’ll probably stay that way, but I’ve tried to de-google my life as much as possible and I’d consider de-appleing if there was an alternative that wasn’t google’d up. What do anti-google self-host folks do about smartphones? Android is “open” i guess, but it’s crammed full of adware and trackers and all sorts of garbage.

Linux for desktop is an easy-peasy transition; linux for mobile, no so much

“we’re children! we’re children! we’re children!”

Sometime last year I felt some lumps in my scrotum. worried it could be a sign of balls cancer, I went and had them checked. I have probably better health insurance than most people i know. Cost about the same. Outrageous. but hey, turns out i don’t have balls cancer so i guess it could be worse.