partial_accumen

Long ago I ran a Windows Media Center PC in the living room and used the hell out of it. When WMC finally went EOL, I look for alternatives and found Plex. I never got around to setting up a Plex box, and now I see it too is ready for the scrap heap. I think this is what getting old is. You plan on doing something and never get around to it. Time passes much faster up here in age.

Overcorrection in policy is not uncommon in authoritarian regimes. I’d imagine because policy carries the threat of imprisonment, not just guidance.

“The Chinese government wants to promote traditional family values and liking danmei novels is seen as a factor in making women less willing to have children,” Dr Ge explains.

I’d trade Ukraine getting NATO membership if it means Hungary loses it.

If I understand the explanation, its like when an author (or their proxies) buys thousands (millions) of copies of their own book to make them “sold” so that they can raise their standing on the “Best Seller’s List”.

No, I wouldn’t call that diplomacy.

This is why you and I aren’t diplomats.

If the head of NATO is dependent upon the USA for lots of support to NATO, then it is in NATO’s interest for the head of the USA to like NATO. If you know the head of the USA is incredibly shallow and you can achieve that support simply by sending an email/text message which requires zero dollars, and at best, a bit of political capital, then its a good deal for the NATO head to do that.

This is what is both fascinating and horrible about diplomacy and geopolitics. Its not about being “right” or “moral” in the moment. Its about getting what you want hopefully in service of the overall goal of of your interests. Sometimes that overall goal is “right” and “moral” in the case of NATO usually.

Iran, take a good look at the amount of military support Armenia received when reached out to Putin after an attack by Azerbaijan:

"Despite Armenia’s appeals for assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and Russia during Azerbaijan’s incursions in May 2021 and September 2022, both entities declined to assist, leaving Armenia on its own.[62][63] "

source

And Armenia was a signatory on a mutual defense agreement CSTO. Iran isn’t.

Tangentially, I was chatting with the owner of my local pub in Boston recently, and apparently it’s become something of a game (?!?!?!?!?) to try to slip people mickeys around here.

In some time periods in some places in the world, getting a hand cut off was punishment for theft. While that is a bit extreme, maybe assholes convicted of this should lose the final knuckle of their pinky finger as punishment for drugging people at bars.

assuming I’m worried about a smash and grab

For your specific use case, how about this:

Get a cheap USB thumb drive and a long USB cable. Put your disk unlock password on that thumb drive, and semi-permanently affix the USB drive to your building. You said you’re in a basement. Put it on top of a rafter with a metal fitting that would keep the drive from being taken without removing the screws. Run the long USB cable from the thumb driving in your rafter to the USB port on the machine. Alter your startup script to mount the thumb drive read the password from the thumb drive to unlock your main disk. Don’t forget to immediately unmount the thumbdrive in the OS after the disk is unlocked for extra safety.

If someone is doing a smash and grab, they’ll unplug all the cables (including this USB cable going to the thumb drive) and take your machine leaving the disk encryption password behind on the USB thumb drive.

I’ve never felt like I’ve been able to “afford” a vacation in my entire adult life.

I’m interested in this thread of conversation if you’re willing. If not, no worries.

You have a vision of a vacation in your mind. How much does that theoretical vacation cost? We can even put upper and lower bounds on it. What dollar figure do you think you’d need for the entire vacation (travel, lodging, food, expenses)?

When you remove the “landlords” from your statement, the tourist blame doesn’t make much sense:

Think about it: who are all these tourists [snip], and why are they able to afford to outcompete the locals for the properties in the first place?

Because a tourist only need the housing for a few days at exorbitant prices and the locals need it for 365 days?

I depends. How much of a bribe are you willing to pay to trump’s personal bank accounts?

I don’t have a recommendation for you, but if you exhaust your leads there is a large comparrison table with all kinds (and ages) of remote access solutions that you could search against for your criteria (open source, supported, etc) here:

Comparison of remote desktop software on wikipedia

However critics complain that while buyers for western markets only want to buy certified tea they rarely offer to pay a premium for it. While UK consumers are happy to splurge on coffee, the same is not true of tea. The average price of a teabag is “just 2 or 3p” despite the fact that the cost to grow and pick tea is increasing, according to a recent Fairtrade Foundation report on the subject.

I’m going to need more info on these’ critics argument, because these statements by themselves don’t pass the “sniff test”. A company buying tea for resale won’t pay anything more than they need to. If their customers are demanding certified sourced tea, then the company will source that. The way customer demand this is if they stop buying your tea because it doesn’t have certified sources.

If a tea company could make just as much money buying cheaper non-certified tea and they’d retain all their customers and continue with their projected growth, they wouldn’t buy certified tea.

Best case scenario with the honest man: he does nothing and I starve to death. Worst case scenario with the lying man: I starve to death anyway. May as well try changing things.

With the lying man, as in my example, you won’t starve to death, you’ll die from exposure long before you die of starvation. If you’re seeing dying much sooner as direct result of his actions as an equal outcome, I’m not sure what to tell you.

At least the lying man admits there’s a fucking problem.

He’s not admitting there’s a problem, he saying whatever he thinks you want to hear to give him your vote. This man stiffed his own employees and contractors on a regular basis. On what evidence in his entire life, did you arrive at the conclusion that rich donald trump wanted to do anything at all to improve the life of people like us? Not words. Actions.

We don’t have to speak in theoreticals though. trump won. Are you glad he got voted in? Is your life better now? Or is this now worse than under Biden?

If I’m starving to death, and the most trustworthy man in the world says “I will do nothing to help you” while the most dishonest man in the world (Donald Trump) says “I will shower you with more food than you have ever seen in your life” I’m going to take my chances with the dishonest man. Maybe the lie is how much but there will still be something. Better than a guaranteed nothing.

Except its not a “better than a guaranteed nothing”. The liar didn’t just not shower you with food, he stripped you of what little clothing you had left, and threw you out in the desert to die faster, and he even has a history of that, so its not like you didn’t know the liar was capable of it.

Is it not the voters fault though?

It’s the fault of the Democrats

…and…

You also cannot tell voters who’ve been getting poorer while you’ve ruled that you won’t change anything,

The opponent promised all kinds of things to voters who had been getting poorer, most of those promises were straight up fantasy, while others were distorted mistruths.

In your mind, do you think voters are free from have any responsibility for critical thinking? If a known liar is lying to you and you take action supporting those lies, should you be responsible when the lies are indeed shown to be lies?

and definitely shouldn’t tell them to be joyful about it.

This is the second time you’ve used this exact same language. Can you cite the source where you’re saying Democrats told people they should be joyful?

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I just went to Google maps to see where this was and was surprised and saddened to see that Google maps inserts markers for where the wildfires are, and that there are FOUR ACTIVE RIGHT NOW!

Earlier this year I saw the aftermath of fire devastation in Jasper Alberta. Hundreds of acres left with burned black tree trunks and many homes and businesses lost in Jasper itself. I feel for the Manitobans affected. These fires also look too close for comfort to the Pukatawagan/Mathias Colomb Cree Nation to the northeast. I hope everyone stays safe.

There absolutely can be with savings outside of government pension to make that “the children/grandchildren” time, but current government based systems aren’t generally designed and built for that today.

If he, and the rest of that society want that, it will likely mean substantial tax increases. If that populous is fine with that, then it should be pretty simple for lawmakers to make those changes into law. Given that “the children/grandchildren” time not only isn’t in law currently, and that lawmakers are increasing the retirement age to 70, it doesn’t sound like there is support from the voters for that change.