$2.13/hour. In 2025. Fucking insane.

My job is 12 hour shifts plus an hour commute each way. This is a big part of why we haven't already gotten a dog. Well that, and also until a few months ago we were in a pretty small apartment. My wife is home more than me, so we're considering it, but I want to try to time it so that I'm off and there more early on for adjustment period and training.

Humans don't deserve dogs. I want to be the kind of human who can almost disprove that fact.

So are you a writer for Black Mirror or a time traveler or...?

privacy and security

I'm not really sure how much my OS affects that though. If I remove that avenue, cool, but I'm still signed in on my browser and YouTube and various other apps, so to really protect my privacy and security, wouldn't I need a whole slew of other changes to actually be effective? Credit bureaus, which I never even asked to have involved, can't even keep a lid on my shit. How secure and private can I really expect to feel just from changing my phone OS, and is that warm fuzzy really good enough to justify moving from something that is working exactly as I want and expect to something that is, in a word, uncertain?

Not trying to attack you or anybody with these questions, just kinda frustrated that any time I've tried to look into it, all I find is a vague statement about privacy without any real elaboration, or worse, a bunch of speculation that the guy running it is unstable or something. Idk, it just feels a little like the wave of people screaming the praises of crypto.

I used to loudly support Google Fi when I switched to them from Verizon. My coverage wasn't as good, but my bill was a small fraction of what it had been, and I'm usually on wifi so the pay for what you use model was great for me. I also really enjoyed taking it with me to Mexico on vacation. Sweet deal since my average data use was like 1GB/month.

Then like a year ago, I did some digging and found that I could have a very similar experience with Mint, except unlimited data for about the same price. Plus the price was locked in because you pay for it up front. It took maybe an hour to swap our phones over, and we kept our phone numbers. There was a little bit of hassle getting voicemail to work properly, but that got figured out.

My favorite thing about these types of services are that you can buy a pretty cheap, unlocked phone, use eSIM, and you're not locked into your service provider. I am a fan of the Pixel a series of phones since they've got plenty good capability at half the price of flagship phones, but with good support. Others love the option to dump Android for Graphene OS but I really haven't seen a compelling argument for why I personally should go to the trouble since I don't see enough of a benefit for my use case. But that's neither here nor there. I just like unlocked phones, and my 8a and my wife's 6a were cheap and they were easy to transition to another provider; look into unlocked phones the next time you're shopping for one so you can have that kind of freedom.

Right now, I'm working a ton (72 hours per week) and my wife is working and going back to school, but every Tuesday is an entire day together. We just started playing Baldur's Gate 3 for the first time, and we look forward to it all damn week lol. We started like a month ago, but we're still only just now wrapping up the goblin camp. We both were already really familiar with 5e DnD, so a lot of the mechanics feel pretty intuitive to us. I have gripes with the camera (PS5 version) but overall it's a fantastic experience.

Before picking this up on sale, we were passing the controller back and forth through Astro bot. Also amazing! We rolled credits, and I'll probably aim for the platinum trophy at some point without her. There's truly not much left before we snag that, so she's not missing out.

"... signals prophecy signaling..."

Stay in school, kids. Don't be a dumbass middle school dropout like Tim Pool. Stupid fuck even called his show "Timcast". Dude, "Poolcast" was right there, not that it's much better. The loser is like 40 but never learned or matured past 14.

Even if you were to believe that he weren't technically guilty of treason when he incited an insurrection, it was legally decided by a judge that he had, in fact, engaged in insurrection against the US. Section 3 of the 14th amendment explicitly states that he shouldn't have been eligible to run for office. Him being president at all is in violation of the Constitution.

It makes perfect sense once you realize that their media literacy is through the basement. Regular literacy too, I'd wager. 54% of adults (in America) read below the sixth-grade level. Source.

Ah, I misinterpreted your phrasing. "We have to stop reporting on Trump lies like they're shocking" sounded like "nobody is shocked by his lies, so there's no point in bothering to report on it." You meant "stop feigning surprise in your reporting of his lies." I fully agree with you.

I disagree. When we stop pointing out the lies that the lying liar tells, we are complicit in him getting away with the lies. A shitload of people aren't really paying much attention. Those people might believe his lies if they're not seeing anybody pointing out that what he's saying is a lie.

Honestly, I'd rather see it pointed out even more what a fucking liar he is. I want the media to stop saying "falsely states" and other bullshit soft language, and then let it go to fucking trial and beat him if he tries to sue for slander/libel. It's a fucking disgrace that they're not only choosing to not do this, but they're settling when he claims that they're factual reporting on him is defamation or election interference. But honestly, at this point, I won't be satisfied until he's in a stockade and getting pelted by overpriced eggs.

Eggs.

Eggs.

Eggs.

I don't think we should normalize misgendering somebody as an insult. He's a fascist, not a woman or trans person.

Guess they're just smarter than you

Perfect. I said something similar the last time this sort of rhetoric came out of a coworker's mouth. Literally what I said about begging on the streets and making 6 figures was what he said. I said "that's not happening, at least not for more than maybe up to 5 people, and if you don't believe me then why don't you just do that instead of working harder and making less?" The response was some bullshit about not wanting to be a drain on society and how he would feel bad taking money he didn't earn. And yet his goal is to buy a few houses and rent them out so his housing is paid for by other people. Pointing out the irony to him would be a waste of breath.

My mom hasn't worked in a decade. Survives off of snap and my dad's SSDI survivor benefits. She STILL buys the whole welfare queen narrative.

Of course she does. She is said welfare queen. I'm sure she'd try to explain how it's not the same thing, but the reality is that she believes that she's earned (there's that word again) what she's receiving, implying that others haven't. I would have trouble maintaining a close relationship with somebody who holds these beliefs.

Thankfully, nobody ever becomes homeless due to losing their job and struggling to find a new one. Robust social safety nets have ensured that the only people who find themselves homeless are lazy pieces of shit who are actively trying to be in their situation. They prey upon people's generosity by begging in the streets and raking in 6 figures.

Big fat fucking /s because holy shit, I've actually encountered people who believe bullshit like that. I lived in my car for a little while, but thankfully I still had a job and there was a shower I could use at work. Only an absolute fucking ghoul would prey upon the unhoused.

Do both. An armed community can defend itself. Protect your neighbors. Fascists will be less likely to use their guns on you if your community has guns to fire back with. Build your community and then be able to defend it.

Oh I'm aware of that, but every time this playbook has been attempted, the perpetrators have been thoroughly smacked down. What makes them think that they'll have a different outcome? And even if they do, don't they see that absolutely controlling a pile of shit is worse than half controlling something that works? Musk already has hundreds of billions of dollars, and he's threatening that by doing this. Trump already has billions and is president, and these actions are probably gonna get him some more attempts. The lackeys might be at risk of losing things if they don't obey, but that doesn't explain why they're receiving the marching orders in the first place.

Sure, but why? To what explicit end? What is there to gain from getting rid of whoever their targets are? Idk if I'm overthinking it or underthinking this, but it kinda seems to me like this ends up making things worse for them too in the long run. So I just don't get it.

Revoking the right to abortion makes sense to me. They need more consumers and laborers to feed to the capitalism machine to perpetuate the infinite growth that it demands. I don't subscribe to it, but it does make sense to me that they would be on board with that. Culling the "undesirables" however doesn't really make sense to me. I don't know of a single thing that improves because of that. Fewer laborers, especially fewer desperate ones. Paired with tariffs, fewer consumers both foreign and domestic. Fewer tax payers. Most of who they would target are probably renters and not land owners, so more vacancies but not new unowned land, so rent prices and property value would drop. So who the fuck wins? Racists who care less about their account balance than the skin color of people in their town? Couldn't they just stay home and have that and their money too?

Yep. My immediate thought after reading this headline was of the couple times he looked like he was gonna cry because people were celebrating the downfall of Tesla and the time he was streaming PoE2 and got bullied enough that he pretended to lag out and ragequit.

He's truly a net negative contribution to the species, and he furthers that status with every breath. Maybe there could be some argument that putting money into stuff pushed companies to adopt new, greener technologies in order to compete, but his pro fascism agenda has completely negated any praises I might have ever sung. And I think he's too deep to ever reverse course.

We know that he salutes like Hitler. Let's all hope that he does that other thing like Hitler did that one time in late April of 1945. Epic memes ftw for the edgy memelord mastermind if he does it on the same day. 360 skibidi no scope rizz king shit.

If the beliefs, statements, or associations are lawful, then why and how does the government have the right to expel the person against their wishes? What does "lawful" even mean if the actions described as being "lawful" result in consequences by the state that serve as a punishment? Furthermore, are there beliefs, statements, or associations that would be regarded as "unlawful"? What are some examples of that? What would the punishment be for that?

What the fuck is the actual goal of this? Why facilitate such cruelty? What are these fucks getting out of this?

Everybody needs to arm themselves and learn how to shoot. Now. While it's still possible to. If they're not gonna follow the Constitution, then you're no longer guaranteed your day in court to seek justice, so there's no longer any reason to "come quietly". If your sentence is to be death anyway, then violent resistance may be the only route to deter cops from continuing to violate their oath and kidnapping/murdering other innocents. Do it for them.

Most cops are like black bears. They'll rush you and try to intimidate you into doing what they want, but if you make it clear that they're gonna get hurt or killed if they try, they'll tuck tail and run. They're cowards cosplaying as tough guys. Make them ask themselves whether this is worth maybe not getting home to their families over. Give them nightmares. Terrorism is attacking them where they peacefully are; I'm just saying to terrorize from within your own home to scare them off. They might come back with SWAT, but make them burn those resources all the same. They don't have infinite equipment and enforcers, and they'll ration it all well before getting low. They'll have riots to quell, so they can't put too many resources into every little kidnapping.

As John Lewis said, “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America.”