You know, I’m extremely tired of hearing people piss and moan about the Democrats not accomplishing legislative miracles with the barest of majorities. The GOP is almost gleeful in being a bulwark against anything and everything that might possibly be seen as a Democratic win. We can’t have nice things because 49% of Congress just wants to watch the other party suffer and cling to power by calling them ineffective.

What the fuck have the Republicans done that have helped the average working class American in the last twenty goddamn years?

They’re nothing but rhetoric and religious fundamentalism. They had full control of both houses and the presidency and assured us we would have some great replacement to the ACA and literally nothing ever came of that. The Republicans don’t want to help Americans, they just want to be in power. Why isn’t that relevant? The Democrats can’t pass sweeping legislation because of obstruction and that’s the end of the world, but the Republicans have literally no ideas beyond removing rights from whatever flavor of “other” they’re targeting this season and they get a pass.

Our country is fundamentally broken. One party’s politicians say they want to represent all Americans and the other wants to use the military against their political rivals. And somehow the election is still close? Yeah. This whole country is fucked.

Newspapers are allowed to endorse candidates because the first amendment protects free speech. While I may agree with you that endorsements and news media stumping for ANY candidate is problematic and reeks of propaganda, it is, for better or worse, protected by the constitution.

Dame Maggie Smith was a gem in everything she was in. Her performances elevated every piece of media she performed in. I would watch movies just because she was in them, and I never regretted that. Today is truly a sad day. Rest in peace. She gave the world countless masterful performances and now the curtain has closed.

Instead of Steam forcing any disputes with them to go through an “impartial” 3rd party company they choose and pay for to oversee and rule on disputes, they are saying that disputes must go through the courts.

Basically forced arbitration has always been seen as anti-consumer and unfair because the company is paying for the arbitration and is thus considered more likely to be found in favor of. Steam is doing the opposite and as such this is seen as pro-consumer and a good thing

Part of why cats like you is probably because you don’t like them and seek them out. Most cats are wary of people directly trying to approach them without invitation or greeting. In general cats will find the person ignoring them the least threatening and most approachable.

It never fails that cats tend to flock toward the person that is allergic to them, because that person is typically entirely disinterested in them lol. Not being interested in the cats is likely why you make friends with them so quickly!

How many times are you going to post that link? We have seen it, and at this point you’re just spamming.

We get it, you don’t like Kagi. Stop spamming the thread.

Does your car have an AUX port by chance? Mine was the same with the Bluetooth limited to calls, but with a $20 adapter on Amazon I converted my unused AUX port to Bluetooth audio. Aside from that ONE thing I love my car and am thrilled to have this solved, especially so cheaply.

Generic Epipens still cost $300. They can all go fuck themselves.

My neighbor used a leaf blower to dry his car after washing it at 7am on a Saturday. I don’t know that I will ever be able to like that man after this.

100% agree. I’ve been using Kagi for a bit over a month now and I love it. My one and only complaint is business hours can be harder to find - I have to actually click into their website for it. That’s it though! Everything else is dramatically less painful in my opinion. I don’t need business hours frequently enough for it to matter though, and if needed I can use Google for that one thing.

Kagi has been a breath of fresh air

I’m not fully de-Googling, however I have been migrating things that Google does badly over to other services. Kagi for search was the latest, and admittedly hardest mentally for me to do. Not because the search engine itself isn’t fantastic (it is), but I’ve been using Google since its inception when I stopped asking Jeeves or Hotbot. Just feels weird to jump ship, but I’m so tired of how bad and enshitified their search has become that I just can’t do it anymore.

I actually have a Proton acct already but only use the VPN. Sounds like it’s time to look further into the other offerings.

As you said, you took on the responsibility and obligations of parenthood when you chose to have children. Part of that is considering their interests when exercising your vote. While I don’t have children, I don’t agree that you have more skin in the game as you put it, than I do. I, as a human being and citizen of this country, want to see it succeed and flourish not only now, but long after I am gone, for generations to come. My family, friends and loved ones are all considerations when voting, as well as what I think will be best for society as a whole. It’s why when local votes come up for school funding, I always vote in favor of increases, despite having no children of my own benefitting from it.

Every adult makes life choices, and has various considerations for how they think the world should be, and what will improve it. The personal decisions you make and how you live your life should not afford you more or less votes than anyone else.

Absolutely this. There IS a scenario in which I would love a “smart” or “AI” fridge, but it’s gotta be damn impressive to even be worth my time.

It needs to know everything in my fridge, how long it’s been there and it’s expiration date, and I want it to build grocery lists for me based on what is low, and let me know ahead of time that I should use something up that’s going bad soon. Bonus points if it recommends some options for how to do that based on my tastes. And I want to do this without having to manually input or remove everything.

But we’re still SO far from being able to do this reliably, let alone at any kind of acceptable price point, and yet fridge makers keep shoving out dumb fridges with a screen on them and calling them “smart”. I hate it.

Honestly, look into the Breeze litter boxes. They’re not automatic or anything crazy expensive, but it really does make a HUGE difference. I’ve been told by multiple strangers “I thought you had a cat?” after being in my house a while because she hides and the box generally cannot be smelled. If you change the pads regularly (i.e. before they are full), replace the pellets 2-3 times a year, and clean the box itself when replacing the pellets, the only smell you will have is from poop. I personally buy the bioplastic dog poop bags in bulk, and just use those to quickly grab and dispose of it.

When we used regular litter the cats tracked it everywhere, flung it out of the box, and it always had a smell, even when cleaned daily. I have none of those things with the Breeze boxes. We were using two when we had 3 cats and I had to replace the pads every 3 days. Now with one cat I replace the pads every week to two weeks depending on whether she divides her usage or fixates on one. We pick up the poop as soon as we notice it, which is usually very quickly because they can’t really bury it as well. I will never go back to traditional litter.

There are reasons why a business might actually need or benefit from having a single family dwelling in a way that aligns with their business. For instance a local theatre company owns two large homes here so that when traveling cast come for shows they have somewhere to house them without spending exorbitantly on hotel rooms for weeks at a time, and the cast get a more comfortable stay. The homes are typically occupied at least a portion of each month, and everyone involved benefits.

It’s reasons like these I wouldn’t want to put a total and complete ban on businesses owning single family homes, but in my opinion there should be a reasonable business justification for it and it needs to be very limited.

Not really. I haven’t looked into why it caused the issue it did. Presumably it is not actually intentional by MS, and there is some conflict going on that’s causing it. I’ll eventually get around to trying to let it install that update again, but life has been busy :)

Unfortunately that “oh but he’s so cute I can’t help it” crap bleeds over onto those of us responsible owners too. Golden puppies are adorable, and everyone wanted to let him jump on them when he was little. I would stop it at every turn, but it was a constant fight with him and other people trying to fix it. So what I’m saying is, screw those people. They make everyone’s life with dogs hell. -_-

I recently had to roll back a windows 10 update because as soon as I installed it all of my startup programs stopped starting up at launch. As soon as I removed it, the problem went away.

No Microsoft, you cannot ruin my Win 10 experience to coerce me into migrating. It’s gonna be a long annoying fight.

I love dogs and think they’re fantastic roommates, but I definitely get where you’re coming from. Most of the negatives of dog ownership can be fixed with proper training, but most people are too damn lazy. I often find myself annoyed by other people’s dogs as well. The only one of your listed problems I have to deal with is the personal space one (Golden retriever), and it’s as simple as saying “Go to your place” to solve/prevent it.

All that said, no dog, no matter the size or temperament, should EVER be left unattended with a small child, let alone an infant! Even with zero aggression dogs can hurt small children by smothering them or knocking them over. It’s as simple as buying baby gates to prevent it, and I just don’t understand why people let things like this happen :(

Who knows, by then Broadcom may drive VMware into the ground too, making the whole thing moot!