I don’t mind much paying for streaming (although that’s increasingly more and more annoying and I still tend to just download whatever I actually care about) but until and unless I can pay to “own” a movie and they just provide me with a DRM free video file of some sort, I will never “purchase” digital content like this.

If you tried this kind of bullshit in just about any other context, even normal people would think you’re crazy.

Normal Person: “hi there, one blender please. I’ll take this one for $25.”
Sales person: “Cool here’s your receipt.”
NP:: “It says here at the bottom of the receipt that you can just come in my house and take this blender back whenever you want or maybe never?”
SP: “yep.”
NP:: “And you don’t tell people that ahead of time?”
SP: “no when you buy it you agree to that by opening the box and it is on the receipt you get after you bought it.”
NP: “you fuckin with me rn?”
SP: “afraid not, and would you look at that corp says I need that blender back, thanks.”
SP: “oh, shoot. I see here you also bought a toaster from EvilCorp sold in one of our EvilMart locations a couple years ago, we’ve decided to license that brand instead to our new partners FukUMart, so we’ll be taking that toaster but if you want you can head to your local FukUMart and buy that toaster again for more than you paid the first time.”
NP: spontaneously combusts

Just for clarities sake, there is one big sticking point here that I want to make clear. Pay, hours, etc cannot incentivize a fix to this system because it’s not about attracting good people or bad people or dumb people or smart people, it’s about the system. If cops made $120k starting with 5 weeks of vacation and only had to work 32 hour weeks, we would not see significantly different outcomes because it is simply the institution and systems and culture that are the problem. Honestly, that would probably only increase the problem since it just further removes police from the normal humans they’re policing. Probably also instead of attracting people that are mission driven, it attracts mercenaries, basically. This is how we get billionaires; they’re mostly not evil, just so far removed reality and doing one of the most human things possible – rationalizing our own behavior for our benefit.

The idea that there are purely good or purely bad people is mostly a myth. There are people that we could objectively define as purely good or purely evil, but they’re the outlier. Nazis for example. The truth is even scarier than the myth. In most of our depictions, nazis are homogenous blob of pure evil. While nazi’s certainly had some purely evil people, the truth is the vast majority were just average people exposed to a system that creates an evil outcome. Of course, there were also purely good people in that as well, but the system often led those people their graves, or they had to be the right combination of good/smart to resist and stay alive. But most people just participated or closed their eyes and went about their day.

The problem is not the people, it is the system and pay and benefits aren’t going to fix it.

Now all that said, the Uvalde cops clearly over-index on little tiny dick bitch ass cowards and kinda blow a hole in my thesis. I wouldn’t call them evil, but just speaking statistically you would think even one of them out of the scores of cops there would have had even an underdeveloped backbone. The cowardice shown here should be something that lives into myth and legend and the way people say “Benedict Arnold” to mean “traitor” they should say “Uvalde cop” to mean “coward.”

Indeed is reporting that the average starting salary is like $50k, and the average in the US is $60k. Policing also isn’t even in the top 25 most dangerous jobs. That link is also talking base salary, but even in the situation you’re describing, you’re talking overtime in the $20k+ range.

The problem with bad cops comes down to two main things:

• they’re not here for public safety or here to protect and serve, they’re here to protect capital.
• well, it’s really just the first one, but keeping that in mind, the system is setup in a way that the only outcome can be a corrupt police force. Legal civil forfeiture, qualified immunity, overly powered police unions (the only time I’ll complain about unions), deliberately low standards in hiring, deliberately not require the police to even know the law they’re supposed to enforce and probably a dozen things I’m forgetting. Police aren’t there for us, they’re there for capital.

Finally, police funding and increasing the number of cops has almost nothing to do with crime rates which is what calls to defund the police actually mean. Police are basically systematized violence where pretty much the only tools in their literal and metaphorical toolbelt are increasing levels of violence. The call to defund the police is more about funding the things that actually reduce crime – better education, economic outcomes, and people trained to deal with the types of issues that police are probably less qualified to deal with than the average retail worker like mental health crises. Advocates for defunding the police are instead advocating for spending to be allocated to people who are qualified to actually deal with these problems.

Anyway, tl;dr – if we offer cops better pay and better hours, we’re just going to be getting more expensive cops stealing our shit, incarcerating us at one of the highest rates in the world, and murdering people with less consequence than the cashier at Target gets for not upselling credit cards enough because while plenty of good people* become cops, policing as an institution in the US is corrupt.

* “Good” people and “bad” people are mostly a result of the systems and culture they exist in and very few are truly “good” or “bad.”

I tend to reply more often than is probably good for me not because I care about changing that person’s mind, but instead the others that are reading.

The only thing that I think is a little complicated these days is make sure that you’re not reliant on a particular Windows-only app. For the vast majority of common apps, you’re going to be fine, and it’s sounding more and more like even gaming on Linux is not only fine, but getting to the point of being the best way to do it. If you do have a particular app you rely on, I’d look into the various ways that you can get Windows apps running on Linux (which can be a little tricky, but usually not too bad.) But even like 10 years ago, I built a machine for an elderly family member, put probably some flavor of ubuntu on it, and I never had to troubleshoot that machine.

So it’s felt like this to me basically since I became an adult. For one, I work in an industry where the holidays mean nothing. And two, now I have adult shit to do, so there isn’t a ton of time to just sit around baking and watching Christmas specials and what not. Also can’t really stand the consumerist side of things and while I do like giving gifts as a thing, I don’t like the idea of “just buy some shit” or “whoever gets the most presents wins.”

Now all that said, when I think back to what used to make the holidays special for me, I realized that was adults deliberately making the holidays special. And the shitty thing about being an adult (unless your SO is like, from the Clause family) is that you kind of have to do that for yourself, and you’re probably going to have to do boring adult shit to make that happen. Like, you might literally be putting something like “Bake cookies/Watch ‘The Grinch’” into your calendar. There is a lot of little things you can do as well - play some music, get some scented candles, stick a bowl of decorative pinecones out, etc.

I think this also helps a lot with other people, or in my case, my kids. I don’t have a ton of friends (I’m very much a person with a small circle, but all people i know I can call if i need help moving if that makes sense) but we do some small get togethers. With my kids, I try to do more of the things that make things feel special for them. Lights on the house I could take or leave (back to being lazy) but I do my best and I put them up, even though it was just a few days ago because that was the first day that wasn’t pouring where I was at home when it was light out. I make it a point to watch some Christmas movies (and let the kids come to a consensus on which) and bake some cookies or whatever. We usually go every year to that neighborhood where every house has cool lights, even if that is an hour drive away. Lots of little things like that.

Anyway, I feel like the holidays are very much a “fake it til you make it” scenario. I tend to think about it like “what do I remember that I liked about holidays” when I was a kid, and then force myself to do those things. What I’ve generally found is that there are definitely times I’ve regretted not doing anything like that, but I never regret when I forced myself to do something like this, and I rarely remember the “forced” part.

$150 for “gigabit” which in practice means I usually get around 450mb.

I didn’t know that. Hmm, sounds like it’s decently likely this is a bit overblown then. I mean, I suppose there are a lot of lazy companies out there that will skip this, but that severely limits the functionality in a way that it’s going to force the secure method.

Sort of. If you’re receiving a notification from a remote server on iOS or standard android, they go through Apple or googles servers. That said, some apps rather than sending your device the actual notification (where this vulnerability comes from) will instead send a type of invisible notification that basically tells the app to check for a new message or whatever and then will display a local notification so the actual message stays on device and inside of the hosting services servers (like a self host.)

Gotta appreciate the writers on GTA 6, reality is going to make that a really hard gig.

But things like chicken thighs ($1.39 / lbs at Costco vs $1.49 / lbs at the local grocery store)…I don’t think it’s worth the price.

2 things:

1. The chicken you get at Costco is probably a better quality, and generally you get more actual chicken per pound. Google “air chilled vs water chilled.”
2. Get the things there that make sense for you. We like calrose rice in this house for a lot of stuff, go through quite a lot of it. At costco, the gigantic bag is like $20 compared to a tiny little bag that is $10-$12 at the cheapest regular grocer.

Combine those factors and I think it’s worth it. I have things that are “costco items.” Bulk spices, rice and some grains, dog food and treats, chicken, paper towel and TP, plastic wrap, hot dogs, pretty much any cheese, laundry soap, frozen convenience foods (dino nuggets, kirkland pizza, eggos, etc) and even some produce. Anyway, I go maybe once a month, and I’ve done the math many times over and it more than pays for itself. I wish I lived closer, because there are some things that I would buy more frequently that are way cheaper usually - milk, eggs, salad mix, fruit, etc.

But yeah, this is a 6 person house, with 3 adults and two teenagers.

Oh, last thing. Buying quite a lot of things at Costco is basically like buying an extended warranty or insurance. If you’re going to buy a TV, for example, and Costco sells something that’s close, buy that one. The OEM is going to offer a 1 year warranty, Costco will take that return for much longer.

It’s also crazy because at least stateside enough fresh herbs from the supermarket for 1-2 meals is like $2.

oh, absolutely. I’ve never really lived in a proper city (bigger towns, maybe) so it’s still possible now, but the culture has def moved on. I mean, I see the occasional kids on bikes, but when I was a kid (80’s - 90’s) pretty much every kid had a bike and this was just the default.

I swear I probably spent like 2 solid weeks after school just running into walls in the Water Temple because I couldn’t figure it out. And I used to 100% like everything I played. You’d find out every secret, every cheat, and spend hours. Especially once things like GTA came out, just hours and hours of doing functionally nothing. Fuck even games I didn’t really even like I was an expert in. These days, I’m lucky to get a few hours a week on a game, and I rarely finish anything that’s not exactly the type of game I’m extremely into, and 100% is a thing that basically never happens anymore.

Dude, this is the thing that depresses the hell out of me. When I was kid there were skating rinks, arcades, malls, etc. Granted, those things cost money as well, but most of us could make a $5 last all day.

I’ve noticed with my kids I have to know where they are basically at all times. Leave school, go to friends house, I get notified. On weekends if they go from one house to the other, I need to know.

When I was a kid, I would get up and on my bike around 7-8am, would not be back until dark at least, and just go… anywhere? Ride 10 miles across the whole town, through construction, to the creek or up the big ass hill a little outside of town? Sure. And the wild thing about this is that it was completely normal.

Eh, I have been running a pi-hole on my network for many years now. When I did it was purely because I find ads annoying, these days I’d consider it a basic necessity.

also, I have a hard time complaining about privacy and recommending anything google, especially at the price point they sell Chromecast’s for. If you’re buying a consumer set top box, Apple TV is basically the only one that’s anywhere near privacy conscious. Kodi box or self-built PC though if you really care, and even then I’d still want a pi-hole or similar even if you run it on Linux instead of Windows because the services themselves are doing all kinds of shady shit.

On the other hand, I’ve noticed so, so much more intentional stuff that you just couldn’t see that the old resolutions. It’s one of the reasons it’s a damn shame that Boy/DS9 haven’t gotten a remaster (though, I think in this case the way it was filmed basically means this will never happen.)

Almost def. if it was Disneyland, it’s probably about 30 seconds before this person was fired because the mouse doesn’t play when it comes to shit like this.

Oh god yes. There is now a blanket rule in our house that we only buy one system of storage. At some point, we revisit. I think on our next revisit, we might just go to deli-tainers.

As for socks, and I must state for clarity, this has been done against my will, we have at least, at least, 17 different types of socks. I have made clear, that the first thing we do when we win the lottery or whatever is declare sockruptcy, throw those all away, and just buy one at-least-ok sock.