It’s the worms. 🤫

They may not have gotten the memo that he dropped out, though. 🧐

Electioneering is a hell of a drug.

🤔 username

The Democrats, a broken clock like most political parties, happen to be landing on one of their twice daily “right” slots?

But how do you get the average user, for whom the cost of licensing the OS is completely opaque, to even think about cost at all? The computer they bought comes with Windows or MacOS on it already. Neither of which currently has any additional recurring monetary cost to the user.

You’d need mass-market laptops and desktops coming with a Linux distribution tuned well enough to run Microsoft Office and Adobe products without any more work for the user than running them on Windows. It needs to come pre installed and work so well at the “prosumer” use cases that they aren’t constantly thinking about how much easier it was to run Windows. Doing that means the OEM has to do much more unit testing and compatibility checks to ensure that when the customer opens the box and goes to install Steam and Apex or whatever that it just works without any terminal work necessary. Add to that that the OEM will want support from the company that manages the OS, and suddenly the cost to license tried and true Windows vs almost any Linux distribution for end user workstations is nearly moot.

And to make a dent in gaming, there is still an ocean to cross in terms of driver readiness and ease of use. It’s coming along, no doubt, and Valve investing as heavily as they are in Linux gaming is sure to move the needle, but it will still be an area of difficulty for some time because the user experience needs to accommodate completely custom builds with unexpected hardware configurations and box-built gaming PCs that can be OE tested and configured and everything in between.

This is fair. But at that point the same could be said of a Chromebook for her needs, which I’d venture is true for most people’s computing needs given entire swaths of the world do everything on a phone or tablet.

The Linux vs Windows debate is peculiar, because it really only applies to users who are more advanced than the average, arguing about problems that only arise when you want to do more demanding things with your machine like development and gaming. Your average user doesn’t care about any of the anti-monopolistic / FOSS reasons to use Linux, which makes the argument for them essentially “you should use this operating system that takes more work to use because it’s better for you for reasons you don’t care about.”

In order for Linux to become more mainstream, it needs to be able to exceed Windows’ performance and ease of use for gaming and productivity - which is challenging since when most users think of productivity apps, they only think of Microsoft products. It’s not enough to be equal in order to compel people to switch from what they’re accustomed to.

The same could be said of Trump debating a seasoned Junior High Debate Club member.

You’re on to something. He must get some kind of satisfaction out of proving that he really doesn’t have any scruples or integrity. I’m sure it’s a bonus that he knows it’s very difficult for anyone to force him to stop what he’s doing. He’s “owning the libs” by just being out and out corrupt and a crappy person without even trying to maintain appearances. It’s fucking weird.

Alarming.

My favorite part about modern republicans is that they made me look back fondly on former republican leaders who I used to despise. “Ahhhhh… binders of women. Those were the days.”

In fairness, it’s Wired who called them creatives, while Adobe called them artists.

If you can think of two boats meeting in open water, there’s porn of it on the internet.

Influencers are paid product shills. Most have no scruples or real positions. They produce whatever content will attract followers so that they can maximize their sponsorship dollars. These aren’t serious opinions anyone should pay much mind to.

Whether or not you win additional concessions depends on what information or knowledge you have about an organization that could prove damaging in some respect, and whether or not you can afford legal representation. But it is negotiable.

She, in particular, does seem to be earning more rebuke from her Republican peers of late. Some of them have recognized that the antics on display by Greene and her ilk are beginning to wear on constituents more and more by the day, and are attempting to distance themselves in acts of self preservation.

While I hope that it doesn’t work and that these folks also lose their voice and seat, it does seem to bode well that at least a minor course correction is happening in the GOP, if not far too late. I’m not completely optimistic, though, because the constituency hasn’t suddenly become less divided - we’ve just seemingly found the bounds of the caricature the right wing of this country is comfortable with being publicly represented by.

GG Allin’s Fingerpaints

Target’s difficulty in Canada had more to do with logistics and existing trucking routes than anything else. They assumed they could push Canadian governments to allow for the creation of new carrier contracts, but they were wrong, and as a result their supply chain was immediately hamstrung.

The stores in Canada had a harder time getting goods, which caused the company to raise prices accordingly. Images of the stores show many empty shelves, which doesn’t encourage shopping. Canadian consumers weren’t without other options locally, and those shoppers on the US border found it easier and more advantaged to cross over and shop at Target stores in the US should they have a need.

As a longtime (read: older) Star Wars fan, I feel like completely eschewing Jedi is a mistake. What I’d love to see is more exploration of the world from the perspective of people who aren’t Jedi and aren’t directly involved in the mystic struggle, but are present to bear witness to what happens when literal gods play politics around them.

The Jedi should always be a central theme to Star Wars. They’re what make the universe what it is. Without them, it’s just another space opera, and sci fi needs its MacGuffin. But it would be super interesting to see stories told from outside of that central narrative, reacting to, interacting with, and otherwise existing around the Jedi.

I know this has been explored to some extent with Mandalorian and Andor, but the latter - while a great show - still felt like it would be improved with more direct involvement of the central theme of the universe.

Often, yes. Outside of more senior level white collar careers, severance is often not guaranteed upon separation here. In many states, “Right to Work” labor laws enable an employer to terminate an employee for nearly any reason. To make matters worse, our health insurance is provided as a benefit by our employers, so losing your job not only means you lose your source of income, but also your means of keeping yourself healthy and getting care should you need it.

And in many cases, even if you do receive severance, the company determines what your separation package includes, and the calculations used to determine the value is kept behind closed doors and obscured from the employee. The packages are presented as non-negotiable, even though they aren’t, and employees being let go are often pressured to sign the agreement in a very short window or risk having the offer of severance rescinded. Often what is offered is a pittance, but generally Americans don’t push back against it. It’s a “better than nothing, I guess” situation.

So yeah - being laid off is a tremendously stressful and life altering experience here for the vast majority of the working and middle class.