It’s kinda sad, I’ve been back and forth with online ordering actually being a “logistical god-send” for our chaotic consumerism. I mean think about it, one full delivery truck that can bring in a full neighborhoods worth of goods for the week/day versus every single car being driven to only transport a portion or less of a trunk (sometimes driving out for even one item).

In a perfect “non-monopoly/Amazon couldn’t exist world” where everyone could plan ahead and have everything shipped, you could save on store/display costs (including environmental) and just have a smaller distribution center from semi-trucks to box trucks for local deliveries. Could even go from box truck to local end point distribution (biking,etc) so city spaces could go car-less. Keep the local farmers/co-op markets for socializing/freshest produce-shipping and bob’s your uncle.

Instead we have the worlds most horrific amalgamation where you have underpaid people in fucking V8 trucks delivering a few bags of groceries someone has “door dashed” from the local grocery store or just a burger from a local joint so they don’t have to cook because they only have an hour of free time a day.

It’s so bad and cyclical while just being unavoidable in some areas. On the map, you’ll notice how heavily populated northern europe is compared to a lot of sparse areas which have less options. I’m in a relatively normal size town and there is one big box choice and maybe one defunct “local” store that’s barely getting by.

I had to beg a guy in a corner shopping center “repair shop” for a small syringe of thermal paste when I ran out (I’m not fucking kidding, there’s just no electronics store anywhere nearby, losing Radioshack was fucking hard). Dude at the shop was the only reason I didn’t have to go online and wait a week (he wasn’t selling it, just had spare for his own use). My trades and hobbies make this a common occurrence throughout the week. Most places now are forced to sell on Amazon to remain competitive (Amazon dominates with shipping cost reduction alone for large items), finding a local or even nationally based company through search algorithms becomes harder and harder as they can’t pay to keep up with SEO bullshit. You can try to keep it all legit but with competitive monopolies everywhere you just eventually find out your favorite company no longer really exists.

There are some suppliers I could shop with but each one is an hour drive in different directions and 80% of the time they’re ordering the same shit through the same companies I would be using if I went online. It works sometimes, but takes so much effort it becomes it’s own full-time job that no one has the ability to keep up with.

Here’s my dilemma:

• Been without cell service since the pandemic (eventually stopped using the smart phone altogether)
• All my digital needs are satisfied, devices and functionality in every room for every purpose I need
• Have multiple forms of solid and satisfactory communication channels (don’t need a cell number)

I’ve thought about buying a model I could jailbreak, but again it’s just to use a system that’s abusive. “Download our app!”, “Use our digital coupons!”, “Link your phone number!”, “Scan our code!”, “Let us track your location for your convenience!”.

I’m really a niche subgroup though, I already need other devices while at work that a phone wouldn’t suffice for. I kinda see more people going this route though. If your transportation has a computer, then what’s the endpoint in carrying a phone? If your job requires digital devices, the phone is basically reduced to a large brick of a communication device. I see more and more equipment being specialized and having added communication aspects for more complicated machinery, cell phones are not going to keep up with it in a general sense.

tldr: cell phones are just a fad with an abusive system that will die out one day and be remembered like rotary phones. They’re generally subpar for any specific task and are only a place holder till we figure out better systems.

Have you, as a foreigner, been caught up by the American political-polarization bug^tm!? Here are a few warning signs that you may be affected.

• Do you find yourself often injecting “left-wing” or “right-wing” into titles?
• Do you have a perceived notion that anything negative being said must involve a certain political party?
• Do you feel the need to bring Trump up in a post that has nothing to do with him?
• Do you find yourself in the comments blaming “sides” without having read the article or watched the video?
• Have you found yourself demanding answers or change that’s addressed in the post? (he literally brings up Dahl as his first example)

If you suspect that you or a loved one suffer from this syndrome, please turn off the devices and go outside.

I"m horrible with names of programs and mess with a lot of junk comps switching out OS’s and just tinkering around so I’m always using crazy utility programs. BalenaEtcher is used in a lot of tutorials or guides for installations, I think recently both Elementary OS and even Ubuntu had instructions pointing towards BalenaEtcher.

I never thought it was a great program, it was finicky to use and errors out quickly multiple times. Looking back I saw the signs, weird new program being promoted above other “well established” burn programs, ads, and now scrolling down their webpage it’s just a bunch of promotional subscription bullshit. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit looking at the “balenacloud” and “balenasense”, like if they’re collecting your data through etcher then all of that shit is probably compromised. Another fucking google wannabe corp.

really? I thought the canadian connection was the relevant part (shop and promote companies in your area), but the walmart drop kinda confuses me lol.

Holy christ on a pogo stick, I had no idea on the population stats for mormon’s. We really are a stupid species lol. I had a good neighborhood friend growing up who’s family was mormon, didn’t persay have anything against the religion then but later found out about all the racists connotations and how members are treated. If anyone wants to learn more there’s a good Ex mormon vid going over the southpark mormon episode and the religion etc.

Yeah, I made sure to present the tax numbers because it’s a two step back, one step forward as always. It might not even matter though. Still got ModestMeme and others defending the situation. I’m just so fucking flabbergasted. Like if they’re working for them I get it, some random person just deciding that no matter what they say it’s not their fault? And they don’t understand how people could vote for Trump?!?

Jesus ModestMeme… I think your stupidity broke my brain

The President can’t write a law or simply decree a law to be over. That’s up to Congress. Not the President.

You can view a president as having direct control over law all you want.

> BIDEN: No, no, no, no, I’d make the changes on the corporate taxes on day one.

IT"S A MOTHER FUCKING TRANSCRIPT OF HIS EXACT WORDS!!! HE"S THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE REPRESENTING THE DNC AS A WHOLE!!

This is the exact problem people have with the democratic party that you just seem to hand wave away. They’re saying whatever shit they want and NOT FOLLOWING THROUGH BECAUSE IT WAS A HOLLOW PROMISE THEY LIED ABOUT AND NEVER SHOULD HAVE SAID!!

You should probably be asking Biden then,

(Sep 10, 2020) Joe Biden pledges to roll back Trump’s corporate tax cuts on ‘day one,’

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden pledged in a CNN interview (transcript) on Thursday to undo President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts on “day one” of his presidency. But it may be difficult for Biden to stick to that ambitious timeline since overhauling the tax code requires Congress to act.

(March 22, 2021) Why Biden won’t be able to totally undo Trump’s tax cuts

President Joe Biden got almost everything he wanted with his $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan. Biden campaigned on hiking the corporate rate from 21% to 28%. Prominent business groups are warning against the effort to roll back the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which lowered the corporate rate from 35%. Wall Street, however, is hardly freaking out about the potential of unwinding the Trump tax cuts. “Equities appear to be pricing optimism around infrastructure spending but little concern about tax hikes,” Goldman Sachs strategists wrote. Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s chief investment officer, "the US economy can “definitely” withstand higher corporate taxes. I think 21% is too low,” Goldman Sachs expects Biden’s next fiscal plan will include at least $2 trillion in infrastructure spending and could reach $4 trillion if it also funds healthcare, education and other initiatives.

(September 13, 2021) Democrats Hope To Undo Many Trump Tax Cuts To Fund Biden’s $3.5 Trillion Budget Plan

Democrats hope to unwind many of the tax cuts Republicans enacted under former President Donald Trump as a way to pay for the majority of the $3.5 trillion spending bill. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., released details Monday of a plan that includes increasing the top corporate tax rate to 26.5%, up from the current rate of 21%. Leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., call the bill an effort at transformational change. At an event last week in Connecticut, Pelosi said the legislation working through Congress now “is about a vision for our country that is transformative, that frees people to reach their aspirations without concern that their children or their parents or their disabled relative are not cared for.”

(Aug 11, 2022) Democrats ran on undoing Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. But they’re here to stay.

The 2017 Republican tax cuts survived a Democratic-controlled House, Senate, and White House largely intact — and they’re likely here to stay. Top Democrats conceded they fell short of their original ambitions, citing the need to muster unanimity in a caucus that spanned the ideological spectrum from progressives to fiscal moderates. “In these kinds of debates, you always kind of set out where you want to go,” Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Finance Committee, told Insider. “When you’re looking for 50 votes, you don’t get everything you want.”

(June 18, 2024) Biden ramps up push to end Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, highlighting the choice in the 2024 election

“If Trump gets elected, he’ll cut taxes for him and his rich friends at the expense of working families. We can’t let that happen,” Biden said last week on social media. Biden’s recent budget and a memo Thursday by top Biden economic adviser Lael Brainard laid out the White House’s vision for bringing in new revenue: raise the corporate tax from 21% to 28%.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a speech Monday: “The 2025 tax fight will create a huge opportunity to break with decades of tax-cutting political orthodoxy and reshape the tax code to reflect our nation’s values by raising taxes on the wealthy. That’s what Americans across the country are demanding, that’s what Joe Biden is running on, and that’s a big reason why Joe Biden will win in November. Next year, we must raise taxes on giant corporations and billionaires.”

tl;dr

• Corporate tax dropped from 35% to 21% by Trump in 2017 (TCJA)
• Biden campaigns “Day 1!” corporate tax 21% to 28% (2020 election)
• 2021, eh maybe we’ll do 26.5%
• 2022, Shit! Sorry guys, we aren’t a cohesive bunch (but student loans are next, we promise)
• 2024, Elect Biden! We will raise taxes to 28%! (not the original 35%)

I read the comments above, I saw @[email protected] with 18 upvotes and 1 downvote. I was confused and decided to look up an article so I’m not just blindly tucking something false into the back of my head (conservative relatives and area, I have to have my shit together when I’m talking in public around here).

I just spent the last 2 hours, for you beautiful fuckers, going down all these rabbit holes and reading article after article and constructing this timeline instead of making fried rice. Please don’t be like ModestMeme and at least put one singular link up if you’re trying to declare something as factual. You might find in your search that you were misinformed and let everyone know for the love of god. We need to keep our facts and shit together so we can all push forward together without misconstruing how we got here in the first place.

You know, I had the shitty thought that at least back before chat communication, a robber baron (or it’s equal kind) had to actually hire thugs and henchmen to cause local chaos. Now it’s just some tech oligarch with some bots or a paid anonymous service causing disruption.

We really got fucked over on this one. I’m really not sure how America pulls itself out of this one with the state of education and political polarization. The federal part of our government definitely isn’t offering up any solutions.

I live in an area where there is a monopoly of power supply by one of the worse polluters in American history, in a small area within a county there’s an existing co-op power company that was basically grandfathered in because it’s been in existence for so long while no other competitors are allowed in the area.

That co-op when I lived in the area was about half the cost of the monopoly company, a relative gets actually paid to be a member because they received their fathers account when he passed away and extra funds are distributed among all the members based on how long they’ve been with them (a little weird, but at least better than shareholders getting the profit).

You are absolutely right that the electric companies as a whole have failed, they’ve been allowed to amass too much influence and coverage while squashing any kind of competition. Why electrical needs aren’t considered a national resource is mind baffling to me. Our country and citizens way of life would literally grind to a halt without it.

couple of things to note:

1. Not every balcony is southern facing
2. Most older European homes don’t have A/C yet, so electrical costs are more during the winter months (that trend will change though I imagine)
3. I think the numbers @[email protected] was asking about involved power output, that of course depends on the size of your array, daily/monthly/yearly differences in weather, and all sorts of little nuances that’s hard to say without averaging out years worth of data.

@[email protected], You need to legitimately check yourself. So many half-ass comments get put up without taking a second of researching before you spout off “knowledge”… I’m guessing you’re considering this “Common Sense”? So you don’t have to actually look into it and test your inner resolve to accept new information.

Make Public Drinking Water Fountains Great Again

A gallon of tap water from typical municipal water systems costs about half a cent, making drinking fountains the cheapest hydration source available in public spaces…

it remains far cheaper than the cost of bottled water, which typically ranges from $1 to $5 per gallon, or about 200 to 1,000 times more than tap water. (High-end bottled waters can be even far more costly.) These costs do not include the environmental costs of the bottled water industry.

A great side benefit: having to test and maintain public water sources for pollutants that residents might not know to report!

comprehensive testing of drinking fountains, implementation of standard protocols for fountain maintenance, and a nationwide effort to replace old water infrastructure, which can be the source of lead and other contaminants.

This is a ROI (return on investment) done right on a community level. Encourage the kids to have a reusable water bottle or give that junky plastic bottle a 2nd use. You do know that kids in a park will go through a water bottle right? Are you buying packages of plastic water bottles for 1,000x the price the fountain could give you!?!?!

I guarantee you, your neighbor, your friend, and your countrymen, that your community and children are saving money and the environment while taking a positive stance to educate and properly use our countries resources for it’s citizens. Please stop spreading misinformation like the** 20$!!!**(made up number in your head) and realize this is what taxes are actually for, things that actually help it’s citizens and reduces the cost of living.

edit: formatting error

Eh, I would argue you’re only using the servers to access the content creators data. Youtube is the interface, algorithm, advertisement, comments, etc. If it’s just the creators data being accessed with no additional contribution from youtube then I would just treat it as any ol’ host server.

lol I don’t think you’re the target demographic if you can’t imagine any scenario of this having a good purpose to exist. It’s apparently rated by the Department of Defense, definitely has some applications people are interested in. Hell, you could recoup costs on harddrive failures alone over your child’s lifetime, just need a reader. Would be a pretty neat present to give someone as well filled like a photo album with personal media/ favorite games/ music/ whatever you want backed up for your kids. People spend a lot of money on multiple backup options so this is just another ace in your deck along with other safeguards.

That’s weird, I see it’s been edited but there’s no “been edited” icon next to it.

TSMC execs spoke shot a our the user workers uhhh…what?

I doubt every company who shits on it’s user’s privacy and their preferred experience is gaining massive profits right now, we’re just discussing the successful ones. I think the two leading factors in this scenario are “Brand Recognition” and “double dipping into as many aspects as possible with your user’s data.” The whole ‘if it’s free’, apple is definitely getting a kick back sending all this data to them even if it’s “secure”.