No pilot school for you.
Goddamnit.
Now you’re getting a followup story of how such a small incident fucked with me years later.
I was with my (at the time) gf in our apartment and I don’t remember the exact specifics, but I was sitting looking at the TV straight-on ie the proper viewing angle. She was sitting on our floor looking up at the TV at like maybe a 45 degree angle.
I can’t remember the show or what it was, but on the screen there were some pastel colors. All I mentioned was like “oh, pastel colors. You like those colors.” She was drawing at the time, so it was somewhat relevant. Anyway she looks at the TV, from the bad angle still, and snaps at me “those aren’t pastel you fucking idiot!” And it was like that spinning shit in a movie of me in my head like “no…no…that test was wrong!” Normally we kinda went back and forth like this. Kinda like Vinny and his gf in that movie “my cousin Vinny” but less toxic and less Italian (same thing?). This time though I was just like “but… uh… the angle…” she kinda kept saying I was wrong for a few minutes before I finally tested it myself and then told her to stand and all was revealed. I was not an idiot after all.
And that goddamn test was wrong!
That 74 is kind of tricky and my vision is “normal”
This reminds me of a time I was taking one of these colorblind tests. The person administering it was flipping (way too fast) through the numbers and I was reading them fine. A trickier one came up which I could very clearly read, like this 71/74 one, and I said (because fucker was flipping way too fast) “71… no, 74 actually.” He marked it wrong. It felt like a real life Seinfeld incident after that where I kind of stopped the whole test and was saying basically, as nicely as I could, “hey. I said 74. Mark that correct.” MFer didn’t even vocalize a response. I can’t remember but I think he did like two more numbers, said I passed with whatever number of tests with one incorrect. I had to get my eyesight examined after that (this was for some pilot shit. Like a physical) and I told the doctor and he kind of shrugged it off too like “you passed it. It doesn’t matter.” IT MATTERS TO ME GODDAMNIT
Thanks for triggering this random traumatic event from over a decade ago.
Let me go ahead and steal a quote from JFK:
“We choose to [build nationwide symmetrical gigabit fiber] in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”
- John “I hate my worthless nephew RFK Jr.”Fitzpatrick Kennedy
Is this the landlord and city that Musk is currently having his asshole drilled into for illegally (without permit and using unlicensed workers for commercial work) modifying a bunch of shit? I remember he asked some dude to add a toilet near his office. Not like to hire a plumber or get estimates or ideas and shit. Just like, “hey. Put a toilet here.” That was my favorite story and where I really went like “oooook duuuuude” uncontrollably out loud. I’ve had a fuckton of “trade” jobs like HVAC, electrical work (mostly related to the HVAC), did some industrial scale backup power generator installs/maintenance, did some plumbing stuff. Kinda touched all over and all around in the world of building and adding on shit. So when I heard about him modifying electrical circuits without a permit… ok. I can see that if you get the right dude who knows what to do but isn’t legally certified. Of course you shouldn’t do that, especially with a business and a place you don’t own, but I get it. Adding a fucking bathroom though is absolutely bonkers to ask a regular dude (not even a guy who considers himself “handy”) to do. Like I think with all the shit I’ve done over 15 years or so, yeah, I could add a bathroom somewhere. But it would probably suck ass. And I’m not an engineer nor have I dabbled at all. And adding a giant, heavy object filled with water, ventilation to suck your shit smells out, a sink, lighting and all that stuff is gonna obviously require some demolition and then doing the whole thing. It’s an insane job to ask of someone who isn’t presenting themselves as a professional in that field. If it was replacing a toilet or sink, ok, again, not correct but I get that. Building a full whole new shitter is insane. It just shows his complete detachment from reality too because I don’t think most “normal” people would even think to ask anyone BUT contractors/plumbers whatever to do such a job. Definitely not a personal assistant.
Warning: Doom pilling ahead. Read with caution if you retain any hope for bettering the US through “democratic” means.
Am I on crazy pills? This question or feeling is always running through my mind for the last few years specifically but really the last solid decade and longer in which I’ve been a “productive adult!” living in the world.
My first presidential election I could vote in was 2008. I voted for Obama in the primaries and for president. Within a year or so I can’t say I regretted it because, really, wtf was the alternative? If you consider the finalists to be Hillary, Barrack, and John McCain… shoot me now. But Obama was implying a shitload of stuff. Free healthcare finally! We have 60 senators to burst the (made up by hey!) filibuster-proof limit. What, you only need 50 and just throw the filibuster out? Well we have 60!…. ! Right?
I was basically a naive 20ish year old taken for a fucking ride by the biggest liar and scam artist you can imagine. Of course it wasn’t just me it was probably every young person under like 30 at the time who actually wanted the shit Obama promised (and then immediately balled up and threw into the trash bin).
After that shit I couldn’t tell you what happened for the next 6-7 years of his shithole presidency. I turned my brain off. Something I can realize now was a privilege not everyone gets. But it’s what happened regardless. Probably exactly the intended effect. Shut down all the left leaning (or whatever the fuck I was at 19/20 who can really say? I did know I wanted healthcare and to not be drafted into a war) elements of the democratic voting base, shove them all away, and basically cause Trump to come in years later. It wasn’t only that, but it certainly didn’t help when you open-ass blast all the younger people and then come back in 8 years pleading them to vote for a warmonger and not the cheeto guy.
Anyway, fast forward though and look back at the last 15 years. When has ANY government, and especially the federal and states (to lesser degree but still), been listening to the goddamn people? Abortion has always been a policy that polls around 70-80% in the pro-abortion/pro-choice (whatever wording) column. It’s just one of those issues many people might be personally… whatever… towards but every woman and most men realize it’s necessary to keep it legal even if you object to some (imo bullshit) “moral questions” around abortion. It cannot be restricted or you end up with “the good women” (using the right wing wording and logic) dying and/or suffering due to complications that should result in a doctor ending the pregnancy. It’s just something which has to fucking happen sometimes and it doesn’t matter how much you suck off Jesus or not. This necessarily requires allowing elective abortions too. Otherwise you’ll have cops/prosecutors crawling inside what goes on inside the doctor’s office. And that is where we have arrived. And now many right wingers, especially the morons who will suffer most from these policies, are going OH SHIT BUT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO OWN THE LIBS BY KILLING BLACK WOMEN AND WHOOORRRREES NOT ME! I’ll reserve my sympathies for a case by case basis, although broadly I do remain sympathetic because they were as brainwashed as anyone. Probably still are.
When has the government done popular policy like legalizing or at the least decriminalizing drugs (and not just weed which is still not even legalized). Reducing the military and cops? Providing college free of cost? Healthcare for all? These are all things which pass the popularity meter of 50% and are also DUH NO FUCKING SHIT easy win policies. No one (with a soul- fuck the hogs) wants to keep fucking seeing black dudes getting shot or choked to death by cops. No one wants to keep reading about and fearing themselves the bankruptcy and random violence of the healthcare system denying them treatment.
I just don’t see how anyone… gives a shit? To put it nicely. About these votes. “Giving a shit” to me, at this point, is basically doing a lot of stuff which I quite literally cannot type here. But it’s not happening. And yes it’s exactly whatever thing you’re thinking.
The federal and state governments are not legitimate and haven’t been since probably the beginning of this shitfest. But in the current day, for sure, absolutely not legitimate. Does anyone have a shred of faith that if this vote goes like 60% in the “make abortion legal” direction that the Rs won’t simply find a way to undermine that democratic vote? They’ve done it before! They do it all the time! I mean how many times do we gotta go THIS IS THE ONE THIS IS THE LAST STAND THIS IS IMPORTANT before people either shut up and accept their fate as serfs and objects owned by capitalists who control the politicians or actually do something? And no, voting when you already know the results will never be properly honored, isn’t really doing something. In fact an argument is easily made that they allow you to vote precisely to feel like it does matter and to keep stringing you along. It is hard to break that cycle and accept you are effectively powerless…….. within their rules anyway. The rules that they break at a whim anyway. What if a bunch of normal people started breaking the rules too? Hmm. I dunno. In the mean time I guess I’ll just keep being sad and completely rotted with doom.
Elon is seriously speed running proving to hoggest of the hogs that rich people are not special or more intelligent. I absolutely refuse to believe even the reply guys with Musk’s limp dick perpetually stuffed in their various orifices can think changing a “successful” (at least well known) 20 year old company’s branding and name. Anyone even pretending to support this is absolutely coping. My brain cannot fathom the stupidity required to believe otherwise.
Gonna be captain obvious here by saying “maybe because the world is spiraling into shit?”
And everything is, absolutely by definition, political. Everything. People who think they can escape politics are delusional and privileged. If you’re reading about some horrible new law banning encryption then yes that’s fucking political. Instead of head in sanding… I dunno. Do something?
Dragging out the take overs is such a colossal fuck up. If you’re gonna be a piece of shit you announce it, let people be pissed, ignore it, and then crush the dissent when the day comes.
If anything this just shows spez/reddit are completely incompetent, more than anyone already knew. He’s too much of a pussy to pull the trigger and do the shit he very obviously intends to do. A dumbass and a coward. What a combination.
They only read what is presented to them and as we all know the “official narrative” lacks a lot of details and includes outright lies. Any true telling of history would always result in “oh so we should probably do what the Soviets were doing… and improve it.” Instead the US being dominant after WWII has led to so much ridiculous and insane propaganda that can even the light suggestion to Americans to rethink their ideas on China and the USSR (and the US or Israel on the other side of that coin) is instantly smashed with YOURE A COMMIE FASCIST! Great world to live in…
I think this was all fairly well predicted by many people way before my time and smarter than me, but it seems kind of obvious that in a world of declining hegemony and in turn declining material conditions that the average workers of the world either push to the far left and embrace socialism or to the far right into fascism. It’s basically inevitable in the long run.
The problem is one ideology seeks more equality, fairness, etc. and to end exploitation by capitalists around the world so everyone can live lives of dignity and we can all work in our own and each other’s common interests of, you know, not destroying the world.
Fascism kind of plays on the same mindset of “someone is fucking me. But who?” and smashes in whatever ethnic or racial group is convenient to hate. Black people, “the Jews!”, Arabs (“Muslims” to Americans), South Americans and Mexicans, Chinese people, etc. Instead of the logic of cooperation towards a common goal it just sells cooperation but only within your assigned group for their betterment and the extermination of other groups.
given two paths basically, one which requires overcoming whatever baked-in resentment, fears, racism, whatever people all are raised to have in this world and the other which says “no, all that bullshit is actually correct. most basic primal urge to kill everyone else because you think you’ll die otherwise is correct.” Obviously there’s some amount of “some people are like that” because I don’t think I’ve ever really thought like that, but of course there’s also a learned and socially instilled component helped along by lack of education and straight up misinformation (propaganda) that can lead otherwise “good” people to just follow along, believe the zero sum game bullshit, and commit any atrocity in the imagined grand idea of defending themselves and their people from the others who they were purposely denied ever actually knowing and learning about.
We’re kind of at an unfortunate point now too where it seems like (and who really knows?) we’re heading towards some incredibly bad times. More wars and a shitload more deaths as the world transitions from US hegemony to sharing it with other nations, China being the biggest right now. It feels like we’re fighting an impossible battle of winning over minds already complacent to the right wing. The Marxist, et al. education in “the west” is essentially zero and the world can basically count on the US/EU to fight every step of progress along the way if any progress is to be made at all. I mean look at the whining over China who has explicitly pretty much stayed out of foreign politics. They have a few loans around the world and the west is in full-on baby crying mode. Just imagine where it’s likely headed (and this is not blaming China who has every right to do what any other nation does. The US/EU are clearly the ones in the wrong here).
So I dunno. Shit’s fucked, people are uneducated and falling for bullshit fascist shit, and the left seems unable to keep up with radicalizing people. Not for lack of trying or for lack of “being correct” but because of really too many reasons to go into… probably the chief reason being the fucking US lucked into its position post-WWII and that basically setup the world to get bent over and fucked by fascism sold under a different label. The US isn’t called “the fourth reich” for no good reason after all. I’ll stop rambling.
Agreed on the edit. I’d go further and say it’s almost definitely not worth his time/effort/money because even if he does win, which is never guaranteed, or squeezing a fat settlement… I dunno, laws are fucked and doing it isn’t worth it imo for a few stupid comments that I find unlikely to really do anything to his career outside of reddit app development (which is dead now anyway…)
As far as the court case stuff goes, first, not a lawyer. So, you know, you could stop reading now and perhaps should! However, if the case is basically “the reddit CEO said X and Y things publicly accusing my client of attempting to blackmail reddit. There’s no proof of such attempted blackmail and reddit has harmed his potential to develop professionally for corporations in the future… blah blah blah.” Then, in this hypothetical case, the burden of proof would be on reddit/Stevie boy to prove that Christian, the dev, had attempted to blackmail reddit and they’d have to show something or provide something in someway as to prove that. Like emails, phone calls, tweets, something. It’s actually kinda funny because like you COULD attempt to blackmail someone but if no proof of that exists, and the target complains and openly defames you by saying “he’s a bad person and he tried it!” You could actually then sue them for defamation and possibly win. The burden of proof in the US (or whatever the wording is there) for being liable for civil offenses is only a “preponderance of the evidence.” I’ve watched an unfortunate amount of lawyers talk about it, also unfortunately friends with a couple, and had it explained that this means basically “51% or more chance that this happened based on the evidence then the person is liable.” As opposed of course to criminal cases, which defamation is not, where the standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt” which basically means without making up insane scenarios and hypothetical a normal person would see this evidence and conclude like 99% that the suspect committed the crime. There can be some doubt remaining, but all reasonable doubt (logical scenarios and shit) is eliminated basically. The standard for civil is pretty low in this way, honestly. If Christian provides the spez comments about him the court would say “why did you make these comments mr. Spez moron guy?” And at that point he has to provide a real reason. Saying he felt blackmailed or “it just was” wouldn’t cut it, I don’t think. Obviously corruption exists and such, but honestly, unless spezy moron kid actually has some message or email from Christian he probably would win some case if he bothered. I have no idea what the damages would be. Probably not much. Probably not worth it besides annoying spez which would be pretty funny.
This is absolutely not a “this is fine” comment
But the US “intelligence agencies” have been spying on the US and the world for 2 decades now pretty openly. Yes it’s worse that other countries are joining or ramping up spying, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing this is a new development. The evil fuckos who up at the 3 letter agencies and equivalents around the world know where true power resides and they know methods of controlling people. The fact that France is doing this stuff should be a sign to the French (and everyone) that the government fears the people. A government which fears the people demanding that it serve the people is no longer legitimate. If the French ripped apart their shit from the root it would be justified… as an outsider. They’ve done the proper procedure of ask, then demand… now force. But Americans got out shit to sort out which tbh is incredibly more fucked up so I will leave the French alone in that respect
Non-US citizens can sue within the US the same as any US citizen can. It’s the same rules where first standing has to be proven and go from there.
An example of this playing out was when Elon falsely called that submarine British guy living in Thailand a pedo on Twitter (more than once actually). He was able to sue Elon in US courts (I believe he lost that case for some BS reason or another, but the point is it can be done).
I’m sure you’re being reductive here for comedic effect/mockery of the absolute microminds who often end up with massive capital to “invest,” but I find it more… fun?… to examine why it is that these people are how they are.
On the topic of profits, what you’re saying is clearly and obviously true. Much like industries always trend towards monopoly over a long enough timeline in a “free market” there’s going to be a similar trend towards short term profit making as the only option. I know this is probably super obvious to anyone who really thinks about the economy and businesses and such basically at all. It’s important though to just be aware that this is one of the most inherent flaws to any capitalistic economic setup. It’s a system that will ALWAYS result in shoddy commodity production because no corporation (or individual “small proprietor” definitely cannot stand against the corporations) can afford the “losses” which will surely be taken in the quest for superior products and/or services.
Again, obvious to anyone who bothers to think at all, but this is seriously one of the funniest contradictions or hypocrisies at the very heart of dipshittery like libertarians. They believe, in a nutshell, minimum government will result in the best products and overall a society that can prosper and prosper faster. Something to that effect anyway. I’m not even going to go into what their ACTUAL ideology is, the nominal one is fine here. Libertarians, much like the neolibs, conservatives, whatever other flavor of shitlib, suffer from the lack of historical knowledge that basically every person in the first world seems to have. This vision of “we have advanced tech. And that was gained by allowing a free market to do things!” They of course ignore that basically every useful innovation of the last 100-150 years produced by first world western nations was done so in the pursuit of military technology funded by the fucking government. Basically none of it was privately done.
I’m kind of bored of breaking this down at this point, but I do find it funny how they all jack off to this free market ideal which has never existed (and can never) and ignore that every thing worth having was produced using government funding. If we could do more of that and remove the stupid fucking military tech angle who knows what we could accomplish. Only governments can afford the massive manpower and money sinks that produce world-changing tech. There is no fucking board of directors or CEO on earth who could afford or allow the time to cook to produce things like the internet. It’s just a giant sink hole of money and it would probably never pay off for the investors anyway since it would necessarily need to be public domain so others could take it and innovate further.
I guess my point here overall is the economic system, capitalism, produces these people who then reproduce the system. So it’s fine to shit on them, but like Marx always made the point of portraying, these capitalists are individuals who simply personify capital. I think of capital as power and if you place that power in a state’s government it can be harnessed and controlled and used for some general, genuine advancement of humanity in a good way. If you place the capital, that power, in one person or small group, it will be uncontrollable, wild, and will result in nothing productive being done. See: every fucking billionaire most notable Zuck and Elon who literally cannot stop fucking up everything they touch. It’s kind of not their fault though. I mean, it is, yes, but it’s society’s fault for ever allowing that capital, that power, to be wielded by individuals like it has been. (I refuse to make a LotR type reference. Fellow nerds can mentally insert their own.)
This insane behavior is directly enabled by Apple.
True story time:
iOS has never, to my knowledge anyway, allowed changing icons on stock iOS ie not-rooted/jailbroken devices.
After a decade of stock icons they released the shortcuts app that allows for creation of… shortcuts.
Some crafty fuckers figured out quickly you could create a shortcut that was placeable on the home screen and could completely replace an the original app in function. Basically a shortcut that you tap and it simply opens some app, any app, and that’s it. And you could give that shortcut any image you wanted. Just download a cool .png or recolor the original one, whatever you wanted. Sounds cool. A shit-ass, annoying work around to an obvious QoL addition (making icons changeable on per app basis or allowing icon theme packs like android has had since forever).
So story over, people have a work around? Wrong. Apple specifically went out of their fucking way to add this little notification. A small one, but so fucking annoying, which was never there before and cannot be turned off by any non-root access means (so far anyway). Now when the shortcut is run it says like “automation complete” for a second and disappears. There is SPECIFICALLY an option under the shortcuts and automations in iOS to disable those types of notifications but they seem to have added it (because it wasn’t there before, confirmed by old videos where people explain how to set it up before updates broke it) as a giant double middle fingers up fuck you to customers. There’s clearly no reason to not be able to disable that notification completely when you can disable basically every other notification (oh, system update pending can’t be turned off either- gotta make sure you update constantly so you can’t accidentally have a root-able phone one day and escape such bullshit! Oh no!). They’d probably claim safety or it’s a bug or some bullshit if they even bothered to acknowledge it, which they never have and it’s been several years now.
My only conclusion is app makers cried that they wanted to sell the ability to change icons (or Apple took it upon themselves since they take 30% of that transaction anyway). Or it could actually be a bug. If it’s a bug they have never acknowledged it despite certainly thousands of reports over all the versions of iOS. Not even a “oh yeah that’s not intended. But it’s low priority.” Just silence, so, gonna have to go with the obvious option here. They fucked it as a fuck you to users. Might as well be spez at the helm.
Correct.
Music streaming essentially “solved” the “issue” of music piracy. Although it never solved the greedy corporations which were and still are stealing and living high off the creators (they always shift blame to pirates or now streaming. It’s never THEIR fault of course.)
Unfortunately the movie/TV business missed the cue on this one and thinks charging like $50 for a super ultra suck your dick bluray is gonna sell when piracy is always an option. If there was a few big libraries of movies/TV with literally every single movie and show available the day of release and forever after that for some price, I dunno what exactly, with no addon nickel and dime bullshit, I might consider not downloading everything from dodgy sites. But that day came as close as it ever will probably and then moved on to the modern times where Paramount and Discovery think anyone is gonna pay for that shit non-bundled.
Mullvad vpn is one of the few if you actually give a shit about privacy
If you just want ISPs to have an excuse to play dumb to what you’re doing then the usual suspects are pretty much fine. Just don’t expect them to offer even a sliver or privacy from any governmental agencies (basically true for all of them although some make it policy to make it as impossible as they can to prevent nefarious (under guise of benevolence…) eavesdropping
If everybody followed that logic in the 90s we’d still be on dialup. The root of the point though is “we” gave them billions of dollars like 20 years ago which they immediately did the absolute bare-ass minimum to claim “well, we did do that one thing over there in 2005…” and the rest of the money just kinda went poof along with all those profits stolen from the workers. Not reinvested into infrastructure, just shat out their asses to “investors” and executive officers.
We should’ve all had symmetrical (which is another thing Comcast sucks at) 1gig up/down a decade ago at least.
I’ve personally had gigabit fiber for years now, but that’s only because I specifically shopped for houses with multiple ISPs available and gigabit ready to go. That shouldn’t be necessary. Everyone should have it available with some very few exceptions for very rural people.
This very specific article is silly though if it’s any consolation to the reaming I’m giving Comcast. Yeah they should make this stuff more obvious I guess, but it seems like such a niche boomer grandma thing to fall for. I’d prefer an article ripping into the specific corruptions of officers and big investors at the telecomms and their regulators. Name and shame and provide addresses too. These people don’t deserve any semblance of peace
Imagine how crazy it would be if ISPs just… actually… upgrades infrastructure with their billions in profits+government subsidies/handouts? Like, damn, imagine. US might actually have internet on par with the countries it considers shitholes
Is there a reason why? I was doing a joke or bit originally, but I do wonder these random things.
In my own life I basically took to smartphone app usage over desktop browsers (or laptops) nearly immediately when I got my first in my early 20s. I’ve now come to the point where I find browsing written forums on non-mobile almost painful and only do it for troubleshooting type purposes. Same for consuming media like news or YouTube videos and such. Some things just seem to take to using as background, distracting scrolling and now that I know that I can’t go back. Although one desktop I had years back for about two years was boring as fuck and the IT somehow didn’t block reddit so I used that on desktop just so my bosses thought I was doing stuff and not on my phone (bad service there anyway and IT never seemed to care unless it was incredibly over the line nsfw stuff)
Pretty sure it either QVC (the sales channel) or some cartoon with those colors for art. Probably the former. Shit was a long time ago.