I went through a rough patch awhile back that saw a lot of “yes”’s to things just to keep myself from being still enough to let my thoughts catch up to me.
A friend invited me out one Tuesday night, to a bar within walking distance of our apartments. We got a table on the patio and got deep in our cups late into the night. The vibe had gradually shifted (they put on better music and it felt like the bar slowed down – it relaxed) and I realized something – last call was an hour and a half ago. But drinks had kept flowing - just reappearing while we chatted with the crowd (that was drinking and getting high on the patio) clustered around us. But there was no crowd outside of our group. In fact, all the patrons had gone, and we were apparently just partying with the bar staff, getting to know their life stories. After a spell, I got self conscious and moved to leave. I tried to pay, and they just waved me off.
It was honestly kind of a magical experience. I never did food service or bar work (I chose the retail/manual labor early career skill tree). It felt like a forbidden peek into their lives.
Same. I went with them as a “good enough” option when I needed cameras because I have had a good experience with Anker products, but they’ve slowly enshitified to the point that I’d drop them in a heartbeat if the budget was there.
Article is less bad than headline. Looks like DOE didn’t officially grant access, but someone gave the guy access anyway.
DOE caught it, and wants to know what the fuck happened.
DOE is big. They regulate all sorts of stuff and the likely target is not nukes, but personnel information. That gives them the power to fire climate researchers, replace regulators and decision makers with stooges, and ensure the DOE derails the shift to greener tech - as much as they can.
There’s currently big DOE-funded projects ongoing that will allow for Texas to connect to the national grid, and will connect giant solar and wind farms in Oklahoma and Maine to long distance lines that connect all the way to the Hoover Dam — something that makes the drought in that area less impactful should they have to shut off the turbines due to falling water levels.
They always catch the people who search for “most popular way to get away with murder” but they rarely catch the ones who search for “most embarrassing way to die.”
Not that bizarre of an explanation. The workplace is a porn studio. She found that it improves productivity if folks aren’t distracted while working. Seems reasonable.
Hope you don’t need accommodations or assistance, because if you do, RFK might ship you off to a slave labor camp until your disability is no longer an issue.
My sister used to work for a lender that did construction and real estate in one of the cities you mentioned. The company she worked for folded in 2009, so she banded together with some colleagues, pooled their client lists, and got a silent partner to open a new business a few miles down the road.
They ultimately didn’t wind up doing the same thing as the lender that folded, but are still doing lending-related work in those sectors.
The focus on piracy is a smoke screen. It’s about capacity.
Build the capacity, and then just start growing that list of reasons things are blocked.
This is out of scope for this community, but the U.S. is amidst a coup.
I mean, literally, it’s being raided by a corporate stooge that is breaking all manner of laws to just reshape it in whatever image they see fit.
In a geopolitical sense, they’re trying to break relationships with close allies, and trying to isolate the country. We see that with the tariff threats, the withdrawal from WHO, the Paris Climate accords, and now with threats to withdraw/pull back from NATO.
Domestically, it’s clear that businesses are bowing to Trump or facing government punishment. That much is evidenced by social media companies filtering search results, by media companies tepid criticism of Trump and by the lack of national coverage over anti-trump sentiment. We also see it in terms of the investigations that Trump and his cronies are trying to bring against NPR, of all things.
This is a play in the move to control information access in the U.S. After the media, and social media, which are now yolked, the open web is the next biggest threat to their coup.
And now this is the legislation they’re pushing.
They can just define it with congressional districts or some arbitrary measure that clusters their desired groups and fragments their undesired groups.
Even if this wasn’t the actual, real end to even the charade of U.S. democracy, it would take at least a generation or two to “prove” those policies are hurtful in the courts.
What then? The damage is done. Infrastructure built. Certain groups given generational advantages, certain groups left behind.
In the US, if you know someone’s address (which is trivially easy to find online) and their social security number, you can open credit cards online.
The number itself is considered secure, so knowledge of the number is assumed to be enough identity confirmation for most applications.
Right. I’m looking at filling my taxes and considering having the IRS mail a refund, instead of direct deposit so I’m not sharing my account info with the government.
My wife shared a thread from Reddit with me where a lot of federal workers who were feeling demotivated and like they may want to bail are now saying they will absolutely not leave, and will resist.
It’s one thing to proceed methodically and slowly and to strangle the workers off in ways that can’t be overcome. It’s entirely another to try to trick them into quitting and rug pull them.
In their shoes, I would be going full bureaucrat mode. To the extent legally possible, every HR, or HR-like email gets printed or stored somewhere that isn’t on a server that it can be remotely deleted from. Every meeting recorded. Every document preserved to the fullest extent that the law/FOIA/retention policies require. Heck, they should probably try to preemptively have a shortlist of employment lawyers, or even have a consult with one to make sure they’re being proactive for what may come.
I mean, if they like the job and want to fight for it/want to slow down these insidious changes.
I wanted to be silly and make a joke about justice blue balls. I even had typed up “Justice deferred is justice boner denied.” - which is a pretty good line, but fuck this is soul crushing. Too soul crushing for boner jokes, even.
Pulled so the court case goes away. They don’t want official rulings on the limits of presidential power. Not a reason to celebrate.
The White House confirmed that OMB pulled the memo Wednesday in a two sentence notice sent to agencies and departments, but said that Trump’s underlying executive orders targeting federal spending in areas like diversity, equity and inclusion and climate change, remained in place.
I went through a rough patch awhile back that saw a lot of “yes”’s to things just to keep myself from being still enough to let my thoughts catch up to me.
A friend invited me out one Tuesday night, to a bar within walking distance of our apartments. We got a table on the patio and got deep in our cups late into the night. The vibe had gradually shifted (they put on better music and it felt like the bar slowed down – it relaxed) and I realized something – last call was an hour and a half ago. But drinks had kept flowing - just reappearing while we chatted with the crowd (that was drinking and getting high on the patio) clustered around us. But there was no crowd outside of our group. In fact, all the patrons had gone, and we were apparently just partying with the bar staff, getting to know their life stories. After a spell, I got self conscious and moved to leave. I tried to pay, and they just waved me off.
It was honestly kind of a magical experience. I never did food service or bar work (I chose the retail/manual labor early career skill tree). It felt like a forbidden peek into their lives.