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Trump and indicted allies have until 12 p.m. on August 25 to turn themselves in, DA says
  • Honestly at this point, what are the chances he doesn't flee the country?

    I mean, how likely is he to dodge four different indictments or come out of these without jail time, especially given that GA, where most of the crimes committed were either on TV, recorded, or have multiple witnesses that probably already flipped, have a minimum five year sentence? And pretty much all of these cases exist this way. It's like he has a fetish for going on TV and confessing to the crime. The 2nd E Jean Carroll case is like perfect evidence of this. I don't even think Tarantino likes feet as much as Trump likes confessing and committing crimes.

    His previous plan of becoming president again to force constitutional crisis of how to punish a sitting president was already a Hail Mary. He was going against the guy he lost to already, that guy is now the incumbent and it's rare in modern times incumbents lose, and by nearly any measure, that incumbent has had a very successful presidency. So this was a long shot to begin with.

    Then the backup option was another Republican wins and pardons Trump. But that doesn't allow him to dodge Georgia and he can't even be eligible until he's served five years if he loses GA. Also, I suspect that there are few people alive who have ever shared a room with Trump that don't hate his fucking guts, so even if he skates in Georgia somehow doesn't win the presidency and a republican does, where does the pressure come from to pardon Trump? This would effectively be the final nail in his political career. Congress in '18, presidency in '20 along with most of his endorsements, and then lost in '24. And somehow there is going to be a groundswell of political pressure to force someone like DeSantis, who very obviously hates him, to pardon Trump? Doubt it.

    So Trump, a very obvious rat is left on a very obviously sinking ship. If I had to guess, he's going to spend the week reaching out to whichever dictators will take his calls and offer them some combo of state secrets and further tweets and videos like "forced to flee thanks to this political witch-hunt by the deep state!!!" in the hopes it continues to destabilize the US and the west in general in exchange for some cushy asylum. My other guess might have been that he really for real tries to ignite a civil war, but after the pithy little crowd that showed to support at the first arraignment, I'm guessing he's given up on that one.

    I really hope I'm wrong and his Diet Coke and Big Mac sauce veins don't calcify before he can face justice, but I'm afraid I'm just too cynical when it comes to this asshole to let myself hope.

  • Sci-fi gripe: holograms for personal devices
  • This is my bet as well. I think at some point, foldable screens will get good enough to get mass market, and then it will be about how thin/light they can make those so they get bigger screens but the device remains pocketable. Not to mention, screen tech matches/exceeds today. That's the practical appeal of things like holos outside of just being aesthetically "future looking."

    I'm also very interested in the idea of AR glasses that can be worn normally, but that's pretty limited by physics right now (battery and camera tech especially.)

  • ‘Corrupt as hell’: Clarence Thomas faces fresh calls to resign after more billionaire gifts revealed
  • Lol, I guess I should have led with "extremely, profoundly ignorant in a way that almost has to be a choice at this point” for all of the reading comprehension in this post.

    Aside from the fact that I am far more left than the democratic party and your base assumption about me and the point of my post is woefully far off, I would really love some answer to a very basic question:

    What has the effect been for left/progressive policy from sitting out elections or voting for third party/independents?

    While left/progressives sit over here and go "oh I don't like this candidate because they voted for this policy in '92 that was bad for beluga whales" the right will line up and dutifully vote for a rapist that tried to overthrow democracy as long as they have an R next to their name.

    But yeah, vote your principles! Go out there and vote for the green candidate! After all, look at how well that went towards advancing green principles - The party promotes green politics, specifically environmentalism; nonviolence; social justice; participatory democracy; grassroots democracy; anti-war; anti-racism; libertarian socialism and eco-socialism. All that got so much better thanks to the idealists who thought Hillary was a little too corporate or had a little too much resting bitch face.

  • What's some really unpopular opinion you have?
  • Yes and no. I think it would be decently socially unacceptable for someone to decide to go completely dark for a day each week. A mandate would remove the stigma.

    But, like... so? It's decently socially unacceptable to dress up like Batman and walk around town shouting for the Joker. But you can still do it, and just because it's socially unacceptable to most doesn't mean we should force it on most.

    On a helpful side because I do generally agree with the premise (although with lots of caveats) that unplugging a bit is helpful, I have a few thoughts:

    If you're on iOS, use Focus modes. If you're on Android, I'm sure there is some equivalent. I have my paid work hours, and then I have "working hours" (I'm salaried, if you're hourly I'd say throw your phone in a faraday cage if you aren't getting paid for it) where I reduce comms. Email is on during paid hours, but probably off during "working hours" except VIPs and a few keywords. Messaging stays on during working hours, but after go off. Subordinates know phone calls for emergency (which are rare.) This is one thing I don't like about the US not settling on a messaging standard - for all of the other iOS using people, they can see when I have a notifications are off, and know when to escalate comms if they really need help. Android not so much.

    For work, set boundaries in contracts and what not. If the cultural norm is you're going to be expected to be at your phone 24/7 and it's not paid for and not something you're okay with, either ignore it and let them try to fire you, or realistically just find a new job because that's a shit culture.

    For personal, just do whatever the fuck you want. I don't even try to justify it any longer because it's just not reasonable, and if someone really has a problem that I didn't like their post or respond to their text in 0.3 seconds, maybe I don't really care that much they're not my friend?

    Also, I generally find that a lot of the expectation that we're always "on" is self-inflicted. I know plenty of people who sending a text message to might be as effective as sending a smoke signal and it just isn't that big a deal? I used to be one of those "I have to answer every message/email/post in 30s" type of people, and when I stopped doing that it was totally fine, except I was far less stressed. And it virtually never led to anything positive. My boss never pulled me aside and said "fastest emailer in the west, here's a 20% raise." I just set the expectation for those around me that my time wasn't important and I was always going to be at someone's beck and call.

  • Massachusetts couple denied foster care application over LGBTQ views, complaint says
  • You know, I didn't even think of this. I initially just thought "good, they might get a queer kid they'll abuse/neglect and thus shouldn't have them" but the whole limiting of the expansion of more shitbirds sure is a nice bonus.

  • Which proprietary software do you prefer over their open-source alternatives, and why?
  • I came here to say similar. macOS > all for me. I personally generally detest Windows, but I keep an install around because I want to game and don't want getting my games to run to be a hobby. I'd much rather do most productivity types of things on Linux rather than Windows. That said, I'm far and away most productive on macOS, and the tooling there is just better for me for most things, especially given that I use an iPhone as my mobile. Just the integrations between those two would make switching either one hard, especially given it's not nearly as good on any other platform. But honestly, even trying to use a computer without Keyboard Maestro and Launchbar just feel straight up broken to me now.

    Also, people downvoting in this thread maybe didn't read the question? "Which do you prefer?"

  • ‘Corrupt as hell’: Clarence Thomas faces fresh calls to resign after more billionaire gifts revealed
  • I don't think they are under-estimating, or even close. It's like taking a solid b student and grading them next to the kid eating paint chips and torturing small animals and pretending it's the same. Even in modern times, look at economic accomplishments of this admin, legislative accomplishments, etc. Fighting for things like a higher min wage (though it failed.)

    Stop blaming people for not voting for them.

    Fuck no. Every time in my life we've voted in Republicans it's led to one catastrophe or another. Sure you can make an argument that Dems need to be pushed to the left, but the choices are between:

    a) the party who isn't improving your life fast enough
    b) the party these days that are literal fascists responsible for multiple financial collapses at this point, millions dead from wars they start, failure to manage a pandemic, extreme wealth concentration, that is looking at our planet on fire and still doesn't meaningfully acknowledge that our policy is causing it. Book bans, loss of bodily autonomy for half of the country, destroying education, ensuring discrimination in law, bringing back child labor.

    If you're voting republican in 2023 or not voting democrat, you're a sociopath, billionaire (whoops said the same thing twice), or a fucking moron*. There is no path to a more progressive country that comes through allowing fascists to burn it all down.

    * I suppose I could more charitably say "extremely, profoundly ignorant in a way that almost has to be a choice at this point."

  • The constitutional case that Donald Trump is already banned from being president
  • I mean, given all of the other laws and such that he broke blatantly while in office, fuck no lol. Emoluments, Hatch act violations, the very obvious fact that either impeachment would have succeeded if republicans even pretended for a second to be principled and supported the constitution, etc.

    Just toss it on the pile.

  • What are some notable scams in history that went unnoticed for so long?
  • They seem to want to be obstinate, so while I don't agree, I'll take a stab at answering the question:

    The link they posted has this bit right at the top:

    You may have paid money to get copies of a free program, or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies.

    The fundamental belief seems to be that however you obtained the software, paid or not, you should be free to do literally whatever you want with it.

    Where I really disagree is that proprietary software (like half of the answers in this fucking thread lol) are fundamentally not scams. A "scam" implies something that one party, the patsy, is not aware of.

  • I feel the actual inflation
  • I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. A 20-30% jump in a grocery bill is unprecedented in my life time. I'm skeptical it's even that low for most. Pre-pandemic, I was buying eggs for 1.39, they're 2.49 now. Jarred spaghetti sauce used to be 1.99, it's 3.49 now if I catch a sale. I used to be able to regularly buy chicken breast for like 1.49-1.99, now if it's less than 3 I buy as much as I can afford and freeze it. This time of year in my area, corn would usually be on sale 4/$1. The cheapest it's gotten is $0.79.

    Just repeat ad nauseam for everything. The other day I was in the store thinking to myself, "I'm not sure I can afford convenience foods like canned beans." Canned. Fucking. Beans. The luxury.

  • After Netflix, Disney is cracking down on password sharing
  • I really like YAMS. This will get you a setup based on docker that runs the *arr stack, qbittorrent, and has support for VPN out of the box. Lets you choose between Plex, emby, and jellyfin. It's also extremely easy to add sabnzbd (or whatever usenet dl client you want) by just copying a few lines in the docker compose file. It also makes updating wicked easy, just 'yams restart'.

  • What are some conspiracy theories you absolutely believe to be true?
  • It blows my mind that there were stone tool making hominins over 3 millions years ago, well before the first human species.

    Just thinking about this point for a second is really mind-blowing especially when you think about it with the added context that up until about 200-300 years ago, human technology levels were probably closer to the stone-tool wielders than it is to modern humans in an EV listening to music through a smartphone and navigating by a global satellite system.