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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: February 23rd, 2024

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  • As much as I loathe the guy, I think we all dodged a bullet.

    If he died of natural causes last month I don’t think the MAGAts would have rallied behind Desantis, or whomever got the nomination. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have voted for them, just that the excitement wouldn’t be there.

    If this has succeeded, the supporters would have transferred and been even more pumped up. And sympathy from those weird fuck undecideds could make the difference, not just in the presidency, but both chambers of Congress, and for their policy goals too.

    Riding the wake of an assassination the draconian shit they would push through could have been far worse than anything Trump would have been able to accomplish in a second term.

    Take civil rights legislation in the 60s; a lot of what LBJ accomplished was credited to the national feeling after the Kennedy assassination. Would JFK have been able to accomplish all that if he had served eight years with public sentiment toward civil rights being divided?

    It sucks that this is boosting his chances in November. But a martyr, a new figurehead, and a more energized base could have been far worse.



  • Before Russia did their heel turn in the aughts, they almost joined NATO after a period of significant cooperation. Russia seeing the U.S., or it’s allies, as enemies is a symptom of Putin turning a fledgling democracy into a dictatorship, not the natural state of affairs.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–NATO_relations

    Go to the “Development of post-Cold War cooperation (1990–2004)” section and check out “NATO-Russia Founding Act”, “NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council”, and “NATO-Russia Council”.

    Back then the talk was pearl clutching over NATO with Russia being seen as some racist white alliance against China, MENA, India, and others in the global south.

    Russia only sees us as enemies because Putin needed to create enemies to seize and consolidate power.


  • I guy I work with owned two condos in a development. The HOA passed a rule banning short term rentals. There were a lot of units being advertised on Airbnb and similar services so he put them on the market when he heard the rule was being proposed to beat the rush.

    He managed to sell one at market but the second one didn’t sell before all the other Airbnb landlords listed their places too. He had to take about 10% below market for the second one.

    Now those two places are owner occupied, and one of them got a nice deal (I don’t know about the ones sold by other people). And everything that sold in that area probably went for a little less for a while due to the glut on the market.

    Making renting less profitable works. People aren’t landlords because it’s fun. They do it for the money. Take away the money and you have less landlords.


  • I don’t recall that happening to any of the many services I subscribe to. I’ve always paid for no commercials and I’ve never had commercials without having to change plans, although I think the name has changed sometimes. Maybe my price went up and they added a new commercial tier near the price I used to pay? Could you give an example?

    People keep using this term enshitification but my experience has only gotten better and better since I cut the cord and now more companies offer streaming increasing what is available to me. My total price has gone up as more things become available but it’s still less than half of what I paid for cable.

    Edit: I just remembered prime video did that. They started charging $3/month for no commercials, but that’s the only one I can think of.


  • It sucks that Netflix doesn’t have as much as they used to because stuff has been pulled for other services but the value proposition for streaming still blows cable out of the water, even with price increases. Adding free or low cost commercial tiers for more price sensitive people doesn’t give me commercials.

    With all the premium channels and three HD-DVR boxes I used to pay over $200, before internet, more than a decade ago with much of that going to a shitty middle man company. And that’s for commercial, appointment TV. Even with the premium stations you had to DVR shit to watch later. I subscribe to a ton of services, even some fringe ones, so I almost never come across something that I can’t watch immediately with no commercials on any device I have access to anywhere in the world. And with annual rates, discounts from my phone company, and kickbacks from credit cards I’m still under $100. And now the money goes to companies that actually produce content, even if some of them suck for other reasons.

    With what I’m getting I would pay double what I used to for cable, but as it is I’m paying half. It seems like a lot of people complaining never paid for cable with all the packages/premium stations themselves and don’t remember how much appointment TV sucked.


  • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.comtoMemes@lemmy.mlWhy haven't you taken the bear pill?
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    6 months ago

    The thing these arguments never take into account is a fate worse than death.

    That’s the point you’re missing.

    Think about why someone would prefer the much more likely bear mauling to the much less likely worst case scenario with a man. If you can wrap your head around that, then consider why these women had that answer ready to go with very little thought. Considerations of a fate worse than death is something that women live with from the age where they first notice grown men noticing them. That averages 11 or 12 years old by the way. Maybe younger if their parents were a little more candid with them than the generic “stranger danger.”



  • Then he did The Pentagon Wars, an HBO movie back when HBO still made good stuff. It’s a true story and I saw an interview with the military guy he was playing. Dude said something like: “I checked out the guy who was playing me and in two previous movies he wore tights.”

    If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s a fucking hilarious comedy of errors about the defense procurement process and design by committee.


  • I watched the miniseries then the show, and there was some additional stuff I watched also but I don’t remember exactly when. There was a spinoff called Caprica, it was good but never got a second season.

    Here is a watch order that includes a couple movies and webseries, but it puts Caprica at the beginning. It is a prequel but I think it would be better watching it after everything else like it was released.

    Edit: if I remember correctly Caprica either has some serious spoilers or there are some things you wouldn’t understand if you hadn’t seen the main show, I don’t want to say anything more but I don’t know why they recommend it first.