How many rallies has Putin held?

The interesting thing about this is that people are now stuck with whatever PC they had when the prices suddenly shot up. In the past there was always a hardware adoption curve, where some people had the newest stuff, other people waited for it to get cheaper before they bought it.

In the past, if a game company was developing a game that was scheduled to be released in 2 years, they could look at what hardware people were using now, and estimate what people would be using in 2 years. Graphics and gameplay that was possible on game studio machines running the latest hardware would be too much for home PCs when development at the studio started. But, by the time the game was ready, home machines would have caught up and people could experience these amazing graphics at home. Now, I assume game studios are going to have to re-think things and assume that most people at home will still be playing on the old gaming PC they built before the AI price apocalypse.

Technofeudalism

You said that America is being filled up with Nazis.

No I didn’t.

When those immigrants were coming to the US, they were not considered “white”. Sometimes the discrimination was because of skin colour, sometimes it was religion. But, they weren’t considered to have the morals and work ethic of the English-descended protestants that dominated the USA.

They still have to file income taxes. But, most places have higher taxes than the USA. Most places also have reciprocal tax agreements with the US. There’s also a deduction of something like $100k, so the first $100k (or local equivalent) you earn in another country isn’t taxed. As a result, unless you’re making high six figures, you don’t actually owe any American taxes.

OTOH, just filing US taxes is a real pain in the ass. In the US it’s made very slightly easier by your employer, bank, etc. all supplying you with the tax forms you need. If you’re overseas, you need to figure out the info you’d need to supply on that form yourself.

Can I pause for a second to just admire this guy’s walk-in pantry?

Exactly, and it’s a cycle. They buy things on credit, carry a balance on their credit cards, owe a lot of money, and the stress gets to them. Eventually they buy things as a way to feel better and relieve the stress.

Trying to “not look poor” or “keep up with the Joneses” can lead to real misery. But, if instead you make a budget and save just a little bit every month it can be liberating.

Fundamentally, the problem is unequal wealth distribution. But, we should also try to help people live within their means while we attempt to fix that societal issue.

There are Nazis in America and rather than leaving the “bar”, Americans stick around.

You don’t talk about Hitler “more often than not” being popular with Germans. Hitler famously had huge rallies filling stadiums.

The reason they don’t admit that they got a head start is that they actually don’t believe it.

The daughter of a family friend of mine grew up middle class. Her mom was a social worker, her did had an office job. She managed to marry a man who’s the son that’s inheriting his dad’s oil business, worth tens of millions. She is now a housewife / stay at home mom. She now has a city home, a cottage (which is fully a house, just in a more rural location) and a summer home. One of her daughters competes in sailing races (and anybody who knows sailing knows just how expensive that hobby can be), the other is into horse riding.

I’ve asked her what it’s like for her kids to grow up rich, and she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t think she’s rich. She says that there are houses around where she lives that are even bigger than hers, and that her husband works hard. I’m sure that’s true, but she’s still in the top 0.1%. And this is someone who grew up middle class, and should remember what it was like.

I guarantee that most of the kids that come from rich families have no idea what it’s like not to be rich. As a result, they don’t ever consider that it might not be normal to be able to have your dad’s lawyer look over the contracts for your new company free of charge. They never think of how easy they had it to find investors for their company, and how forgiving those investors were. It never occurred to them that during those lean months at the beginning when their company hadn’t yet started generating real revenue, that it was unusual to be able to live in their parents’ spare apartment in the city, and to have dad pay off their credit card.

Putin is hardly a charismatic leader. Might as well throw in Maduro or Noriega, or Saddam Hussein if you’re going to talk about leaders who ruled through fear and force rather than charisma.

But not charismatic enough to challenge him. That’s key.

If you think about it, the USA is a Nazi bar.

“We” being individual mastodon admins who each choose if they think the server should be defederated or not? That sounds good.

As for bluesky, what they’re doing makes sense for a global non-federated site. Allow anyone to make an account, and allow them to post as long as they don’t break the rules. If a user doesn’t like that organization they’re free to block or mute them. Anything else and you’re asking bluesky to draw an arbitrary line somewhere. If they forbid ICE from creating an account, which government entities are allowed? FBI? National Weather Service? FDA? POTUS? Supreme Court? Federal Reserve?

I would bet if you say bluesky should ban “problematic” accounts and asked 100 people which accounts should be banned, you’d get 100 completely different answers. Just use your own judgment and your own block button.

Vance may be champing at the bit, but he’s also fucking at the couch, and there’s no way that MAGA will fall in line behind him.

The worst is when you can smell people walking past you when you’re outside… before they pass you.

This is why I like taste tests.

They routinely prove that even experts can’t distinguish between $20 wine and $200 wine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias ?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/647303/confidence-institutions-mostly-flat-police.aspx

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26474159/cnn-poll-immigration-minneapolis-ice.pdf