In Nate Bargatze’s recent standup special he talked about how he, a water meter reader at the time, was tasked with protecting his town’s water tower after 9/11. With a flashlight. He did a much better job making it funny than I can, but I remember that level of fear. “It’s called terrorism because they make you afraid they can hit anywhere!” I remember hearing.
Which is silly in retrospect, Al Qaeda only hit major, symbolic targets in the US and never did “hit anywhere.”
They’re already working on brainwashing their base on this one. My dad started talking about how in Europe ATC is handled by a private company, not a part of the EU government.
I had to explain to him that Eurocontrol is an international organization, and that international organizations aren’t the same thing as private companies. No one calls the UN General Assembly, the WTO, or the IMF “private companies.”
I worked for my district’s IT department when I was in high school. I think my sophomore or junior year.
It was pretty cool really. Mostly it was transcoding VHS tapes into MPEGs, but occasionally I got to do odd jobs around the school district.
Once I got yelled at by a grade school secretary, and treated with suspicion even after she had called my boss at the district IT office to confirm I was indeed there to replace a graphics card on a computer.
While she was walking me to the library or classroom or whatever she took the box from me, pointed to the 3D orc on the box, and said in the bitchiest possible tone, “So what is this? Is this supposed to be part of the curriculum?”
I calmly said, “No ma’am, that’s just the advertising the manufacturer puts on the packaging. It’s a graphics card, it can be used to play games so they advertise that.”
“Well kids shouldn’t be playing these kinds of games in school!”
“It’s a graphics card. It’s how the computer displays any kind of graphics on the screen. The computer needs a new one. I don’t know why, I’m just doing what I was told.”
Man that woman was so much of a bitch I remember that interaction better than most of high school.
a device that is known to be anti-consumer.
Anti-competitive and monopolistic, sure. Anti-consumer? Eh.
Don’t get me wrong, Apple is just as evil as the next guy. Their practices reinforce their market position in an insidious way. But in many respects Apple performs better on the consumer front than, say, their primary competitor Google. Not in every way, but I wouldn’t call their devices “anti-consumer.”
If one of your primary concerns as a consumer is an open platform then yeah, I can see you rejecting outright Apple devices. This could in turn lead to being dismissive of the concerns of those whose priorities differ from yours, though I would strongly advise against such a lack of empathy over something as insignificant as a platform choice. Regardless, curtailing their practices is still important.
If we don’t stop bad behavior because it doesn’t affect us directly, we set bad precedents. Regulatory actions are an important tool.
If we talk about restricting stuff like rent, food prices etc, so essentials, I'm on board. But Apple? Nah.
Fallacy of relative privation. “X is worse than Y, so Y doesn’t matter.” Rent and food prices are important, too, but regulatory bodies don’t operate on a zero sum system. Multiple things can be addressed with multiple efforts. It’s not like the EU is saying “we can ignore starvation and homelessness because at least we cracked down on Apple.”
Wow was I ever the wrongest person that had ever wronged. Sorry again guys, next time I'll just keep my trap shut
“Man, when I was younger I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.”
-Professor Faber, Fahrenheit 451
People like to hang out at airport viewing areas to watch planes land, and some film them. It’s fun. I’ve done it a few of times, though admittedly I didn’t film them.
Edit: Though actually this is filmed from another aircraft, it seems. Maybe filming because of how bad the conditions were? Not sure.
In the Overton Window that is US politics, it is. But that’s because the damn window has been dragged so far to the right that facts themselves are “Liberal Marxism” now (oxymoronic as that label is).
Edit: And MBFC perpetuates that rightward movement. I prefer Ad Fontes, although it does also label CNN as center-left.
That graph is fascinating, thank you!
I’ve been listing to the audiobook for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the number of times they say “CP” as an abbreviation for “Communist Party” is too damn high.
Also last time I went to the amusement park Cedar Point they’ve got “CP” as an abbreviation on all sorts of stuff.
Made me chuckle, but I do think it’s perhaps time to move to the abbreviation CSAM since it’s less likely to get used for other purposes.
I’ve been experimenting with WefWef, which is a web app that works really well on iOS and probably works well on Android as well. Reminiscent of Apollo or Sync.
On iOS you can add it to the Home Screen and it acts like an app. I think you can do so on Android as well, but it’s been a couple years since I’ve used Android.
Because you can get away with following very few regulations if you’re in international waters, and pollute the shit out of the environment. Cruises are horrible, environmentally speaking.
My wife’s family loves cruises. I have made it very clear that I am morally opposed and will not join them on one, but her mom has tried to schedule a cruise as a family vacation anyway at least twice. I think she now finally understands I’m not going to be convinced by being told how much fun they are, after I outright said, “I understand they’re awesome, I’m sure I would love it, but I am not going to support that industry and its practices.”
At one point I honestly think she thought if she just got it scheduled and everyone else was onboard I’d come along. Fortunately she never got that far.
(I promise she’s actually a pretty cool person, I love my mother-in-law very much, but she can be stubborn.)