Spyke

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Mitch McConnell’s ‘sandbag’ moment stokes anxiety over US gerontocracy

Paywall removed: https://archive.is/UozLV

In my view, the gerontocracy is a side effect of deeper, systemic issues: too much power in incumbency, too much power placed in the hands of the hands of too few, too much power given to money. I would prioritize these three changes to fix our democracy:

  1. Publicly funded elections
  2. Uncap the House
  3. Term limits on the Supreme Court

That’s it. Everything else flows downhill from there.

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First good look at Wolverine's new costume

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Agree, though because the quality of the movies he’s been in have varied so widely I just try to treat each Hugh Wolverine as a separate entity. Like James Bond, or Dr Who, the same character but also separate. Continuities be damned :)

In my mind that was what made Logan so great: it was powerhouse performance, served by a story that was great irrespective of which specific timeline(s) it was part of.

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Airbnb is adding cleaning fees to a new 'total price' of bookings in search results after people complained listings were misleading

It was only just recently that the flood of “Airbnbust” articles seemed to abate a little. I can never tell if Airbnb is going great, or it’s terrible.

For my own part, I’m happy for this update. Despite the complaints, Airbnb is usually a great option for families with little kids, where the alternative is usually “book multiple hotel rooms, and split the parents between them.” Price transparency is good, and I won’t book a place that has a task list for me.

memes

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Fuck the moon

If you want to know what the moon blowing up would be like, give Seveneves by Neal Stephenson a read. It’s the last book that got me to stay up all night reading. First two thirds are a solid 9/10.

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[Discussion] What are your definitive (or alternative) accessories, controllers, etc for the Steam Deck?

When I first got my Deck I set up a “battle docking station” at my work desk, where I thought I’d end up doing some moderate-length play sessions. This was just a JSAUX dock hooked up to my daily drivers (a Dell Ultrasharp monitor and the bluetooth channels on my AnnePro 2 keyboard and Steelseries Aerox 3 mouse, since my work system uses them both wired).

But I’ve found I don’t play docked at all, maybe 3 or 4 times this year. Most of my gaming now is handheld, using the Deck on the couch. If I’m thinking about playing docked I’ll usually just sit down for a longer session on the “main” gaming rig instead, but that’s rare these days. And for handheld, I have no accessories at all - just a vanilla 512.

Granted, I only play 2-3 hours a week, and I’ve adjusted my habits to mostly playing handheld-friendly, shorter-session games.

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Airbnb is adding cleaning fees to a new 'total price' of bookings in search results after people complained listings were misleading

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Definitely a good fit for families, being able to stay in a house has allowed us to do things we couldn’t have otherwise. We just got back from a trip that would have taken at least 3 hotel rooms (me, the wife, 3 kids, and my parents), and we paid less than the price of 2 rooms for a gorgeous 4BR beach house with 5 beds. We priced it out and it would have cost the same for 2 hotel rooms, which would have meant no grandparents, and my wife and I sleeping in separate rooms, and at least one kid on a couch.

So, yeah, new use cases enabled that weren’t possible before. That’s cool!

As for taxes, Airbnbs are taxed same as hotels here (15%), and the property owner also pays $10k/yr in property tax on top of that (per public records), so I’m not sure what else would make sense there. In some markets (esp cities) I get the concern about rent impacts, but this isn’t the kind of place that is ever going to be a long term rental. It seems like a parallel market to me, but I’m open to learning otherwise.

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Airbnb is adding cleaning fees to a new 'total price' of bookings in search results after people complained listings were misleading

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Not being argumentative, but according to public records this place is privately owned by a person (or family) who bought it in 1997 (not a corp or LLC). It was listed for rent 2 years ago at $3900 before being taken down a month later.

That’s why I see it as a parallel market. I have a hard time seeing how folks being hurt by crazy rent prices are affected by this home being on Airbnb, any more than (say) a shortage of Ferraris would affect the price of minivans.

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