Spyke

Replies

news

Comment on

We’re now finding out the damaging results of the mandated return to the office–and it’s worse than we thought

Then there's my employer, who is giving us WFH for the foreseeable future. They might even sell our office building and move our datacenter.

We do a monthly small-team in person, and the occasional all-staff in-person, but otherwise it's just "come in if you want, or don't, lol." Like, I technically have a desk. It's just got a couple monitors on it collecting dust, though. I'm only really ever there (aside from the infrequent in-persons) when my rabbit has to go to the vet, which is closer to the office.

We actually showed more productivity after moving to WFH, so they said 'let's just keep it.' So my only restriction is living in the state, since it's a publically-funded org.

Comment on

Mark Meadows Planning to Flip on Trump in Georgia Case Along With Other Indicted Co-Conspirators, Per Report

Reply in thread

Cooperation from co-conspirators is always helpful.

Trump's current strategy (or, at least what we can discern from his lawyers' TV appearances) is to blame the lawyers he had at the time of the election. If all these co-conspirators point the finger directly at Trump, that goes a loooong way to proving that he was the ringleader. Not some lawyer. Not some aide. Trump called the shots.

That's what they want.

Comment on

Sanders says Trump reelection would be the ‘end of democracy’

Reply in thread

If you're not skeptical of single issue leftists, then you should be more skeptical in general.

We know that there was a LOT of foreign astroturfing in 2016. And 2020. 2024 will likely repeat this trend, but armed with AI.

We've already seen one weak "it was AI and fake" argument from Roger Stone. Going to see a lot more of that this year, too.

So he careful who you trust, because they just might have an agenda.

Comment on

Zelenskiy makes 11th hour plea for Ukraine war funds in Washington

Reply in thread

How about we do both? Continue to fund Ukraine in order to provide a stopgap against Russian encroachment and destabilization of Eastern Europe, as well as take care of people in America? It wouldn't even be that hard.

Tax the rich so they pay their fair share. Use that money to fund social programs and boost the economy for the middle class and lower. Tax businesses to the point where it's more lucrative to reinvest in their own companies than it is to make massive profits - this promotes raising wages. Cap executive pay to a fixed rate above the lowest-paid employee. Just like that, the 'richest country in the world' can act like it and not relegate their poorest to third-world conditions.

But you weren't interested in a real answer, were you? Just shilling for the alt-right and Russia.

Comment on

*Permanently Deleted*

Reply in thread

I mean, yes. Corporations owning towns is problematic. But the way in which this was handled is significantly worse.

While having their own government generated huge potential for abuse, all signs point toward Disney actually being a pretty good steward. So it's not like this was some emergency. The takeover of the government could have happened slowly, deliberately, and in a way that did not destroy the district in the process. But that was not the point here. The point was to cause damage to Disney because they dared to disagree with DeSantis.

Notice that none of the other privately-owned towns in Florida are being stripped out. It's just Disney, and it's just because of revenge.

Due to the way this was done, an awful lot of people are going to needlessly suffer. Not just Disney employees, either. Disney attracts massive tourism to Florida, and that tourism money ends up all over the state. This is a self-own of absolutely epic proportions on DeSantis' part, and all of Florida is going to pay for it.

Comment on

Trump told European leaders that US ‘will never come to help you’

Reply in thread

I mostly agree with your response, except for chastising OP about the color of the shirt. They start by mentioning brown, then parenthetically say "orange" as an unveiled reference to Trump.

This is because Trump is known to use a LOT of bronzer that turns his skin an unusual orange color. So what OP was trying to do was to relate the brownshirts to the presumed task force that Trump would create if he became a dictator.

news

Comment on

‘I’m not wanted’: Florida universities hit by brain drain as academics flee

Reply in thread

It's even more sinister than that. An uneducated populace is good for the ruling class. They have more children on average and will believe the lies more willingly.

The Republican party has been trying to destroy the education system for decades. Not only do they not want the poors getting educated (more malleable labor), they want to privatize education (vouchers, divert more public money to private hands).

Comment on

'100-200,000, not two million': Israel's finance minister envisions depopulated Gaza

Reply in thread

Nobody is going to make you vote one way or another, but please recognize the following:

The United States is currently a two party system. It sucks. We need to push for more ranked choice voting, as well as direct popular vote.

However, until we're able to achieve something that makes this parties viable, we will continue to have issues with the right wing getting undue influence in our politics.

Vote with your heart, but make sure that you're okay with another Trump presidency of you decide not to vote for Biden.

Keep in mind as you do so that more than one state had enough votes for Jill Stein that if they had gone to Hillary, Trump never would have become president.

We should have viable parties outside of the two not great to horrible parties we have now. But that's simply not the way our government works as it stands now.

Last thing: you've become a single issue voter. This is the lefty equivalent of only caring about abortion and ignoring literally everything else. Politics is complicated, and I personally find single issue voters incredibly shortsighted and lazy.

Comment on

2024 Republicans want to eliminate the Education Department. What would that look like?

Reply in thread

That's kinda the point. They actively want the poors to have to send their kids to the 'budget' schools. The ones that charge exactly $2700 / yr / student. Broken computers, empty libraries, overworked and severely underpaid teachers, no extra curriculars.

Meanwhile, the oligarchs rich people can send their kids to the schools that cost more, teaches their kids how to be shitty to the proletariat, and has a pipeline directly into colleges.

The whole point of this venture is to siphon even yet more money from the poor into the hands of the rich, meanwhile depriving those same poor of a worthwhile education and giving the rich an even greater advantage.

games

Comment on

Fallout TV Show - Teaser Trailer

Reply in thread

There are a lot of reasons to not judge it yet. First and foremost, the director/show runner has zero input on the trailer. That's all the marketing department, and the trailer is designed to get as many eyeballs as possible on the final product. Numerous examples exist of trailers which bared little resemblance to the movie/show/game/whatever.

Secondly, they buried the lead on the director. Jonathan Nolan did direct much of Westworld. But he also wrote a bunch of award winning films for his brother, Christopher Nolan. Movies like Memento, Interstellar, The Prestige, and Dark Knight. He's no slouch, and I'll reserve judgement until I see it.

Comment on

Rishi Sunak considers banning cigarettes for next generation

Reply in thread

I think this is a cultural difference. In the US it's not uncommon for common sense health regulation to get ignored - such as the amount of sugar in soda - because people cause an uproar about freedoms being taken away.

But if you say it's about the health of sweet, innocent children... well then suddenly it's a lot more palatable for the public.

So here in the US, you can want everyone to stop smoking, but make the case that it is for the benefit of children in order to help achieve that goal.

Comment on

Linux has less than half of Linux’s desktop share

Reply in thread

You could say the same thing about other distros that hide the difficult bits, tbh. Is Endless Linux? What about Elementary?

The thing about Linux is that it's extremely flexible, and there's a lot of choices about interface and user experience.

So what is it about ChromeOS that makes it not Linux? Is it that it doesn't have GNOME, KDE, XFCE or the hundreds of other DEs? Is it that you don't need to use the terminal for anything? I mean, it's not the kernel or the userland or even the compiler...

So what is it?