Why did I mentally read that as “almonds” with an s at the front?

I can’t think of any metals or anything that there would be enough of in river water to hurt you

We’re talking about rivers like the one in Cleveland that they caught on fire?

Twice?!

IDK what’s in that but I’ll leave my cup for you haha

Just doesn’t feel right to carve up an Ottoman Empire for Thanksgiving.

Mysterious ways, I tells ya!

Y’know… I’d have found all this “coconuts floated from Asia to the Caribbean” stuff pretty far fetched…

But not two years ago I was fishing, and a goddamn coconut floated right down and bumped me in the leg.

In the Monongahela River.

In Pittsburgh.

Windows ‘just works’? What about all the programs crashes that you need to go through endless YouTube tutorials to fix? What about having to fill up a form and register your credit card for every closed source program you need to install?

I’ve literally never had either of these experiences with W10.

At least not in the past 5+ years.

Yes it was longer than that.

My main thing is that, then and now (based on discussions I read between users), most any user experience that I relate to seems to be equal parts:

“try to figure out the Linux equivalent of what you were doing in Windows and hope it’s compatible with the rest of your needs”

“Try to figure out how to get Linux to behave like Windows to accomplish something you did with that os”

“Become a hobbyist…programmer? IT specialist? And get familiar with tweaking and adjusting the details of how your computer works just to get it to do things you want”

Like…for people who enjoy it, I’m happy for them. Really! But I don’t want to have to familiarize myself with commands, learn how to boot things up, or learn a whole list of things just to get the simple mindless functionality I have with Windows from decades of time in the system.

I think back then I tried Debian, Ubuntu, and…is ‘OpenSUSE’ a thing? I even had a group of three friends who were all super into Linux encouraging me and helping me every step of the way, and I was young and technically inclined and happy to have a challenge…and in the end, I went right back to Windows after a semester or two of that, because I just found that my experience was, broadly speaking, “Enjoy a problem solving exercise in software management every time you want to do something, just to get to a basic level of function, with added quirks that you’ll just have to deal with…and little real benefit for the order of magnitude of extra effort”.

And while I’m sure some of that would have had to get better in the years between, most of the conversations I still see about Linux are enthusiasts enjoying coming up with solutions to the issues of using their chosen system. Which again, that’s fine, but I don’t want to have to become an enthusiast of an OS.

Given a choice between, “have to learn how to get the OS to do everything” vs “put up with data collection and some intrusive ads once in a while”… I’m happy to go with the latter to have things just work without having to learn a new skill set just to get the same level of functionality.

I’m happy to use W10 well after its official support ends, though I strongly suspect there will be significant extensions to that timeline. Even then, I’m happy to use it until it’s no longer the path of least resistance, at which point, I’ll reevaluate my options. When we get there, if it seems reasonable, maybe I’ll dip my toes into the Linux pool again.

Man, it’s a toss up for me as to which I hate more: Microsoft threatening and badgering me toward W11 (and by extension, a new computer) or Linux fanboys evangelizing for their preferred system.

Both are complete non-starters for me. I’m not buying a new machine while my current one does everything I need just fine… And after a few years of using Linux on my laptop back in college, I have no desire to set foot in that environment again either.

My perfectly good PC has an incompatible processor with W11, so I’m not upgrading.

I imagine it’ll still be just fine next October, so even if Microsoft doesn’t extend support for W10, I’ll still be using it.

They absolutely will.

Either directly, because those goods are now more expensive to Best Buy and they’re not about to eat that, so it’ll get pissed directly on to the consumer (with a mark-up)…

…or indirectly, when any one or more of the corporate entities involved in the domestic supply chain sees that domestic goods are now cheaper than imports for the consumer, which means that they now have an opportunity to simply raise their prices to match and pocket the difference.

Nevermind that domestic supply chains often have roots in China anyway, so it’s not like the domestic electronics are going to be able to hold price either, since their imported components will still be getting hit with the tariff.

My favorite part of this aspect of it in particular is that while electronics are no doubt ubiquitous, most electronics purchases are more discretionary. It’s not like a car where if yours dies you are definitely buying another one. Most times, people are getting a phone because a new model came out, or they decided theirs was too slow. They’re getting a new TV because they want to upgrade or found a good deal.

So when these tariffs hit and prices lurch up, expect sales to plummet as people decide they can keep going with their current electronics just a bit longer.

So congratulations, domestic beneficiaries of an electronics tariff, any profit increase you might have gained will now be more than gutted by the nosedive in overall sales!

My guess?

He’s far less concerned about the specifics of this situation and far more concerned about what happens if/when his Twitter is host to something horrible enough that people are calling for his head, and/or he is wanting to sell…or being pressured to sell Twitter…but there’s something specific he wants to stipulate in that transaction that a precedent set here might fuck up.

For a few years, it seemed like everyone I knew who has having a little girl was naming them after old presidents.

So many Kennedys and Reagans and Madisons…

My girlfriend at the time did really like “Madison”, but I told her if we were ever to have a little girl and we’re gonna name her after a former president, we’re gonna have a little Eisenhower running around.

She laughed (as was the intention) but agreed the trend was a little ridiculous.

It shouldn’t be concerning, it should be enlightening.

But it won’t be. Not for the party leadership.

Over the past 40 years they’ve gone from being the champion of blue collar and union workers nationwide, and being able to take those votes for granted…to having the rust belt become the biggest swing region in the country (which their opponent swept this month). Did they take this as a wake up call and do more for the blue collar voters to win their loyalty back?

Nah, they just blame them and talk down to them, and tell them they’re too stupid to know what’s best for them.

In that same time frame, they were seen as abandoning the blue collar worker to court the minority vote, talking their efforts at helping factory workers and turning them toward helping minorities in race and gender. While they were actually doing this they did indeed appear to gain that loyalty at the ballot box. Of course once they had it, they felt no need to keep up the good work for these people and have slowly become a party who does nothing for anyone, and runs on a platform of essentially admitting they do nothing, but that their inaction is better than the other side, so they should still be owed votes.

Once again, this isn’t working out for them, and once again, rather than take it as a rejection of what they’re doing, no…it’s the voters who are wrong.

I despise the GOP as much as any reasonable person, and I firmly believe that many of their voters won’t like what they voted for once they start to get it…but there’s no denying that the GOP has a message, goals, and demonstrable progress toward them. And to counter that…the Democrats have…“I think things are good and I wouldn’t change anything. You should vote for me because I’m not MAGA aligned, and if you don’t, it’s your fault not mine.”

Arrogance is off-putting, and it appears it’s going to take at least a half century for the Democrats to figure that out.

First, an explanation isn’t an excuse. It’s a reason. It doesn’t make it okay, it doesn’t place or shift blame, it just correctly points something out.

In this case, Trump broadly received the same number of votes as he did 4 years ago, while the Democrats got millions fewer.

There’s no assumption there, it’s just an observation.

It’s not pushing or assigning blame. Maybe they didn’t vote because they were lazy. Maybe they didn’t vote because they didn’t like Harris. Maybe they didn’t vote because they didn’t like the process by which she became the nominee. Maybe they didn’t vote because they’ve lost faith in the entire system.

Regardless of reason, and regardless of how any observer decides to interpret it or assign blame, the facts speak for themselves.

That is exactly what US steel did in response to the steel tariffs back in Trump round one.

She does! But that’s her mouth haha.

I was taking a pic and she decided she needed to rub against my phone.

Yeah he’s an unholy mix of Palpatine and the goblin king from the hobbit movie.

This is also a favored tactic when it’s time to hold the budget hostage with threats of a government shutdown a few times every other year too.

Yeah, it sounds like it might be a great case to run up the flagpole to SCOTUS for an official ruling, since it crosses state lines.

Like …okay the child is behaving in a way inconsistent with State B Law, but they’re not in State B. That happens all the damn time, every day, with vice laws, weed laws, gun laws, etc.

Also, presumably, if the child moved out of the country, State B would be completely unable to enforce its laws in country B. So there’s a limit to this enforcement, but where is it?