I think that electing someone as deranged as Trump — who basically would try anything and everything that a sane person wouldn’t risk out of self-preservation, we basically saw a speedrun of finding out all the weaknesses and exploits of our government, combined with proving that impeachment and removal is basically impossible as long as one party is in collusion with the president.

We might have gotten here anyway, but it might have been a decade or two rather than four short years.

And the Supreme Court wouldn’t look like it does and be doing what’s it’s doing, which is also now a speedrun of horror.

I’ll never forgive Americans for 2016.

It’s a frigging figure of speech. It doesn’t literally mean both options are “evil” anytime it is used. And you’re not “choosing evil” by voting for Biden — not for the people whose lives will be ruined if Trump wins. For many you are preventing evil.

If a few more people in a few states had chosen the “lesser evil” of Hillary over Trump, the Supreme Court wouldn’t be delivering supreme evil every few months for the foreseeable future.

(I don’t need to hear about how Hillary did a bad job in the election — it doesn’t change the fact that the consequences are what they are.)

Ubermeets

My theory had been ‘amburger in a cockney accent

an 🍔

Going crazy trying to think of what word you use for 🍔 that starts with a vowel.

Oh, and also I used to always get the Santa Fe chicken Gordita at Taco Bell until it went away.

At my first developer job 25 years ago, any time we made a change in the code we had to add a comment at the end of each modified line with our initials and the date, because we had no version control.

Yeah but your eyes are right next to your brain also

I think Apple’s emphasis on the privacy and security stuff would have happened anyway, because they’ve been positioning themselves as privacy focused for several years now.

“….so please hold onto that phone with your technically above average number of hands and we’ll help you soon.”

I definitely see your perspective, but mostly wanted to make sure I wasn’t overlooking some obvious downside in my risk assessment.

I figure my chances are low that I will get into the situation where an authority demands access to my phone but I also don’t have the opportunity to lock out biometrics. Like if I get pulled over I just hold power and volume up buttons for three seconds and biometrics is off. That said, it certainly doesn’t eliminate my risk completely, and I wouldn’t consider anyone crazy for just opting out completely.

Regarding biometrics, I’ve felt that one advantage is that if I’m in a public space, I don’t have to worry about someone watching me enter my password over my shoulder. If I got into a situation where someone is physically overpowering me to get my finger onto my device against my will, I’m probably going to give them whatever password they want so I don’t get a beat down.

I think this is where the specific definition of “nice” is crucial. I think it’s very possible to still be “nice” while also being confrontational or standing up for things, and in fact, doing it nicely but without backing down can sometimes be extremely effective.

I know the “nice” you are referring to, where someone uses it as a shield for uncaring, selfish behavior. I’d of course rather have someone who isn’t so “nice” who earnestly tries to do the right thing than that kind of nice.

If you mean that Pennsylvania Dutch is a dialect of German and that Dutch and Deutsch share a common origin, then that is true.

It’s because Germany wasn’t a unified place until not that long ago, so different neighbors came up with their own way to refer to them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany

In a version that doesn’t even fully make sense. With databases there is a well-defined way to sanitize your inputs so arbitrary commands can’t be run like in the xkcd comic. But with AI it’s not even clear how to avoid all of these kinds of problems, so the chiding at the end doesn’t really make sense. If anything the person should be saying “I hope you learned not to use AI for this”.

You’re saying “vote for my guy or else” and then acting like it’s my fault hostage takers are going to execute me.

I did not say who to vote for or even that you should vote. I only made the point that it’s the people’s responsibility to educate themselves on what is possible and the best course of action. (Then when you said you hated the country I asked if that includes the people.)

But also, that’s complicated by the fact that America is a blight on the world. The world would literally be better off if this shit hole declines because it can’t fuck with everyone else in the world anymore.

This is embarrassingly naive. Do you think if the US gets turned upside down — aside from the people living there who don’t deserve to suffer — do you think that the US is going to just tuck away in a corner and the world will be a better place? It would take decades and an incredible amount of suffering before you’d have a US that could not fuck with anyone anymore. If you want to see a former superpower in decline, just take a look at Russia. The more they decline, the more they lash out. The more Putin consolidates power, the more suffering that is caused by the whims of a desperate madman.

You’re deluding yourself because you desperately don’t want the options you see ahead of you to be the only options. I don’t like the options either. But there’s no magical way to have the US get better fast or go away fast.

You make whatever choice you want. But at least try to be rational about it.

It’s called living in a society, my dude

Does that hatred include all the people who are affected by the consequences of our elections?

If the person who is better for the country loses then it is all of our faults. In a democracy it’s up to the citizens to know the candidates, understand the system and what people can and can’t do, understand how the election system works, and be aware of what the stakes are.

Political campaigns attempt to hold your hand and pull you in a certain direction because it’s in their best interest to do so, but the blame for what happens in January 2025 rests with all of us.

If it’s a clear sign of disrespect, can you say why the person wanted to disrespect you?