I don’t have any books anymore. I took them all, several hundred, to Goodwill a few years ago. I hadn’t bought any in years because I’ve buying ebooks exclusively for a long time now. I have about 700 in my reader and almost any Internet connected device I have access to. My reading list is too long to reread anything, I thought others might get some use out of them.

Not having books in the house doesn’t mean what it once did.

As much as I loathe the guy, I think we all dodged a bullet.

If he died of natural causes last month I don’t think the MAGAts would have rallied behind Desantis, or whomever got the nomination. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have voted for them, just that the excitement wouldn’t be there.

If this has succeeded, the supporters would have transferred and been even more pumped up. And sympathy from those weird fuck undecideds could make the difference, not just in the presidency, but both chambers of Congress, and for their policy goals too.

Riding the wake of an assassination the draconian shit they would push through could have been far worse than anything Trump would have been able to accomplish in a second term.

Take civil rights legislation in the 60s; a lot of what LBJ accomplished was credited to the national feeling after the Kennedy assassination. Would JFK have been able to accomplish all that if he had served eight years with public sentiment toward civil rights being divided?

It sucks that this is boosting his chances in November. But a martyr, a new figurehead, and a more energized base could have been far worse.

There were normal diplomatic disagreements that all allies have. And consider the source of that statement. Yeltsin’s critics would have included any anti-democratic groups. This was a period of unprecedented cooperation and trust that was growing until Russia turned its back.

Before Russia did their heel turn in the aughts, they almost joined NATO after a period of significant cooperation. Russia seeing the U.S., or it’s allies, as enemies is a symptom of Putin turning a fledgling democracy into a dictatorship, not the natural state of affairs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–NATO_relations

Go to the “Development of post-Cold War cooperation (1990–2004)” section and check out “NATO-Russia Founding Act”, “NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council”, and “NATO-Russia Council”.

Back then the talk was pearl clutching over NATO with Russia being seen as some racist white alliance against China, MENA, India, and others in the global south.

Russia only sees us as enemies because Putin needed to create enemies to seize and consolidate power.

I guy I work with owned two condos in a development. The HOA passed a rule banning short term rentals. There were a lot of units being advertised on Airbnb and similar services so he put them on the market when he heard the rule was being proposed to beat the rush.

He managed to sell one at market but the second one didn’t sell before all the other Airbnb landlords listed their places too. He had to take about 10% below market for the second one.

Now those two places are owner occupied, and one of them got a nice deal (I don’t know about the ones sold by other people). And everything that sold in that area probably went for a little less for a while due to the glut on the market.

Making renting less profitable works. People aren’t landlords because it’s fun. They do it for the money. Take away the money and you have less landlords.

The thing these arguments never take into account is a fate worse than death.

That’s the point you’re missing.

Think about why someone would prefer the much more likely bear mauling to the much less likely worst case scenario with a man. If you can wrap your head around that, then consider why these women had that answer ready to go with very little thought. Considerations of a fate worse than death is something that women live with from the age where they first notice grown men noticing them. That averages 11 or 12 years old by the way. Maybe younger if their parents were a little more candid with them than the generic “stranger danger.”

Even if Tesla somehow managed to de-Elon themselves and address the quality issues, those cars look so dated compared to other EVs that are available and what’s coming soon.

They gave the model 3 a facelift but they really need a major bodystyle update across the whole line. Nothing in the entire line looks much different than the 2009 prototype model S.

They went from being futuristic to boring as fuck.

Edit: Except for the truck, of course. But that’s just something else entirely and I don’t feel like writing an essay.

Regulatory capture, it’s a problem through the government. Decades ago U.S. regulatory agencies were well respected around the world, to the point where if a U.S. body approved something, many other countries automatically followed. Now they’re a joke, taking orders from the industries they are supposed to oversee.

It’s not even just cheapo stuff anymore. They’ve really stepped up their game in the last several years, with ICE and a good range of EVs. I know a few people that have Hyundai EVs, and they all love them.

Their Genesis badge is also legit luxury. I would say they might be the best value in luxury cars right now because they can’t yet command the price the more established brands can.

These aren’t the shitty tin cans from when I was younger. If you’re looking for a new car don’t dismiss KIA/Hyundai/Genesis without checking them out.

I think part of the difficulty discussing this is the discussions usually combine two different things. The production and distribution.

I was informed elsewhere in this thread people can already produce these images/videos on their own machines with no third parties involved or remote processing. I can’t think of a single thing that can be done about that so acceptance is all we’ve got.

Nonconsensual sharing, on the other hand, we can and should do something about. The legal system won’t be able to stop it altogether but it can push it to the fringes and stop it from becoming mainstream so any victims wouldn’t see fake images/videos of themselves proliferating everywhere.

Well…shit. It seems like any new laws are already too little too late then.

Some people can, I wouldn’t even know where to start. And is the photo/video generator completely on home machines without any processing being done remotely already?

I’m thinking about a future where simple tools are available where anyone could just drop in a photo or two and get anything up to a VR porn video.

As soon as anyone can do this on their own machine with no third parties involved all laws and other measures being discussed will be moot.

We can punish nonconsensual sharing but that’s about it.

I didn’t expect to get a laugh out of reading this discussion, thanks.

I see this as a positive. Instead of being fed content to keep me engaged by an algorithm until I suddenly realize the day is almost over and I didn’t really enjoy myself, I reach a point where I feel like I’m done for the day then I make plans, play a game, read, etc.

Now I read the news, fuck around on lemmy a bit, then actually get on with a “real” day.

It’d be a damn shame if everyone started putting pixelfed at the end of every message to both deny threads content and create a Streisand effect.

Then he did The Pentagon Wars, an HBO movie back when HBO still made good stuff. It’s a true story and I saw an interview with the military guy he was playing. Dude said something like: “I checked out the guy who was playing me and in two previous movies he wore tights.”

If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s a fucking hilarious comedy of errors about the defense procurement process and design by committee.

I watched the miniseries then the show, and there was some additional stuff I watched also but I don’t remember exactly when. There was a spinoff called Caprica, it was good but never got a second season.

Here is a watch order that includes a couple movies and webseries, but it puts Caprica at the beginning. It is a prequel but I think it would be better watching it after everything else like it was released.

Edit: if I remember correctly Caprica either has some serious spoilers or there are some things you wouldn’t understand if you hadn’t seen the main show, I don’t want to say anything more but I don’t know why they recommend it first.

Same here, I think I started it during the lack of new content after the 07-08 writers strike. I thought it would be a mid sci-fi show I would put on for background then it turned out to be awesome.

I think all his delegates would become unbound and there could be a floor fight at the convention if someone steps up to challenge Haley.