Hey I have an idea, let’s put him in charge of… “Technology”?

Same in return!:-D

I like to think that we all waste many of our talents here - it’s what brings us all together:-).

Why is “Threats” in double-quotes? The fact that they are “threats” is not in question - these are not “alleged threats”?

I see that it comes from the article, but that only pushes back my question as to why the article does that. It also puts “hard right” and “all-out” (and “holy war” and “race war” and “dangerous” and “evil” and “demonic” etc.) in quotes too, which should not be, but those at least are all more discretionary, whereas putting “threats” in quotes like that calls into question their validity.

I wonder where they went?

Someone writing a wall of text when it is not asked for or appreciated may be being insensitive to their audience. On the other hand, I’ve literally had people ask for it and then someone else steps in to complain, so definitely there are Karens who feel entitled to whinge no matter what you do. Just settle in your own mind whether you are doing the right thing, and let being correct remain your guide as to what to do.

Is this the new “Honey Badger Don’t Care” meme?

To name one example, he deregulated the inspection of train safety, despite internal whistleblowers (who were ofc subsequently fired) claiming that the industry was not regulating itself in anything remotely resembling a “safe” manner. Keep in mind, this was before all those famous train derailments happened. Multiple people especially train engineers predicted they would happen, they went to a large amount of trouble - and were fired as a result - of warning that they would happen, but Trump ignored all of that and deregulated the industry to help make it more profitable… and then the derailments happened, whereupon we all paid the price. Socialization of costs, privatization of profits, it is the exact opposite of both socialism and of capitalism both - it was sheer foolishness, period.

And ofc there was his handling of the pandemic - note the initial cause of the pandemic was not his fault, but his poor handling of it is on him. First, at minimum, if nothing else “the buck stops here”. But above & beyond the latter, as the audio recording with Bob Woodsworth revealed, Trump knew that the virus was airborne - he told his friend that much - and yet even knowing that, afterwards he lied and told people that it explicitly was not airborne (again, to aid “the economy”, at the expense of the workers who died as a result). When others, e.g. Bill Clinton, have lied previously, conservatives got angry and tried to impeach them - and rightfully so - so why ignore it when it happens on the other side? Also this lie, measured in the form of “excess deaths”, contributed to the deaths of more Americans than all of our wars combined. That seems like “harm” to me.

Then too there is how he inserted himself between a Congressional decision and the intended recipient of funding, with his attempt to blackmail the Ukrainian government to “just do me a favor though”. By some definitions of the word that might even have constituted “treason” - I am no lawyer though, so be skeptical ofc, especially extreme claims require more extreme evidence, which the first impeachment trial was meant to bring forth except it was halted by Republicans in Congress.

The list really can go on and on… whatever you think of conservative vs. liberal philosophies, or of Republican vs. Democrat politics, he really was quite a dangerous President. Yes, most of us are still alive after his Presidency, but again… many of us are not now, with a good number of those deaths directly traceable to his decisions. Biden may not be “good”, but extremely few Presidents in all of American history come close to how dangerous Trump was, by many objective metrics. History will reveal that, but right now it can be difficult to distinguish b/t the lying liberal media and the lying conservative media sources both lie, for the sake of their own profits. In all of that muddiness of facts, it can be super difficult to find out what is really going on. But the fate of people in and maybe the fate of our actual nation is on the line, so it is worth the effort for those of us who would consider ourselves “leaders” aka citizens, whose votes will determine the course ahead for us all.

My thoughts about Netflix are the same: I am less than happy about the content - which is beyond their control - but very happy with the apps that they offer that is totally within their control.

Tbf Netflix barely managed to accomplish it either, at the start, so it must have been an extremely difficult task. Internet speeds, and more importantly reliability, were huge obstacles, but far more so were the labyrinthine rules and regulations of dealing with the content providers, which are still the top obstacles to people enjoying watching television entertainment today.

This video about it basically launched John Olivier’s career in his at-the-time new show Last Week Tonight. If you don’t want to watch it all, fast-forward to 4:08 and look at that graph, showing how Netflix was taken hostage from the ISPs for a few months until they caved and paid the additional premiums demanded (as he called it, a “mob shakedown”) - though you really may enjoy watching the rest of it after that! (warning to any capitalists that watch it: you might not be by the time you get to the end…:-P)

So… I think I disagree with your language: it wasn’t just that they “didn’t” so much as they simply “couldn’t” manage to get it done, maybe b/c they were not willing to be shitty enough? :-P

I have never seen those others but damn, that… does not sound good:-|.

I’ve practically never had a connection issue with Netflix:-). Among the shit-ton of evil companies out there, they are themselves no shining angels but… they don’t seem nearly as bad as the rest of them imho.

Netflix has consistently been right on the line between barely acceptable vs. just not. Unfortunately, it’s hands-down the best (legal) streaming service available. Extremely unfortunately for us all:-(.

I am so fucking confused right now. This article tries to talk about it, and even throws out the exact phrase “grandfathered into”, but it fails imho b/c after reading it I am more confused than I was before. Maybe there was a typo in it or something, or maybe the old plan was called “Basic”, instead of the new plan “Standard”… or something, but in any case unless you already had that plan from previously you cannot get onto it now. Nor do I have it, despite not having changed my plan in quite some time…

TLDR: somewhere/somehow/someway things are changing, but whether that means anything or what precisely it means is not clear, plus that itself may change too as time goes on.

Tbf, Netflix did start auto-playing crap but then walked back on that. They do that continually - pushing the boundaries past what people are willing to take, then a few months later dialing it WAY down, but still forward from where it started. Although more recently they did get it to a nice place imho - if you have a friend with a subscription, check it out and you may be pleasantly surprised. I am not saying that it makes up for the loss of content that they used to have, or that it is a fully good experience, but it is a LOT better than it was there for awhile (so: not that you would consider ever going back, but at least you would know:-).

Tbf, Netflix - along with Blockbuster - really was one of the pioneers in offering streaming services, when nobody else would. And it is not their fault that ISPs decided to throttle them, essentially holding their entire business hostage until they ponied up more dough, and now the content providers are doing the same. Also, most of the time they tend to grandfather people into older plans, so whatever the price is they usually (tbf, not always) tend to honor for many years in the future.

I am perpetually a year or less away from cancelling my own subscription b/c of how they continually skirt the line of pushing forward to do things like adding in “advertisements”, but then walking back to make them more bearable before they start losing customers like me in droves. So I am not exactly a full-on “fan” of Netflix, just trying to offer a balanced perspective.

They also did put in the work to make a SUPERB player, plus invested heavily in making apps for physical devices. It was only this year that I finally stopped being able to play Netflix on my 9-year-old TV, and even that has a heavy chance of being more the fault of the device itself (I mostly don’t care b/c my Chromecast still works just fine). Plus I still can do things like e.g. go workout in a gym while watching a pre-downloaded Netflix video without needing to use any of my mobile data, all that needing virtually no setup at all, unlike e.g. piracy that would require paying for a VPN and investigation into what mobile apps are available, plus constant monitoring to see if they remain trustworthy (so many famous examples of apps that got taken over from the inside by a malicious update).

Even so I may still leave it in a year or two, regardless of whether it is their fault or not, b/c I am not sure that I am getting anywhere close to the “value” for the amount that they are charging, anymore:-(. Seeing shows come out like Stranger Things gave me some hope, but then watching that same show enshittify itself immediately for the sake of chasing after profits to the exclusion of all else quickly killed it.

Though in that case I will need to research some alternatives…

I know in some places, like Texas, they seem to presume that you have a tall truck. Anyone with even a normal-height vehicle is thereby put at a severe disadvantage, especially when you try to see past the tall truck that has pulled way far FORWARD past the line, just to stop at a red light.

i.e., it is for measuring the size of one’s dick, even (especially?) for women drivers. Learn to swing it proud, or else never get anywhere in those places!

Sigh… too true.

Why… why is the world like this?

Recommended by who though? Spez, that’s who. Race-baiting works to increase “engagement” e.g. clicks and comments, thus it continues.

That’s… messed up. Fwiw, I am using the webpage UI - not an app - and it shows up perfectly for me. But yes, it has been enjoyable to discuss more deeply with you than is usual on a social media site - this is the power of Lemmy!:-)