The “the economy was better under Trump” segment of voters is so depressing.

His policies were basically tariffs and random shiny object populist issues. His policies raised prices regressively while creating entire foreign industries that didn’t exist before that now price-anchor US products through his tariffs and trade restrictions, such as soybean. Blew up NAFTA just to replace it with an almost identical arrangement. He alienated our biggest allies and trade partners. He pushed down interest rates even when it wasn’t needed, ignoring the housing and stock bubble it created, because it made him look good.

It always reminds me how effective repeating a lie is - their “vibe” is that he’s some great businessman, and it’s enough to get their vote. They never check the sources for that “fact” (which are all Trump’s own self-aggrandizing statements).

Classic “the beatings will continue until morale improves” corporate energy.

Voters across the political spectrum said they’ve lied about their voting: 27% of Democrats acknowledged it, while 24% of Republicans and 20% of independents did so. The survey didn’t ask exactly how, why or to whom they’d lied.

This is what I was looking for. It’s not reliable data about which direction it may be influencing polling, but if a self-identified “democrat” is lying, presumably it is to conservative family or friends about conservative support (and vice versa). This would mean there is slightly more “shy” democrats than republicans, but with a very large “independent” black box.

Yeah, of course he’s just a dude. He’s one of the least worthy dudes out there, for all the attention he’s getting. He didn’t justifiably earn any of that.

But nonetheless, he is a key that happens to be shaped perfectly to unlock, exploit and exacerbate populist anger. It could have been anyone else if the conditions were different, but it is uniquely him in this history. That’s all I’m saying, but it a very important detail.

I know what you’re saying. That the environment that gave us Trump would still exist. Sure. All the issues, both illegitimate (white resentment, racism, propaganda) and legitimate (wealth disparity, disillusioning political figures, late stage capitalistic despair), would still remain.

But that also gives too little importance to Trump’s unique place in this. He is a uniquely cynical, sociopathic trigger that is exploiting this populist anger, while being so incompetent that he fails to solve any of those issues underlying it.

He thus is simultaneously perpetuating those issues, while feeding off of them - both creating and burning the fuel of populist anger. DeSantis, Vance, Hawley, all the other toe-headed power-simps who would step in to take his place would fail to hold that paradoxical balance for long - they think they can learn it, but Trump is built for it. That is Trump’s unique skill, his singularly destructive, delusional, sociopathic egomania.

Like a wildfire - yes, when there are dry hot conditions, many things could start one. But it’s also true that you may have been almost through the dry, hot season when a wildfire hits. And if you could have prevented that first fateful spark a week - maybe a day - longer, you could have avoided catastrophe and tragedy.

I think that’s where we were in 2016, and we failed to contain it. It spread so far, that we were barely able to contain it in 2020. But if we can avoid it in 2024, if we can prevent Trump from sparking another wildfire, maybe the season could change.

I did pre-order one, and two controllers. In 1990s dollars this is not really that expensive, is how I’m rationalizing it.

I think Analogue typically supports Bluetooth in the consoles generally, but is very cautious about whitelisting specific controllers that are officially supported.

I think there was a brief moment on the enshittification curve where it may have seemed to newer generations that digital was the better option because having your library with you at all times was just a “feature” without obvious anti-consumer downsides.

Now that companies are starting to deactivate post-sale content, pointless always-online barriers to using content are getting more frustrating, and there’s generally a feeling like companies are forcing everything into a subscription-for-life model, I’m hoping people are seeing the benefits of just buying an object that lets you play a game forever.

Yup…Windows 12? The evil monkey’s paw demon is like, “I’ll give you that wish for free.”

I know it’s anecdotal, but the amount of pro-Trump sentiment shown here from a group that Trump absolutely would let die in a gutter is disappointing.

You can bypass the requirements since yeah, they were always artificial. I believe Rufus has an option when creating Win11 install USBs to remove the TPM and other requirements.

But then again, it’s nice, because all I need to make sure Microsoft doesn’t secretly update my Win10 machine in the night to Win11 is to turn off the TPM in the BIOS.

Unless you killed somebody, the statutes of limitations have run.

I still remember the “dumb” tech was AOL warez chatrooms where you interacted with a chat bot to get an email with lists of scene games, movies and other stuff in the traditional multi-RAR parts, and you’d individually request them a few at a time to be emailed. Then you’d move to IRC when you found out could be done faster, or BBSes.

I’ve probably forgotten most of how things worked.

Hmm, it appears if we squeeze tighter, more blood will come out. Surely there is no natural limit to this principle.

The earth’s orbital speed around the sun is 67,000 miles per hour. So this is really gravity’s fault.

It can be hard to find a site that isn’t shareware spam. Try this list, find a freeware you like that hopefully uses FFMPEG, and bookmark the site for next time you need a pre-vetted list of good tools:

https://www.videohelp.com/software/sections/all-in-one-video-converters

Conjecture: I wouldn’t be surprised if the TeraLeak in question wasn’t planned out by Nintendo and Game Freak, to distract people from the fact that Nintendo is trying to harass a competitor out of the market and suing emulators back and right.

Sorry, but at its worst, Nintendo is lawful evil. There’s no way this is intentional.

But what device do you use to stream? That’s the dilemma I’m in, streaming sticks and devices are all so spammy.

I’m initially feeling, “Great, now do Apple.”

But I do wonder how some of this ruling will be implemented. Forcing Google Play to host other app stores seems like it may be excessive.

Let me download F-Droid or whatever, drop anti-competitive barriers to it, don’t prevent anyone from using their device how they want. But I am savvy to the risks. There are a lot of non-techie people for whom the Google Play walled garden more keeps out threats than keeps them imprisoned, if we’re being honest. It’s one thing for Google to host an app it can scan for malware and designate as safe. Hosting an app store is impossible to verify is safe, I think.

Good overall, but I think Google isn’t entirely acting in bad faith in promising to appeal.

Oh, it’s Google+ circles.

It’s slightly more reliable right now, but for sure, it’s going to be cat-and-mouse for awhile at least. Google is phasing out legacy Play Integrity checks, and while it looked like there was no future for workarounds after they deprecated legacy methods, now at least it looks like the community has replicated a functional full keybox attestation chain so there’s hope we can continue to workaround indefinitely into the future.

So yes, while you don’t need to program your own solution and can just - in the end - install a pre-built fix still, it takes attention to keep up. If the above all sounds like gibberish, it’s a good indication of the level of commitment you have to have to keep up with it. For me, it’s worth it, but definitely understand, it gets tiresome.