Azal

I use the shockz (another open ear headset) daily with my job. Work on equipment, a lot of tedious opening up a machine and fixing it. I don't have a singular place but move around a lot. Going from earbuds that I have to take out just to have a conversation if someone comes up and asks questions vs the open ear allows me to be able to know what's happening around me, keeps from annoying those around me with whatever I'm listening to, and I've chewed through so many audiobooks which has kept me from losing my mind.

Same here!

Well sure. Only an optimist goes "Wow, this is as bad as it can get."

The pessimistic crowd is of the opinion it can ALWAYS get worse. We may not know how, but it can get worse.

I think it is obvious where I am on the spectrum when I say I don't think we've begun to see how bad it can get.

While... I agree with you on companies like Intuit pulling this is bullshit, depending on the region you're in the trash example used is... not great.

Speaking in the Kansas City region where City of Kansas City trash pickup is literally two bags allowed, no cans used, often late, the bags tear easily, and with this whole freeze thing they're still behind two weeks out. I live outside in one of those 5 (I'm not kidding, one literally started up last year) overlapping truck routes and it is insanely better. That said, previous town I lived in the town did the trash pickup and they did a good job, got the cans that could be auto lifted and even regularly had large item pickup days for free so even better than where I'm at now.

Turbotax, H&R Block, and the other tax companies are massively wealthy companies that actively lobby to push laws to keep them from being simple. There are states that they have managed to bar the same thing from happening in.

Here's something tangentially related that makes it difficult to find older options, the support. In the US a piece of medical device has to be supported for 7 years. My hospital has these bladder scanners that are in quite a few departments, regular fixture in hospitals (ultrasounds). Jan 1 2024 was when our came up on the 7 year mark. To do preventative maintenance calibration required logging on their server, guess what's no longer accessible? So to stay in compliance all of us in the biomed department has to figure out how to get new ones to replace the 10 $11k each paperweights we have now.

Friend of mine just had to shell out $3000 for prescription drugs just for survival. Yes he's on insurance.

Please drink verification can to continue

Honestly Tesla culture reminds me of any brand of car fanboyism. The ones I got most familiar with was the supposed "hot rodders" that viewed a junked out piece of rust that's sat in a field 20 years worth thousands of dollars to spend thousands of dollars to not drive it. Got sick of it as someone who's first car was a 70s one and attempting to find parts and pieces was people telling a high schooler to just take it to a shop and spend more than I've spent on my current modern car+motorcycle because none of them actually bothered working on their shit before.

Now I said that, there's also the motorcycle culture, and we're weird as fuck.

Been noticing it at least for the past couple years.

Where are you migrating to?

Every time someone gets killed, that entire family is probably radicalized, and they’re right to be.

This is why I say Hamas playing the entire world like a fucking puppet. Sure, the individual fighters are probably not happy they kicked a hornets nest but the people who planned the attack I'd be fucking shocked if they were anywhere near Gaza.

Israel's anger is justified, the attack from Hamas was truly heinous, but holy shit Israel's leadership acted in the most predictable manner which is horrifying the world that many who would have supported Israel earlier this year is now wondering why countries like the US is involved, especially when the fight with Russia and Ukraine is going on and having trouble getting support. I'm sure many Palestinians did not want anything to do with Hamas, but every family member killed is likely to bring another one over to the fold. The US promptly moved in behind to support Israel, and bent everything to get the US citizens in Israel home immediately, while sending over a carrier group to keep any other country from getting involved... however let US citizens who were in Gaza when all this went down remain there for a month until Egypt finally opened a corridor, citizens that probably now trust the US just a little bit less along with those that payed attention to it.

The obvious plan is to be a destabilization measure, and I fear it will certainly be that. I just hate the feeling of those that know history are doomed to watch others repeat it.