I dunno, genocide seems pretty barbaric to me.

Well, if you didn’t want Israel dependent on foreign governments for a constant supply of munitions so you can genocide an entire people, maybe you should have built your own munitions industry.

Fucking everyone wants Trump because he’s so fucking easy to manipulate.

What did they interrupt the episode for? Because a number of companies have adopted the policy that, if the interruption is promoting something else offered by the platform - say, a different program, or another tier of service - that those interruptions aren’t really ads, because the company isn’t actually getting paid to air it. It absolutely looks and acts like an ad to the viewers, but the companies are trying to redefine the word.

[When launched] Prime Video with ads was given a “very light ad load,” providing subscribers “gentle entry into advertising that has exceeded customers expectations in terms of what the ad experience would be like." The executive pointed out that Prime Video with ads doesn’t show commercials in the middle of content. That could change next year.

Planned enshittification a la boiling frogs.

It’s the old Tacony-Palmyra Drive-In site. More fun facts: part of the area they’re building on used to be a landfill for Philadelphia, which is still contaminated - they’ve just paved it over. Oh, and the condos they’re building? They’re being used to fulfill the town’s low-income housing requirements (as required by Mount Laurel I and II). I’m sure the developers are being quite open with the residents that their lovely new buildings are on top of a munitions testing site and a landfill … :(

A few years ago, near where my family lived in New Jersey, there was a small newspaper article mentioning that construction on a set of mid-rise condominiums on the Delaware River was being notably delayed, with the vague implication that there was some trouble with financing or construction or something. [To be fair, both of these were true, but for very not-obvious reasons.] But then you start tracing back through the history of the site:

They had selected the site for the condos because it had been the site of a large flea market from the late 1970s to early 2000s, so all they’d have to do was dig up the parking lots, lay in utilities, and compact the soil to be ready to build. The flea market was there because it was the site of a massive drive-in movie theatre built in the early 1950s, so all they had had to do was put up some cheap buildings that were eventually condemned and torn down. The drive-in movie theatre was there because the land had already been cleared and flattened by the US government, so it was cheap to put in a parking lot and big screen.

Why had the government so kindly cleared and flattened the ground? Well, the site was right next to a small bridge across the Delaware; on the other side of the bridge was Frankford Arsenal, where they produced munitions during both World Wars. And they had to test the munitions, so they’d drive over the bridge and test them at this site in New Jersey. And it turns out that sometimes they were either high or lazy or careless or something, because sometimes they didn’t bother driving across the bridge, they’d just shell New Jersey from across the river instead.

The shelling led to a bunch of unexploded ordinance being in extremely unexpected places, until it started showing up eighty years later, when the condo people actually started digging up the ground to lay in their utilities. Of course, the condo association was quietly and casually referencing vague construction delays, because if people knew it was a munitions testing site and they’d recently found a bunch of UXO, no one would buy the condos.

[Also, while trying to look up details for this comment, I discovered three other cases of UXO in New Jersey in the past couple years. This is all very weird to me.]

So they were offered a 50% hike, so what? When was the last time they got a meaningful pay increase? And if it’s not the money, it’s got to be something else: remember when the rail workers were on strike and the bosses made big noise about the pay increases they were offering, only it turned out that the workers were constantly expected to work double shifts on no notice, with no real option to refuse, and they had no time off for months on end? Fuck that shit, pay the workers what they’re worth. If I can’t buy a brand new car or some bananas, so what?

… am I the only one who didn’t have problems with the headline?

I’ve given money to both charities and people. Here’s the thing about donating, though: you’ll get on all sorts of mailing lists and shit, and you’ll get lots more begging letters, emails, phone calls and texts. You know those PBS/NPR donation drives, where they’re like “We just need ten more donors this hour, it doesn’t matter how much!” or those charities that send you pre-printed labels and say “Hey, just send us five bucks, that’s all we need”? Yeah, they’re harvesting your information. If you even send them a penny, they’ll be back for more, and they’ll sell or trade your information to other charities.

I give money to our local volunteer fire/ems department every year, but I don’t use their pre-printed mailer; I hand them cash when Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny come through on their trucks. I have one of those pre-paid Visa gift cards that aren’t tied to an actual person; if I do an online donation, I’ll use that and give them fake information. The money is legit, the information is good enough to pass, but they can’t come harass me for more.

This includes all donations, by the way - political, religious, civic, charity, social, whatever. Do it in cash or by an anonymous Visa gift card.

I’m sure she’ll be just as vigorous in granting him every conceivable doubt as she is with Trump.

Well, is not like covid is going away.

This is why regulations are a good thing.

I like the idea of this match, but I’m cautious about the article. All they say about the gas-powered boat is that it’s a similar size; they don’t mention the actual type of boat the chase boat was, and I didn’t see it in a brief skim of the video. I suspect that a notable percentage of the electric boat’s efficiency is due to its being a hydrofoil. If the gas boat is the standard hull-in-the-water, it would naturally be less efficient.

That there was a disembodied head that lived in the toilet at night.

Many old tv shows had lyrics, they used the musical version. Hawaii Five-O, Hogan’s Heroes, MASH, I Dream of Jeannie, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, etc.

Plus the electoral college. Florida and Texas were becoming increasingly purple until the Republicans in charge of those states made them into alt-right hellholes.

While multiple Trump allies described what happened, last night, as a missed opportunity, for the former President, they have since started downplaying the debate’s significance overall, arguing that it won’t shift his numbers, with voters, in states like Pennsylvania.

They’re very likely correct.

Does that mean that AI can successfully read handwriting? I have some very old family letters, but I think I’m the last generation that’ll be able to read them.

I like the last line:

I’m saying you can’t say those things for that reason.

So Fuentes says that Trump can’t admit Trump lost, because that makes everything they did senseless. Which is what we’ve been saying all along. I mean, we were all trying to tell you Trump was lying, the newspapers and lawyers and courts were telling you he was lying, and you choose to listen to and believe in the wrong people.

Now, here’s the thing: having come to this realization, that you were listening to the wrong people, and having suffered some of the consequences of that, why are you still listening to and believing these people?!?