Can’t say I’ve ever been any good at it, but I do love me a good tower defense.

Haven’t played since OMD2, and could never get anyone else to play, but love the series. Glad to see it continuing.

Also, she is the VP of the incumbent administration. Any complaints people have about Biden, other than his personal age, also can be applied to her. Economy? Immigration? Isreal/Gaza? All Harris’ administration. Doesn’t matter that she has little input or control of any of those, she is the VP, Trump and Conservatives will blame her all the way until election day, and Fox/Conservative media will be there to parrot and distribute the word.

I believe modern presidential campaigns focus their war chest into swing states, and typically less into stronghold states; they typically would have already done that in the primary against people of the same party. My concern is more around if they don’t have the name recognition, and didn’t have the primary to build that, they may have to spread their funds more than Trump would at this point in time.

Then again, I’m sure Fox would spread such name with vitriol, so people would at least hear about the candidate. Them negging on Harris already at the RNC is only increasing the chance of them having a more viable opponent, but they can’t help themselves when the crowd eats it up.

But I may be being too critical. For the typically non-conservative, maybe just having a Dem on the ticket that isn’t Biden, is young, and they know nothing about, may be a good thing. If they haven’t commented on Isreal/Gaza (or foreign politics at all really), and are a state level actor like a Governor (and thus has little influence on national economics), maybe there won’t be much for swing voters/independents, or progressives to have a grievance about. Will really depend on who it is.

he was able to buy an AR-15 at 22 I think.

Pretty sure the reports point to him having it for over a decade. Without taking any effort to look it up, I think his dad bought him that gun in like 2013, so he was much younger at the time.

As for ‘good life going’, doesn’t sound that way in general, but apparently he just got his associates degree from community college, and had been accepted into a university, but he decided not to go.

No one saw this coming. Just wow.

Except for the vocal people that saw it coming, and were constantly shouted down as ‘Sony fanboys’, and Sony this, Call of Duty that.

The Bethesda acquisition has shown all we needed to know about how an Activision Blizzard acquisition would go. I hated seeing every pro-acquisition argument being about Sony and Call of Duty, and promises for Call of Duty to be on PlayStation.

I don’t play Call of Duty, I don’t care about it, I don’t even game much, but when I do, it is PC. Allowing further consolidation of Microsoft and Sony of other games studios is just not good for consumers or the market, it doesn’t matter which ‘team’ you are on.

I’ve been against Biden stepping down, it’s just so late in the process, and a heavy push for Kamala Harris to take his place in the media soured that; I have nothing against her personally, but she is the ‘establishment’ currently, as the VP of the current administration, and I don’t feel she is particularly strong against Trump, other than a “I’d vote for anyone with a D next to their name over Trump” kind of way. That said, the hit to Biden’s elect-ability between the debate, media coverage, and high name recognition members of his own party requesting him step down, has been large, and has damaged his ability to win.

A large part of the reason I feel he could successfully step down at this point, is if a good candidate is already in place to step up. The Dem and anti-Trump base will have no problem switching their vote. It’s having someone to appeal to the people that could be persuaded either way, or may not even vote.

Personally, that would be Gavin Newsom from my perspective; he is well known, has been going head to head with Florida’s DeSantis already, has been in the media in a way that already seems like he is gunning for the presidency, and was Biden’s media spin room representative at the debate; but he has his drawbacks as well.

I’ve seen Whitmer floated, and I don’t think she’s an awful choice, but also feel she is needed in the roll she is currently in, and is doing an awesome job there.

Josh Shapiro… I know nothing about, may be a fine candidate, but my mind immediately turns to Turning Point USA’s Ben Shapiro, and it is probably an unfortunate name recognition issue to the average person. Have to keep in mind, this is elevating mostly people with state level recognition to a national stage of people unfamiliar with them (in that way, maybe a swing state Dem would be a good pick).

The other people I’ve seen floated, I have no opposition to, but the main issue is, are the funds there to run an effective campaign to elevate someone who hasn’t been running on the national stage, in only a few months time. 3+ months is plenty of time for an election in a state, or your average European sized country, I feel; but the US is massive, with a lot of states the size of a European country. It may be fine for the majority of people, but I worry about penetration into the swing states, particularly those that don’t generally pay attention to elections, or the media.

Obviously stay away from anyone that is retirement age though, as the push to out Biden is specifically about his age, and perceived age related mental health, and have a preference to keep them under 70 by the end of 8 years in office, so they can do a double term without perceived age issues, so about 35 - 62.

If it’s going to happen, Biden needs to step down in the next few days, and immediately come up with another viable candidate; Otherwise dems will need to stay the course with Biden.

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Dean Phillips is the most known candidate to have run against him. Everyone else stepped aside to the the incumbent run, either because he was the incumbent, or they didn’t want the political backlash of running against the incumbent.

That is a special kind of speed run. I’m impressed 30% of Greeks still have a favorable view of Russia last year… I can’t imagine it is still that high. I really want to know the 2024 numbers, but only barely only half way through the year; still, I’d love to know current sentiment of not just Greece’s population, but worldwide, country by country, and how it’s progressed in the past decade (conveniently a decade since the Crimean invasion).

A reminder to people that during Trump’s term, his nominee to run NOAA was a member of the family that owned the private weather forecasting company AccuWeather, and a strong proponent for dismantling NOAA in favor of privatization/commercialization. The only reason that didn’t happen, is because he withdrew the nomination after it going nowhere for a couple years in the Senate, in large part due to the clear conflict of interest.

For easy research for anyone interested, his name was “Barry Myers”, but suffice to say, Trump and company already tried this during his last administration. It’s not MAGA exclusive, it is an overall Conservative goal, and they will try again next time they either hold the executive branch, or have full control of the legislative branch; in the meantime, they have to rely on the Supreme Court to weaken government agencies.

pile of pennies < Single Bill < stack/bundle of cash < pile of cash < scrooge mcduck cash dive vault

or

bronze coin < silver coin < gold coin < pile of coins < gold bar < stack of gold bards < fort knox

I’ve had this discussion come up in meetings recently.

CustomGPT is like $500/month for 5000 queries… that limitation and price (if you have a reasonable amount of customers), kind of just means you are better off hiring one employee. I’m not going to ping them for pricing for their enterprise plan beyond that, as going to cost an employee anyways.

For sure good advice. I do trust the registrar I am on though. They are not US based, I have been with them for like 15 years, they are well known, automatically provide domain privacy without paying extra, and are not godaddy.

No matter who people choose, just remember to keep your domain locked when not changing registrars, and protect your registrar login with 2FA. Treat your registrar like you would treat your primary email or bank account.

That I really couldn’t say, only a few weeks in on emails that were not being used before, so not really getting “unsolicited spam”.

I am getting a lot of messages related changing my accounts over.

Their spam filter is configurable though:

They also have complex filters you can set up to either auto-label, or auto-sort non-spam into folders, from basic usage, up to complex regular expressions; depending on your level of dedication.

All I set up for now is an auto-filter any email with ‘unsubscribe’ somewhere in the body to be sent to an ‘subscriptions’ folder. I will get around to it more eventually.

I’m currently on the last 2 days of a free 30 day trial. I’m going to do annual pay for their family plan though, so I’m sticking with them.

I’m not really worried about Biden’s age, only about his ability to win.

I am voting AGAINST Trump and his administration. Trump is not fit for office for a number of reasons.

Biden returned us to a level of normalcy in the executive branch; he’s performed his duties better than I actually expected, despite the GOP controlling the house and doing almost nothing legislatively for the 2nd half of his term. If Biden kicks the bucket after getting elected, that is fine; his administration will be in place, the VP will take over to serve out the remainder of his term, and in four years we will have a chance at someone else. Biden will have served his country well in that.

Fact of the matter is, Biden isn’t going to step down, stop buggering out about his age. Six months ago to a year ago, his mental fitness was fine. Now he is finally starting to show his age in that regard, but he still cares about this country, and holds American democracy as a truth in his heart. If I hear one more old person in their 70’s (Schumer) and 80’s (Pelosi) call for Biden to step down, I will expect for people to also call for those old farts to step down, before they get Feinsteined.

For anyone that is voting against Trump, it is simple: If Biden doesn’t step down, vote for Biden. If Biden steps down, you vote for whoever steps up in his place.

If someone is actually fine with Trump winning, then this message isn’t for you.

I just switched to FastMail a few weeks ago with my own domains to move away from Google, to prevent this vary possibility.

I realize how screwed I am if my email carrier arbitrarily decides to cut me off. Haven’t changed every account, but I started with my bank/financial accounts, and basically intend to change them over time; every time I log into an account for something, I plan to change it.

Edit: Of course, not an advert for FastMail. They are simply who I choose; I own the domains, so I can easily switch to another provider in the future if I so choose without cutting off my accounts. I know more privacy focused people tend to prefer Proton Mail or Tuta Mail. I’m fine with the choices fastmail makes in comparison to the other providers, for the specific features they are able to offer for giving up E2E encryption, a reasonably price family plan, and some more generous offering for value/price.

If someone requires the extra privacy, for sure go for another provider.

Incumbent President almost always runs unopposed. That being said, he ran as the adult in the room to get us back from the right, and was NOT expected to run for reelection.

True enough, but I also don’t think during the 2020 election, anybody thought that if Trump lost, at practically 80 years old, he would be the R candidate in the 2024 election as well.

I honestly wish the right wasn’t so regressive, crazy, and having such a hold on half the country. I’d love to vote for someone else for president, but the risk of the right winning is just too damaging.

I dunno, I watch YouTube on desktop with a premium account.

Since they began experimenting with ad injection directly into videos a month or so ago, I no longer use YouTube really. Videos rarely load proper the first time. Often takes 7 or 8 reloads of the page to get a video to start, sometimes stopping mid video.

Clearly since I can get it to play, it feels like a Google problem. Could be because I’m on Firefox, or Linux though (maybe even an update to something else, but all other video streaming services work just fine). Turning off uBlock Origin and uMatrix do not help at all.

Even if it isn’t Google’s fault, it’s still causing me to not use their service anymore. Feels like they are just trying to drive away users in general.

So patents last 15-20 years… regular Blu-ray patent has already expired I guess, but Ultra HD Blu-ray is the current patent, releasing in 2015… so another 6 to 11 years before consumers can do whatever they want with the technology.

Would be outdated by then by the next new thing though.

but this whole discussion could’ve been in agreement

From my point of view it was, but if someone just wants to fight about something and be right, even if you’re agreeing, best just to move on with life and not waste time on it.

Either way, predictions are not guaranteed, but looking optimistically forward to the election tomorrow.

Cheers and enjoy your night/day.