The part where he complains about how “it’s such a callous indifference to the sacrifices made by (Trump’s) supporters on (Trump’s) behalf” just sent me. He thinks Trump is being callously indifferent now? Amazing that they’ll never allow themselves to realize or admit that Trump never gave a shit about them in the first place.

Not the person who made the comment, but here’s my understanding. A “third place” is somewhere you spend a lot of time when you’re not at home (the first place) or school/work (the second place). Third places such as community centers were vital to the civil rights movement in the 60s, it was where much of the movement’s meeting, debating and organizing took place.

The Reagan administration systematically defunded any of these politically active third places that were receiving federal funds, probably because they were worried that they’d be infiltrated by those scary communists. They were so worried about what the organized people might do in the future that they did everything they could to kick the financial struts out from under these community organizations. In many cases this destroyed some or all of the local community benefits that those organizations were actually providing.

This trend cut across the political spectrum too. The Clinton administration did its own wave of defunding, though I suspect that was more for economic (i.e. neoliberal) than political ideology. Combine the lack of community investment with the rise of the internet, and you arrive at the situation we have today where third places are becoming increasingly scarce. It’s hard for communities to develop and maintain a cohesive identity when there’s no longer any metaphorical “town squares” where the people in that community gather.

Same for my father in law. If he were a US citizen he’d probably be bankrupt right now, or more likely just still be in pain because he couldn’t afford the surgery in the first place.

It depends who you’re comparing. For the average US or Canadian citizen, I’m sure you’re correct. If you look at income levels I bet it’s a different story. The poor and middle class (whatever’s left of it) have to wait, the rich have the option of paying out of pocket. If I wanted to have a whole-body MRI scan done, I could get one next week for $3200. Wouldn’t even need to be sick! Requires a referral, but you can “obtain one virtually from (their) physician partners” and you know their “physician partners,” aren’t going to turn away business.

As a Canadian, I’ll be the first to say that our system isn’t perfect. If you’ve got a chronic but not life-threatening condition, like a need for knee or hip surgery, you could spend a long time on a waiting list. There are certainly lots of affluent Canadians who opt to step out of that line to get treatment at private for-profit clinics, both domestically and abroad. There’s always a shortage of something. Qualified doctors, nurses, family practitioners, CT or MRI machines, etc.

That being said, if you do have a life-threatening condition, the Canadian healthcare system can work pretty well. My step father had pneumonia Nov./Dec. last year, chest xray revealed something concerning beyond the pneumonia, by early January biopsies has been done, by February he’d started radiation, six or so weeks of that, then monitoring for a while and now he’s in remission. Everything moved fast, because he had a time-critical condition. Total cost to my family: zero dollars (setting aside costs for gas, parking, snacks for stress-eating, etc.). I couldn’t imagine a family going through the same situation in the US.

I’ve always felt that “have more babies but also fuck you for ever having sex” was a bit of wildly contradictory policy stance.

Bet they wanted a Shapiro VP pick so bad. It would’ve been antisemitic space laser conspiracy theory bullshit 24/7 until the vote. Now all they’ve got is “how dare this man ensure school children have full bellies and necessary sanitary supplies every day.”

All due respect to Michelle Obama otherwise, but I think she was flat out wrong when she said ‘When they go low, we go high’. It’s the paradox of tolerance applied to the political realm. How do you ensure a tolerant society in the face of intolerant people? It’s impossible if you’re not allowed be intolerant of intolerant people. How do you ensure that political discourse sticks to concrete policies and objective facts when your opponent refuses to engage with either but instead stoops to conspiracy theories and personal attacks? Also impossible if you’re stuck talking about difficult concepts and nuanced facts while your opponent is free to sling personal insults and cognitively sticky memes that may have absolutely nothing to do with reality.

The solution is to apply social contract theory. Tolerance doesn’t have to be a rule that you’re not allowed to break. It can be a social contract instead, so when someone breaks the social contract by being intolerant you are no longer bound by the contract, freeing you to not tolerate their behavior in return. Similarly, sticking to policy- and fact-based political debate doesn’t have to be a rule you’re not allowed to break, it can be a social contract between political opponents. If the other candidate won’t debate policy or facts then you’re free of the contract, which means you’re free to say they’re weird. Which they very much fucking are. Once you get most of the figurative children out of the room, you can go back to making actual progress amongst the contract-adhering adults who remain.

Trump said of Harris, “Don’t forget. Four weeks ago she was considered, like, the worst,” and that she had had a “personality makeover … All of a sudden she’s considered the new Margaret Thatcher”.

Literally no one is comparing Kamala Harris to Margaret Thatcher… except Trump I guess. 🤣 I bet there are a significant number of voting Millenials who don’t even know who Margaret Thatcher is. The ol’ weirdo’s references are weak and long past their best-before date, just like him.

Because the toxins your body is reacting to are already in your bloodstream. It’ll take time for those to get metabolized by your liver, and how much or little you vomit won’t change how much work your liver has to do.

The plow. It allowed early river valley peoples to generate semi-reliable food surpluses, and those food surpluses triggered everything that came after. I can’t take credit for this argument, I first encountered it in this episode from the first season of Connections.

Guy Gavriel Kay. First book published in 1984, part of a trilogy that was Tolkien-esque, quite decent, but not exactly ground-breaking. He’s since gone on to something a little more unique, which he describes as “historical fiction with a quarter-turn to the fantastic.” Impeccably researched but set an alternate world that’s a close but not exact mirror of our own. This allows him to take a few small liberties with historical accuracy in service of telling a better story. Personally I think he really hit his stride in 1995 with The Lions of Al-Rassan, and almost everything he’s written since then has been exceptional.

Depends on the color of the wall, but likely no. A matte black wall would absorb a lot of light, a matte white wall would reflect most of the light. Other colours would fall somewhere in the middle, reflecting some wavelengths and absorbing others. The only difference with a mirror is that it reflects light in a uniform fashion, whereas a painted wall will generally scatter reflected light. But scattered light still contributes to total light output! The only scenario where a mirror behind a lamp would come close to doubling light output would be if the wall we’re comparing against is painted with Vantablack or some other ultrablack paint that absorbs 99%+ of the light from the lamp.

I’m not exactly a fan of Biden, but he’s on the ballot for two reasons:

• Incumbents historically have an advantage, and it would be crazy to throw that advantage away.
• Who else would run in his place? It’s not like there’s some other obvious candidate. I can think of lots of progressives that I’d personally love to see on the ballot, but the reality is that none of those candidates are seen as being electable in swing states. Be nice if it were otherwise, but it ain’t.

People here seem partial to Jellyfin

I recently switched to Jellyfin and I’ve been pretty impressed with it. Previously I was using some DLNA server software (not Plex) with my TV’s built-in DLNA client. That worked well for several years but I started having problems with new media items not appearing on the TV, so I decided to try some alternatives. Jellyfin was the first one I tried, and it’s working so well that I haven’t felt compelled to search any further.

the internet seems to feel it doesn’t work smoothly with xbox (buggy app/integration).

Why not try it and see how it works for you? Jellyfin is free and open source, so all it would cost you is a little time.

I have a TCL tv with (with google smart TV software)

Can you install apps from Google Play on this TV? If so, there’s a Jellyfin app for Google TVs. I can’t say how well the Google TV Jellyfin app works as I have an LG TV myself, so currently I’m using the Jellyfin LG TV app.

If you can’t install apps on that TV, does it have a DLNA client built in? Many TVs do, and that’s how I streamed media to my TV for years. On my LG TV the DLNA server shows up as another source when I press the button to bring up the list of inputs. The custom app is definitely a lot more feature-rich, but a DLNA client can be quite functional and Jellyfin can be configured to work as a DLNA server.

Consider jobs involving fieldwork. There are all sorts of jobs that involve a team in a remote / isolated location, and some tend to pay pretty well because most people aren’t up for that sort of lifestyle. For example my father was a geologist and could spend months at a time with a team in remote locations, conducting surveys and taking samples.

You can do this with custom formats. You’d want to create a custom format that gives a score if the file is below a certain size threshold (say 1.5GB per hour), then add minimum custom scores to the release profiles you use (e.g. Bluray 1080p). You can also add custom filters for release groups that prioritise file size. YTS for example keeps their releases as small as possible.

Several years ago I was getting a lot of acid reflux. Went to the doctor, he gave me the “no-fun diet” list with all the foods to avoid because they can cause indigestion. Everything I loved was on that list. Beer. Cheese. Fried foods. Hot peppers. And, of course, coffee. I was highly motivated to achieve some kind of resolution to these stomach problems so I gave up everything on the list except coffee. Lo and behold, the symptoms remained. I switched the roles and gave up only coffee. The stomach symptoms disappeared, to be replaced by the worst fatigue headaches I’ve ever encountered. It took two weeks for the headaches to finally fade, and now I’m a tea drinker for life.

I drink Earl Grey tea, mostly because I’m forgetful as hell and I need a tea where I can just leave the tea bag in there for as long as it takes me to remember that I made tea. With most other black teas if you don’t yank the bag out at the right time your tea will get bitter as hell. Not Earl Grey, you can forget that shit for half an hour and the Earl don’t mind. You’ll still come back to a cup of tea that’s still perfectly drinkable. When I want to take it to the next level I get some Cream of Earl Grey, the kind with the little blue flower petals in it. Heavenly.

How can you be sure it’s the eggnog? To rule out other causes you should drink only the eggnog for the next 7 days. Y’know, for science!

Some of the alt UIs mentioned in this thread can be test-driven on lemmy.world:

• a.lemmy.world is running Alexandrite
• old.lemmy.world is running Mlmym
• p.lemmy.world is running Photon

And as others have said, once you find one you like you can self-host it and use it with any instance you prefer.