The app has already been inactive for a while now. There hasn’t been any active development in several years. They clearly have no interest in continuing it, and just want to move on to other projects.

In a scenario where things are so bad that the US has halted all financial electronic transactions than your electronic dollars don’t mean anything no matter where you are, amd your paper dollars mean almost nothing either.

This is honestly the biggest takeaway. If the US actually stops cooperating with foreign banks, the dollar will instantly become worthless; The dollar only holds international worth because other countries want to have and hold dollars. If those other countries are unable to do so, there is no incentive for them to accept dollars as valid currency.

Congress: “Oh hey, they sounded an alarm. Let’s go ahead and add that to the muffled pile of past alarms that have been sounded.”

Yeah, lots of folks don’t realize that cat and dog food are required to be fit for human consumption… Not because of accidental “toddler found the bag of dog food” scenarios, but because of the “destitute people on social security can’t afford anything better” scenarios.

Yeah, my parents are hardcore preppers, for all the wrong reasons. For the longest time, it was the “Biden is going to roll tanks down the streets” type of prepping. But now I’m seeing the prepping in a new light, because it could 100% turn into a full blown “nobody can afford soup, and the government is actively dismantling the soup kitchens while forcing people onto the streets” economy.

1. This hasn’t been a notable issue in a while. That’s why Plex’s https-by-default was such a big deal. With https, even your ISP can’t see what you’re streaming. They can see that something is being streamed, but not what specifically.

Also, you totally glossed over the fact that Plex is simply easier for non-savvy people to set up. Plex provides a unified login experience similar to major streaming services, which Jellyfin simply can’t provide; If your mother-in-law can figure out how to log into Netflix on her TV, she can figure out how to log into Plex too.

And the unfortunate truth is that Plex’s remote access is much easier for 90% of users to figure out. It doesn’t require VPNs or reverse proxies at all. You just forward a port and anyone with access can easily see your server. But my MIL’s TV doesn’t even have access to a Jellyfin app without sideloading. Not to mention the fact that I’d need to walk her through actually setting the app up once it is installed, because there is no unified system for logging in. And if I’m not using a reverse proxy for my Jellyfin server, then I also need to walk her through setting up Tailscale, assuming her TV is even capable of using it at all.

Any single one of those hurdles would make Jellyfin a non-starter if I want to walk my MIL through the setup over the phone, and they’re all currently present. And some of them will never be fixed, by design. For instance, the lack of a unified login page is by design, because a unified login would require a centralized server for the app to phone home too. That centralization is exactly what Jellyfin was made to rebel against, so it’s a problem that will never be “solved”; It is seen by the devs and FOSS enthusiasts as a feature, not an issue.

From a FOSS perspective, Jellyfin is a modern marvel. But it’s definitely not at the same level as Plex when you compare ease of setup or remote access. Jellyfin is fine if you’re just using it locally, or are willing to run Tailscale to connect back to your home network. But if you’re looking for true seamless remote access and need to consider the mother-in-law factor, then Plex is hard to beat.

Hell, the photographer would be dead too.

Accelerationism hasn’t proven to be an effective method of dealing with him so far. There’s no reason to believe that pattern would change because of this.

Yeah, Biden’s term was simply quiet. For the most part, the government ran properly and things didn’t break. But he also refused to actually spur the DOJ into action, because he didn’t want it to be seen as a frivolous witch hunt. He was more focused on keeping the peace than he was on actually protecting the country from domestic threats.

New Mexico license plates specifically say “New Mexico USA” because so many New Mexican residents kept getting pulled over for having “foreign” plates when traveling throughout the US.

This is the worst way to go about doing it, because you should never assume a drawing is made to scale unless it is specifically marked as such. A protractor would be useless if the drawing isn’t to scale. Generally speaking, if a problem isn’t drawn to scale, it’s because all of the info you need to solve it is already present in the drawing. You don’t need to bust out the protractor to measure angles, because the angles can either be calculated from the available info, or aren’t needed in the first place.

It also applies to parts, not just finished vehicles. That’s one of the most impactful parts of it. It’s specifically to stop the “car is 99% built when it is shipped in, and American workers just tighten a few bolts to call it finished” scenario that you described.

I think this may be a “broken clock is right twice a day” scenario, because it seems to actually be targeting the methods that auto manufacturers used to skirt taxes.

The issue is that the US doesn’t have any national ID system aside from passports. Each individual state runs their own ID system, and they set their own requirements for those IDs independently. So IDs in one state may be much easier to get than in a neighboring state.

The US also has a long history of using voting laws to disenfranchise minority voters. Back when black people were given the right to vote, many states enacted laws that required literacy tests or ballot taxes for anyone who didn’t own land. These were designed specifically to prevent black people (mostly former slaves who were never taught to read, who didn’t own land, and who couldn’t afford the tax) from voting. Those were eventually ruled illegal, so states simply pivoted towards requiring tests for IDs instead. Requiring documentation that slaves didn’t have (like birth certificates) and requiring a fee be paid for the ID. This effectively put a gate on the ability to vote, without explicitly requiring a test or tax to vote. Basically, if an ID requires a tax and test, and voting requires an ID, then voting implicitly requires a tax and test. But since it was a step removed from actually testing or taxing the voters, the courts didn’t find it illegal.

So with that history in mind, Americans (at least those who know the history and aren’t racist) tend to get squirmy whenever voter ID laws are brought up. Because voter ID laws are almost always backed by some sort of implied racism. For instance, many minorities need to jump through extra environmental hoops to get an ID. Cities (where many liberal voters live) tend to have inadequate facilities to actually process all of the people trying to get IDs. But rural areas (where conservatives tend to live) often have nearly no wait times because they are properly staffed and funded. If a liberal person in the city wants to get an ID, it often requires taking an entire day off of work for it, because wait times are measured in hours instead of minutes. So by making IDs harder to get for liberals, they effectively gate liberal votes.

It depends on how you interpret it, but the most strict interpretations could actually require a passport to vote. Which is just asinine.

Also worth noting that he doesn’t actually have the authority to do this; Elections are left up to the individual states. But if nobody actually stops him from doing it anyways…

It’s so they don’t have to follow official records keeping policies.

Yeah, I had to work backwards for this one…
Conversion therapy = bad.
Banning conversion therapy = good.
Overturning the ban on conversion therapy = bad.
Vetoing the overturning of the ban on conversion therapy = Good… I think?

Calibre doesn’t natively support reading DRMed files, but there are anti-DRM plugins which are trivial to install. You need to provide a legitimate Kindle serial number for Amazon DRM, as it uses that to de-encrypt the files. When you add the file(s) to your library, the plugin automatically runs as a file conversion. It basically converts it from a DRM-locked .epub/.azw3 to a DRM-free .epub/.azw3 instead. Since Calibre already has file conversions built in, the plugin simply uses that existing system to spit out a DRM-free version of the same file, then it adds that to your library instead.

It’s laying the groundwork for “if you complain we’ll take your benefits away completely, because you’re a fraudster” instead.

I personally prefer tools that exist in the fourth dimension. It really makes blind-hole taps a thing of the past.