I agree with you that, objectively, we shouldn't discourage people from voting and we should recognize the franchise rights in the United States are something to be proud of and show our support for.

However.

When you consider the electoral collage, gerrymandering, corporate lobbying and PACs, billionaires literally writing million-dollar checks to people to get them to vote (for "any candidate", wink wink), and now the Federal Executive trying to put its thumb on the scales by controlling which and how people are allowed to vote, it's really hard to feel like one person voting makes a damn bit of difference.

I live in a very red state. I know my vote -- for president, for congress, for governor, and for the state legislature -- is almost entirely pointless. Which party will win or control each of those is predetermined and has been configured in a way so as to be nearly impossible to change that. Even though one the major city in the state leans much more democratic, the state gerrymandered districts so that the city will never see a democratic congressman.

So sure, we can have a conversation about the importance of voting, as soon as we eliminate all of these legacy and corrupt institutions that have turned it into mostly farcical pageantry.

Flat taxes are regressive because the poor spend more of their money on necessities, unless you then issue corrections in which case there's no benefit to doing a flat tax because it doesn't save you any effort.

I"m getting so tired of this perineal complaint.....

So what?

Everyone needs to have skin in the game. The very very poor get EBT, so, there's their help...and if you wanted make food taxes a bit lower but other than that....have everyone have skin in the game and pay flat tax or fair tax or whatever you want to call it.

I saw it with a group of four people.

Three of us enjoyed it quite a bit.

I didn't mind it but nothing was surprising to me.

I saw several scenes that could have been more cleverly written but I was glad to support the group that saved a creative work from the burn pile. The idea of killing a movie for accounting losses seems sinful.

The motion-control photography, practical effects, and integration of animation were at least as good as Roger Rabbit.

If you enjoy the craft of filmmaking it's at least worth seeing.

I didn't see any marxist social commentary. Perhaps folks in the "Flock does nothing wrong" camp might feel otherwise.

Would be lovely if they could take a breath and spend a release fixing Dr. Konqui or Akonadi or whatever crashes that show up a few times a month for me (regardless of hardware).

This has been going on for half of its 30-yr release cycle.

I must admit ignorance of how this can persist for so long. FLOSS developers typically obsess over stability but seemingly not in the KDE culture.

I used to install symbols and submit bug reports but they're not interested if you're not running the latest tip.

Not that there is an obvious better DE right now. XFCE could stop corrupting its preferences files too. I used to have a script to restore a config from a previous ZFS snapshot when it self destructed but that gets old too.

If I'm building a device for production I'll use something simple like openbox/devilspie2 to get stability.

Lots of folks seem to get fed up and start a new project but momentum is a real thing. I hear Omarchy is stable and not withering but tiles just aren't my thing. More power to those who love them.

Well no, it's not just entertainment. News is in the deal also, specifically CBS and CNN.

Well if they even just brought CBS and CNN more towards center and away from left...that might even things up more....the left will still have NBC, ABC, MSNOW (or whatever they go by now) and most of the major news papers and other new sources.

A bit more balance would be nice.

I've seen enough videos of yahoos expressing their "rationale" for voting for Trump, that I wonder if AI and chatbot recommendations might be an improvement.

It was simple....better choice than cackling Kamala....

More evidence has been presented publicly that Trump fucked kids than was necessary to convict Cosby or Weinstein. There are more accusers, too.

Citations please?

Surely there are valid new stories about such by major networks, major news sources?

Interesting....I've never had a separate app like the mentioned yubikey or bitwarden....new to me too.

I rarely use or have to use the 2FA which is just generally a text message with a code....

You think that's baffling, what about all of the people who voted for Trump twice, after they already knew he fucks kids?

People keep repeating that nonsense about kids a Trump lately.....with no proof whatsoever .

I mean, where do you get that? There's no idicement or charges or any evidence anyone has brought forward.

If it were even remotely true....do you not think the Dems when in power under Biden would not have ensnared him with even charges on that?

Time-based One Time Password. You and the server have a copy of a shared secret. The secret combined with the current UTC time (in blocks of 30 seconds typically) is hashed to produce a 4 digit code that you enter as a second authentication factor. Without the secret, even knowing the current TOTP code isn't enough for you to predict future ones.

Thank you!!

I guess this hasn't made it to the US yet.....

Parents are fucking useless at protecting kids

Back a few decades ago, when the nuclear family was the norm, and was fully supported by society AND govt.....you had better parents and better child outcomes by far.....kids do better with a mother and a father to raise them.

I grew up in that era.....and my generation has faired quite well.....we also were able to give kids freedom to be kids, learn independence, etc....no such thing as helicopter parents.

I just don't shop at Walmart...in person or online....so, it's never been a problem.

;)

What does TOTP stand for....?

New term to me....

It's standard here in Iceland. *Everything* verifies via the phone, using the same authorization mechanism (SIM-based wireless PKI). The service sends out a special-coded SMS, which gets intercepted and routed to a SIM that has cryptographic applet flashed into it, which triggers a system-level authorization popup for you to confirm (the popup displays a verification code which was included by the site, so you see the same code on both the site and your popup), and which you can then confirm (with your PIN) or reject.

Wow...interesting.

I've never heard of such things...separate apps for verification, etc.

...surely if we can ban metal tubes with things that go boom inside them

Hey, whatever rules/laws you want in your country, more power to you, but I thank GOD that in my free country the govt cannot do this.....written into the foundational constitution.

But hey....you do you.