Geographical mobility used to be much easier. In the age of credit scores and limited housing, it is extremely difficult to find a landlord who will admit you without a job, and much harder to find a job that will hire you without already being local.

Well, credit scores as we know them have been around since the 60's...so, not really that new.

There's PLENTY of housing....just depends on what part of the US you are in.

I see houses for sale all the time where I live (New Orleans area)....it may be scarce in NYC or west coast urban areas....but that is not the whole US.

In other parts of the US, there are homes...GOOD jobs, and cost of living is much less.

And those are regular W2 jobs.....if you jump into 1099 contracting....you can work wherever and very much often....remote.

I've done both....and if you have any job experience, you can get jobs before you moved.

I've never moved before having a job in that area....

Not so easy once your kids have friends and school in Seattle.

As a child, I had to move with my parents a number of times as Dad progressed through his career....

Hell,, military brats do it all the time still....but it wasn't that long ago this was pretty common....grow up, leave the nest....it's ok and natural....

I guess you must be single or young....Reasons not to leave your area: owning a house, family, friends, not wanting to pull kids from school during critical times (or mid year), established connections, and a lot more tech jobs in Seattle than 99% of the rest of america, outside silicon valley? "Sell your house" and then you pick up a house that is also overpriced but pay much higher property taxes. Income tax is *zero* in Washington...Also, this is actually Redmond, not Seattle proper.

When did people get to be such pussies about moving?

Hell, when I grew up, this was a common thing....you moved to where the best job or new opportunity was.

Fun? No.

PITA? Yes

But families did it as a matter of how life is/was....

I remember as a kid moving a number of times

...as my Dad career progressed.

I myself have moved....

Do people today believe that as grown adults they STILL have to live near Mommy and Daddy?

Friends? Well hell, there's a TON of ways to stay in touch that weren't there when I was young....you only had phone calls and snail mail growing up and if they were real friends....you stayed in touch.

Today it's a piece of cake to keep in touch.

When I grew up, most people I knew hit the road at 18yrs or so and often it was to a different state for college and jobs....no one had to stay in same town as Mommy....but then again, we never too "Mommy" out on job interviews like they apparently do today...

So....I know this sounds strange this day in age..BUT you could do what they did in the "olden days" of say 20+ years ago and...

...MOVE TO WHERE THE JOBS ARE....

Simple really.....believe it or not, people used to do this type thing without a 2nd thought....

Can you use the hardware without any Meta services? Can you use competing hardware with Meta's services? And then beyond just services, can you fully replace the whole software stack?

Any "no"s above will make the utility dubious, such that there's little point in spending much time getting to know the product (except for RE purposes). OTOHs "yes"s will indicate that these types of wearables are starting to become viable.

I guess if this is true....

Then I regularly shorten my neighbors lives (and mine) whenever I fire up my log burning offset smoker for BBQ.

I don't generally have any complaints....quite the opposite reaction in general (I share and offer to throw things on for them too, since it is large and I often have extra room).

I think anyone saying that the shooter clearly belongs to one party or the other at this point is lying. And I've seen plenty of it on both sides, including you, right now.

If you can't see the shooter is FAR LEFT...then you are either willingly blind or not listening at all.

His notes, his relatives telling his history, FFS he's fucking a gay furry guy trans.....

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck....

That is a good post except for one thing. Charlie Kirk's killer isn't "left"

I guess you haven't been watching the news for the days AFTER the shooting.....this guy might have been raised "right", but he left that awhile back, was shacking up with a furry, trans guy....and both had pushed back on their families showing extreme hate for anything remotely conservative....hell the dude wrote shit in his notes, his texts and even on his bullet casings....

The left tried pushing the shooter was maga right off to bat, but that has long since been disproved.

It's gotten so far that some Republicans are trying to back away because they realize that those laws being used to censor "the left" could easily be used to censor them for the exact same reason. The big fun being to see how the Supreme Court will allow the censorship but then twist themselves into knots trying to deny the same rights if a (D) gets to be President.

The LEFT was ALREADY doing this....especially during the Obama and Biden admins....Obama using direct federal power/branches directory, like the IRS.

Biden, with DOJ going after people they didn't like and directly pressuring Social Media to deplatform people and cut banking abilities... Look I don't agree with recent Reps suggesting HARD to have people lose jobs/censored, but it is different than direct federal manipulations with actual branches actively doing things, behind the scenes, etc....those backdoor communications with Twitter and FAcebook are far different than someone on the FCC saying bad things about Kimmel....but they didn't force ABC to can him....

Never mind the other deaths like January 6

Jan 6ths...really?

Let's see....1 person was killed that day at the Capitol...the lady trying to climb in a window show and killed by a guard.

That's your example??

No...something in people, beliefs or lack thereof have been the problem.

We've had guns freely available in the US for a LONG time.

Remember it's only been since the mid 80s since we had background checks....since I believe 1986 that would could'n't buy a modern NEW full auto machine gun.

Hell, I remember in the 70's, you didn't have to go to a "Gun store" to buy a gun, they sold rifles at places like Western Auto, and your local hardware store.

It wasn't long ago you could order a gun via a catalog and have it mailed to your front door without any kind of background check.

And we didn't have the "mass" shootings like you see today....

There were a few, yes, but FEW and far between...no one was shooting up schools all the time or the like.

We have more gun control today than ever...and the problem seems to be getting worse.

It isn't the guns....it's broken people. What's the coincidence?

More broken and single parent homes. Raising generations to not properly value the human life....

Let's try to figure out what changed in PEOPLE since the 80's and earlier....

A couple hours before my post here Kimmel just got drummed off the air for saying roughly this

No, Kimmel got drummed off the air for lying on air saying that the shooter was a conservative MAGA supporter..."one of their own", long after official statements and evidence have plainly stated the opposite.

He was trying to still promote the leftists lies that came out early on this to confuse the public.

addressing the actual problem of lax gun control.

You know...I have a fuck ton of guns.

And not ONCE have they spontaneously jumped up, aimed and fired themselves at me or anyone or anything around me.....not at home, or in the car or when carrying when out and about.

Guns are nothing but tools with no intrinsic evil or danger.

It's the fucking loons out there getting amped up to take out "evil" people on "the other side"....

Same people that would run a car through a crowd...mass knifing....home made explosives...etc.

Why do you insist on blaming the tool when it is people that are the fucking problem.

Eliminate one tool...and people will...Uh....Find a way.

I'm trying to figure out why the fuck anyone would want to buy this thing in the first place?

If you want something with the power of a phone....buy a fucking phone....no?

So...just how long have you been on the Chinese Comunists payroll?

;)