One of the lessons we've had as the Federal, multi-branch nature of the US governmennt has frustrated Trump is that the government may be fucking us over, but it's not doing it in *unison*. It's doing it piecemiel, on the initiative of many interests working against each other, just as the framers intended. The motto on the Great Seal notwithstanding, there are myriad roadblocks to consolidating power in the hands of a single individual. It takes time and repeated failures. This is why the second Trump Adminsitration is worse than the first; they've figured out ways around things like Congressional power of the purse, put more of their henchmen in the judiciary, and normalized Congress lying down and letting the president walk all over them. It's a serious situation, although fortunately Trump isn't long for this world.

Do it. Reddit, and stop talking about it.

Throw that last coil of rope around your neck and kick the chair out.

I wish utter failure for any platform that engages in id verification.

So what?! CNN, MSNOW/MSNBC, and others were 100% state-ran media during the Biden and Obama years. And still are, they see themselves as "tHe reSiSTaNce"

Now the Right gets some more air capability and you're losing your shit?

Cry harder. Turnabout is fair play.

The damage done by consistently and solely pushing the Leftist talking points since *checks calendar* at least 2000 has consequences. Take a bath in those consequences.

It's time to start re-equalizing this nation. The Left runs the schools, the media, and much of the government. Lucky you that we have the system of government we have. Had we had a real King or a real Dictator, there would've been a pogrom the very first day. I mean a real pogrom -- not a single solitary Democrat left in DC. Not the softshoe bullshit we got with DOGE.

In this instance, I bemoan the loss of a broadcasting icon, an historical piece of radio heritage -- but make no mistake, I do not mourn the loss of another Leftist propaganda spreader.

I look forward to more Leftist whinging and tantrums as other outlets realize 20+ years of proselytizing a single political viewpoint is poisonous to their own bottom line.

While that's true, a responsible generation aims to boost the next generation to a *higher* level than the education they received. The world has become more complex and faster-paced, and even if that weren't true, the consequenes of aiming high and falling short are better than the consequences of aiming for the status quo and falling short.

So while I'm 100% onboard with skepticism that technology will magically make education better, I think the argument that "the education I got worked for me should be good for them" isn't a strong argument. What we need is a better ecducation that would have been a better education fifty years ago: stronger math, science, and language skills, general knowledge, and, I think critical thinking and media literacy. Possibly emotional intelligence -- it's kind of pointless to teach people critcial thinking skills if they are carried away by emotions.

There are no economic or security reasons to blockade Cuba, so that leaves *political*.

It used to be believed that bullies were low status individuals who are lashing out out of frustration. But research has shown that bullying is an effective strategy for achieving and maintaining social status. In other words it's a political winner. So the focus of research has shifted from the bully to the people around him who enable the bullying. The inner circle are the henchmen -- people without the charisma and daring to initiate the bullying, but join in when the bully gets things started. Around them are the audience, the people who wouldn't risk participating but enjoy the bullying vicariously. And around them are the much larger group of bystanders, who don't approve but are waiting for someone else to stop the bullying. Then off to the side are the defenders, who stand up to the bully.

Perhaps the least appreciated supporting factor in the phenomenon of the high-status bully is the silence of the bystanders, which is dependent upon the perception of widespread approval. Since you can't visibly see the the line between the approving audience and the apalled bystanders, the silence of the bytstanders is absolutely essential in sustaining the bullying.

Lot's of Americans are apalled at the idea of using military force to inflict suffering on the Cuban people. But that's only politically advantageous *because* of *them*. Tney are indistinguishable from the relatively small number of people who are thrilled when Trump announced he can do anything he wants wtih Cuba. The gap between actual approval and *perceived* approval is absolutely critical in establishign and maintaining any kind of authoritarianism. This is why would be authoritarian leaders are so focused on punishing and marginalizing any kind of expression of disapproval.

In 1790, the US population was 94.9% rural. There is no country. in the world today that rural -- Burundi, which looks like blanks spot in the world at night satellite picturs, is 88% rural.

The largest city at the time was New York, with a population of 33,000. Northern Manhattan was near-wilderness, mid-town was farms and country houses.

In 1790 the US was. country you could "police" with sheriffs and volunteer posses, largely to keep the peace. If you got robbed, you hired a private thief catcher. This works in a 95% rural country with just 3.4 million inhabitants. It would be chaos in a country 87x larger.

Wish i had mod points.

No, the West wont' get it until the UK has an Islamic radical as PM, and the US a radical Islamic president.

The West won't get it until there's minarets in every city and town, calling you to prayer.

And by then it'll be too late.

The Left has managed to weaponize "Racist!" and "Islamophobe!" to the point where people are cowed into not speaking up and taking action.

We're thinking it.. but we're not saying it. Much. Yet.

It's time to say it, and say it loud enough that those with fingers in their ears and heads in the sand can hear us.

You went to a theater, the theater had uniformed ushers ready to eject miscreants. There were curtains, not ads, covering the screen when not in use.

The sound was crisp, the picture clear.

People dressed fairly nice, and were polite.

Now, movies are like flying cattle-class in a low-cost airline. Pajamas, flipflops, and everyone's lighting up the theater with their retardophones.

Then there's the software. Hollyweird has shat on every tentpole property they have. They've reduced Star Wars to lesbian Force witches, they've reduced Star Trek to pew-pew idiocy

Ralph Broke The Internet was so bad, after the first one being so good, that I swore Disney off. I will only buy opened, used blu-rays of theirs now. I refuse to buy new from them.

Maybe the bigwigs oughta fix the presentation issue and also start realizing that if you make movies for the 80% of us, it'll sell. But when you make movies squarely aimed at a very small segment of the population, don't come crying with Pikachu face that "Waaah, no one's watching our movies!"

Make shit we want to watch and we'll watch. Pitch shit at a niche audience, enjoy the niche returns. Simple math.

8GB is plenty of RAM for what most users use their laptops for, if the OS doesn't gobble it up with background tasks. Probably be a good idea to steer clear of Chrome as a browser on these things.

It's actually more like an iPhone 16 Pro runing MacOS in a laptop form factor. Apple basically rummaged through their parts box and pulled out a mobile CPU that'll deliver 50% more single core performance than what's in a high-end Chromebook with only 80% of the power draw. And Apple's got *massive* economies of scale on those parts, so they can afford to deliver a lot of bang for the buck.

The only place the Neo appears to falls short is in RAM, but this is *not* a power user machine, it's for basic office tasks and multimedia consumption. Realistically 8GB is plenty for many users.

In any case, the desktop isn't the center of most users's universe anymore; the switchboard of their life is their smartphone. This is a gateway drug to MacOS IOS integration, and eventually onto the upgrade treadmill. Users will switch seamlewssly between their iPhones and Neos all day long, with data on iCloud and iMusic etc., and when it comes time to upgrade their phone or their laptop, they won't be *stuck* exactly, but if they leave the reservation they lose a lot. But they certainly could upgrade to a *much nicer* Macbook....

It's no wonder the other laptop makers are sitting up and taking notice. Apple has set up a one way conversion ratchet for people tempted by a really nice and perfectly adequate entry level machine at an entry level price.Nobody else has the vertical integration -- chip foundries to device manufacturing, to software platform -- spanning desktop and phones that's needed to do this.

Wish i had modpoints. Very helpful. Gracias.

This is all consequence of 50 years of Death to America, and kowtowing to those who say it.

If you burn my flag, spout you want me dead, and then take concrete steps to make it so, why should you be let into my country? Why? Because not doing so is Islamophobia?

Fucking ridiculous.

By extension, if your country (Most of europe, maybe all of it) is comfy with allowing muslim radicals to settle in and then start with the Death to America why shouldn't we scrutinize incomers from that country? UK, FR, GER, I"m speaking directly to you.

You people behave like the last 50 years didn't exist. Well, they did exist, still exist, and no amount of "buh buh buh that's raaaacist!" will stop it.

Only getting rid of those who constantly yell "Death to America!" will bring peace. Anything short of that will just bring pieces, because Islam is the religion of Pieces being scattered everywhere by sword and semtex.

Europe has been the #1 aider and abetter of all these raghead groups raising a ruckus. Time for their reckoning, too.

Besides, the instant things get too hot you'll come crawling back to us to help you, because Europe's armies are and always have been a shamble, and the UK even worse. i don't care what you did in the days of Charlemagne, i care about what you've done since we bailed you out twice in one century. Europe has become a comfortable bed for the worst of the radicals. You've taken victory and wwii and pissed it away by embracing the muslim rabble.

Kindly shut the fuck up and fuck off. i'm so fucking tired of all the pro-islam, pro-arab, pro-palestininan lipflapping coming from gasbag Europe and being exported to the US and forced down our throats by our own schools and media.

Wish Reagan would've dealt with Ayatalloah Assaholah back in the day. No one had the courage to do it, now it's done, and Europe's losing their minds over it. GOOOOOOOD! I love seeing it!

Europe is completely invaded and co-opted by Islam, and the US is next. Yell at me all you want, hide all you want from it, when you hear prayer calls from minarets in your town THEN you'll get it, and by then it'll far too late.

Anyone who's watched a house go up has marveled at how quickly the framing goes up, then how long it takes everything else to get done.

Framing is about 1/l4 of the build time for a house. The *labor* for framing is less than 10% of the build cost. If the machine cost *nothing*, and framed the building *instantaneously*, those are hard limits on how much faster and cheaper the house building robot could make the process: about 25% faster with about a 10% cost reduction. But the machine wouldn't work instantaneously, nor would it be free.

There already is a better way of doing this. You prefabricate the house in units, ship them to the site, then bolt the units together. The modules could be completely finished at the factory. Savings over traditional construction would be substantial -- 40%. The problem is, can you build houses people want to buy and which local building codes will allow you to live in. If you throw out expectations that a house looks like a house a child would draw with crayons, you can build a really nice. So with prefab houses you either have things that look like mobile homes; or things that look like they were designed by a scandanavian architect. Houses that *look* like mid-range, hand-built homes are a tough nut to crack.

There was a movement among architects to use pre-fabricated construction to solve the problem of housing returning GIs after WW2. It didn't catch on as the kind of democratizing mass produced housing the movement envisioned because people wanted a house that looked hand-built. But if you can get over that, it produced some really great houses. One of the more famous examples (although not completely pre-fabricated) is the Eames House. There's a company from that period that's still in business, but they pre-fabricate million dollar luxury homes, not mass produced housing.

The obstacles to prefabricated houses are regulatory, which is why it can't reach the middle of the market. Anti-mobile home rule discourage really cheap pre-fabricated houses, but high end producers can afford to jump through the regulatory hoops. For mid-range houses, the regulatory burden outweighs the economic advantage of prefabrication. This could allow a framing robot to have a niche, although as I pointed out it won't save much money on the build cost.

Ever feel "safety" is a Trojan Horse, used by governments to curtail your rights, track you, and / or just make your life a bit more complicated?

"it's for your own good.'

That's what my "mother" used to say before she'd make with the belt and try to "correct" me.

Governments' the same way. "It's for your own good" while over-complicating your car and simultaneously draining your wallet. And now, with added privacy loss for your embiggenment!

We need a Restoration. A movement to lead us back to Common Sense. This rulebook is getting impossible. Pretty soon we'll be forced into self-driving pods and forced to wear body airbags.

Oh, and just today, I found I can't buy corded blinds anymore. Now the bedroom blinds won't be like the blinds in the rest of the house. Yet more government intrusion into my space. Yay, Big Gov't! Protect me from myself! Wlaaaaaaah! I NEED GOVERNMENT TO KEEP ME SAFE, WAAAAH!

"woe is me, think of the poors" -- the author

It's just virtue-signalling, nothing you've not heard of before. Writers think if they throw in a bit of poor-appeal or disadvantaged-appeal or whatever-the-struggle-of-the-day-is appeal, readers will pay more attention or feel better.