What does that have to do with me?

What difference does it make to you? As in, what would you do with one even if they didn't ban it? Robots can't pour your favorite drink in the particular way that you like it.

Because socialists never oppressed anybody. All those people in the gulag were just counter-revolutionaries. Everybody knows that individual liberties mean somebody, somewhere, might profit off of something, which is oppressive.

But seriously, a government wanting to get rid of cyclosporiasis isn't what I consider to be oppressive. Don't worry, nobody is coming for your scat porn collection.

You're right, what have billionaires ever done for anybody? Nothing! They just soak up more of that finite supply of cash each time the s&p rises. As soon as they move into the neighborhood, everybody around them gets poorer and poorer.

Yes, obviously the billionaire tax passed decades ago. Sergei Brin et al moved to Miami decades ago. I must be doing what you like to do: Create disinformation, deny reality. Clearly, nothing to see here.

Indeed -- historically, taxes aimed at and promised only to affect the wealthy have a strange way of tricking down to the rest of us. Like federal income taxes, for example. Meanwhile, the national debt continues to rise. So the obvious solution is more taxes for the wealthy, which induces more spending, so those taxes then trickle down to the rest of us to make up for it, then you complain about how the rich aren't paying their fair share according to your own arbitrary definition of what fair means, so more taxes only for the wealthy to then trickle down, ad infinitum.

I had this crazy idea once -- what if we just balance the budget instead of adding more taxes? Crazy talk, right? Obviously, more taxes is the only sensible approach.

Where? You mentioned coastal cities, so I gave you a map.

How so?

He can rest easy with the knowledge that we're actively trying to make billionaires leave this state, which will somehow make things better here because reasons.

That's an interesting theory considering SpaceX is still actively building new facilities in Texas, including what is the largest PCB factory in the world, and what will likely be the largest solar panel factory in the world.

I think it's more likely due to the fact that Louisiana just happens to have a big, wide open terrain much more suitable for a high-volume spaceport than Texas does. Starbase isn't intended to be high volume, it's intended for research and development.

I don't know if you've ever been near any spaceport at all, but people who have only been to within 20 miles of Cape Canaveral for the very first time in their lives tend to panic, thinking they're experiencing an earthquake only for somebody who has spent any amount of time there to say "nah, that's just a liftoff, probably falcon 9". Having said that, falcon 9 is a much smaller, much less powerful rocket than starship. Think about what that might mean for nearby populations that are near any spaceports.

All of about four California cities did the closest thing to "banning" it by either actively voting to not install it to begin with, or voting to terminate the contract. The rest didn't renew for some unspecified reason (for example, the LAPD didn't renew theirs, so LA will show up on "ban" lists.) So just to ensure that we're on the same page: There appear to be 14 cities in all that had a flock contract at one point, but no longer do.

As you can see here, most of the cities using flock in California are indeed clustered on or around the coastal regions, in addition to larger inland cities like Sacramento:

https://maps.deflock.org/?lat=...

I don't like to examine this stuff in terms of blue or red, primarily because those colors typically only look at what president they voted for, which doesn't tell you a whole lot. But if you want to do that anyway, go for it, however I don't believe that's going to correlate quite the way you're hoping it will. Furthermore:

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04...

There's only one party here in California, and if this is true, then when the hell are they going to get rid of flock? All they ever do is talk about how great it is.

I don't know about you, but I don't buy phones from carriers, nor have I done so for the last 13 years.

Well, my cyclosporiasis loving, diarrhea guzzling pet that I never wanted, it would be one thing if what he ever offered was constructive criticism, but just like you, he:

- Is only capable of eating and regurgitating useless shit
- Knows absolutely nothing about everything he talks about, pulling shit out of his ass as filler so he has something to post
- Is an authoritarian, which is the absolute antithesis to what this country was founded on and is all about

In fact, both of you are the biggest fascists on slashdot. That's not hyperbole either, as in your ideology literally aligns with fascism more than anybody else who regularly posts to this site. Go project to somebody else.

Given this country obviously isn't working out for you, and all you ever do is complain about it and point out that the grass is greener elsewhere, why don't you do yourself and this country a favor and move somewhere that is run more to your liking?

It would be a win-win, don't you think? The better question is, why would you not do it?

Most budget phones you are used to buying are subsidized, either by your carrier, by the bundled crapplets, or both, and what you pay for it is likely less than what it cost to make it and get it into your hands.

In this case, they likely accounted for the fact that by using grapheneos, you're going to have neither, and that's reflected in the price. You can always buy a used, older generation pixel phone for a double-digit sum -- graphemeos supports them for a very long time.