This judge, I imagine: “I hereby decree, with the power I’ve vested in myself, that no poor shall be allowed financial relief of any kind whatsoever, now or any time in the future, whether or not that relief is warranted or legally mandated. Furthermore, I hereby decree, that any relief initially intended for a poor shall instead be transferred to the coffers of one or more of the lobbied corporate entities listed in the appendix of this ruling. This apolitical and logic-based ruling cannot be challenged by anyone with a net worth less than $1 billion. See appendix for relevant appellate account transfer and verification details. Use coupon code BOOTSTRAPS24 for a 5% discount.”

I finally got around to restarting God of War. I played the first few hours on PS4 a while back, and was overwhelmed, felt like it threw too much at me all at once, and I couldn’t be bothered to learn all the combat and mechanics. I got it for PC and started fresh, took it slow and used exploration to learn all I could, and shit, now I get it, this game is a masterpiece. It looks gorgeous in 4K, and the combat is loads of fun. And quite possibly my favorite thing is getting to hear Teal’c again (I freaking love Christopher Judge).

Now I just need to play something mindless to fill the next few weeks before Ragnarok releases on PC.

Fuck. This is clearly a stunt meant to appease people with a tiny discount on a single bill. They’ve pulled this before, and it’ll do nothing to lower our bills.

I’m a single guy with a TV and a computer, and when I moved to California less than a decade ago my energy bill averaged around $70 a month. Now it averages around $150 a month. Same behavior, twice the price. That’s unacceptable.

Reminder that at least one utility company in CA is a convicted felon for causing the deaths of multiple people in wildfires. They’re bad companies operating in bad faith.

That's some expert baby-handling, very cute!

I was existentially afraid to watch this movie as a kid, because I was convinced it would never end. My kid-brain was sure that if I ever started watching it, I would never be able to stop.

I struggled to get through the first season, and right when I started to think I might like one or two characters, they recast them. It didn’t keep my interest, and I probably won’t watch any more of it. I’m not one to give up on shows like this, I usually power through them and find something to like. But I have no interest in GRRM’s world anymore.

I’m someone who read ASOIAF voraciously as they came out, went to one of GRRM’s lectures, met and chatted with him while he signed my book, and just generally was in love with his world-building. I’m done now. No more disappointment for me.

I’m also using paid Proton VPN and have issues posting comments every day. If I stick to non-American servers things generally work, but if my random connection picks anywhere in the US, my comments won’t post until I switch and switch and switch and find a random server that works. I’ve rage-deleted quite a few comments after they refuse to post. It’s really pretty frustrating, but I won’t stop using my VPN to make Lemmy work better.

True that. Respect is probably too strong a word.

Yeah, I don’t think she’d ever choose a maga nut, but as much as I respect Kinzinger and Cheney for standing up for democracy I do not want them in the cabinet. They still have wildly different political positions than Harris.

Totally. Having self-awareness is step one. Acting on that self-awareness is step two. Sadly most people don’t even get to step one, so you’re way ahead of the curve.

Totally fine, politicians change their views. The more concerning thing for me was this:

The Democratic nominee also revealed that she would name a Republican to serve in her Cabinet if elected

Why?!? The people give the president power by voting them into office, the president wields that power on our behalf. Now would not be the time to share our power with the party that doesn’t believe in democracy. I can’t think of any good reason to voluntarily give a cabinet post to the other side, bipartisanship is not the point here.

Carrots, lemons, red onions, and daikon. Usually in white vinegar, sometimes rice vinegar, depending.

Rape jokes, even those directed at pieces of shit like Bannon, are not cool.

Last time I flew, I had a screaming baby in front of me, a screaming baby behind me, and a screaming baby next to me. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t relax, and my noise-cancelling headphones did very little to help. Know what I didn’t do? Complain, berate the parents, or confine the babies to an unsafe and enclosed space.

Babies cry. There’s usually nothing they or their parents can do about it. That’s life. Flying sucks, and this is just a part of it.

I think it's worth picking this apart a bit to show just how complicated it all is. Your motivation seems right, but there's an inherent contradiction in your suggestion. One of the purposes of DEI best practices is to have BIPOC people in the room at all levels of the organization, in decision-making roles, and normal worker roles. It helps everyone feel welcome, heard, and equal. Often this feeling is intangible but has very real impacts on how works gets done, how coworkers interact with each other, and how satisfied the workforce is. If you have a meeting full of diverse staff, its much less likely that the white folks will spew microaggressions and make everyone else uncomfortable.

That means yes, interviewers should absolutely be diverse themselves, because they'll typically hire a more diverse workforce. But how do you suggest that we require interviewers be diverse to avoid bias? We need DEI training and enforceable policies for that. So we're stuck in a vicious cycle.

I thought it was just me and my old iPhone, but I’ve also been having a lot of trouble connecting for the last few months. Since May, really.

Adorable.

Excellent news, but chargers won’t help much if most people still can’t afford the cars.

I suggest a generous cash-for-guzzlers trade-in program that gives anyone who owns or is paying down a gas vehicle the option to trade it in for an electric vehicle. It should be an even swap if the trade-in was fully paid off (year or model shouldn’t matter, as long as it drives). And if there’s still a balance on the trade-in, the payments should transfer over to the new electric car, the price of which should be adjusted so the remaining number of payments doesn’t change. Make it as seamless and frictionless as possible, and people will wait in line for this shit.

My parents used to use AAA TripTiks to plan our trips. Granted this was decades ago in the olden days of paper maps, so I have no idea how good they still are, but apparently they still exist. Worth checking out.

I did a cross-country move about 8 years ago, and just planned each leg of the trip separately. I chose where I wanted to sleep, planned the route to get there, and then did the same for the next leg. There’s really no wrong way to do it as long as you connect the dots and go the way you want to.

I fucking love her character.