JCPhoenix

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] JCPhoenix 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Already donated to the group. And won't be the last time. They have a great name, by the way: Missourians for Constitutional Freedom. It's a very Republican-esque name that hides what they're doing. Likes Moms for Liberty or Freedom Caucus or Lincoln Project. If there's anything I've learned from the right, it's that sometimes you gotta play like they do.

As a Missourian, I hope I'll be able to sign the petition in my district. If we successfully get this onto the November ballot, I'm confident it'll pass. Missouri may be deep red, but that's only when it comes to electing politicians. When the people are able to vote on initiatives and referenda, the more "liberal" issues tend to win out. Recreational marijuana. Medicinal Marijuana. Lobbying/campaigning/redistricting reform (unfortunately this one got repealed, but just barely). Minimum wage increase. Idk if that's because of the power of the cities, but then you'd think that our US senator and high state office elections would be more competitive, but they're not.

Either way, let's get this on this ballot!

[–] JCPhoenix 3 points 10 months ago

PRC is Taiwan's largest trading partner (2022 data). And According to this Reuter's article from a few days ago, China is also Taiwan's number one destination for investment. So I suppose it's not surprising that the ruling class has connections to Chinese money and industry.

I guess in some ways, this is similar to the US and China as trading partners, even though they're geopolitical rivals. Obviously Taiwan has a lot more to fear than the US does if things go south, but I wonder how much Taiwan-PRC economic ties play a role in preventing an outbreak of hostilities.

Though people said the same thing of Russia, especially after 2014 and look how that turned out. Of course, China isn't Russia. So maybe it does help.

[–] JCPhoenix 1 points 10 months ago

Same tbh. Been playing for over a decade. I'm an Infil main, so I got that down in its various forms (as VS). I'm alright with Engi and Medic. And that's about it. I'm bad at LA and I definitely can't play Heavy. Weird, I know.

Busses I'm fine with, Gals and Harasser I'm OK. Skyguard lightning I'm pretty decent at though.

[–] JCPhoenix 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't COPPA already require this for children under 13? This state bill raises it to under 16.

I guess it comes down to the particulars. Is there something more onerous in the Ohio bill than in COPPA? Because I don't think I've heard of any company seriously getting mad that COPPA is a thing.

[–] JCPhoenix 33 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I thought the plane is supposed to be missing screws, not the passengers.

[–] JCPhoenix 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This is the third time I've seen this referenced. I looked this up and now I feed stupider for having read anything about it.

[–] JCPhoenix 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)
  • Barotrauma. Game can be challenging and serious, but also ridiculously hilarious and off the walls, often in the same playthrough.
  • Valheim.
  • Project Zomboid. You might want to consider upping some of the difficulty with more players, though. More zombies, for example.
  • Minecraft.
  • Planetside 2. Squad/platoon up and just roll around together. The learning curve, however, can be surprisingly high.
  • Battlebit Remastered.
[–] JCPhoenix 9 points 10 months ago

We're suppose to have our first big snow storm of the season, starting today. 4-6 inches (~10-15cm) or more. Currently only like an inch of snow. That said, as is often said in the Midwest: "It's really coming down out there."

More importantly, I told my boss, the CEO, about my job offer. I've had this job offer on the table for like the last 7mo, but the processing has taken forever (it's a government job). On Friday, he sent me an email that he's promoting me to a director (which was surprising to say the least). So I felt that I had to finally tell him. I didn't want for him to announce to everyone he's promoting me, only for me to be like "Yeah thanks bossman...I'm out. Cya!" I feel like that might humiliate him. Should I care? Maybe not. But he's been a good boss to me. I feel like I owe it to him to not put him in that position. I've worked for him for like 7yrs total and he's treated me well.

Obviously he's less than enthused, but he gets it. I've been trying to get to a government job for awhile and to move out of here and he knows this. This isn't my official notice; there's a chance that something happens and I lose the job offer. But at least he knows what's going on. He can figure out if he wants to put the promotion on pause or what.

[–] JCPhoenix 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I noticed the same a couple months ago. After the API shutdown stuff happened, I largely left reddit. I would only go there for things I needed, like information and news related to my field.

But in October, I started going back more, and even commenting. And almost immediately, I got the "well ackshually..." comments and just so much unneeded aggression. People just looking to be right by ignoring 99% of the correct information in a comment and focusing on that 1% that's weak or, sure, wrong. And it was over dumb stuff, too.

After being on reddit for 13yrs straight, I guess I learned to be blind to it all. Like I knew it was happening, I saw it all the time, and ~~I'm sure~~ I know I even did it myself here and there. Hell, I was/am still a mod on a reddit; I saw it everyday. I did start getting tired of reddit and redditors about a year ago, but I just kinda brushed it aside.

Anyway, it wasn't until leaving and going to Beehaw and Tildes for a few months, and then going back, that I realized how bad it actually was on reddit. It's so glaring to me in threads all over the place. And that there was no desire to improve or change things. That that's just reddit's culture and that's how redditors like it.

As such, I've still kinda kept some distance from reddit. I'm still there, but I don't think I'll ever go back to how I was using the site pre-APIgate.

Further, I actually get angry when I see people on Lemmy engage in that redditesque way of just looking for confrontation and being smartasses. We left reddit; why are we bringing that mentality with us? If I saw someone on a Beehaw community acting that way, I call it out.

That's one of the reasons I support Beehaw potentially leaving Lemmy to do its own thing. I see Tildes and see how a standalone forum and community can exist and function well and productively, without all the "gotchas" and just unnecessary aggression. That's not to say Beehaw (or Tildes) is perfect. That behavior can be found everywhere. But at least there's a desire to try to stamp that out.

[–] JCPhoenix 4 points 10 months ago

This reminds me of OOF: Out of Office. Like with automated email replies.

Shouldn't it be OOO? But nope, it's OOF.

[–] JCPhoenix 6 points 10 months ago

I mentioned on another discussion board that I may have to start factoring in the plane manufacturer as I choose flights. Which is insane in this day and age. Unfortunately, Southwest is the carrier with the most flights and direct routes at my home airport, and Southwest only flies Boeing 737s. Plus, SWA is trying to replace their older 737s with 737 MAX models.

I've started flying Delta some last year, but like you said, Delta has both Boeing and Airbus in their fleet. But even if I did only choose Airbus flights with Delta, it's not like they (and all other carriers) don't sometimes change planes at the last minute, as needs dictate. Rarely, if ever, would I have the luxury to be like "Nope, nevermind, I'm not getting on that plane," if that were to happen.

I know air travel is super, super, super safe compared to all other forms of transportation. You're right that the odds of an incident are incredibly slim, given there are several tens of thousands of commercial passenger flights across the world each day that move millions of people. But boy does it feel like Boeing is aiming to change that, just so they can get some more pennies and dollars here and there. Shameful.

[–] JCPhoenix 2 points 10 months ago

My family got a hand-me-down Tandy from one of our relatives. It would've been somewhere between 1992-1994, which was when I was like age 5-7. Looking at photos online, I'm thinking it was a Tandy 1000 SL. They gave us some games with it, but I really don't even remember them. I know my mom bought some educational software for me. I "broke" this one by trying to install one of the games to it, instead of just running it from the floppy disk. It just wouldn't properly boot to the OS (don't even know what OS it was) afterwards. My dad was/is an IT guy but went to school for CS. Using BASIC, he'd program little graphics things for me. Like he did one thing looked like colored laser beams shooting across the screen. Another looked like bubbles floating up.

Our first brand new family PC was purchased in like 1995 (I would've been about 8). It was a Packard Bell. It looked like this. We got Internet (AOL) not long afterwards, which blew my mind, even as a kid. I've basically had Internet access ever since. I once again "broke" this one, again trying to install some software to it that I found online. It stopped booting to Windows. So I didn't touch it for months. My dad is a mainframe and servers guy, so he wasn't much help (even today, he's not great with desktops) But I eventually found the Windows 95 CD that came with the PC and reinstalled Windows myself. In many ways, that was my first step into my current IT career.

My first computer, as in not the family PC, but my own, was in 2005. A high school graduation/going to college present was an HP Pavilion DV4000 series laptop. I specced it somewhat towards gaming, without breaking the bank, even though it was not a gaming laptop by any means. Was good enough that I could play Final Fantasy XI and WoW on it from campus or Starbucks or wherever. Priorities, am I right?

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