You can write to them (email or paper) and it can apply pressure indirectly. Their interns read it and “tally” the types of issues mentioned. They will send you a bullshit canned response that re-states their already engrained positions, whether it aligns with what you want or not.

But arguably it can move the needle if enough people put sustained pressure around very specific bills. Probably more direct influence than voting.

You could see a scenario where they pressure/rush Alito into retirement and force a replacement vote before the current Congress term ends. Not likely but possible. I think a more likely scenario unfortunately is that the parties take turns “reforming” the court every time they control the Senate and the Executive.

Unpopular take around here, but factually correct

Disappointing.

I interact with all kinds of people and I have never encountered a single person who (admits to?) using Truth Social.

At this point we need a trusted company with some manufacturing leverage to make a privacy-first TV. I think Framework would be a good candidate. They can actually secure supply chain of panels and whatnot. They should be able to offer a TV that’s a dumb panel or with minimal optional inputs or modular components. It’d be difficult to do the product engineering from scratch but if you already have done it with laptops…

Do it now while you can still buy a Pi and a hard drive for less than $500 each.

These weren’t worth it at the $120 price point, let alone now. I’m going to be recycling older SFF PCs I guess, at the penalty of higher noise and TDP.

Whatever they did, I hope the costume never came off.

I won’t be tricked.

I’m writing in Haywood Jablowmee.

He was pretty good in his minor role in Apocalypse Now and he didn’t entirely look like he didn’t want to be there.

What about roles like The Fugitive… His character seems believably motivated there.

He might actually be self-aware that he comes off as miserable. Look at his cameo in Bruno.

Prepare for more 20 minute unskippable cutscenes.

Also Pawnee is supposed to be a kinda folksy midwest town with like 30,000 population but the city hall is seemingly a modern $15mil building with floors and departments.

The actual Parks and Rec “department” of a town like that would be one haggard “Selma from the Simpsons” type character chainsmoking and sitting at a folding card table in some shitty repurposed storefront in a building from the 1950s across the square from the old courthouse.

Several reasons - People are lazy AF, maybe a bit “soft disenfranchised” in terms of not preceiving that they have credible information, and also there are active demoralization campaigns going on.

All those are reasons but none are valid excuses. Get off your ass and vote. Many places allow you to vote early. Federal law requires your employer to give you time off to vote.

No excuses… inform yourself and vote.

You can discount it by 80% and have it featured in a quarterly Steam sale. That is a pretty good way to get visibility on the platform.

I actually don’t hate this concept as long as you verify (don’t blindly trust) all the info it gives you.

The reason I say this?

Many local races, especially in “purple” areas can be super ambiguous. Candidates will circulate mailers and ads painting themselves as “pro economy, pro schools, and pro puppy” because they are trying to be vanilla AF and appeal to everyone. Their websites often list a few generic issues and that’s it.

AI might actually be useful to summarize major issues, actions, and voting record of the incumbent while collating information about a challenger candidate from other sources.

Local TV tends to be dogshit at their coverage of candidates actual plans and positions but you could also try that, if all else fails. Or maybe find a YouTube video of a debate (if there is one for the office in question) and have the AI give you a bullet point summary.

I am all on board with letting people know when open source is a bit too aligned with major companies or is somehow compromised.

I have no intent or need to use Omarchy.

This sites list of YouTubers to shun however is a bit too “purity test” for me. The reasons listed are, let’s say extremely tepid in many cases.

I’ve never heard Jeff Geerling talk about any issue other than homelab stuff like hardware pricing and availability. His religious and personal views were not apparent to me at all.

I watched the Louis Rossmann video mentioned with the CO State Rep, and Louis was respectful and platformed this individuals commentary on the subject of privacy issues for a long time in the video. Generally Rossmann seems to criticize the living hell out of politicians left, right, and center.

I guess all I am saying is… Use whatever products you do or don’t want to for your own reasons but, I disagree with the concept that I should brigade specific creators because they support Open Source but not 100% of my particular basket of other issues. We need Open Source to grow and need to reach out to diverse groups who can find value in it.

I will continue to listen to both Craft Computing Jeff (as far left as it is possible to be on social and gender issues) and Jeff Geerling (who is apparently conservative on these same issues) because I’m listening to them talk about homelab stuff, not telling me who to vote for etc.