RobotOverlord525's recent activity
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of July 22 in ~news
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Comment on Disney+, Hulu, Max bundle now available in ~tv
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentFor a long time, when cable was the norm, what a lot of people said they wanted was à la carte channels. Why pay for TLC when you don't watch reality TV? Then we got Netflix as the only viable...For a long time, when cable was the norm, what a lot of people said they wanted was à la carte channels. Why pay for TLC when you don't watch reality TV?
Then we got Netflix as the only viable streaming service. Lots of people loved that. If a show or movie were available to be streamed anywhere, it was almost undoubtedly available on Netflix. And the price was a tenth (or less) of what cable used to cost.
But that was never sustainable. Like u/JXM said, if we want high production value, quality TV shows and movies, we are never going to get those on a $15 a month single subscription.
If you ask me, what people really want is not reasonable. Ultimately, when people said they wanted à la carte pricing, with a wanted was to pay less than they were paying for cable.
Personally, I'm fine with paying substantially less and rotating through the various streaming services. The people that want access to every show and movie all the time are going to have to be realistic about what that's going to cost them. They can't have their cake and eat it, too.
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Comment on Delta cancels more flights as it struggles to recover from tech outage in ~transport
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentWe ended up missing our rescheduled flight and, so far, despite the fact that it's not in accord with their official cancellation policy, Costco Travel is going to get us like 90% of the fees...Mostly experienced with Costco rental cars (better prices, free upgrades etc.) but have friends who have said they work like an old school travel agent when things aren’t so great.
We ended up missing our rescheduled flight and, so far, despite the fact that it's not in accord with their official cancellation policy, Costco Travel is going to get us like 90% of the fees back. Some of it will be in the form of Delta travel vouchers we have 11 months to use, but still. I'm impressed. I liked them for their prices already (my wife and I used it to book our tenth anniversary trip to Rome around eight years ago and we used it to get to Disneyland over a year ago, too), but the service is looking to be pretty fantastic, too.
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Comment on Delta cancels more flights as it struggles to recover from tech outage in ~transport
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentYeah, we're just visiting the East Coast for the first time. My daughter is worried that she's going to miss out on her dreams of being Kevin from Home Alone 2, but we don't have to go this year....Yeah, we're just visiting the East Coast for the first time. My daughter is worried that she's going to miss out on her dreams of being Kevin from Home Alone 2, but we don't have to go this year. If I manage to get refunded for our flight and hotel but lose out on the trip altogether, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Of course, worst case, I only get coupons for future Delta flights and I'm completely hosed on the hotel. Given how much I hate flying already, I don't really need more encouragement to avoid it.
Even if we go tomorrow morning, though, the impact to our circadian rhythms is non-trivial. Instead of having one day with poor sleep (that we basically wrote off, even though we were supposed to be in NYC by 3 PM) followed by four solid days in New York, now we will only have three "normal" days for our trip. Days that are going to be more impacted by the sleep disruptions than originally planned. As much as I wish I was just a Sim who could operate fine as long as I got sleep at some point, I'm a pretty big baby when it comes to my circading rhythms. When they get off, I get screwed up for days.
Anyway, good luck getting home! I can't imagine how this would be if we had made it there and then got stranded in NYC.
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Comment on Delta cancels more flights as it struggles to recover from tech outage in ~transport
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentInteresting. My assumption was that the reason why Delta was failing here was because of a lack of investment in IT infrastructure. But maybe not...? IT just seems like a place that businesses...Interesting.
My assumption was that the reason why Delta was failing here was because of a lack of investment in IT infrastructure. But maybe not...? IT just seems like a place that businesses love to cut because, why keep a huge staff of firemen around when none of the buildings are on fire this quarter? It's not like IT makes you money!
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Comment on Delta cancels more flights as it struggles to recover from tech outage in ~transport
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentYikes. Sorry, that makes my experience seem pretty tame. My wife, my 14 year old daughter, and I got up at 4 AM and were halfway to the airport before we found out our flight was cancelled. I...Yikes. Sorry, that makes my experience seem pretty tame.
My wife, my 14 year old daughter, and I got up at 4 AM and were halfway to the airport before we found out our flight was cancelled. I dropped my wife and daughter off at the departures then parked at the "cell phone waiting area" and called up Costco Travel (who we booked through). We both got to the front of our respective lines after an hour and a half. Now we're rebooked for tomorrow at the same time and we're losing a day of our vacation. But at least we're home! And Costco Travel might be able to get us the missed hotel day back.
I'm not looking forward to getting up again at 4 AM but that's our plan. Fingers crossed everything works out this time.
One thing we lost is that I dropped from row 18 to row 21 and had to pay $40 for the privilege. And I'm still not able to sit with my wife and daughter.
I hate flying enough as it is. Shit like this just makes it worse.
I understand that a "Y2K-level" IT event happened. But other airlines were able to recover quicker.
This is the key thing for me. The other airlines are showing us that Delta could've done better.
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Comment on Kamala Harris lacks charisma and time in ~misc
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentThis episode of the Ezra Klein Show on Kamala Harris, "Is Kamala Harris Underrated?" (also on YouTube here) discusses both what people aren't keen on, why she got the VP pick, and what her...This episode of the Ezra Klein Show on Kamala Harris, "Is Kamala Harris Underrated?" (also on YouTube here) discusses both what people aren't keen on, why she got the VP pick, and what her strengths are while considering whether or not she'd be a good pick to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee. The host is generally amenable to the idea of her in that position.
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Comment on US President Joe Biden announces that he will not run for re-election in ~news
RobotOverlord525 (edited )Link ParentYeah, entirely too much of our elections are decided on vibes. I'm hesitant to recommend the podcast again, but I think Ezra Klein's coverage of this has been good. He did an episode on this...Yeah, entirely too much of our elections are decided on
policyvibes.I'm hesitant to recommend the podcast again, but I think Ezra Klein's coverage of this has been good. He did an episode on this pretty recently: ”The Biggest Political Divide Is Not Left vs. Right” (also on YouTube here, among other places).
The biggest divide in our politics isn’t between Democrats and Republicans, or even left and right. It’s between people who follow politics closely, and those who pay almost no attention to it. If you’re in the former camp — and if you’re reading this, you probably are — the latter camp can seem inscrutable. These people hardly ever look at political news. They hate discussing politics. But they do care about issues and candidates, and they often vote.
As the 2024 election takes shape, this bloc appears crucial to determining who wins the presidency. An NBC News poll from April found that 15 percent of voters don’t follow political news, and Donald Trump was winning them by 26 points.
Yanna Krupnikov studies exactly this kind of voter. She’s a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan and an author, with John Barry Ryan, of “The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics.” The book examines how the chasm between the deeply involved and the less involved shapes politics in America. I’ve found it to be a helpful guide for understanding one of the most crucial dynamics emerging in this year’s election: the swing to Trump from President Biden among disengaged voters.
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Comment on US President Joe Biden announces that he will not run for re-election in ~news
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI've enjoyed Ezra Klein's coverage of this issue. Particularly his episode on Kamala Harris, "Is Kamala Harris Underrated?" (also on YouTube here). Though I don't know if I came away from that...I've enjoyed Ezra Klein's coverage of this issue. Particularly his episode on Kamala Harris, "Is Kamala Harris Underrated?" (also on YouTube here).
Though I don't know if I came away from that latter episode terribly convinced that Harris has the charisma to be president. I think she'd make a good AG, but President...? I'm concerned. Though maybe Ezra Klein is right.
ezra klein
This, to me, is the paradox of her — it might ultimately be the tragedy of her — because Harris runs in 2020 at this exact moment when her precise political profile is disastrous for the Democratic Party, right?
elaina plott calabro
Exactly.
ezra klein
It’s post-Ferguson. It’s post-Black Lives Matter. George Floyd is yet to come, but we’re already in this moment where what you want to be is not a smart on crime Democrat. It’s a criminal justice reformer. But when I go back right now — because preparing for the show, I was reading a bunch of older political profiles of Harris, and I was reading this one from The New Yorker in 2019. And they described her then as, quote, “a Black female law and order Democrat.”
And when you imagine the candidate Democrats would want to run this year amidst concern about crime, concern about disorder at the border, running against a convicted criminal in Donald Trump, at the moment that the Supreme Court is saying that the president can functionally do almost anything they want, like a Black female law and order Democrat is the profile that you would grow in a lab.
And it’s not clear to me. Like, can she reinhabit it? Can she find that again? Does she still believe in any of that? But it seems very — rather than Harris, in some ways, seeming ill-suited for the moment, most of her political history seems perfectly suited for the moment.
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Comment on Delta cancels more flights as it struggles to recover from tech outage in ~transport
RobotOverlord525 LinkSo glad I booked my flight from PDX to JFK through Delta!So glad I booked my flight from PDX to JFK through Delta!
Delta Air Lines canceled more than 600 flights on Monday, hours after Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg singled out the airline as it struggles to recover three days after a global software outage grounded flights around the world.
Mr. Buttigieg said on Sunday that his office had received complaints about Delta’s customer service, and warned that the carrier must provide its customers with adequate assistance and refunds. Delta canceled about 1,300 flights on Sunday, roughly the same number as each of the previous two days, and delayed another 1,600, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. The cancellations represented about a third of its scheduled flights.
Delta’s cancellations on Monday — 607 as of 7 a.m. ET — accounted for about 16 percent of its scheduled departures.
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Delta cancels more flights as it struggles to recover from tech outage
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Comment on IVF alone can’t save us from a looming fertility crisis in ~health
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentYou couldn't pay me enough to work in a retirement home, and I suspect I'm not alone in that perspective. I'm also not sure that it's the kind of field where you want to drive more people to it...You couldn't pay me enough to work in a retirement home, and I suspect I'm not alone in that perspective. I'm also not sure that it's the kind of field where you want to drive more people to it based on pay alone.
I'm amenable to the idea of much lower global populations, but I don't think there's any getting around the fact that the transition to that is going to be rough. (And even then, it seems hard to get an affluent society to operate at replacement levels — we seem to either be very far above or quite a bit below that number.)
Like it or not, we in the developed world do live in a capitalist, hyper individualistic society that doesn't value people much beyond their economic output. An overwhelming majority of people do not save enough for retirement as it is. And I would imagine that a massively aging population will only increase the costs of retirement as more and more people compete for access to dwindling resources.
It affects more than the elderly. An aging population will have the elderly consuming quite a lot of access to medical care. There are already labor shortages and issues with burnout in medicine — this would only exacerbate it.
I don't know what the answer is, but I do think it's a problem if fertility rates go off of a cliff. A gradual decline in population (and therefore population aging) would certainly be easier to manage. But that doesn't seem to be what societies do when they become prosperous.
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Comment on Gladiator II | Official trailer in ~movies
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentYeah, he has such a distinct appearance I'm disappointed they didn't go with someone who at least kind of looks like him. There weren't any wide faced, curly haired actors who could play the role...The emperor's are Geta and a seriously miscast Caracalla
Yeah, he has such a distinct appearance I'm disappointed they didn't go with someone who at least kind of looks like him. There weren't any wide faced, curly haired actors who could play the role well?
I would need to watch the trailer more closely to confirm, but they seem to be going with the "effeminate men are bad" trope, which really doesn't fit Caracalla. (But maybe that's more Geta they're doing that with rather than Caracalla?)
I get that they wanted to put this movie into the Colosseum again, but the story of Geta, Caracalla, and Macrinus practically writes itself. They could put Maximus's son into the role of Martialis, if they really wanted, though that would require him to be a soldier in the legions rather than a gladiator.
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Comment on What can be done about the Supreme Court of the United States? in ~misc
RobotOverlord525 LinkI came across this proposal through Ezra Klein's Why We're Polarized, and I don't know if it's a silver bullet, but it's certainly an intriguing idea. Ezra Klein's own reaction to the proposal was...I came across this proposal through Ezra Klein's Why We're Polarized, and I don't know if it's a silver bullet, but it's certainly an intriguing idea.
Epps and Sitaraman’s second proposal, which they label the “Balanced Court,” is just as radical. They suggest that the court’s size be increased to 10, five chosen by Democrats and five by Republicans. These 10 justices would then together choose another five jurists from the courts of appeals to serve alongside them for a one-year term, and that choice must be made either by unanimous vote or by a supermajority. If the 10 justices can’t agree, the court would lack a quorum and could not hear any cases for that year. Like the Lottery Court proposal, the Balanced Court proposal would reduce the significance of Supreme Court nominations and thus diminish the partisanship and posturing that currently accompany the appointment process. Epps and Sitaraman also expect that the 10 “partisan” justices would select five new colleagues based on those jurists’ reputations for “fairness, independence, and centrism” — precisely the qualities that are less valued in the current process. The authors hope this change would “restore something important that we fear has been lost: the notion that Supreme Court justices are deciding questions of law, in ways that don’t invariably line up with their political preferences in the biggest cases.”
Epps and Sitaraman are not the first to suggest structural reforms as a solution to partisan judicial selections and decisions. For more than a decade, scholars have argued in favor of imposing 18-year term limits on the justices. Such limits would ensure that a single president cannot control the court many decades after leaving office, and would evenly distribute appointments across presidential terms. But Epps and Sitaraman oppose term limits for practical and policy reasons. They think term limits would only exacerbate the politicization of the appointment process by turning every presidential election into a referendum on the Supreme Court and the candidates’ preferred nominees. And, like most legal scholars, they believe term limits would require an amendment to the Constitution, and so would be nearly impossible to achieve as a practical matter.
Ezra Klein's own reaction to the proposal was this:
This system would have a few advantages. First, it could calm a conflict that is thoroughly politicizing an institution meant to keep at least some distance from politics. Second, it would create a path to serving on the Court that would reward candidates who aren’t seen as intensely partisan and ideologically reliable, which basically disqualifies you now. In theory, both sides would feel and be equally represented on the Court, and the all-out warfare of recent years would ease. Am I sure this would work? No. But I’m sure that what we’re doing now isn’t working either, and so creative thinking is needed.
Anything that will require constitutional amendments is, in my opinion, completely off the table. So that precludes radical reforms. Unfortunately, although the American political system needs radical reforms, I don't think we are going to get them short of extreme and disastrous circumstances.
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Comment on Single point of software failure could hamstring 15K US car dealerships for days in ~transport
RobotOverlord525 LinkThis feels like a rather familiar tale! I think the company that makes the software I'm administrator of did much the same thing when they went private. I know support has never been the same....CDK started as the car dealership arm of payroll-processing giant ADP after ADP acquired two inventory and sales systems companies in 1973. CDK was spun off from ADP in 2014. In mid-2022, it was acquired by venture capital firm Brookfield Business Partners and went private, following pressure from activist public investors to trim costs.
Brookfield said at the time that it expected CDK "to benefit from a rise in consolidation across the dealership industry," an industry estimated to be worth $30 billion by 2026. Analysts generally consider CDK to be the dominant player in the dealership management market, with an additional 15,000 customers in the trucking industry.
Under CEO Brian McDonald, who returned to the firm after its private equity buyout, the company pushed most of its enterprise IT unit to global outsourcing firm Genpact in March 2023.
This feels like a rather familiar tale! I think the company that makes the software I'm administrator of did much the same thing when they went private. I know support has never been the same.
That said, I see the appeal of "all-in-one" software packages. I think the bigger problem is when there aren't a lot of competitors in that space. No software is going to be 100% reliable, but there are perverse incentives to development when you don't have any serious competitors, as in any business.
Side note, I find something ironic about the article using an archive.is link to bypass a paywall. You would think that a journalist would be above doing something like that. I'm sure he would like to get paid even if he doesn't care if the author of the piece he was linking to is.
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Comment on The Ten Commandments must be displayed in all public Louisiana classrooms under requirement signed into law in ~humanities
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI like to say that "culture is stronger than religion." It's why Christians can get hung up over homosexuality in the '90s without worrying about the rest of the Law (as famously lambasted in The...I like to say that "culture is stronger than religion." It's why Christians can get hung up over homosexuality in the '90s without worrying about the rest of the Law (as famously lambasted in The West Wing). It's why prosperity doctrine could be so popular despite its theological absurdity. And it's why your average Christian is certain that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell, which is ruled over by Satan.
Pop Christianity indeed.
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Comment on The Ten Commandments must be displayed in all public Louisiana classrooms under requirement signed into law in ~humanities
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI think this set would clearly show the timeless and divine wisdom of the Bible that in no way reflects ancient priorities. Exodus 34:17-28 We certainly wouldn't want people doing the wrong thing...I think this set would clearly show the timeless and divine wisdom of the Bible that in no way reflects ancient priorities.
You shall not make cast idols.
You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.
All that first opens the womb is mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.
No one shall appear before me empty-handed.
Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in plowing time and in harvest time you shall rest. You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year. Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning.
The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.
You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
The Lord said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. He was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
We certainly wouldn't want people doing the wrong thing with their donkeys!
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Comment on Microsoft postpones Windows Recall after major backlash in ~tech
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentMy dad is in his early seventies and, for some reason, just doesn't know what to do with technology. He is a retired mechanic, and can do anything with a machine, but things with screens elude...Apple has brought some of these mobile OS learnings to macOS with things like gating third party apps’ access to the filesystem, camera, mic, etc behind a permission dialog (or where they feel increased friction is justified, requiring the user to manually add the app in question to an allowlist) as well as making the system immutable via SIP (system integrity protection). They’ve also been progressively kicking more things out of the kernel into userspace.
My dad is in his early seventies and, for some reason, just doesn't know what to do with technology. He is a retired mechanic, and can do anything with a machine, but things with screens elude him.
His partner has only ever used Macs but is as technologically illiterate as he is. I was trying to help them with something on her iMac and just trying to do a screenshare was a nightmare. He could not figure out how to install and grant necessary permissions to TeamViewer. It must've taken us an hour and I can't remember if we ever figured it out. Allowing me to remotely control his mouse with Zoom was also a rather big chore. In both cases, it wasn't like a Windows UAC prompt. If I recall correctly, in both cases, granting those permissions required him to go into the system settings and grant permission for that specific program to be able to do remote control things.
Somewhere between a simple UAC pop up and digging into settings ought to be feasible, I would hope. At least for the purposes of doing remote support for the technology illiterate. Of course, part of the problem is that these are vectors for socially engineered exploitation, but I don't think there's a lot that an OS can be reasonably expected to do about that.
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Comment on Reuters investigation: Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic in ~health
RobotOverlord525 LinkThe people responsible for this program need to be court-martialed. This is despicable and unacceptable. We shouldn't be stooping to Xi and Putin's levels. Having "PsyOp" campaigns to counter...The people responsible for this program need to be court-martialed. This is despicable and unacceptable. We shouldn't be stooping to Xi and Putin's levels.
Having "PsyOp" campaigns to counter Chinese and Russian influence in foreign countries? Sure. I get that. It makes sense. But they don't need lies in order to counter the bullshit being spewed by these authoritarian regimes. Just telling the people of Russia and China the truth about their governments would be enough. And it would be independently verifiable by the targets of those campaigns (if they can find access to legitimate, uncensored information, of course).
As for other countries, like the Philippines? Well, countering Chinese narratives about how the United States created COVID-19 is one thing, but doing so through disinformation absolutely crosses lines. And damaging the public health of another country in order to weaken the influence of a geopolitical rival is just disgusting. There is blood on the hands of everyone who authorized that program. From U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to then-Special Operations Command Pacific General Jonathan Braga and who knows how many others. Esper should be tried in a civilian court and Braga should be court-martialed.
But I know that no one with any real power is going to be punished in any way for this. I expect no more than a slap on the wrist, if that.
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Comment on Anyone watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans this weekend? in ~sports.motorsports
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentYeah, that always kills me. A long time ago, I used to get up whenever I got up and just watch the replay of the last hour. But then that option was dropped from Motor Trend On Demand so I started...Yeah, that always kills me. A long time ago, I used to get up whenever I got up and just watch the replay of the last hour. But then that option was dropped from Motor Trend On Demand so I started my "getting up at 6 AM" tradition. This year, with it being available on Max, I technically could have done that again, but I like having the live timing available. Especially because the broadcast usually ignores the GT class(es). I was rooting for the Iron Dames, but they almost never showed them!
I liked this Ezra Klein piece. (The audio version is probably best. It can be found here on YouTube, among other places.)
The clips he played from the RNC were disturbing. The fawning over Trump and the mental gymnastics necessary to say that Trump is in it for anything but himself is mind-boggling. The contrast Klein makes between what Biden did and what Trump is doing was perfect.
The fact that Republicans can convince themselves that first Biden and now Harris are more of a threat to them and their way of life than Trump is wild. But there's always the fear of ostracism from their in-group if they don't kowtow to Trump. I just don't know if that fear is strong enough to provoke the motivated cognition necessary to become true believers in Trumpism. Or if it's just a bunch of cynical, performative bullshit.
Is Harris up to the task of beating Trump? I don't know. I feel like her odds are better than Biden's were at this point, though.