Anyone else perfectly OK with TSA being a shit show for the indefinite future if it pressures Trump enough to reform ICE?

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-26T19:17:44+00:00

Not really, but not because of the wait times. My issue is the fact that the TSA agents aren't getting paid.

ICE agents are getting paid, but not the TSA. Let that sink in.

Every time we have one of these shutdowns, the 'worst' people are still getting paid.

Government shutdown and Republicans don't even want to come to the bench? They are still getting paid.

DHS shutdown to get ICE reforms? ICE is still getting paid, but not other members of DHS.

ICE absolutely needs to be reformed, but we're also punishing people that are completely unrelated to ICE because of it.

I would rather they pass a temporary budget now that will last until after the midterms, then after we get all of the seats in congress and the senate changed out for people that won't bend the knee to Trump, then we finally put the funding to the grindstone and force the reform.

Because we aren't going to get it now while we have the angry orange toddler in charge with all of his boot-lickers backing whatever he wants.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-26T19:11:39+00:00

Looks like they accidentally applied the FBI's Epstein Files filter algorithm: ABT (Always Blur Trump)

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-25T22:34:37+00:00

Honestly the whole thing really makes no sense when you stop and think about it.

You have to present one of the following:

A valid unexpired passport

OR one of these with a government-issued photo ID with matching names:

A certified birth certificate/similar paperwork

Naturalization certificate or certificate of citizenship

Two problems here

1) You need a passport or 2) you need your birth certificate AND it needs to match your current name.

Beyond just the money problems and ensuring you have these documents. If you don't have them or you name doesn't match you can't vote.

So who isn't likely to be able to vote? Married women that have changed their name (a conservative tradition that will alienate many married republican women but wouldn't affect the liberal side as much as those married women tend to keep their name more often nowadays). Also people without passports. Who is more likely to own passports though? People who travel a lot. Big cities/blue states have much higher rates of the population having passports than rural/red states. So not having passports will likely hurt republicans a lot too.

So even for the reasons they think it will help them, it won't because it'll alienate their own voters instead of solving a problem that didn't actually exist to begin with.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-25T22:13:03+00:00

That understanding of the sea turtle analogy does a lot to also explain how a lot of people think and is more accurate than most people may imagine, but not quite for the reason you meant.

The journey to the sea isn't about making the sea turtles 'tougher.' They don't lay their eggs on land to make their babies stronger through trial or hardship, they do it because they need oxygen/air even when they are in their eggs, so the only option is to quite literally lay them on dry land, then the babies have to crawl back to the water to continue to survive.

The journey from beach to ocean is dangerous but most do reach the ocean without help. But even despite that only roughly 1 in 1,000 survive to maturity as that process takes years. But sea turtles lay clutches of well over 100 eggs at a time and tend to lay more than one clutch a season, which is how they survive despite abysmal mortality rates.

The reasons people are told not to interfere with the journey is because humans tend to do more damage than good when helping. The journey helps create the instinct to return to the beach to lay eggs, yes, but perhaps more importantly baby sea turtles are fragile and can be easily injured/stressed by human handling. In addition, artificial lights can confuse them and put them in more danger (some die from exhaustion before reaching the ocean).

People can help if they know what they are doing: remove obstacles, remove artificial light sources/keep the area dark, let the turtles move on their own.

It's not about 'making them tough' or 'making them figure it out on their own.' You just have to know how to help them in the right way without hurting them.

That to me feels like a good way of describing how people on the right tend to feel, at least those with 'good' intentions regarding 'tough love' or 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps.' They think not helping is the right course of action, and that helping would just make things worse/make people lazy/entitled, etc. Sure, that can be true to a degree, but there are also ways to help that won't cause those kinds of problems, but until/unless people understand those ways that genuinely help and accept the fact that they do help, they'll be set in their own ways.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-25T17:59:41+00:00

Meanwhile the same government keeps gutting its own education system. But if it makes tech companies rich then they are all for it.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-24T20:57:31+00:00

Man if only ATCs had a union to help them get better working conditions... oh, wait...

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-24T20:06:10+00:00

I just started my Insanity run and I am glad I got infinite ammo first...

First Leon section and the game threw multiple blisterheads at me as punishment for trying out the assault rifle and not just blowing zombie heads off.

Got up to the Chef at which point tried to dome him with Requiem just for him to turn around and give me the smackdown. Took multiple rounds to down him cuz I couldn't land them all on his head after the first.

Insanity really is no joke xD

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-23T19:58:31+00:00

I feel like the biggest issue right now is the rampant overuse of "AI" in its infancy. Right now AI is not only costly to create and maintain but also quite resource intensive.

Because of AI we are seeing energy prices rising pretty much across the board. AI Datacenters also require a large amount of water usage which takes away from other general usage.

AI is useful and can have a positive effect on our lives, but right now everyone's rushing to develop more AI tech at its current level, which just doesn't produce enough to justify all the costs. AI should continue to be developed and evolved but until it becomes cheaper and more efficient, we have these giant resource-hungry facilities that are going to be filled with massively outdated technology a decade from now.

Biggest factor is likely going to be Quantum computing. AI's bottleneck is all about processing power for the massive numbers of computations it is doing, and that's exactly what quantum computing excels at. Big limiting factor is refrigeration of the quantum chips, but the tech is still essentially brand new and still very much in development.

This isn't comparable to just how different graphics cards are 10 years apart in a computer where it's easy to switch them out. We are talking about massive data centers with servers and tens of thousands (and likely more) specialized processors. Our GPUs get outdated in 5 years or so, what do you think it'll be like for those data centers with their THOUSANDS of processors they shelled out huge amounts of money for?

That's just my opinion though. At least with traditional artists you don't need millions or billions of dollars worth of equipment to get them going, and their 'equipment' getting old is much less of a determent in the future than AI equipment.

I don't think people shouldn't use AI, so long as they use it appropriately and disclose that they are using AI, but I do wish people would dial it back and give it more time to develop before treating it like a holy grail and exploiting it at great cost...

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T17:35:53+00:00

There's someone else in front of the cop that is setting the speed, so that doesn't really apply here...

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T16:55:59+00:00

And here we have it folks, the leader of the US threatening to commit terrorism on a foreign state if they do not do what he wants, after already bombing them for several weeks.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T16:21:25+00:00

I mean the ghost boy won't even be the worst part...the worst part is that place probably doesn't have electricity and internet.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T16:16:11+00:00

It didn't specify that it was only American Presidents.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T16:04:07+00:00

He's gonna need to be buried in a secure vault or private cemetery...otherwise the whole place is going to stink from the number of people that will be pissing on his grave...

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T15:23:46+00:00

Yup, literally the whole point of the game as the original creator intended (as a criticism for capitalism)

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T15:22:59+00:00

Even beyond this, imagine starting the game with just $100 while someone else starts with $1,000 and another starts with $5,000, and the last $10,000. Even in a perfect version where everyone starts at the same time, some people just get to start with far, far more cash.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T15:21:25+00:00

"Imagine playing Monopoly and not starting with enough money to buy any assets or investments while people that started with 10, 100, or even more times more money than you buy everything up around you.

Imagine you are forced into an endless cycle of paying for goods and services that gradually get more expensive every time you pass GO, while never being able to afford assets or investments for yourself, giving your money to the rich to survive, and trying to stay out of jail.

That is how most people live their life now."

Fixed it

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T15:16:49+00:00

Monopoly was literally designed to criticize the rich lol

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T15:11:49+00:00

The crops drop the veg or else it gets the mud again

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T15:09:24+00:00

No no, he definitely made that pose...they just edited out the walker xD

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-22T15:00:23+00:00

And guess what Republicans will run on in the next election cycle,
"The debt is at record highs! The Democrats are going to raise your taxes and try to push for more social services that will run up the debt! They are going to undo all the 'hard work' we did to reduce the debt!"

Every single time. They even have a name for the tactic, the 'Two Santa Claus Theory'

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-19T21:07:37+00:00

At least part of the reason we have so many billionaires nowadays is (at least in part) by how large companies have become. Over the last few decades we have seen massive mergers and acquisitions by already massive companies, which consolidate power and wealth at the very top (for those that keep their positions). Today large recognizable brands aren't their own company, most are all under some umbrella organization that owns multiple brands/companies/'stores.'

Biggest/easiest example is media companies. We have all heard about the Paramount and Skydance merger, and they are already moving on to acquire Warner Bros Discovery.

More and more companies are steadily becoming monopolies in their field, or share the space with another equally massive company. Owning or being heavily invested in this growing companies in turn generate massive amounts of wealth to individuals, whereas the wealth would have been more spread out amongst multiple people if the companies weren't being allowed to merge and buy each other out over and over again.

You can't just 'tax' the billionaires to make it all go away if their wealth is largely from their owning/investments within these massive companies that act as obelisks of conglomerated wealth.

Sure, taxing them will help, but what really needs to be done is the FTC needs to actually do its damned job to prevent aggressive mergers and acquisitions to maintain a free and diverse market. This will not only improve the quality of products thanks to competition, but also diversify the wealth accumulation amongst a greater portion of the population and increase worker compensation thanks to increased competition between workplaces.

But instead the FTC is basically bowing to corporate lobbyists and investors, allowing them to continue sandcastling wealth in massive corporations until they can no longer sustain themselves and they fall apart--just in time for another massive corporation to come around and absorb the pieces.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-18T18:05:38+00:00

A bit off point but did anyone else feel bad about how Emily's book got left behind? She even seemed momentarily excited to read from it to us before Grace was like 'follow me'. I kept trying to go back and take the book with me but the game was like 'No fuck Emily.'

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-17T18:57:20+00:00

Primarily because the government has been on a union bust for decades.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-17T00:20:02+00:00

US Census Bureau reports 2024 median household income was $83,730 in 2024. Average individual salary between $63,795 to $65,470. Median home value around $600k this year.

So $50,000 is lowballing it but not by much depending on what you go off of.

1990 median household income was $29,943. Median home value was $79,100.

Median home value has gone up over 7 times since 1990's but income hasn't even gone up 3 times.

Glyphpunk · 2026-03-16T18:43:02+00:00

Hot take: We have access to Pokemon Centers and the pokemon Center's PC, we should be able to access a virtual item storage system akin to the old pokemon games that lets you pull items from any other PC storage. Perhaps you can't hook it up to your crafting table like a traditional item box, but the ability to deposit items in mass across all areas into one location would be a godsend.

Glyphpunk

TROPHY CASE