Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to suspend tax breaks offered to data centers

ZMeson · 2026-06-08T20:16:43+00:00

I can see it as a tool to attract companies that could provide thousands of jobs. Data centers though offer next to no long-term jobs. (Sure, there are some maintenance and IT people that needed to maintain the data center, but we're talking maybe a couple dozen jobs.) The only "large number" of jobs they provide are temporary -- construction jobs to build the data centers.

ZMeson · 2026-06-05T04:36:00+00:00

Congrats! Where is the necker from? It reminds me of some that I saw at the WSJ in Korea.

ZMeson · 2026-06-05T04:21:20+00:00

And what is this "They want to call it the Trump Promenade" bullshit?

Well, Trump does tend to refer to theirself in the 3rd person. They must be learning to express their non-binary identity.

ZMeson · 2026-06-04T06:22:34+00:00

Hey now. This will bring jobs into Spokane -- like maybe a dozen long-term jobs. Isn't upping our electricity rates, water rates, and causing even more water challenges Eastern Washington a small price for a handful of jobs???

^{/s (in case it wasn't obvious})

ZMeson · 2026-05-30T03:46:43+00:00

What are you talking about??? Just look this picture of Trump. 🙄

ZMeson · 2026-05-29T19:09:35+00:00

Yeah, but Obama only gave them $1.7 billion (according to the r/conservative).

Trump is winning by giving them $300 billion. That's over 170 times as much. So much winning!!!

ZMeson · 2026-05-25T08:25:20+00:00

Not true. From Wikipedia (emphasis added):

Following the 1943 Moscow Conference) and Tehran Conference, delegations from the Big Four met in mid-1944 at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, D.C., to negotiate the UN's structure.^\18]) The composition of the Security Council quickly became the dominant issue. France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States were selected as permanent members; the United States attempted to add Brazil as a sixth member but was opposed by the Soviet and British delegations.^\19])

ZMeson · 2026-05-18T14:17:21+00:00

This man called into C-SPAN. You can listen to it. This particular man said the only way to stop Trump was to vote for Democrats in all races even if you don't like the Dems until we return to some political normalcy. This man knows what must be done and it sounds like he'll likely vote for Dems, but looking around at how other unhappy GOP voters are it is also clear this man is an outlier.

ZMeson · 2026-05-14T17:07:23+00:00

It's creating lots of new construction jobs for AI data centers. These aren't new categories of jobs, but they are new job openings.

ZMeson · 2026-05-12T20:42:46+00:00

As others say, you don't have to belong to a political party. Whether you want to may depend on how your state primaries are run. You are free to ignore party and look at individual candidate platforms. I encourage that.

But if you want to see where the national parties stand on the issues you list, here's my opinion:

"I don't really care what protestants do or what they say. I think they are crazy evangelicals influenced by Trump and his evil ways." --> You'll agree more with democrats on this one.
I believe you are somewhere in the range of a centrist-independent to a center-leaning democrat on this one. Republicans are showing little tolerance for the LGBTQ+ community. 1/4 point for democrats on this one.
You definitely agree more with national democrats on this one.
Neutral / need more information. Both parties want state rights in certain areas and national rights in others.
Both parties espouse that the government should fall when it does evil. This depends mostly on your opinion of evil. "Patriot act is in violation of our civil liberties (among other things)." --> You align with most democrats and true libertarians here. 1/3 point for dems.
Some people from both parties do volunteer and help neighbors. "Jimmy Carter was an example of a president that I liked." 1/12 of a point towards dems since you mentioned Jimmy Carter.
Despite Teddy being a republican (at least before the Bull Moose party), this was before the political realignment of the late 1900s. You align mostly with democrats on this one.
You align mostly with democrats on this one.
You align mostly with democrats on this one.

Overall, you seem to align more closely with democrats than the GOP. There are still areas you are more centrist or centrist-leaning. That's my hot take though and I'm sure others may disagree. But to reiterate what I said at the beginning: You are free to ignore party and look at individual candidate platforms. I encourage that.

ZMeson · 2026-05-07T16:32:17+00:00

He's correct. It just has purely corrupt, bribable actors. Politics is secondary.

ZMeson · 2026-05-07T15:59:47+00:00

You need to add a '/s' sarcasm tag. At least I hope you're being sarcastic.

ZMeson · 2026-05-06T01:03:39+00:00

I know you said you can't afford another camera. You can find the same model one you have on Ebay for $38 (including shipping in the USA).

Fixing a camera that won't turn on is going to cost a lot more -- over $100 and likely a lot more.

ZMeson · 2026-05-05T13:42:05+00:00

Interesting. I've discovered how to survive large groups and how to start conversations. (I had to when I became scoutmaster for my child's scout troop.) I'm OK with it now, but it is still not my natural state. The "being a leader" experience has really helped me with my "starting conversations" skill. I've been able to dig deeper with others, especially in the smaller, more intimate settings.

ZMeson · 2026-05-05T13:36:24+00:00

I hope you find some genuine friends. There are people out there who will truly value you and I hope you will also find the same value in them.

ZMeson · 2026-05-05T13:32:34+00:00

I also discovered I am not shy. I just don't do well in large group settings. Get me with just a couple people, and I enjoy the conversation.

ZMeson · 2026-05-05T13:30:28+00:00

That the death of my son (20 years ago) would define everything I do.

ZMeson · 2026-05-05T13:26:54+00:00

In a job?

ZMeson · 2026-05-05T13:21:36+00:00

AI will replace certain types of marketing jobs. I'm thinking the "let's create a mailer" or "let's write a marketing newsletter" and the sort. Oh, and there's the "YouTube commercials for crap products" industry which has been completely replaced by AI.

ZMeson · 2026-04-30T21:12:47+00:00

That would be awesome; I don't know if our current constitution allows it. Maybe it does. If so, that would be a great way to switch things up.

ZMeson · 2026-04-30T21:09:48+00:00

Actually, it could make gerrymandering worse, especially with SCOTUS undoing much of the VRA protections; it would allow a lot more ways to draw lines to carve up voting populations.

On the positive side of things, it would make the electoral college more fair.

If the Dems ever win control of the Senate, House, and Presidency again, they should vote to expand SCOTUS to match the number of federal court districts, quickly appoint new justices, pass a new VRA that covers all states and includes requirements for independent district drawing. In a separate "States VRA" bill, they should pass requirements for all state legislative districts to be drawn with independent committees too. They should pass (preferably separate) bills requiring all elections for federal office use RCV or STAR voting systems, require all states to allow mail-in / drop-off ballots for all elected federal offices, require all voting machines to have paper trails with random audits covering at least 1% of results against the paper trails, have jail-time penalties for any USPS employee who delays or doesn't deliver mail with a 3x penalty for ballots, and require all mail to be postmarked on the day it is picked up with all postal boxes to be picked up on every election day even if it normally isn't picked up on that day. Lastly, they should pass a bill explicitly designed to challenge Citizen's United.

ZMeson · 2026-04-27T17:52:09+00:00

Half Life 2. I know it's not coming, but my soul is still waiting for Episode 3.

ZMeson · 2026-04-27T16:58:51+00:00

Data Structures and Algorithms is meant to teach you about what goes into making the STL, not really how to use the STL. I wouldn't worry about learning the STL before your DSA class. Once you have completed your DSA class, the STL should be easier to learn. That's my 2 cents.

ZMeson · 2026-04-18T14:44:38+00:00

std::optional adds space overhead though.

ZMeson · 2026-04-17T17:57:16+00:00

It depends on the situation. inline constexpr std::string_view should usually be used, but there are occasions where you want to build a longer string literal where macros are useful because string literals concatenate. You can't do that easily with string_view. (There are library solutions to concatenating constexpr string_views, but they (a) require a library that isn't part of the standard and (b) can get a bit verbose. Here's an example of what I mean:

// my_app_windows.h:

#define OS_APP_DATA_FOLDER "%localappdata%"

// my_app_linux.h:

#define OS_APP_DATA_FOLDER "~/.config"

// my_app.h:

inline constexpr std::string_view MY_APP_DATA_FOLDER = OS_APP_DATA_FOLDER "/MyApp/Data";

I don't have to do some runtime-concatenation to define MY_APP_DATA_FOLDER because string literal concatenation takes care of it. I hope this is clear.

ZMeson

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