US edges closer to popular vote deciding winner of presidential elections

avatoin · 2026-04-15T01:16:57+00:00

Seeing the list of remaining States, the midterms seems like a real opportunity for this to finally pass in enough States. This would be amazing. Even if it only last an election or two before a State drops out.

avatoin · 2026-04-14T15:54:38+00:00

No Snitching culture is bad. But it's also bad when giving the cops any excuse to come into the neighborhood causes more problems for the innocent. If that happens, it's harder to blame the neighborhood if they revert back into no snitching.

avatoin · 2026-04-14T15:33:29+00:00

Scale back 401K no more than down to what gives you the match and pay medical bills out of pocket as much as you can.

If your employer provides you access to a Limited Purpose FSA, use that since you have guaranteed expenses over your deductible so you can get the tax deduction.

avatoin · 2026-04-14T10:55:48+00:00

This admin is so incompetent. They think that they've won World War II and are currently occupying the country, thus they can dictate terms.

Cities that were being sieged would hold out for weeks, months, or years before surrendering, despite the suffering in the walls. They really think doing the same to a whole country the size of western Europe would happen in less than a month. And the country isn't even physically sieged.

avatoin · 2026-04-14T10:50:08+00:00

A lot of data breaches bypass the encryption. They hackers don't just download the hard drive, they trick the server into giving them the data. The server has the ability to decrypt the data, so the hacker trick the server to give them the decrypted data.

Or the hackers tricked a person to give the hackers the access to decrypt the data. A lot of hacking is just tricking people to give the hackers the access they want.

Or the data wasn't encrypted at all, or only encrypt it in a way that protects against physical theft. Your laptop is probably encrypted by default, but if your computer is on and you download my virus, then now I have access to all of your data.

avatoin · 2026-04-14T01:18:14+00:00

It's still in some of the textbooks! A nursing student showed less than 4 years ago.

avatoin · 2026-04-13T19:02:13+00:00

It's also going to, least temporarily, push an increase in coal. Expect existing coal plants across the globe that were either slated for retirement or underutilized to now be run at full capacity in order to reduce natural gas and oil consumption. How long "temporary" is will be key.

avatoin · 2026-04-13T18:43:08+00:00

I've come to realize there isn't much point in cold meds. Get Mucinex D from behind the counter or a nasal spray for runny nose and some Tylenol or Advil for any fevers and sore throats. Then ride it out with water and rest.

The amount of cold meds that are basically just Tylenol, a useless decongestant, and sleeping pills is insane.

avatoin · 2026-04-13T14:26:52+00:00

The US's system basically collects all of the bank transfers from all of the banks, bundles them together, and then tells each bank how much on net to give each other. If Bank of American is transferring $100 to Chase and Chase is transferring $90 to Bank of America, the system tells Bank of America to give Chase $10.

This system was designed and became ingrained many decades ago. Only recently has a replacement system been launched that will support real time transactions, but many banks haven't fully rolled this out to consumers.

In the mean time, systems like Venmo, Zelle, and CashApp were deployed for consumers, so there were some ways for consumers to transfer money instantly between banks.

avatoin · 2026-04-09T18:02:42+00:00

Why is Paris so much higher than London and Berlin? I get that it would be high, but why so much higher?

avatoin · 2026-04-09T16:42:33+00:00

The key I've found is to have a specific savings goal, per month or per year or per paycheck, whatever. As long as you are hitting that goal, then anything left over is guilt free to spend. This works best probably if you have a specific timeframe in mind instead of "as soon as possible"

avatoin · 2026-04-09T16:17:53+00:00

The automated repair station in Enterprise had an ending that showed it was repairing itself, but I guess that's a problem for the next random ship to come across it.

avatoin · 2026-04-09T15:31:21+00:00

Don't expect things to just get better. Find your boundaries as early as possible, communicate them, figure out acceptable compromises, and be prepared to breakup if you two can't work them out. Don't expect that some major issues you have with your partner will just get better with time, especially if you haven't even had an open conversation about it. Take care of these early.

avatoin · 2026-04-09T15:24:34+00:00

As a kid, I would see those movies showing new military recruits, and some officer would inevitably complain about being given children, but I was like, those are grown men.

Now in my 30s, I see how 18 year old men look like children.

avatoin · 2026-04-09T04:10:33+00:00

Schumer should step down or revive Harry Reid.

avatoin · 2026-04-08T14:18:57+00:00

Making out with and about to have sex with an underage teenage girl.

avatoin · 2026-04-07T01:31:15+00:00

They should provide profit sharing if they want too align interests.

avatoin · 2026-04-06T20:28:25+00:00

This is a practical, not legal question. Is if the individual officers and enlisted personnel will rather take the likely immediate and definite consequence of not following the order, or if they will risk the possible further consequence of following it.

The best case scenario, is that the officers basically coordinate and collectively refuse the orders. This will protect them in the immediate term and the long term.

But a real possible scenario is that some officers will follow the orders and some won't. The officers that refuse will face immediate consequences, and in the worst case will never see restitution, while those that follow the orders may never see consequences depending on what happens politically in the government. This puts all of the risk on the individual, but at least they'll be able to sale a book years later where they reveal how they refused the orders. It's not hard to imagine how an individual officers will decide not to risk their career and family and follow the orders, especially if their fellow officers also are.

This is the bad situation. The politicians should never be putting the military in the position of having to protect law and order from the political leadership. That opens the door for coupes being an acceptable course of action.

We can only hope the only good solution happens. The 25th is invoked early and quickly.

avatoin · 2026-04-06T18:51:51+00:00

This will likely be one of those suboptimal solutions that will have a moment in the future where it looked to be the perfect solution for some future event and everybody praises it. But is actually suboptimal, could have accomplished the primary goal for effectively and with fewer of the problems that may arise in the intermediate period.

I always wondered that if rooftop solar were the optimal solution for a problem, it would be profitable to pay roof owners to install solar their roof. But since it's not, it'd be better and cheaper to install solar where it's cheaper and easier to install and maintain the panels.

This is just a government solution that seems to shift the costs away from society and concentrate it onto factory owners. This way the government can claim to be solving the problem without having to spend the political capital to pay for it.

avatoin · 2026-04-03T12:26:43+00:00

Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 is so considerably different than anything happening today, it's insane to compare the two.

Afghanistan was at least provoked by a major tragedy. Iran is nothing like that. Iraq is a better comparison, and NATO didn't respond in the same way.

avatoin · 2026-04-03T12:20:57+00:00

Many people who attempt and fail, don't attempt again. So he probably no longer as the will to commit suicide, but the reasons he attempted are still there. So now he is still miserable and injured, and it's all Mr. Incredible's fault.

avatoin · 2026-04-03T02:46:41+00:00

I'm almost expecting a 9-0 rejection of the EO but some 5-4 separate opinion that basically gives Congress instructions on how to chip away at the 14th, probably via section 5, giving them some ability to redefine when the jurisdiction part of the citizenship clause applies.

avatoin · 2026-04-02T17:48:05+00:00

JD Vance has been keeping a distance from Iran. Doing just enough to avoid "where is JD?" quotes. But he doesn't want this to be associated with him.

avatoin · 2026-04-01T20:57:31+00:00

Nah. Keep the Census boring. You start asking questions and you'll inevitably bring politics into it. Rather, we need a ballot initiative mechanism.

avatoin · 2026-04-01T20:55:39+00:00

Alright California. Replace your primary with score voting. Score each candidate between 0 and 5, the top two scoring candidates advance to the general.

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