Agreed, in my experience Tubi and Pluto both have very reasonable length, good quality ads. I declined to re-up on YouTube TV for NCAA football season this year specifically because I can stand their ads. At that price tier, they honestly expect me to sit through My Pillow ads??

This is not something I had ever thought about before and I am also fascinated.

Just did. Won our vote Wednesday night 💪

They didn’t get genetic raw data of anyone beyond the 14K, they got family relationship information. Which is an option you can turn on or off, if you want. It’s very clear that you’re exposing yourself to other people if you choose to see who you’re related to. It doesn’t expose raw data and it doesn’t instantly expose names, just how they’re related to you. (And most of the “relations” are 3rd to 5th cousins, aka strangers.)

Hackers used the genetic ancestry data of the 14K hacked users and their “relatives” connections to deduce large families of Ashkenazi Jews.

Select the “available for local pickup” option to weed out all the trash. Even if you’re buying to be shipped.

Use Amazon as a search engine, find what you need, then Google the manufacturer and buy it directly from them. You’d be surprised how many have free shipping . It’s usually not two day shipping, but what do you really need that fast?

If it’s electronics, buy online for local pickup at Best Buy. If it’s tools or house supplies, buy online for local pickup at Lowe’s or Home Depot. Buy online for local pickup at Target.

I haven’t purchased anything from Amazon in 4 years. It’s honestly way easier now than it was before Amazon started, but no one realizes that because Amazon got them locked in.

In real life, a restaurant can and will kick you out and ban you from the premises for wearing a swastika and saying you think minorities don’t deserve to live.

Ergo, being kicked off a company’s privately owned server for hate speech is EXACTLY the same amount of freedom they would have in real life.

Everyone loves censorship. Even you.

It’s almost like people in the United States have the freedom to express their opinions on a matter. Imagine that!

Favorable terms with no means of legal leverage are just wisps of air. They can and will be rescinded at the earliest convenience of the corporation, which is literally why we’re in the current situation we are today. The strongest middle class in the US existed when unions were at their peak. That is not a coincidence.

A formal, legal union gives employees power and leverage to enforce the favorable terms that they negotiate with an employer. You can argue that unions as organizations can be subject to similar corruption as any other organization, but contrary to popular propaganda, there is nothing inherent in the existence of a union that requires or lends itself to corruption any more than any other power structure.

Employees are legally permitted to organize a formal, legal union of their own outside the existing union organizations, but then they’re starting from scratch. Existing unions have been through negotiations, have experienced lawyers, know the process and all of its pitfalls. The vast majority of workers are better off joining an existing union because of this.

Problem is people don’t have a lot of control over their subconscious perceptions. The subtle ways that they’ll remember two things being side by side and associating the two. This is why brands are careful about what content their ads are shown on.

No, the project there referring to is run by 23andme. My whole family participates in the same research because so many of us have Crohn’s disease.

free speech and government oversight

That’s not what I read into this at all, but something far more sinister that I see happening in the world right now. Certain power players using “government oversight” as a disingenuous excuse to attack the means for regular people around the world to speak directly to one another without the filters that favor narratives that the power players prefer, and for regular people to coordinate with one another.

The Arab Spring and BLM protests scared some people and it’s showing.

The US federal science agencies are generally pretty happy with sharing things. If it’s free to the US public, it’s free to the world and I love that. Best possible use of my tax dollars.

(We also share weather and hurricane data with the Caribbean countries, for example. None of them could individually afford what the US is doing, so I’m happy we share.)

Thank you for the summary. My takeaway is: So you’re saying I should still get a mini LED TV

Annoyances? The last time I used AirBNB, there was literally no HEAT in the unit we were staying in. Just because it was San Diego in February doesn’t make that legal. We left and got a hotel the next day and I had to fight with them to get a refund.

That’s the last time I ever used the service, and I used to be a regular.

No, it’s the even more clever business model where I convince half my employees that if they just work a few extra minutes a day off the clock or work through their legally mandated lunch breaks, but still allow me to automatically deduct their pay for the break, then someday I’ll notice all their hard work and reward them for it… someday.

Friendly reminder that wage theft outweighs all other robberies combined:

https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-billion-crime-against-workers/

Yeah, you did exactly what I wanted to do haha. I just love the Mitsu products so much. I had Mitsu mini-splits when I lived down in the Caribbean, and I’m a complete convert. I did install a supplemental Mitsu mini-split in the largest room in my house, which actually is so god damned efficient, it reduces the load on the central heat pump. The two combined get me through a really reasonable portion of the year. Those things are just amazing.

This is the problem I’m facing though:

https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/11/18/eversource-western-massachusetts-electricity-rates-hike-2022-2023-winter

Our electric rates went from 18¢ to 25¢ last winter with no warning. It’s not that our prices are particularly high for now, but rather that they’re unreliable. I didn’t feel secure installing an electric only system because of this, even though I could have gotten a more efficient system. The dual fuel allows me to toggle between the two as needed, which feels like the safer option for the next 15-30 years that I expect to have this thing.

Sucks because I’d really prefer to have one of those Mitsubishi hyperheat systems. But even with the less efficient system, I’m running in heat pump only mode in the to 0⁰C nights we’re seeing right now and it’s fine.

This right here has been my experience with VC. I was working for an online retail startup when 9/11 happened. Within days, we were all called into the office to be told we were shutting down because the VCs pulled our funding. This despite the fact that we were only two months away from projected profitability and beating our sales projections every single month. But we weren’t the biggest paying bet in the casino, so they dumped us when the cash flow got tight.

That would have been a successful company, but it wasn’t good enough for the VC class.

Electricity monopoly in the US = they can price gouge, and this is literally the only reason I installed a dual fuel system with a less efficient heat pump. The Eversource electricity price hikes last year probably would have meant I couldn’t afford to heat my home in the worst parts of winter here in Massachusetts.

This is how policies are killing the planet. Socialize electric utilities, upgrade the electric grid, subsidize the use of electric heat pumps so they’re actually affordable for all end users, and of course more people would adopt them.

As it is, I run my heat pump as much as I can, which is like 9 months a year. Better than only having gas heat at least.