Nikola*

Due to software glitches? Are you sure it's not mechanical issues due to the fact that batteries in general still fking SUUUUCK after centuries of remaining fundamentally unchanged?

Until we can come up with a method of storing energy in a safer and more ecologically responsible manner than batteries in their current form, making everything electric can never fully take off.

But I digress.

This goes down that road about the "Right to Repair". Apple isn't incorrect in their statements, but any answer that refers people to 3rd party repair services would fundamentally require them to condone the "Right to Repair" and essentially support / condone 3rd party repair services. Apple will not do that. That's a very hard line for them.

For a good time in a very related story line, google "apple right to repair" and you'll get tons of stories like these and some good insights into how Apple almost militantly protects its property and prevents you, the consumer, from even considering repairing a product owned by Apple.

The police are, and always have been, tools for those in power to stay in power. Most places they don't even try to combat financial fraud, wage theft, and all that, even though it does way more damage (like the 2008 collapse). The illusions of equality and justice are there to keep the masses from rioting in the streets, as is the self-serving promotion that 'anyone could become one of us, if you just work hard enough'. Truth is it doesn't take hard work. By and large, rich people were born rich, or have psychological deficits that allow them to exploit, harm, and even kill without remorse. Shkreli and his ilk have 'what it takes' to get rich in America. People with hang-ups like ethics and morals will always be left behind until the system fundamentally changes.

Every government in the world has always been run by the privileged. When you have power and privilege it's inevitable that most will use the one to protect the other.

She didn't say anything of the sort.

I have no idea what you mean by "outside funding" it's not like he funded his own campaign on his own dime. Care to clarify?

So we agree on something. It IS a swamp. The US political system is fundamentally broken.

What specific measures has President "Drain the Swamp" Trump taken to change any of this? Contrawise, can't you see how he's used these very loopholes to enrich himself and avoid prosecution for his crimes (we can say "possible" crimes if it makes you feel better)?

@BSR

I guess even with my edit my last sentence was unclear. I’ll try and straighten that out, I meant to say I want people to stop judging each other by race, gender or any other ‘team’ membership mentality.
Judging people based upon unalterable traits like race and gender is wrong.
Judging people based upon identity with a religion, polticial party our other group, generally bad still and better to look at individual opinions. Some leeway obviously as there is an element of choice too so if your anti-vax, yeah I’ve fot some opinoons on some of your life choices.
Judging people based ipon their behaviours and choices, this is fundamental and necessary. We should err on kindness to one another, but that includes judging cruel and violent people and protecting their victims.

As relates to this commercial, it clearly generalizes most(arguably all) men as complicit with the peoblem. Thats wrong!

I was raised to respect other people, regardless of race, gender, creed or religion. I was taught that it was right to not give differential treatment to others because of race and gender, and to reserve differential treatment for other people facing differential circumstance, ability or behaviour. I believe in these as important fundamental values, and I consider those values worth defending.

When I see somebody painting an entire race or gender as the 'same' and as a problem, I get defensive of them. Here's how the commercial portrays men:
"It's been going on far too long... Making the same old excuses"
Entire line of men ALL chanting boys will be boys
"But something finally changed...And there will be no going back"

That isn't just a statement against bad behavior of men, it's a statement that ALL men have been participating in or excusing the bad behavior. At best, the message is urging men as needing to take an especial roll in rooting out violent and sexual harassment. That's identical to the logic of urging menmuslims as needing to take an especial roll in rooting out terrorismviolent and sexual harassment. Albeit, arguably worse in that your religion is at least a choice(trigger non-binary proponents).

Remember one of the biggest moves in the conservative movement, one of the main reasons why evangelicals support the GOP, was because the government forced desegregation on Bob Jones University. Though evangelicals started down the GOP path before that, it was a huge turning point in getting evangelical church's directly involved with politics and having them tell their members to vote for the GOP and part of why they call Democrats, who are probably doing more along the lines Christ Himself would, Demoncrats. It's when you'll see the 700 Club, TBN and many others start pushing the GOP agenda rather openly.

Study up on Christian Reconstructionism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism), dominionism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology), and The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family:_The_Secret_Fundamentalism_at_the_Heart_of_American_Power). Remember to vet things along the way. You'll start to see how those at the top of the Christian right movement, are moving their masses like a cult to be what it is now... making their members think they are the ones who are most thoughtful and intelligent, while blinding them to any sort of truth. This why they accept "alternative facts" and "truth isn't truth" that truth in the eye of the beholder, and facts don't matter if they contradict what is being preached.

Sure the conservative movement is one of if not the main reason why people leave the faith and are turned off by the faith, but they don't care. Greed is now a good thing, and so long as they get in, they don't care what they make the faith look like to the world. They dig their heels in more and more and behave less and less Christ like, showing less of the love of Christ, and more bigotry and discrimination in concordance with the goals of the movement a the top levels.

McCain was a turncoat to me in 2008. ( well even before 2008) Same for Bush 44.
Deplorable Republicans. I did not vote for McCain in 08.

Bush 44 turn me against ( # walkaway) the Republican party and I then registered independent.


Republicans and Democrats are fundamentally the same .
In public they will "fight " each other for show. Behind the doors they serve their own self interest. They enrich themselves and family. Author Peter Schweizer book (Secret Empires) shines light on this.


Trump comes along, a true outsider, and both sides gang up on Trump, to the likes America has never seen. Media is right along for the ride (ratings). McCain, in my opinion had his hand in the Steele Dossier to destroy Trump.

The Republican kept their anti Trump position for nearly a year, and only then started to back Trump.

If you are a Republican you don't sell out conservative principles.----------------This is where I hang my hat. --


Bottom line DC is a self interest swamp. Every one wants something done. Liberals wanted Bernie. Republicans wanted Bush. America ended up with Trump.
I'm happy it was not Bush
My pocketbook is happy it wasn't Bernie.


As far as Trump Tax cuts They touted that average family of 4 making 70K would see something like 140$month
I see about 80$.. Not what they said but definitely noticed.

This is the paradox of modern politics.

These people are fucking morons of the highest order. They're poorly educated idiots spouting complete nonsense that has zero basis in reality.

In a sane world, we'd ignore them as lunatic outliers. They're not new; they've been here forever, they just change the nonsense.

The problem is that we now live in a world where the most powerful man in the world actively encourages these people, if not explicitly, then at least implicitly with his own brand of deranged paranoia.

The fundamental issue is that internet is great at connecting people, and it doesn't discriminate between connecting Bronies, small-town homosexuals, fans of William Shatner's music, political dissidents in oppressed countries or people who indulge in insane conspiracy theories.

There's no putting that technological genie back in the bottle (and even if we could, the cost would be too great IMO).

So what to do about that?

If we ignore them, they thrive underground and if we give them "airtime" their ranks are bolstered.

I really don't have an answer for this.

I have a few French friends, and as I see it there's quite a fundamental cultural difference at play here. I'll do my best to explain it, although I don't fully understand it myself.

There's a very fundamental French principle of equality that's considered as sacred as American freedom of speech. It means that when you're French, you're French, and explicitly not a member of a sub-culture. I heard about this when they banned wearing a hijab (I think) in schools: the children are French first, and must comply by French norms above others.

The French government have fought very hard to fight the foundation of religious and ethnic sub-cultures within France. This is obviously very different to the American approach of embracing your heritage and, just as Freedom of Speech has unwanted side-effects, so does this. The players are French, not African. Their cultural past was indeed wiped when they became French (at birth or otherwise). Yes, they're of African descent, but that's considered very different to being African.

Now, it's fair enough to argue the the American approach is better, but I think it's important to understand that this is not the French approach. There is a fundamental cultural difference there, and without understanding that, you're going to miss the point of their argument.

Yeah, there's a difference between "I believe there is no god", "I don't believe there is a god" and "I know there is no god". Not even Dawkins claims the latter.

As far as I'm concerned, it's Russell's teapot. I can't 100% say for certain that god doesn't exist, but weighing all the evidence, I can say that I find it extremely improbable that he DOES exist, and even if he does, he doesn't meaningfully impact my life, so I may as well ignore him.

Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with being an atheist.

It's 100% reasonable to say that "you don't believe in god" or even that "you believe there is no god". It's an opinion, not a statement of fact.

@Ickster
"That we're equating that with something like gay people being refused service because of who they are says a lot about how skewed our perception of balance is."

This is the fundamental point. I DON'T equate the two at all.

But as soon as we open this door, we have to deal with the permutations of it.

Let's say that for the sake of argument, gender identity and sexual orientation are now protected classes (legally, they're not, but let's assume they are).

Ok, you can't discriminate against someone for being LGBTQ. Great, that is obviously correct.

But we're making the argument here that you CAN discriminate against someone based on their political affiliation. Would you be ok with someone refusing service to Obama? Hillary? Bernie? What about an employer in a Republican town who finds out their employee is a prominent local democrat?

I get the argument and honestly, I agree with most of what you've said. If any of Trump's cronies had shown up in my (completely imaginary) restaurant, I'd probably have turfed them out with a lot less civility than SHS was shown.

But I'm just not sure that the world following my example is a good idea....

To be fair, the electoral college system does make a lot of votes pointless. A Texan Democrat and a Californian Republican don’t really have a say. It’s just a fundamentally broken system and should be scrapped immediately.

There really is no defence for it.

Yep. One of my fundamental beliefs is that if people who use the phrase (or some variant thereof ) "do you know who I am" are almost invariably fucking assholes.

Basically, if you really are as important/powerful/scary/rich/famous/whatever as you think.... they will already know who you are. The very fact you're asking negates the goddamn question.

Simply not true. Will you get some directors using cookie cutter sound templates? Of course... bad ones. Hell, Bay reuses entire shots in his movies (often in the same damn franchise).

But good filmmakers will hire good sound designers and they will create good sound with what they have available.

Computers are a tool, nothing more. Digital sound is no different to digital imagery... people say they hate it, but they only hate BAD examples of it.

Can foley survive? Short term, maybe; long term, unlikely.

Fundamentally, it'll come down to the same question as any other technique in any commercial artform... cost vs quality. If foley remains the best way to get a sound, you will find people willing to pay for it. As digital sound creation gets better and better, there WILL come a point where no-one can tell the difference.

If you don't believe me look at guitar amplifiers. For decades, guitarists have preferred old vacuum tubes (known as valves) to generate the sound they want in a guitar amp. Digital (commonly referred to as solid state) amps are cheaper and generally pretty crap.

But these days, even people who love valve amps (and I include myself in that) have to admit that it's almost impossible to tell the difference between a genuine valve amp and a good computer model of the same (side note for guitar techy people... I know modelling != solid state).

And that's not just in playback, it's in live performance too. A kemper or an AxeFX FEELS like a valve amp, and you can vary the settings like a valve amp.

I believe that foley will ultimately go the same way. People like Wes Anderson will continue to use it, but for most filmmakers on a budget, they'll go with the sound creation software.