Right.

One of the things I won’t miss about my last apartment (which was overall pretty fantastic) was how the plumbing was under-built when they constructed the otherwise overbuilt building back in the 60s or 70s.

This meant that on my end of the building, all 4 apartments (mine, the other one on my level at the end of the hall, and the two above us) all shared the same undersized drainage piping.

I was there 6 years, and averaged about 1.5 horrific backups per year that required a call to management, who had to come out, try to fix, then give up and call professionals (and twice in that 6 year span, the professionals even gave up and had to call in even more capable professionals).

In every case, I always asked them if there was anything I could be personally doing…or not doing…that might help.

In each case, the plumbers always said I was doing everything I could, even above and beyond considering the more capable drain filters I used on both sink and tub, and that the real issues were the long hair from the ladies in all 3 other apartments (not a criticism on them, just an observation that many of the clogs were long hair, vs my buzz cut), and in a few of the worst cases, flushed hygiene products (which prompted a mass email from the landlord that these things were not to be flushed, both feminine hygiene stuff and “flushable wipes”)…and in the worst backup, the two young girls in the family above me had flushed a wash cloth.

That last one was the worst by far. Had disgusting, chunky shit water/gray water cocktail backing up into toilet AND shower.

I avoid the non-preferential result by…well…not dropping things in the toilet.

I’m in my late 30s and have literally never dropped anything in the toilet that I wasn’t intending to.

Sounds like a personal issue; maybe try not to be so clumsy?

I like this one as well. Part of the reason I think this movie just works is because it doesn’t even try to be a gritty realistic action thriller adventure movie, but rather it instead combines larger-than-life, over the top action with a healthy dose of wise cracking, levity, and failures…just like an actual RPG session. It’s fun to watch but not mentally and emotionally exhausting like, say…a war movie.

Need to squeeze Rogan in there too.

My thought is more along the lines of, “Regardless of his talent level, is this really the kind of person that his country wants representing them on the world stage?”

Like, okay even if he’s the absolute best by an order of magnitude…if he were from my country, I’d rather lose every match than win on the talents of someone like that.

Not only that, but there’s a 100% chance they sell this shit to you as a forever mouse, then in a few years if it’s not making them money hand over fist, they’ll discontinue it and keep your money.

It’s as simple as the people making the decisions (executives, directors, etc.) and the people driving their decisions (shareholders) have something that the employees and the customers don’t:

The ability to cash in their chips and move on quickly when the time is right.

Employees can certainly leave and find another job, customers can certainly catch on to lower quality and change buying habits…but both of these tend to be slower processes than the ones that put money in the accounts of the first two groups.

Tool brands were exactly my first thought as well.

And the side that actually, verifiably tried to use fake electors to subvert the will of the people (even against the stacked deck of the electoral system that benefits their side)…is also the side that loves to spread constant (and constantly disproven) lies about their opponents’ voter fraud.

Like…even if I agreed with their platform on the issues, the GOP would still not get my vote based on the way they try to get that vote…in order to gain power…to realize their goal…of getting to a point where my vote loses its power.

Right?!

Like…even if you had no idea what either party stood for, or what positions they took on the various specific issues that concern the population in the present, all you really need to know is how a democracy works in theory, how presidential elections work in the US in practice (and by extension, how these two things differ, thanks to the Electoral College)…and where each party stands on voting rights, voting access, districting (and gerrymandering)…and as a dark horse…public education.

One side wants as many people as possible to get out and vote (and while they obviously hope they’ll vote Democrat, most of their messaging, to their credit, is focused not on ‘go vote for us’, but instead ‘the most important thing is that you get out there and vote’), wants to make sure that everybody who wants to vote is able to do so, has no roadblocks, hoops to jump through, bureaucratic red tape, etc., wants every voter across the country to have a voice equal to every other voter, and wants everyone to have a good (and improving) baseline of education, as a foundation upon which to make an informed decision about their voting.

The other side wants to suppress the vote, wants to disallow voting by default unless the individual takes steps to prove themselves, wants to introduce obstacles to voting access, wants to maintain and perpetuate a system where some voters have disproportionately more impact than others on the overall results (a system which, by the way, has much of its origins in the political maneuverings of slaveholders)…and most telling (and disturbing) of all, in the long term, actively, directly, and overtly makes efforts to reduce and degrade the quality of public education, literally seeking to reduce access to quality education for anyone not fortunate enough to be born into a family with the means to provide for a private education.

Seen to its logical conclusion, one side is literally seeking to revert decades if not centuries of progress on education and return to a situation where an education (and the opportunity it provides) is a privilege reserved for the children of affluence, where wealth, opportunity, class mobility, and professional occupations are reserved and exclusive to the wealthy, and in effect secured to them and their future generations indefinitely. And the best part (for them) is that once this happens, the future generations of uneducated lower and middle classes won’t have the education to understand what’s being done to them, or how it might be different.

I think it’s mostly because it brings in money and for whatever reason, the community seems to be just fine with it, even if they don’t participate or understand it, so from the furry side, they’ve found a city happy to have them, and from the city side, they like the economic boost, so if everyone’s happy, why change?

You’re a person with fewer than four children! Give yourself some respect!

Hell, in the inter-war period, mainstream America was even generally pretty comfortable with…uh…if not actual fascism, at least things that looked and sounded a lot like fascism.

Because they’ve also got the lie-a-beetus.

The Great Basilisk is displeased by your repeated misspelling of the word “falter”.

Prepare your simulated ass.

The more the old lies are proven as lies, the closer we get to the truth:

Just as important as “getting the job done” is the notion among many employers that they truly believe that with their payroll they are buying human lives and happiness. That if they are paying a worker for their time and labor that they are entitled to also dictate how that person feels about it…and if that worker is not sufficiently miserable, then they can be squeezed further.

I used to think that it was purely about money…that the idea was that if a worker ever got “all caught up” and had free time, then they should be generating more wealth for their employer in some other way…but then we had the pandemic.

The pandemic where lots and lots of workers had to suddenly do the whole work from home thing. And in that time, these employers were thrilled to go along with it, since it meant continuing to make money. And in that time, most office workers eventually turned out to be happier and even more productive.

…yet in the wake of the pandemic, many of these employers have chosen less productivity in exchange for bringing their employees back to offices. The only explanation for bringing employees back in who were happier and more productive from home is that these employers value the image of control and the ability to make their workers unhappy more than they value productivity and money.

Oh my god, there’s always a relevant xkcd.

Great job!

This being Lemmy, surely instead of Sydney Sweeney, we’ll have Margot Robbie.

That’s distance, not time.