pstuart

I learned SQL with FoxPro on the Mac in the 90s. It was a great app.

A lot of his base believe his lie that the other countries are paying the tariffs.

His followers are literally beyond reason and will accept anything he says. It's so very depressing.

> Is self-harm morally ok?

Is self-harm ok? What could be considered good about it?

It's beyond shameful how the US squandered its investments in science and technology and let the crony capitalists strip mine our economy instead.

But hey, it's ok because we have plenty of beautiful, clean coal. /s

Sorry, but alcohol prohibition did not work and was instrumental in fueling the rise of organized crime (does that ring any bells?).

I happen to believe the War on Drugs (prohibition v2) is an even bigger mistake than the first one, which also ignores why it came to be: v1 prohibition enforcers needed something to do and there was a growing problems with an "uppity" segment of society that needed to be put in its place. The history of it is horrifying; and the current implementation of it is horrifying as well.

So legalize it all. Regulate the advertisement/promotion/access/purity, etc. It's going to happen one way or another and pushing it into the shadows only makes it worse.

So let the gambling happen but keep it on a short leash.

I was playing fast and loose with the word, but you know what I meant.

I'm all for individuals to choose their own paths and mistakes and don't want a true nanny state, so I'd be ok with banning advertising of those services, as well as independent audits to ensure that they are not letting minors in.

Pretty much agree. But even then, the state should not be incentivizing its use (looking you, CA lottery and friends).

Gambling is a drug, and should be recognized as such.

Yeah, that drives me bonkers. Just set up a separate CI/CD for the images themselves that update daily as needed.

My politics are based on secular humanism and that we all effectively live in a commons.

I'm rabidly anti-partisan but align with Dems because they are the least worst option.

> gets trapped into criticizing other on the left by conservative talking points

One thing I'll concede about the Right -- they excel at defining the language and debate and the Left is almost always playing defense.

But to be a broken record here: the Culture War is the only thing the Right has to offer in the realm of political debate. It's a cheap and nasty, yet incredibly effective tool to manipulate people to vote against their own interest by their induced fear, hate, and anger.

I've been called a "shrill far leftist" and a "fascist appeaser" so does that make me a centrist? Any labeling I may apply to myself is for convenience of packaged assumptions about my values.

> moderates who think of themselves as being on the left agree with the idea that past weak attempts to nudge things leftward "went too far"

Examples please? Not a challenge, I just am not pickup up what you're laying down.

As for "government waste" of course it exists but to various degrees and in various areas. For example, Medicare fraud is estimated $60 billion to over $100 billion annually. That doesn't mean we should get rid of it -- it means we'd be well served to invest a fraction of that amount in preventing such numbers.

And as far as shifting the Overton Window to the right, that has been the Right itself, via culture war bullshit.

Look, sir/madam, I have no tribe, no political party, no religion, no beliefs that I'm unwilling to change when presented with compelling evidence. I've tracked US politics likely longer than you've been alive. I understand how the game is played and this Red vs Blue is a master class in political manipulation. And the culture war is the key tool used to render it.

So you telling me that I'm the reason why the Overton Window is shifting right is a tell that you're the confused one.

The culture wars are explicitly a tool of the right to provoke fear, anger, and hate against others.

The left gets trapped in it because every single culture war issue (LGBQT+, racism, feminism, reproductive rights, freedom from religion, etc) are responses to the rights reactionary drive to claw back rights from everybody who is not a white male christian.

There's a lot of development in leveraging fracking tech, Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), as well as some other wild shit like using masers: https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-newberry-volcano-marble-f...

There's plenty of geothermal in the US to be tapped into, we just need to invest more in it. It then becomes the perfect baseload utility.

The increased use of coal was, uhum, dictated by the Trump administration. They are rabidly anti-renewals (too woke), and all in on fossil fuels.

And loosening pollution rules "because AI needs more power" should lead to torches and pitchforks.

Geothermal needs to enter the chat as well.

I'm not anti-nuclear (if it's "done right"), but the economics of it are not very competitive. I think it's a technology we should not abandon (I'd love to see SMRs find a way to be viable and secure).

I've had dreams where I was "there" and it felt like being present in a scene in a very real way (for a dream). But ask me to close my eyes and visualize a blue table with a red apple on it and its nothing but phosphenes at best.

I always assumed that when people say "imagine this image..." that it was about the contextual nature of it. Only several months ago did I learn that aphantasia is a thing and I'm among the ~4% of the population in this group.

With psychedelic journeys I do get visuals but they are indescribable. My pet phrase for it is "swimming with God" (disclaimer: I'm an ardent atheist).

If the AI wanted to wipe humans out it would have to have a sizable fleet of capable robots, as keeping the lights on over time is not just about calling APIs.

That rock got lifted up 10 years ago and they are now comfortable sunning themselves. Overton Window has shifted hard right.

Meanwhile my at home treatment used Braun 250mg lozenges, which probably cost ~ $4 a pop (wholesale) and for many 2-3 are enough for a treatment session.

It's not like it's a novel drug -- the gatekeeping is ridiculous. Fuck the DEA.

Add beauty pageants to that list. It's gross, and a lot of people are ok with it.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that having a tuned LLM would probably be able to eliminate the need for a full time DBA query analyst.

Disclaimer: I've never managed a ClickHouse cluster, let alone one of this size.

I have zero doubt that it was done intentionally to help their "friends" launder money.

I just heard this last night: buried in the "support for small business" was the repeal (or effectively neuteringO of the Corporate Transparency Act's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2026/09/10/treasury-launder-mon...

That program had a simple ask of every corporation doing business in America: who really owns it? No more hiding of ill gotten gains and laundering through US real estate, etc (hint: anybody come to mind who might do a lot of that)?.

They killed it. To "protect small businesses".

The Trump Regime is pure corruption.

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

The irony here is that the origins of Silicon Valley have deep ties to the military as well, and it was the successful commercialization of those technologies that turned it more into a consumer / b2b space.

But yeah, the tech bro elite are now tech fascists.

Phew, now I feel better. The Roberts court has been a paragon of impartial justice and I know they will make the right call for the people /s

Congress has been intentionally neutered to cede power to the republican executive branch. This November will be interesting...

War profiteering in the name of "national security". I guess Marc's pursuit of NFTs as the next frontier of "monetizing art" was not what he promised it would be: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/G-MLpH4T4pA

Yes, it was entirely sarcasm. The DEA should be abolished, period. Not only is the War on Drugs a war of oppression on the citizenry, it has funded the cartels and promoted crime throughout the world.

Secondly, the DEA controls what my doctor can prescribe me (I am "blessed" with chronic pain), and those fuckwits have no business in the doctor-patient relationship.

And this will go on forever, because propaganda has brainwashed the populace that people need to be "protected" from dangerous drugs. Sure, drugs can be dangerous but the way it's being done now is beyond stupid, it is inherently evil.

Do I sound angry? Perhaps it's because I am. There's so much needless death and suffering and people just shrug their shoulders.

It's for a good cause! This has enabled the DEA to keep all dangerous drugs out of the country and avoid any sort of drug abuse epidemics! Think of the children!

Well how else are you expected to do en pointe whilst grounding oneself?