My friends and I like to play Rocket League while chatting. It’s free to play now. We were absolutely terrible when we first tried it but we’ve gotten pretty good over the years. We like doing a Spotify jam and trading off album picks too.

Some of my other friends will do Borderlands while talking, but I think that’s a little too much going on, plus I’m not that into shooters. But maybe that’s appealing to you guys.

We’re probably gonna get Space Marine II soon for this as well. Seems like Gears of War for the modern era.

Streets of Rage 4 is also a fucking good time. Excellent music too.

Unfortunately, about half of Congress politicizes objective science and spreads obvious lies about science things because their donors pay them to. And about 1/3 of the people just believe whatever they say.

The litmus test for whether something is a lawful order is to ask what will happen if you refuse. If the penalty for refusal is your arrest, say that you would prefer not to but will comply under threat of arrest. If it actually wasn’t a lawful order but you complied to avoid arrest, you’ll learn from a lawyer and get to sue over that.

As somebody else noted, driving is a privilege, not a right; if you’re pulled over for a traffic offense, you’re obligated to hand over your license and other related documents as requested depending on the state, probably registration and proof of insurance. If you don’t, then in many states it’s assumed that you were driving without being licensed to do so, and you’re probably going to jail.

On the flip side, if the cop asks to search your vehicle, you can tell him no. Don’t stop him from doing it anyway, just reiterate that you don’t consent to it and fight in court. There are some situations (like you’re under arrest and your car is being inventoried and impounded) in which they don’t need your consent to get in your car. Probable cause also gets them access to your car without your consent.

If you’re asked to do a field sobriety test, just refuse. Same for a breathalyzer. They’ll probably take you in and have you use a lab machine at the station, but that’s preferable to their bullshit games if you know you’re not doing anything wrong. Make quantitative science be the only evidence. Don’t drink and drive in the first place and you’ll be fine on that front.

I’m 99% sure that you’re kidding, but a shitload of people actually think like that. Decades of copaganda in TV and movies weren’t for nothing, and now social media is full of it. The 80s was saturated with loose cannon cops who get results and it convinced people that sometimes it’s okay to violate rights. Now it’s cops doing tiktok dances or flipping water bottles to convince people that hey, they’re regular people just like me, and well, golly gee, I’m not a fascist so how can I possibly believe that they’re fascists?

Have one involuntary interaction with a cop and your view will change. The cops primarily target brown and/or poor people, so it’s no wonder that the vast majority of thin blue line dipshits are financially comfortable honkies who’ve never had the cops target them.

Sidenote: I’ve always chuckled at the people who have both a thin blue line bumper sticker and Gadsden flag bumper stick/license plate. Basically a billboard that says “tread on those ones, officers” but they’re always the same people claiming “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!” Okay, but only because bones can’t be racist; it’s your brain that’s racist.

Courts have ruled that the police have absolutely no duty to protect and serve you. That shit is a slogan. The reality is that they exist to protect capital and serve capitalists. Cops are class traitors, punishing anybody who steals or threatens value of capital. Some cops do some good, but that isn’t and never was the real intent.

This. You have rights, but the police will lie, cheat, and steal their way into getting whatever they want, especially when what they want is for you to waive your rights.

When stopped by the police (in America), you say “I invoke my fifth amendment right to not answer questions and I don’t consent to any searches and seizures. Am I being detained or am I free to go?” That question starts a clock for what is a reasonable amount of time to detain you for their investigation because you’ve made it clear that you’d like to leave as soon as you’re legally allowed to.

As for any kind of force, just stay silent and unthreatening. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do, and anything you do can be used as rationalization for escalation, which they really seem to fucking love. Be polite when you do choose to speak. Obey lawful commands and let them arrest you if that’s what they’re gonna do. You don’t fight armed thugs in the street, you fight them in court. File complaints and sue when they violate your rights and cause undue harm. Swinging at them or shouting in their face is how you get shot. Let their ego win the moment and then administratively destroy their career and life later on.

I’m also not a lawyer, but this is what any half decent lawyer would tell you to do. Just shut the fuck up (but invoke your right to shut the fuck up or your silence can actually be used against you) and be as passive as possible so your lawyer has a slam dunk case getting your charges dropped and/or suing the everloving fuck out of them, hopefully nullifying their qualified immunity in the process. Nothing you do or say to the police can help you, but it sure as shit will be used against you. Even things you think are innocuous can corroborate that you’re who they’re looking for, so just shut the fuck up.

Keep going. I’m almost there.

From indisputably natural causes. I would love for the martyrdom and conspiracy theories to be optimally minimized. Cultists do scary shit to the general population, and I’d rather that they just get bored and move on to the next grift to be victimized by since they’re clearly not interested in not being targeted rubes. The persecution complex is an inherent chunk of their entire identity.

And it’s fully constitutional to enslave convicts. So tons of free labor for every company who wants it, and then I guess export everything they help to make since nobody here can buy anything?

I often wonder this. Who do these companies think will be paying for their goods and services when nobody can afford them? And a little further down that stretch, when they pay so little that working full time still doesn’t cover rent and groceries, who will bother with showing up to work at all? If you’re gonna be homeless and starving anyway, might as well just own your own time and find your own food and shelter on your own terms.

I don’t think they understand that if they exploit much harder, they’ll be causing a societal collapse that will render their power meaningless. They’re stripmining both America’s labor pools and consumer pools in one fell swoop, and they won’t be invited to neighboring mines afterward. And then the most capable people will understand what is happening and leave, so only poor, uneducated, and underskilled people will remain. Basically Mississippi, but for the whole country.

deleted by creator

Trump supporters generally are cowardly cattle. A few can obviously be riled up and pushed to do violence, but not enough to do any real damage. I mean in terms of a civil war. January 6th was a unique situation that will be better prepared for next time.

Only about 30% of people even like trump; probably about 1% of those people are able-bodied, have weapons, have nothing to lose, and could be convinced to kill for him. Of course that’s still like a million people, which sure as shit ain’t nothing, but they’re spread out, unorganized, and still very few compared to military numbers. As for the block of people who would identify as not supporting trump, I couldn’t really guess numbers, but people are wildly mistaken to think that only people on the right have guns; we just don’t have murder boners or make guns our whole personality. I hope I only ever use my guns for target practice, but I’m absolutely ready to use them to defend my home and family if ever necessary, and I’m not interesting enough to have any reason to believe that that’s a likely scenario. Honestly, my biggest concern on that threat is a scenario where trump wins and releases voter registration info and SuGgEsTs that the second amendment folks do something about those tricksy democratses. The only other people dumb enough to break in while I’m home are cops, and I know that the courtroom is where you fight that flavor of fascism.

Generally speaking, regarding the big question here of what will happen if Harris wins, I think that the answer is “nothing shocking”. There will be claims of an unfair election process, maybe some meek attempts at insurrection, continued prosecution and convictions for trump’s crimes (and probably slap on the wrist sentences). The economy will gently recover, the future will be invested in, maybe some rights get legislatively protected. Military and police funding will continue to balloon forever. We’ll still fund genocides and fuck with any country that pivots toward socialism. “Nothing will fundamentally change” but it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Then after 4 years of sexism and racism on OAN and Fox News, Desantis or a similar creep wins the presidency in '28. They roll back everything they possibly can and fuck the country up for the profits of billionaires and corporations again. Because reasonable people will get too comfortable to care enough, but unreasonable people can’t stop foaming at the mouth over every weekly culture war.

When trump is finally gone, trumpism will still remain. And it will have prettier packaging. That’s when it gets really scary imo.

I would prefer Sriracha (shout-out to Underwood Ranch specifically) but to each their own.

Sure. Here’s a song a friend wrote with me and then I recorded in Audacity. I didn’t realize just how very Andrew Bird it is until much later lol.

Pro-Creation

TL;DR: it’s been the hardest and worst influence in my mental health at pretty much every point in my life.

We moved a lot as a kid and my parents fought a lot. Why? Because my dad was in the army because there just wasn’t economic opportunity otherwise. I still have some psychological scarring regarding food security, and I’ll have something akin to a panic attack if I eat something that tastes anything like Berry Berry Kix because we bought like a pallet of it when it was on sale one time and it’s all I had for months.

When I graduated high school in 2007, I didn’t attend the ceremony. Why? Because I needed to work. I didn’t want to be economically trapped, so I worked as much as I could so I could pay for community college and then transfer credits to a 4 year school and hopefully get some kind of scholarship based on my good grades. While in community college, that plan changed drastically because of the 2008 recession. I managed to complete my 2 year degree though, thankfully.

In 2013, my mom died. She was 51, almost 52. She was very sick in a country that doesn’t take care of the health of its people. She drank heavily from the stress of money being tight, and she smoked since a very early age, so I can’t squarely blame capitalism entirely for her early death, but doctors weren’t interested in helping somebody who was already so far gone that her death would hurt their statistics. In any case, this launched a deep depression in which I stopped finding joy in any sense of artistic expression or productivity for a long while. I stopped caring so much about whether I was alive.

Soon afterwards, while I was already at a low point, I had a boss that was extremely abusive. I learned what gaslighting is. Nothing I ever did was ever worth an attaboy, but not getting screamed at became the reward I would seek. Basically Whiplash, but with chefs instead of musicians. My employment prospects were extremely limited, so I was stuck there. I strongly considered escaping it in the only way I had control over it all, but thankfully opted for a hail mary risk that happened to pay off; I quit and took a temp job scrubbing toilets.

It’s a long story, but that led step by step to my current job operating a combined cycle power plant at about $130k/year. I met a lovely woman in July 2016, married her in September 2020 (despite the covid of it all), and we just bought our first house yesterday. Despite my eventual successes in life, I still bash this economic system because I knew that ultimately I just got really lucky. But this isn’t the ending. I wouldn’t be surprised if housing crashes again at some point and it turns out that we shouldn’t have bought. Idk, we’re just doing our best here.

I could talk for hours about how profit motivations and economic struggles caused people to clamor for returning to school and work at the peak of the pandemic, which caused a million preventable deaths, but that barely moves the needle in terms of my personal mental health. I was an “essential” worker, which really just means “expendable” but I had already come to terms with that by then. It would be more appropriate to talk about how the music industry changes have impacted my interest in making music since I know it’s astronomical that it could ever even be a hobby that pays for itself, let alone make a little extra through gigs.

I hear from people when I cook or play music or engage in other hobbies and interests that I should (paraphrasing here) find a way to monetize that. These things are my escape from capitalist hellfire. They are the pressure relief valve. Why in the fuck would I invite that vampire into my safe haven? I’d much rather give my music away or give away cooking tips. I don’t want to cater your fucking wedding. I don’t want to track how many listens my mediocre music might get on Spotify. I just want to create.

I make money at work and I make happy at home.

I’m 35. I’ve had some tough times. I’ve struggled and I’m sure I’ll struggle again at some point, but aside from politics and covid, I’ve been in a sort of golden age for like six years, and things have been getting better throughout. There have been some shitty spots, but it’s been joyful in general. There was a time about ten years ago that I truly thought about giving up for good, and I’m really glad that I didn’t. I never thought I’d have so much to live for; I didn’t even think I deserved a shot at it.

Work hard (but also rest), stay curious, and tell jokes. Joy is possible, but you may need to be the one to provide it, but it pays dividends.

Dirty production initiates based on demand. So-called “peaker plants” start up under high demand when cost per megawatt rises. They typically start early in the day as most people wake up and cook breakfast and get ready for work and then shut down after people get home and wind down for bed. More extreme versions of this only fire up for more extreme weather events or when other plants trip offline unexpectedly. If demand is normalized, so too is production, which would phase out dirtier power production like coal and natural gas. As an operator at a combined cycle natural gas power plant, this would force me to find a new job. Which is fine by me. The system needs to be changed to be fixed, even if it causes a little pain for me.

Think of the grid as a pressurized system. To maintain consistent pressure, demand and supply need to be approximately equivalent. When use is high, the pressure drops so demand goes up to maintain that pressure, so prices per megawatt rise to incentivize power plants to step on the gas pedal to produce more. When use drops off, that production needs to reduce to prevent over pressurization of the grid. With battery storage, that pressure swing diminishes. It’s effectively a pressure regulator.

Additionally, the home power management system via UPS and inverters does exactly what you’re saying in terms of using it when it’s available. At times of high demand and high cost and low supply, your home could seamlessly switch over to your home battery supply for your energy needs to remove strain on the grid, and this would be attractive to set up through things like proposed tax credits and generally reducing your home energy bill. So at 3pm in an August heat wave, your AC could be battery powered from when you charged while you slept the night before. And you’ll recharge tonight when everybody’s AC has switched off for the most part. All this to say: you’re absolutely right and we already agree, but also we can use emerging tech and legislation to vastly expedite this badly-needed transition.

there’s not enough lithium

I am hopeful that developments in sodium ion battery tech will yield different strategies. The weight and energy densities vs cost and abundance mean that it makes more sense (at this time at least) to reserve lithium ion battery tech for more mobile use cases like handheld devices and EVs, but use sodium ion battery tech for things like grid storage or home energy management solutions. I dream of a day in the next decade or two in which virtually nobody bothers to have a generator for emergency home power and instead opts for a UPS with inverters and chargers hooked up to a home battery, allowing not only emergency power, but a “smart” system to power the home via battery during high grid demand and charge during low demand, normalizing grid supply curves and making power bills cheaper for all. The path to this starts with big scale early adopters like hotels and apartment buildings, which could easily supplement energy needs through solar panels on their large roofs at the same time.

For all the enshittification we’re seeing across most industries, I am cautiously optimistic that we might be living at the edge of an energy revolution. We may see fucking huge fundamental changes to our energy infrastructure within our lifetimes, and that’s one of the few things I’m excited about for the near future. It’s unfortunate that it’s taking a crisis to force these changes, but it would be a great pivot nonetheless.

This is why it’s a good idea to enjoy life a little bit now instead of sacrificing every joy to be able to do it all later. Climb that mountain now while your knees are still capable. Play that video game now while it’s fascinating to you. Learn that language now while you’re cognitive faculties can still serve you. Brew that beer you always wanted to, write that short story you’ve been putting off, teach yourself to paint or bake or play golf now instead of putting it off another year. Strike while the iron is hot or you’ll wish you’d done more with your short time here. You won’t be on your death bed wishing you’d worked more or watched more TV. You’ll wish you’d traveled more or finished that project left undone or spent more time with loved ones, actively living life.

RDR2 is very much not for everybody. It is intentionally tedious. It’s the kind of game you sit down and play for at least 2-3 hours every time you play it because that’s just how long it takes to get anything done. You aren’t fast traveling. You aren’t doing things instantaneously in a menu. Your time as a human being is an in-game resource. If you’re in the middle of nowhere and your horse dies, a ton of your shit was being carried in the saddle; you need to walk your ass to the nearest town lugging that saddle, vulnerable to wild animals and robbers. It’s a game about getting things done with your own two hands at the turn of the century when that was becoming much less valued. It’s a game about subsistence. You could have an easier, more prosperous life, but at what cost? At whose cost? It’s a game about nature and living in a natural world as a natural being, criticizing the transition into industrial exploitation of our fellow natural world and natural animals, including natural humans. It’s not a rootin’ tootin’ spaghetti western adventure; it’s an interactive classic American novel that can occasionally have funny or fun moments depending on your tastes. I fully understand that it’s wasn’t a game that you or millions of other people enjoyed, but I think it’s wholly unjust to label it a “bad” game for that. It did exactly what it set out to do, and evoked impactful emotion in sharing its message as intended for the people who wanted to be open to it. It’s successful art, but not all art is for you and not all art is for me. You may have gone in with the wrong expectations for it. I think it really sucks that every rockstar game since the early 2000s seems to be marketed as “GTA but ___” because the Red Dead games and LA Noire are very much not GTA. They’re 3rd person open worlds with similar engines, but that’s where the similarities end.

If you ever try it again, come in with a similar mindset to wanting to sit down and watch The Godfather, not The Avengers. There’s a lot to get out of it if you just focus on the story and the characters and the beautiful setting. Enjoy the honest work, and lament the shootouts and heists.