experbia

Make no mistake - the policing situation in Portland is 100% political, from the police side. Policing is AOK in the more conservative areas of the metro area - the rest of the city is intentionally left to rot despite no actual reduction in funding or capabilities. Portland in media became a "liberal stronghold" and our (naturally) right-wing police force (which have colorful and long-standing local history with regional white nationalist groups) have decided to make their political statement by selectively performing their job duties to attack liberals.

I have family that's a part of this shitfest, on the LEO side. The shit they say after a few drinks on Thanksgiving is disgusting. The issues plaguing Portland are 100% intentional by the police. They view themselves as "teaching Portland a lesson about their liberal government" and boast about how they'll drive past dangerous and criminal events if it looks to them like it's just a liberal or undesirable "getting what they voted for".

There are private groups to help you track down and (sometimes forcefully!) recover your stolen car in the city, because if you call the police to report a theft, they'll wait until you tell them what part of the city you're from and if it's not the conservative areas they'll just tell you they can't do anything and hang up on you. No report, nothing. They're well aware that this lack of report number impacts your ability to make insurance claims, by the way - another chuckling boast over Thanksgiving when I asked.

They won't stop until they "feel respected" again. To them, this means zero oversight, unlimited budget, no questioning, no consequences, and conservative leadership over the city. The disgust I feel when I see our "public servants" now after being educated on their perspective is alarming even to me.

I've been working through my first playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 - it's fairly enjoyable, I'm glad I ignored it outright until well after big patches rolled out. There's something very satisfying about blowing up enemies through a camera.

I've also picked up Dwarf Fortress (Steam) for the first time. It has a lot of depth but has been fun to learn and try and figure out. I just flooded a section of my fortress by digging into an underground river.

My chill-out puzzle game has been Can of Wormholes and it's pretty fun! It's weird for sure... but definitely fun.

I'm glad to hear Wargroove 2 is worth it! I really enjoyed the first and I was worried when I heard about a sequel.

hell yes, Badly Broken Code is such an amazing album

I was top 0.05% for Battle Tapes. it's good shit. Weight of the World is where it's at, but it's all good.

everybody on Earth will know

hahaha holy shit, he believes. he really believes his own shit. he really views "X" as being of planetary importance. he's actually living in his daydream, where Mars (by his hand) and Earth are networked (by him) and his "X" has somehow supplanted the Internet and spans between planets. his principal operating perspective is a delusion. wow. like, all the time.

that sounds great. abstractivus, the machine overlord.

as though they knew him from his brief period as a vorlon or whatever.

vorlon

wait a sec...

I've always said that Starfleet is, first and foremost, a jobs program.

It gives purpose to people who can't find their own, in a time where your needs are provided-for by default, and seeking personal fulfillment is the purpose for most people's lives.

Drones would cut out the human driving a shuttle over to inspect an anomaly or object themselves, robbing them of a sense of accomplishment and achievement. Starfleet is about that stuff, so that's a no-go unless nobody wants to do it and it needs to be done anyway. We see that a lot, too. They do have probes and sensor stations and stuff, after all, usually in really boring and unfulfilling locations.

They have excessive, ridiculous redundancy. They have people doing jobs the ship computers could (and often, in times of need, DOES) perform very well on its own. There are several recorded instances of entire starships being successfully maintained for extended periods of time by a single individual (who does go insane due to isolation every time, because plot).

Janeway is my favorite captain for sure. The others are all remarkable, because of course they are, but whenever I watch Voyager, I am reminded of how much more I like her over the others.

She had (and used) this great guile to serve her and her crew's needs. She didn't readily break her principles, but would intelligently question them when they didn't appear to align with the greater good or her responsibilities.

She was both flexible and reliable. I feel that some viewers saw that as unpredictability, but I don't think so. She actively did more to help her crew in every way than any other captain we've seen.

this is a wake-up call to this industry and any other industry enjoying a glut of "free" (as in beer) proprietary tools owned entirely by private (or worse: public!) organizations.

this will always be the result. every single time. if you think you and your industry are immune to getting bait & switched, you are very wrong.

chaining your livelihood to a for-profit organization is begging to eventually be extorted in this manner. greed is inevitable.

Cops are well aware standing in front of a car gives them a free pass killing someone

This "technique" has been demonstrated enough that frankly, I think that any rational person would conclude that in any situation where a cop walks in front of your car, you're better off just gunning it before the cop has a chance to extrajudicially execute you first. If they walk in front of your car, it's clear they're just itching to murder you. The threat has been made, you should fear for your life. It's you or them.