It’s wild how close the Amazon river basin comes to the west coast of the continent without draining into the ocean on that side.

I always thought it was funny while studying for my Cisco certification that their operating system was also called IOS. I had no idea there was actual drama behind it!

The only way that could conceivably work out is if everyone collectively protested their student loans together since it’s such a massive problem for so many people. Even then, the government would probably buckle down and try to destroy half the country’s financial viability before they caved and admitted this toxic industry preyed on kids that didn’t know what that debt meant when they signed up for it.

The most effective ads I’ve seen in my lifetime have been podcast ads. I don’t remember shit I see in mobile apps or on most corners of the internet. I could personally sell Blue Apron or Harry’s Razors for all I’ve heard about them on podcasts though. The smartest companies allow the podcasters to joke around in their ads too. My Brother, My Brother, and Me will say some borderline offensive but hilarious stuff in their ads and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t keep me listening to their ads and hearing about the products being advertised.

Lmao, unfortunately not. Thanks for catching the typo.

isn’t**

Oh it definitely happens. I’m a young millennial and I have a friend my age who deals with mental issues because he ate lead paint leftover in their old house as a child. Lead was so prevalent at one point that getting rid of it all isn’t as simple as flipping a switch.

Edit: [wasn’t -> isn’t] There does not in fact exist a switch that we can now flip to remove lead. Thanks @[email protected].

I think it’s easier to understand net neutrality as something ISP’s can’t do rather than something they must do, since we’ve never seen them really act on it before. It just means they can’t speed up or slow down your internet based on what websites you’re visiting. Under net neutrality, there can never be a deal with Google to give people faster speeds using Google searches than Bing or DuckDuckGo searches.

How a person reacts to being asked about the version of these things most close to them is telling. If they get defensive and deny the event happened, I would hesitate to trust their opinion on other things. Clearly that person bases their opinions on what they want to be true rather than reality. That’s the kind of person whose ideology would likely lead to another event to be ashamed of. If, on the other hand, they admit it was a horrible thing and agree that people should be educated on it and that steps should be taken to prevent it from ever happening again, then I’m more likely to take their opinion seriously and believe that they can be part of the conversations we need to happen to create a better world.

No worries. You’re right that it’s absurd that we need to fight so much for our government to protect us from blatant corporate for-profit schemes. There was a time when even the US government at least did us the honor of pretending to not take bribes like this. The Intuit tax return money machine is such an obviously fixable problem. All my 20-something friends in the US know that this problem only exists because of lobbying. It’s disgusting to watch elected representatives become so comfortable with their positions that they feel safe enacting policies that hurt their constituents like this.

For context, the reason I’m hating on Intuit and H&R Block and encouraging people to use FreeTaxUSA is because the first two are the main culprits behind the extensive lobbying that has led to the US government continuing to require people to file their own taxes rather than modernizing and making this process free and easy. My “gushing” is in pursuit of changing the broken system you’re pointing out.

I know City-Data Forums is still pretty active. I’ve used it a lot when deciding on places to move. I’m also a bit of an urban design nerd and there’s a lot of fascinating discussion I come across there.

Fuck Intuit and H&R Block, all my homies use FreeTaxUSA.

My brain is powered by memes. Memory? More like memery.

From what I understand, some degree of nuclear power is always going to be necessary. This is because while we tend to think of excess power in the energy grid as being stored away, this in fact is not the case and we only use power as it’s actively available. Excess power is wasted. The major downside of renewables is that they’re circumstancial. Solar energy is only available during clear days, wind power is only available on windy days, etc. Until we massively improve our energy storage capabilities we’re going to need some kind of constant supply of power backing the other ones when they aren’t available. Without adequate nuclear energy available, that’s going to be fossil fuels. And when compared to coal, oil, and natural gas, nuclear energy is unbelievably better for the environment. The only byproduct is the spent fuel which is dangerous, but we have control over where it ends up which is more than can be said for fossil fuels.

My wife went to school for English lit and is a professional writer. I cannot get a plot twist past her notice. It sucks so much. There was a video game that featured a serial killer (no spoilers, so no title) and I NEVER would have guessed who it was. I played it and I was shocked at the twist. Then I had my wife play it and in the first five minutes of the game she was like “That man is evil and I don’t trust him” and I was like WTF!!! He’s like nice and friendly and stuff. How the fuck does she do it. I spent hours having to gaslight her about how correct her prediction was. She also always knows when someone is going to die. I have to tell her not to comment predictions about movies because she’s correct at least 70% of the time.

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you lima bean? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Beans, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Adzuki, and I have over 300 confirmed bowls cooked. I am trained in garbanzo warfare and I’m the top cook in the entire US bean forces. You are nothing to me but just another customer. I will feed you beans with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fava. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of bean providers across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, marrowfat. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your lentils. You’re fucking cooked, kidney bean. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can feed you over seven hundred different recipes, and that’s just with my black beans. Not only am I extensively trained in pinto combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the Great Northern Bean Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little split pea. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have prepared your fucking mouth. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn soybean. I will shit beans all over you and you will drown in them. You’re gonna be fucking full, baked bean.