I notice you asked for an explanation and then only sort-of read the first sentence.

The national parks are amazing. But who knows if they’ll still be around since we’re firing everyone who maintains them. Not sure if the plan is to destroy them or to give them to some oligarch as a little play-area.

There’s substantial Israelis who aren’t calling for genocide. But it’s like the US after 9-11 and they’ve mostly gone into hiding because the right-wing media presence is so overpowering and successful on the “with us or against us” message.

Consent in a situation like this is difficult to establish, to the point of it being pointless. Your comment implies to me that you think if the person said “OK” to a search request then whatever happened next is their own fault.

Consider just the situation where you’re in the immigration line and two uniformed officers walk up to you and say, “please come with us.” If you go with them, is that voluntary? If you say “yes” I just think “voluntary” doesn’t hold much meaning. What happens if you don’t volunteer to go with them? Surely, they say, “come with us now or you’ll be arrested.” And if you don’t volunteer at that point, they’ll physically restrain you and take you away.

Since most people are able to understand the subtext of the situation, they’re able to tell that, “please come with us” actually means “you are required to come with us now. You may either walk of your own accord, or we will take you captive and punish you beyond whatever we initially intended.” So, there’s not any consent happening. Just deciding whether being beaten and dragged away in public would be helpful to you, and in many cases it is not.

You might be confusing US law around unlawful search and seizure with US law around border crossings. While the ACLU’s position is that the 4th amendment trumps CBP, CBP’s position is that it does not and that you cannot stop them.

I’m holding out hope that we can still turn it around and defeat Santa Claus

I have no idea how well it works in reality, but I can imagine the Lifetime Pass being a good business model for them: only the most enthusiastic user will pay for 3 years up front (lifetime currently costs 3x the yearly). So when they get a Lifetime pass they’re getting 3 years paid up front and an evangelist who will probably tell their friends about Plex. If that Lifetime subscriber gets even one person to sign up for a yearly sub who otherwise wouldn’t have, then Plex came out ahead.

Sure, I’m not saying Plex has to do a single-payment model. Just that it’s a think that’s been done successfully (and for longer than Plex has existed). Everyone’s pushing subscription models so hard that it’s easy to think “this is the only possible way that anything can work”.

I like my Shield TV: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/shield-tv/

I did need to install a custom launcher on it when the standard AndroidTV launcher added ads.

Lots of businesses have and do exist without a subscription model. I’m fond of the Paprika Recipe Manager, for example, which asks a one-time payment for each major version. All commercial software worked this way in the 80s.

Changing jobs carries a lot of risks:

• Many Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck and cannot afford to quit their bad job before looking for another
• American healthcare system means that if you are between jobs and anyone in your family gets seriously sick/injured then you will be in medical debt for the rest of your life
• For many people, there are few jobs available. Maybe the other jobs pay too poorly for them to live on
• As discussed, employees aren’t given slack-time, so they can’t search for a new job while at work
• Because they’re exhausted, they can’t search for a new job while not at work
• Amazon isn’t the worst place to work. Your next job might be worse! (Small businesses in the USA are exempt from many rules and effectively-exempt from many more.)

Just Egg works very well as a sub for liquid eggs, but it’s expensive AF and goes bad fast. I prefer the powdered egg-replacers for baking, because they keep, and outside of baking I like my eggs runny or hard-boiled which Just can’t replicate so I prefer to go without.

Most of my cookie recipes use eggs!

It’d be way less offensive if it was just present as an option, instead of dancing around flashing at me

You should be suspicious of American-owned media, but it’s not the case they they are running state-issued propaganda at all times.

Rather, the media is following the interests of its owners: American oligarchs. One of their primary interests is “get more money” and any headline that draws eyeballs serves that end.

So: at least 4 years, probably longer :/