I would question why people give out free professional advice like that anyway. It’s one thing to contribute to open source, where you can take personal credit for your contributions to add to your CV. It’s cool to help someone set up a home server as a side project.

But spending hours to consult with someone for their actual job? That’s no different than sleuthing Yahoo Answers just to do other people’s homework for them.

If there is a trend of dying spaces like these, I guess it is people not wanting their good-faith advice to be monetized, and also being burned out because software engineering isn’t the stable cash cow it once was.

They said pho-gettaboutit 🤌

Saving this for when someone figures it out

I would interpret that there was an even number of “nots” in whatever line in the Bible says “not” to be gay. We got it wrong because of a translation error.

Thou shalt not not not not not not not not not not love thy neighbor of the same gender

1000%. If this becomes the hot topic among your coworkers, insist on bringing up the simultaneous cuts to social and welfare programs. Trump doesn’t give a shit about the poor or even non rich

Just to pile on more info. There are dozens of minor taxes levied at the federal, state, and local (usually municipal) level. In some states with a flat tax rate, these are used to make up for the lost revenue which a progressive tax would have brought in.

You can bet that someone has considered a lemonade stand tax. That’s the level of specificity

There has been a secessionist minority in Texas basically since it joined the union. Conservative lawmakers have long played into the idea of Texan independence because it’s popular among constituents, but again, there is no real substance to it. It doesn’t have any more teeth than other deluded chauvinist movements that believe America can win any war. “We’ll show them why we don’t have healthcare” etc. There is no actual ability for the right wing nuts in Texas to actually divorce from the federal government. At most they will continue to perform stunts like the barbed wire fiasco under Biden that you alluded to.

Texas is critical to the US national defense and military strategy, so it will never be allowed to happen. Texan elites also recognize correctly that they depend on the power of the US economically and military. While not exactly unviable on its own (I think Texas is well positioned geographically) the calculation just doesn’t work out in favor of secession.

However I will concede that it would be funny if Texas seceded, so I’m not gonna argue against the idea too much harder

Texas and Florida are deeply wed to the nation, both economically and militarily and vice versa. Things would have to be far, far worse for that to ever materialize. It’s not in the material interest of the elites in those states, so it will continue to be a fantasy just like Texan secession has always been.

There are many intermediate steps that would need to happen before balkanization. I think large moneyed interests would step in long before it got to that point. Right now the political machine is still behind him; that could change.

Ah yes, viewing disability as a problem to be fixed is very medical and rational and totally not based entirely on how your society is structured.

It’s called TERF Island for a reason. Make them paddle if they want to leave

It’s the other way around — Spain was purchasing bullets from Israel in order for Spain to fulfill its commitment of 2% GDP toward military spending for NATO.

They’re still wrong, but for different reasons.