I sympathize with the cynicism in your last paragraph, but I push a little optimism back on a couple points. 1: our capability for speech may be limited by the corporations who have grabbed control over our media platforms, but insofar as freedom of speech refers to our ability to speak freely without retaliation from the government, we do still have real free speech. It’s a juvenile point, but given events in the last few years it’s not a right I take for granted as I did previously. That being said, I did just watch a video of FBI agents interrogating a woman in front of her house for posting non-violent content on Facebook relating to Gaza that you can add to a pile of evidence that the government is frequently toeing the line on free speech, so… that’s not good.

2: Regulatory authority has become almost laughably meek, granted, but you’re commenting on a video of one of the most aggressive regulators to hold the position in as long as I’m aware. This is a powerful sign that regulatory capture is not inevitable if we care enough to vote for candidates who will appoint strong regulators – even if it hurts our pride to do so (<<conscientious vote objectors).

So many layers.

They’ve got a really talented bench of people, I’m surprised this has gone on so long (though I am far from a regular viewer). My vote would have gone to Jordan Klepper, who I think has both the intelligence and sincere anger that made Jon Stewart the cultural force he was on the show. My theory is that the execs saw him as too much of a risk after his previous (unfortunately) failed solo outings.

You too, thanks for the interesting conversation.

Based on this conversation, what you consider right has a lot more in common with pride and laziness than it does with moral integrity. You say a lot of revolutionary words about dismantling power structures before finally admitting you’re just shrugging your shoulders in your own little corner.

At some point, if the people don’t say enough, let it all come crashing down, and rebuild a more equitable system

Who’s organizing this? Your withdrawal isn’t part of some collective movement, it is solitary and impotent. It is harmful. There’s no board room hosting the league of evil medical barons, no agenda item about how Allonzee stopped donating blood so they’d better start taking things seriously. You’re not changing anything, and squeezing sick people isn’t a necessary step in effecting change anyway.

There’s no “we” and there’s no collapsing. These systems persist despite your personal rebellion, because they’re really good at persisting until faced with overwhelming collective action. Until then, fucking help people.

Sorry friend, it’s not really about you. But a lot of good people who care about inequity have let their pride convince them that systems will implode if they personally choose to stop participating in them. That’s not how it works. The only people feeling any hurt are the innocents in your own communities.

Seriously, I get it. It’s fucking infuriating, but again…what’s the alternative? Is there some way in which this moral rigidity is not holding patients hostage in an impotent effort to force change in a broader healthcare industry?

There are alternative and more effective methods of effecting change that don’t involve sacrificing life or well-being. I implore anyone who’s rightfully disgusted by this reality to grit your teeth and help people however you can, and direct your ire where it’s best deserved.

The next link in the donation delivery chain is unrelated? Agree to disagree.

Forgive me, but this is misguidedly reductive. No healthcare is provided in the US, by providers, without being subjected to capitalist exploitation. If I understand your thought process, a collective of the best pharmaceutical scientists in the world could create a completely non-profit pharmaceutical NGO, design and manufacture life-saving drugs, and give them away to hospitals (or sell them at-cost). But so long as hospitals then charge profit rates for those drugs, it would be ethically indefensible to financially support the NGO?

Is that not holding patients hostage in an impotent effort to force change in the broader healthcare industry? I donate to my local non-profit blood center, who (assuming they’re similar to ARC) sells my blood to local hospitals at-cost, and then my blood is used to save a patient in need. The patient will then be responsible for paying the hospital exorbitant sums for my blood (from which the blood center doesn’t benefit) and all the other services it provides, but what’s the alternative?

Edit: would it make a difference if the blood center didn’t charge hospitals for the blood, even though the hospital will still charge patients?

Ransomed? I hadn’t heard about this so I checked and found that places like Red Cross sell the blood for roughly $250 per unit to hospitals in the US, which seems…perfectly reasonable within the parameters of our healthcare system. There are operational costs to collecting blood that have to be funded somehow.

The cost to patients charged by healthcare providers is unrelated, and this does not apply to for-profit plasma centers, which…yeah, don’t do that.

The cheats thing is really irritating. When I replay a game I prefer to skip as much tedium as I can, because even when it’s enjoyable the first time, on replay it starts to feel like… tedium.

I’ll use new game plus for this when it’s offered (Last of Us 1 & 2, for instance), but lately I’ve been relying on cheats if needed. I just replayed Control this way and it’s just such a smoother experience. I don’t need to slog through the slow strength building, just let me hit all the story beats.

First two books in the series were “Fellowship of the King” and “The Two Trees” so…I’m not entirely convinced they were even very original stories…

One of the earliest pieces of media I can remember consuming was the mid-90s TV show Viper, where James played the main character. I remember very little about the show except James’s face and that he played his character cool as fuck.

I’ve been replaying Alan Wake and Control recently, and I have such a soft spot for his roles in them because I loved that stupid show when I was a kid.

I’ll begrudgingly admit this is a slightly better month. Not much here for me though, I already own Shadowrun and Salt & Sacrifice. I played my fill of GTA V in the five years since it’s original release, and I have limited space in my heart for Soulslike Metroidvanias, which is entirely filled by Hollow Knight.

I wish media would give credit to the organization leaders responsible for these types of moves rather than crediting a homogeneous “Biden administration.” The fact is that the administration does deserve credit for employing a number of “progressive” (read: competent) administrators, but those departments compose a progressive wing of the administration that is not on par with some of the overall administration’s more centrist leanings.

Personnel are policy, something that the Biden administration has proved again and again since the 2020 election. Biden himself is a kind of empty vessel into which different wings of the Democratic party pour their will, yielding a strange brew of appointments both great and terrible.

-- Cory Doctorow

We replaced our HP OfficeJet with a Brother this year. I don’t even know what we were thinking getting the HP 5 years ago or so, it was gross overkill for us. But of all the things it could do, it was most consistent with printing like shit and jamming paper. Part of the problem was that we just print too infrequently, but having to replace overpriced cartridges from HP didn’t help. You also have to install apps for wireless printing (or if there’s a workaround we didn’t bother with it).

The Brother is a color laser printer and it’s perfect for us. No apps needed, super quiet and hassle-free (there have been no paper jams or transmission errors), and the print quality is crisp as hell.

Great song, fitting quotes, immersive-looking environments. This one has me pretty pumped.

This selection is not good and completely fails to justify, again, the price hike (nothing specifically against the games themselves, but as a whole this selection is not indicative of $135 annual value). But I still love the ability to trial a bunch of games I certainly wouldn’t commit to paying for in full.

I just finished BG3 for the second time, and coming out of that I wanted something shorter and more relaxed. So I tried Omno and enjoyed it fine. Kind of perfect for what I was looking for in that moment, but overall not hugely impressed. Tried Haven and dropped it after an hour. Finally tried Slay the Spire which I would never have paid for (never been a card game person) and am still interested after a couple hours. Also giving Sniper Elite 5 a shot, which I always misunderstood as like a Flight Simulator type game but for sniping. But it’s pretty fun and reminds me a lot of PS3-era action games (e.g., The Saboteur, Splinter Cell: Conviction).

I can’t do that kind of thing without a subscription, and I really enjoy being able to. But I also think the price hike is absurd and I hate being ripped off like this. I dunno, I’m conflicted.

I wanna try it, surprisingly.

I’m having the same reaction lol. I, personally, take this as another sign that I’m getting old.

That’s definitely not true. I had PS+ back in 2014/2015 and all the monthly games I’d added to my library were locked when I canceled it. Per Playstation:

Once your PlayStation Plus subscription ends, content you previously downloaded at no cost as part of the subscription (such as monthly games) will no longer be available.

I regained access to them once I renewed my subscription later, but that’s not the same thing as “games you get access to forever, even if you stop paying.”

Plus, at $8 a month, this is far from a bad list for games you get access to forever, even if you stop paying.

Did this change? It used to be that if your subscription lapsed or ended, they’d still technically be in your library but they’d be locked.