I’ve been working from home for 10 years. The COVID break my daughter had was the first time I can remember NOT getting a Cold since literally ever. I’m masking more when I travel for work and I look forward to when more of us realize the benefits.

Did nobody tell these assholes the absolutely #1 rule? You DO NOT fuck with American ships… Keep this shit up, and things are going to get real “proportional” around here…

We’re on the same page re: mental healthcare. I was trying to convey I’m glad the stigma around it less and less with each generation, but we still have a ways to go.

You’re right, and you’re going to get downvoted for it. We have an inequality problem masking as a gun problem. We have a mental health crisis masking as gun problem.

Possible solutions to these situations aren’t fast and they don’t stir up emotions enough to get people to vote for you. Riling people up and telling them you can fix their problems fast gets votes; saying we have work to do doesn’t.

The stigma against mental healthcare won’t be gone in my child’s generation, but I am happy to see it is being accepted more than it was for mine. Of course, not thinking poorly of people for taking care of themselves doesn’t matter if people can’t afford to…

My initial reaction is “fucking gross”, but that’s only because Google Maps has taught me what map colors should be. I’m old enought to have used a book-based atlas even before Yahoo Maps was popular, but young enough I don’t remember what that coloring was.

While I do find it harder to understand what is going on with the map, esp while driving, I’d be interested in reading more into why they made the change. So fucking help me God if this is just some graphic artists idea of what looks better…

I’m extra shocked to see this in NJ; it is one of only two states where you are not allowed to pump your own gas. Efforts to change pump laws have been massively unfavorable because, among other things, they create jobs.

Is this before or after the war started?

Pretty easy to make a socialist argument for cars IMHO.

It’d go something like, “the only way to ensure the right to mobility is equally distributed is to ensure every individual has what equates to a bus station in their own home.”

Using an ideology to support a desired outcome isn’t as hard as it should be.

Without teens and boomers, social media would be dead.

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The length of the 2nd Amendment is insanely short and likely thought to be quite obvious to the authors. Ironically, it has likely been more debated than any other Amendment. There have even been court cases that focus on how the placement of commas impacts the meaning.

To your comment on “well regulated,” the debate there has to do with how the phase has changed meaning over time; well regulated meant “well maintained” or “taken care of.” A well regulated clock, for instance, would have its gears cleaned and oiled at regular intervals.

Even in the groups that still hold that interpretation debate on whether the phrase then mean well-drilled/disciplined or well-stocked with arms.

With regard to at-home kits, the general rule/understanding was you could build your own with your own tools and any materials that were only 80% or less manufactured/machined to being a completed firearm.

The debate kinda went like this: “Is a block of metal a gun?”
“Well, no…”
“So… How much work am I allowed to do to this block of metal before I get in trouble for selling it to somebody else?”
“Ionno… A lot, I guess? 80% sound good?”

So, people started selling 80% kits within the bounds of the law. They were blocks of material mostly milled with instructions, and sometimes tools, to finish the job.

The article doesn’t explain why these kits in question are getting blocked. I’m suspecting too many things were sold at once as part of the kit, though. 80% kits normally don’t have barrels, for instance.

Oh boy, let me tell you about the Presidential power that I’m most scared of: the President has 90 days to get Congressional approval for war. The idea being it used to take a long time to get people together to vote on things and even longer to mobilize. These days, though, you can conquer a country in under 90 days…

Subjectively.

Like most things, it is about preference and/or what the measure of success is. Some people prefer the tighter, mixed-use concepts and some don’t. I know people that would love a concept like this and I know people that would be overwhelmed and depressed.

Provoked Gamer is pretty baller. Are you asking for a friend?

Up-state NY is more rural and conservative. Towns in the mountains can be fairly small and isolated; those areas vote extremely red.

Countries with the raw materials needed to make modern batteries are about to need some freedom. This is actually scary, because a lot of those minerals are in Africa, and China has a pretty large investment in Africa, already.

Why are the Nordic countries so high?

Unless I’m misunderstanding how this whole thing works, it’d depend on the instance and community, wouldn’t it? If I set up my own instance, I can setup my own rules for the communities that might start there. Those community leaders may opt to set rules stricter than the instance rules.

If you go crazy enough, you get defederated like North Korea…

My guess is they’ve been advised by lawyers not to share the video. They’re probably preparing for defending themselves from a wrongful death suit.

I’m extremely pro-WFH for professions that can. I’ve been doing it for 10 years and it has only gotten better since others started to experience it and have empathy for what it means to be a remote worker. Just getting that out of the way before chatting more about hidden difficulties of converting buildings to residential use…

I can’t speak for European office buildings (your use of “flats” has me assuming you’re on the other side of the pond from me), but a large number of US buildings would either have to be 100% gutted back to the main supporting beams OR pulled down and rebuilt. Issue here is a combo of proper placement of utility lines (mostly plumbing) within the building and the added weight residential use brings rather than business use.

Large office leases here have a lot of control over how their floors are laid out, but floor planning normally takes electrical runs into consideration and will leave spaces like kitchens and bathrooms unmoved. Executive offices and other private interior spaces can be created/adjusted by making interior walls and tying into electrical connections already in a floor or drop ceiling.

Plumbing is a whole other monster and takes a lot more work. Not an insurmountable consideration, just harder.

The weight of residential living is one I hadn’t considered until someone pointed it out to me. In addition to all the additional plumbing needed (whose pipes add tonnage by the time you’ve converted a building), you also have to consider water within those pipes, and if a lot of people run their kid’s evening bath around 7 PM, that’s even more tonnage, normally all in a similar vertical line because of repeated floor plans. A lot of corporate buildings here, esp older ones, just weren’t engineered for that and a lot would need significant remediation to support it.

I have way less to say about the super cancers… We did use a LOT of asbestos as we built up urban areas, though.