I don't think the economy is good. Unemployment is higher than the official numbers, it ignores underemployment, and a rosy stock market does not mean things are going well for the average worker. Next year when the middle class can't get their mortgage interest deduction I expect to see a lot more belt tightening.
I just want a centrist moderate party that is willing to work with those from other parties. Yes, I know it's unrealistic, but we should all be allowed our fantasies.
In parliamentary systems you tend to get multiple viable parties. These then form a governing coalition after the election. In the US what we get are coalitions forming within the two major parties; often forming between elections or during primaries.
This is why our parties seem to screwed up. They often don't have easily stated core values, because they're trying to appeal to multiple factions simultaneously. It's absurd that you're expected to know all about someone's political views just by asking a single question, and yet that's what we've ended up with.
I'm independent, but I rarely vote for third party candidates. The reason being is that I'm a moderate centrist, and there is no third party for us. Most third parties tend to be full of strict ideologues, true believers, and those upset that the mainstream parties aren't far enough left or right. Sometimes the third parties are just loonies, and sometimes they have too many litmus tests.
What it does mean is that sometimes I vote Democrat and sometimes I vote Republican, and it's not uncommon that I will vote some of each on the same ballot.
This generally happens because of the primary system. Party members compete against each other for the nomination and this tends to favor those with the ideology closest to the party faithful who bother to come out and vote even when it's not a general election. And campaign donations are always coming from the true believers. In general elections there is more of a tendency for things to become more moderate. Most of the populace aren't on the extremes, not even within a particular party.
This does vary over time though, sometimes the parties get too far apart, and at other times they have significant overlap.
That's the problem with Democrats, they aren't very good at getting their act together. As Will Rogers once said, "I am not a member of any organized political party, I am a Democrat."
Well, there seems to be a wide range of views within the Democratic party. Most of the Republicans however have all gotten behind Trump, even many who were initially opposed to him. Bizarre views from some Democrats can usually be seen as outliers, whereas bizarre views by Republicans seem to be increasingly mainstream.
I think there are a lot of people who think love means always agreeing. Instead, look at the country like a crazy uncle. Sure you can love the uncle, but that doesn't mean you have to agree with everything he says or does. If you've got a relative you love that's hooked on opiates you don't sit back and say "good for her, doing what she wants whenever she wants!", instead you try to help that relative out.
The whole foundation of this country begins with disagreeing. Thomas Jefferson said he loved Great Britain but could no longer bear to be ruled by its government. We should treat it as our fundamental civic duty to bitch and complain when we disagree with the government! Anyone who tells others to shut up and stop criticizing the government is not being patriotic. "My country right or wrong" is a terrible and ignorant motto.
Wait, where are you getting your news? Trump seems to not be putting America first; he's going to ruin the economy with his tariffs, protecting a few economic interests at the expense of everyone else. He's a compulsive liar and it's extremely obvious to everyone else in the world, and this is turning America into the world's laughing stock. There's nothing to stand up to the world over here, we are and were being treated fairly by most countries. Especially the countries that he's most pissed about are American's closest friends, and meanwhile he's cozing up to Putin. America's interests should be fair trade and global cooperation. As for strengthening the border, Obama has deported more people than Trump has. He's not putting many people back to work and his actions are going to lead to a lot of job losses.
American doesn't need to be great again, it was already great.
The appointees seem to be rich, but that's nothing new in politics. What's more new is that essentially every one of these appointees seem intent on dismantling government. Especially those department and agency heads who were known before being appointed to be opposed to the existence of their respective departments and agencies.
As a public official the first rule is to never abuse the office for personal gain; you are not a CEO of a business wasting money from profits, but a public servant who is wasting taxpayer funds. And yet too many of these people, including Pruitt, were actively engaged in waste which should go against every conservative instinct.
After the election I was quite expecting the Republican part to split apart. Those true conservatives upholding fiscal or morale values would have been to disgusted with the administration to stick around. And yet surprisingly they all seem to have circled their wagons around Trump. What a bunch of hypocrites; though as politicians the term is redundant. They're writing their party platform on tissue paper so that it's easy to tear up later. The few remaining party members who are sticking to their ideals also seem to be retiring as well.
Even then, it doesn't literally mean "any reason". The reason still has to be a legal reason, and you cannot violate other state or federal laws. At-will means you don't need to provide a valid reason first or show that performance was not acceptable first.
For example, California has anti discrimination employment laws, and is also an at-will employment state. Meaning you can be laid and they don't have to be given a reason, but they will often hand out a list of what types of employees were fired along with their ages as proof that they weren't only laying off older workers.
Although you are not allowed to fire someone who makes more money because they're older. You are allowed to cap their pay though, probably even decrease it (though that's amazingly rare if you don't screw up).
I was in a candidate review once and the recruiter, the one person who *should* have known better and known all the rules, said "he seems to have kept up with his skills despite his age". And this was in a company with a higher than average worker age. If that had been recorded and the person had not got the job, it would have been an open and shut lawsuit win, even though the recruiter was a contractor. (also a moron going by the general attitude about everyone towards that recruiter)
It did point out that age discrimination absolutely was a real thing and not just rumors.
There is an anti-copy bit on the audio CD disc, which some machines would ignore and others would honor. For CD-ROM there were several schemes to add copy protection but they weren't standard and not meant for audio. Sony tried to add a scheme, XCP, that met with a lot of consumer resistance (after all, ripping your CD to listen to it on your ipod is 100% legal, ethical, and moral no matter how loudly Sony whines).
Well, it's easier to skip to where I want on Roku than it is to get the video to the place I want with youtube on PC. I just use the 3x fast foward, or the skip-back 10 seconds, etc. It doesn't feel much different from other set top boxes I've used in the past. And I'd rather watch TV from my couch on a big screen than at my desk and chair watching my PC.
CDs have some minor copy protection, but that's not the same as DRM. You can play the CD you bought in the USA in any other country in the world with any CD player made anywhere in the world. You can play your CD without verifying permission first with a server. You can sell your CD in a yard sale, give it to a friend, rent one from the library, and so forth.
DVDs have an early form of DRM in that it tries to prevent you from playing DVDs if you're in the wrong "region". BluRay has some stronger DRM, as it will update the revocation list on your player when you insert a new disc (ie, reprogramming the player's memory). There are ways around these restrictions of course, but the whole point there is to control *how* you use the media rather than just preventing copying of the media.
DRM is not at all the same thing as copy protection! DRM primary purpose is not about copy protection, but about controlling when, where, and how you play the game. It also locks the game to you so that you cannot resell or give the game away to someone else - game publishers hate this more than they hate pirates. DRM keeps the costs of the games high because there is no longer a used game market.
Seriously, some of these DRM games are extremely easy to crack so that all the DRM does is make it annoying if you are a legitimate paying customer without actually slowing down piracy.
The 5 star and up/down ratings are intended to help Netflix learn what shows you like, not necessarily what are good or bad shows in general. Not that Netflix is any good at this, but that was the intent. (Because you watched Wolverine, Netflix recommends Animal House)
I've never seen a review on Netflix, ever. Is this something on the PC (which I don't use)? I would like to see reviews, by users or professionals, attached to the shows and visible. I don't really care who the actors or directors are so much which it does show.
I actually like a lot of movies and shows that aren't very popular, or weren't popular when first run. If we only ever watched popular stuff there'd never be a market for indie films and there'd be no such thing as "cult favorites". If you go by popularity, then McDonald's is the best restaurant in the world. A good review is supposed to help you find something you like.
Not a lot of alternatives. Amazon isn't much better, but they do spend a ton of money to be relevant and becoming an exclusive source of some popular shows, but that may not be sustainable. Everything I would be interested in seems to have an additionsl cost. I don't think Amazon would exist if it weren't for the pre-existing "Prime" userbase. Hulu has it's own major issues. Those are essentially the only effective subscription streaming services with a broad based appeal.
The biggest problem with Netflix isn't something they can control - they don't have access to content customers may want. It's like the old cable wars but with streaming services instead (ie, withhold your entire content and demand more money). So no, Netflix is not voluntarily dumping half of the shows just so that it can add it's own programming, instead it is adding it's own programming to make up for losing access to so much content.
The only thing I'm missing out on with Netflix is Doctor Who, and a few movies, and it's not their fault for that. I don't watch enough TV or movies that I can ever run out of stuff on Netflix.
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I don't think the economy is good. Unemployment is higher than the official numbers, it ignores underemployment, and a rosy stock market does not mean things are going well for the average worker. Next year when the middle class can't get their mortgage interest deduction I expect to see a lot more belt tightening.
I just want a centrist moderate party that is willing to work with those from other parties. Yes, I know it's unrealistic, but we should all be allowed our fantasies.
In parliamentary systems you tend to get multiple viable parties. These then form a governing coalition after the election. In the US what we get are coalitions forming within the two major parties; often forming between elections or during primaries.
This is why our parties seem to screwed up. They often don't have easily stated core values, because they're trying to appeal to multiple factions simultaneously. It's absurd that you're expected to know all about someone's political views just by asking a single question, and yet that's what we've ended up with.
I'm independent, but I rarely vote for third party candidates. The reason being is that I'm a moderate centrist, and there is no third party for us. Most third parties tend to be full of strict ideologues, true believers, and those upset that the mainstream parties aren't far enough left or right. Sometimes the third parties are just loonies, and sometimes they have too many litmus tests.
What it does mean is that sometimes I vote Democrat and sometimes I vote Republican, and it's not uncommon that I will vote some of each on the same ballot.
This generally happens because of the primary system. Party members compete against each other for the nomination and this tends to favor those with the ideology closest to the party faithful who bother to come out and vote even when it's not a general election. And campaign donations are always coming from the true believers. In general elections there is more of a tendency for things to become more moderate. Most of the populace aren't on the extremes, not even within a particular party.
This does vary over time though, sometimes the parties get too far apart, and at other times they have significant overlap.
That's the problem with Democrats, they aren't very good at getting their act together. As Will Rogers once said, "I am not a member of any organized political party, I am a Democrat."
Well, there seems to be a wide range of views within the Democratic party. Most of the Republicans however have all gotten behind Trump, even many who were initially opposed to him. Bizarre views from some Democrats can usually be seen as outliers, whereas bizarre views by Republicans seem to be increasingly mainstream.
FYI, I am not registered with either party.
I think there are a lot of people who think love means always agreeing. Instead, look at the country like a crazy uncle. Sure you can love the uncle, but that doesn't mean you have to agree with everything he says or does. If you've got a relative you love that's hooked on opiates you don't sit back and say "good for her, doing what she wants whenever she wants!", instead you try to help that relative out.
The whole foundation of this country begins with disagreeing. Thomas Jefferson said he loved Great Britain but could no longer bear to be ruled by its government. We should treat it as our fundamental civic duty to bitch and complain when we disagree with the government! Anyone who tells others to shut up and stop criticizing the government is not being patriotic. "My country right or wrong" is a terrible and ignorant motto.
Wait, where are you getting your news? Trump seems to not be putting America first; he's going to ruin the economy with his tariffs, protecting a few economic interests at the expense of everyone else. He's a compulsive liar and it's extremely obvious to everyone else in the world, and this is turning America into the world's laughing stock. There's nothing to stand up to the world over here, we are and were being treated fairly by most countries. Especially the countries that he's most pissed about are American's closest friends, and meanwhile he's cozing up to Putin. America's interests should be fair trade and global cooperation. As for strengthening the border, Obama has deported more people than Trump has. He's not putting many people back to work and his actions are going to lead to a lot of job losses.
American doesn't need to be great again, it was already great.
The appointees seem to be rich, but that's nothing new in politics. What's more new is that essentially every one of these appointees seem intent on dismantling government. Especially those department and agency heads who were known before being appointed to be opposed to the existence of their respective departments and agencies.
As a public official the first rule is to never abuse the office for personal gain; you are not a CEO of a business wasting money from profits, but a public servant who is wasting taxpayer funds. And yet too many of these people, including Pruitt, were actively engaged in waste which should go against every conservative instinct.
After the election I was quite expecting the Republican part to split apart. Those true conservatives upholding fiscal or morale values would have been to disgusted with the administration to stick around. And yet surprisingly they all seem to have circled their wagons around Trump. What a bunch of hypocrites; though as politicians the term is redundant. They're writing their party platform on tissue paper so that it's easy to tear up later. The few remaining party members who are sticking to their ideals also seem to be retiring as well.
Well any parents showing up to their kids' job performance reviews probably has early onset dementia also.
Oh, so no social media startups then...
Even then, it doesn't literally mean "any reason". The reason still has to be a legal reason, and you cannot violate other state or federal laws. At-will means you don't need to provide a valid reason first or show that performance was not acceptable first.
For example, California has anti discrimination employment laws, and is also an at-will employment state. Meaning you can be laid and they don't have to be given a reason, but they will often hand out a list of what types of employees were fired along with their ages as proof that they weren't only laying off older workers.
Although you are not allowed to fire someone who makes more money because they're older. You are allowed to cap their pay though, probably even decrease it (though that's amazingly rare if you don't screw up).
I was in a candidate review once and the recruiter, the one person who *should* have known better and known all the rules, said "he seems to have kept up with his skills despite his age". And this was in a company with a higher than average worker age. If that had been recorded and the person had not got the job, it would have been an open and shut lawsuit win, even though the recruiter was a contractor. (also a moron going by the general attitude about everyone towards that recruiter)
It did point out that age discrimination absolutely was a real thing and not just rumors.
There may also be a tendency to confuse "they think my ideas are dumb" with "not understanding our strategy".
There is an anti-copy bit on the audio CD disc, which some machines would ignore and others would honor. For CD-ROM there were several schemes to add copy protection but they weren't standard and not meant for audio. Sony tried to add a scheme, XCP, that met with a lot of consumer resistance (after all, ripping your CD to listen to it on your ipod is 100% legal, ethical, and moral no matter how loudly Sony whines).
Well, it's easier to skip to where I want on Roku than it is to get the video to the place I want with youtube on PC. I just use the 3x fast foward, or the skip-back 10 seconds, etc. It doesn't feel much different from other set top boxes I've used in the past. And I'd rather watch TV from my couch on a big screen than at my desk and chair watching my PC.
CDs have some minor copy protection, but that's not the same as DRM. You can play the CD you bought in the USA in any other country in the world with any CD player made anywhere in the world. You can play your CD without verifying permission first with a server. You can sell your CD in a yard sale, give it to a friend, rent one from the library, and so forth.
DVDs have an early form of DRM in that it tries to prevent you from playing DVDs if you're in the wrong "region". BluRay has some stronger DRM, as it will update the revocation list on your player when you insert a new disc (ie, reprogramming the player's memory). There are ways around these restrictions of course, but the whole point there is to control *how* you use the media rather than just preventing copying of the media.
DRM is not at all the same thing as copy protection! DRM primary purpose is not about copy protection, but about controlling when, where, and how you play the game. It also locks the game to you so that you cannot resell or give the game away to someone else - game publishers hate this more than they hate pirates. DRM keeps the costs of the games high because there is no longer a used game market.
Seriously, some of these DRM games are extremely easy to crack so that all the DRM does is make it annoying if you are a legitimate paying customer without actually slowing down piracy.
The 5 star and up/down ratings are intended to help Netflix learn what shows you like, not necessarily what are good or bad shows in general. Not that Netflix is any good at this, but that was the intent. (Because you watched Wolverine, Netflix recommends Animal House)
I've never seen a review on Netflix, ever. Is this something on the PC (which I don't use)? I would like to see reviews, by users or professionals, attached to the shows and visible. I don't really care who the actors or directors are so much which it does show.
I only watch it from my Roku, and the interface is pretty straight forward. Much better than Hulu or Amazon.
I actually like a lot of movies and shows that aren't very popular, or weren't popular when first run. If we only ever watched popular stuff there'd never be a market for indie films and there'd be no such thing as "cult favorites". If you go by popularity, then McDonald's is the best restaurant in the world. A good review is supposed to help you find something you like.
Not a lot of alternatives. Amazon isn't much better, but they do spend a ton of money to be relevant and becoming an exclusive source of some popular shows, but that may not be sustainable. Everything I would be interested in seems to have an additionsl cost. I don't think Amazon would exist if it weren't for the pre-existing "Prime" userbase. Hulu has it's own major issues. Those are essentially the only effective subscription streaming services with a broad based appeal.
The biggest problem with Netflix isn't something they can control - they don't have access to content customers may want. It's like the old cable wars but with streaming services instead (ie, withhold your entire content and demand more money). So no, Netflix is not voluntarily dumping half of the shows just so that it can add it's own programming, instead it is adding it's own programming to make up for losing access to so much content.
The only thing I'm missing out on with Netflix is Doctor Who, and a few movies, and it's not their fault for that. I don't watch enough TV or movies that I can ever run out of stuff on Netflix.
I didn't even know that there were Netflix reviews. All I see is thumbs-up vs thumbs-down vs do nothing. No ability to write text.
My bucket list is full of uneventful and unadventurous activities, like sleeping in, walking on a beach, watching a play.