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These are the debate ‘traps’ Republicans fear Trump may fall into
  • Nope. I'm a RINO. For LGBTQ+ and women's reproductive rights. For gender equality. For religious freedom without interference from the government. For supporting our kids' education and well-being. For reasonable gun control measures that involve training and background checks if that cost is borne by the state. Against banning of weapons or special taxes on guns/ammo. For involuntary psychiatric treatment (commitments). I want single-payer healthcare. I want a vetted method of entry for immigrants that doesn't take years to complete. I want non-violent convicted criminals to have the option to be surgically "tagged", then allowed to continue their lives knowing that they're being monitored. Maybe then they can repay their victims. I want to abolish the death penalty. I want to set fines as a percentage of a person's wealth. I want all non-lethal drugs to be legalized, including prescription drugs. I want the government to provide an interest-free home loan for anyone who can show they can afford the property, currently owns no other property, and will use it as their primary residence. I want a free path to a self-study college degree, but I oppose paying for others to obtain degrees without some form of payback.

  • Jeffco Sheriff: Man shoplifts bolt cutters from Walmart to steal kid’s e-bike locked up in front of store
  • The bike alarm is triggered by motion. It's a standard off-the-shelf seat tube bike alarm, armed/disarmed by a fob. My modification was to beef up the output power to operate the flashing lights, motor shorting relay, sonalert, and the time-delayed electric theft deterrent. I can't be shocked unless I'm riding around for 30 seconds with lights flashing, alarm blasting, and the motor acting as a regenerative brake. That's why there's a time delay.

    There's also an Airtag in the seat, but I'd rather deter the thief than have to track down the bike.

  • These are the debate ‘traps’ Republicans fear Trump may fall into
  • The only thing that stopped the last big fire from burning down my home was a clear-cut patchwork left over from the last logging operation 15 years ago. It allowed CalFire to establish a firebreak. In areas that had not been logged in 50 years, folks lost their homes. I'm a member of my community's Fire Safe Council. We have retired CalFire chiefs on our board. They were the ones who told me that California's opposition to logging has resulted in major fuel loads with no firebreaks and a rapidly degrading network of logging roads that are used to fight fires. You can quote articles by tree huggers like the NFF. I see the thousands of acres of dead burned "mature" trees with "thick bark" just up the road.

    You say my complaints are petty. People are losing their homes because of the out of control increases in fire insurance. People are worried about what they'll use to power their homes during our frequent outages when CARB outlaws gas generators. California Democrats want us to go all electric. I'm all electric. My utility bill last month was $500. I'm expecting $700 for this month.

    Know what starts big fires here? The electric company. My utility company deferred essential maintenance for over 50 years with the blessing of the California Public Utilities Commission. Camp Fire, LNU Complex Fire, Mosquito Fire, Dixie Fire - those were all major wildfires caused by PG&E. Now they want to play catch up by undergrounding power lines and hike our rates even more to pay for it - again with the approval of the CPUC.

    If you believe that outdoor boilers are a fire hazard, you have never seen one. Burning wood waste is carbon neutral, yet the EPA and CARB restrict the use of a method of combustion that's over three times as efficient and clean compared to a fireplace. They're one of the safest ways to burn biomass. Safer than a fireplace and much safer than an open fire, which is how most folks in my area dispose of green waste. We had 4 fires this year in my county due to people burning green waste. How many fires nationwide were due to outdoor boilers?

  • These are the debate ‘traps’ Republicans fear Trump may fall into
  • You don't live in a rural area, do you? Yeah, Trump is a trainwreck. I won't vote for anyone so antithetical to what is right. Biden is currently the lesser of two evils. My point is that I'm voting -against- Trump. I'm actually hoping Biden does terrible in the debate, allowing another candidate to become a contender. I'd rather vote for someone I actually want to be president.

    Biden is borderline senile. He's like a well-meaning but incompetent father. His party stands for many things I totally disagree with. I can't buy gas-powered tools to maintain my orchard because of Democrat "one-size-fits-all" regulations. Instead, I'm paying thousands for electric tools that need multiple batteries. They do the work slower, and that means more man-hours of labor. You see that as higher produce prices.

    Every year I torch thousands of pounds of wood from the 3 acres of forest that I'm required to manage. I could use it to heat my home, but CARB (controlled by Democrats) won't let me have an outdoor boiler. Instead I use electricity that comes from non-renewable resources and burn the wood in a big pile every spring, creating 10 times the pollution of that boiler and consuming 3 days of my time. The only other option for us rural folk is to haul it to the dump and pay $300 a truckload. And Democrats are holding up the biomass power project in my town over pollution concerns. That facility would give us a place to take green waste, reduce our fire danger, and probably lower our electric utility rate.

    The fire danger here is directly a result of Democrat-led forest management - or lack thereof. Their anti-lumber industry policies caused the town's mill to close 15 years ago. Without thinning, the forest was primed for the destructive fires that have swept the area. That has made fire insurance unaffordable. Mine was $800 just 5 years ago. Today it's $6500. Others in my area are paying a lot more. One neighbor got a renewal letter for $85,000.

    Sorry for the lengthy post. I wanted to show that I have legitimate reasons for not wanting a president from a party that is making my life more difficult. But vote for Trump? Not happening.

    Edit: typo

  • Jeffco Sheriff: Man shoplifts bolt cutters from Walmart to steal kid’s e-bike locked up in front of store
  • Install a bike alarm inside the seat tube. They're hard to defeat without tools. Mine alternately flashes bright blue and red light strips epoxied to the frame. In California, that's a guaranteed police stop (blue lights are only allowed on law enforcement vehicles), plus it makes everyone look at the thief. There's also a relay that shorts out the motor, making it a bitch to pedal. If that and the 120 dB alarm doesn't stop them, 30 seconds later two metal strips under the seat fabric get powered from a 55 kV mosquito zapper circuit.

  • These are the debate ‘traps’ Republicans fear Trump may fall into
  • The only voters that matter in this election are the moderates. We will decide the winner in November. The Hard Left and Right will vote for their party's candidate, but neither can ensure the Oval Office without moderate support. I look forward to the debate, mainly to see how Biden handles himself without a teleprompter. I already know Trump is going to spew word salad.

    Maybe someday (in my wet dreams) I'll have a ranked-choice vote. Then I won't have to base my vote on the lesser of two evils. That's unfortunately the way things are in our two party dominated political system. It's another election where I have to vote to keep the worst contender from winning.

  • Trump's Not 'Bluffing': Inside the MAGA Efforts To Make a Second Term Even More Extreme
  • I'm one of those people who answer the polls. "Party?" Republican. "Do you support Donald Trump?" Hell ya! (Hell no) I have a few friends who do the same thing. I hope it throws the polls off enough to give Trump false hope, or at least lights a fire under Biden's ass. Another 4 years of Trump and we'll be fighting Civil War 2.0. Just hoping all those McDonald's burgers catches up to him and he has the big one.

  • Has anyone found a bluetooth carplay adapter that actually survives?
  • Perhaps the voltage regulator in your alternator is throwing a big voltage spike on the 12V supply, killing your adapters. There are large capacitors made for car audio that will stop spikes. Try one of those.

  • Alex Jones agrees to liquidate his assets to pay Sandy Hook families, in move that would end his ownership of Infowars
  • There are quite a few non-dischargeable debts. When it comes to legal judgments, if the damaged party objects to dismissal of the debt, it can remain, particularly if liens are involved. Liens can't usually be discharged. That may be why Jones is seeking to liquidate. He can then start fresh using an company that he doesn't own (but does control) to shield new assets. For instance, the company can provide him vehicles, a home, and an expense account. The company owns the real property, and the expense account is not considered personal income as long as it's for "business expenses". That limits the amount of his personal income subject to garnishment. I only hope that there's a bidding war on Infowars so that his new company can't afford it - and so the victims get max restitution.

  • If an artist trains an image generation AI on their own digital art catalog, should they be able to get a copyright on what it produces? When does a tool change from a tool to a non-human creator?
  • Yes, AI contribution is an area that needs legal clarification. I know you brought the question up for graphic arts, but the same thing is happening with music. I can use an AI tool to generate tracks, tweak them to my taste, then supply lyrics that are also at least partially generated by AI. But if I never admit that I used AI, it's probably impossible to detect.

    What makes this really interesting is that entertainment industry workers went on strike partly because of AI fears, yet would the resulting productions be copyrightable?

  • If an artist trains an image generation AI on their own digital art catalog, should they be able to get a copyright on what it produces? When does a tool change from a tool to a non-human creator?
  • I'm a bit confused. If I use AI to generate an image, then modify it, can I claim copyright? And how would anyone know if I used an AI? I know there are telltale signs that computer algorithms were involved, so I guess the question is how much does the artist have to contribute before it's no longer considered non-human art? Or does any use of AI tools invalidate the copyright?

  • How to intentionally get terminated from a job without sacrificing unemployment benefits?

    My friend is a customer service rep who is ready to retire. Her company is talking about layoffs with 13+ weeks of severance, but when she asked (anonymously) if they were accepting volunteers, they said no. In case she's not one of the ones told to clean out her desk, what are the ways she could get terminated while preserving her ability to claim unemployment (which would equal the 13 weeks of severance)?

    UPDATE: She took my advice and saw her doctor. He agreed that she's experiencing a job-related stress injury, set her up with a Disability claim, and referred her for psychiatric counseling.

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