Yup. The guy was caught by the Secret Service as he was "trying to find an opening in the security." About the only saving grace in all this is that the people trying to do this are idiots. Like that guy who came up with a brilliant plan to get past the bullet proof glass at an FBI building by using a nail gun.

Unfortunately, throw enough idiots into the mix and some of them will succeed just by dumb luck. And the right has plenty of idiots to throw.

Same thing happens in the Jewish community. My father is a Republican and believes that Republicans support Jews because "they support Israel." He doesn't see that the only reasons that Republicans support Israel are because:

1. The evangelicals want Israel to exist and be run by Jews so it can be attacked and Jesus can return.

And

2. So the right has a place to say Jews really belong (not in America).

They'll "support Israel" all day and night while actively pushing for a Christian Theocracy in America where Jews are (at best) second class citizens.

It was the worst possible response. Had they stuck to their guns, the right would have remained angry, but the left would have been fine. By ditching Mulvaney over the "outrage," the left became upset and the right wasn't mollified.

Back in 2016, I got to taste a new flavor from Ben & Jerry's called "Feel the Bern" which showed their support for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. Anyone who gets surprised that Ben & Jerry's is political hasn't been paying attention.

Then again, some people became shocked that Rage Against The Machine was political leading to a commenter asking "what machine did you think they were raging against?"

I was the victim of a cyberstalker about a decade ago. This person was convinced that I was really someone else that she had a beef with. Her reasoning? We both like taking photos. (Apparently, I'm the only one posting photos online. All those pictures you see online? That's all me. No wonder I have no free time!)

I couldn't argue with her to let her know that she was mistaken because she had it on "very good authority" that I was lying about who I was. Namely, "God told her." And I'm not exaggerating here. She literally thought that God talked to her and told her stuff like who was committing crimes.

Oh and I was guilty of those crimes according to "God." I won't name those crimes because they're heinous, but suffice it to say she thought I was doing unspeakable things to kids. She was threatening to call my employer, the police, and everyone who knew me to tell them about what I was doing.

Luckily for me, all she had to go on was "TechyDad." I blogged at the time, but didn't post my exact whereabouts or my real name. The guy that she thought I was wasn't as lucky. She contacted his employer (a school in New Zealand) and everyone with the same last name as him that was on Facebook and near him. All to tell them what he did to kids. (Again, her source was "God." He didn't really do anything and he had to have quite a few awkward conversations to clear things up.)

I finally got rid of the stalker by grabbing her IP address (from one of her comments) and modifying my htaccess file to report 404 Page Not Found for only that IP. She crowed on Twitter about how she singlehandedly took me down and then moved on. (I and her other targets would report her to Twitter, but she'd constantly have dozens of other handles ready and waiting and would switch to them the second her main one was banned.)

To my knowledge, she's still out there stalking people.

Now, how would this have been different had she had my real name? Well, with a little work she would have been able to look up my location. (My name's pretty common, but she'd find me eventually.) Then, she'd locate my employer, my address, and other information. She could send me packages or mail harassing me. She could contact my local police to swat me or just to report my "crimes." She could contact my employer to report me and try to get me fired.

Now, I eventually did tie my real name to "TechyDad." I wrote a book and didn't want to publish under "TechyDad" so I used my two name. That being said, it was my choice. I definitely wouldn't want it to be required for me to use my real name everywhere.

I bought one with Bluetooth headphones built in. I have tinnitus and going to sleep was torture. I'd lay in the quiet room and be unable to sleep thanks to the loud ringing in my right ear. During the day, my hearing aid helps, but I take it out at night. With the Bluetooth sleep mask, I can put on white noise, drown out the ringing, and fall asleep.

As a bonus, I made a specific white noise mix for sleep and I seem to have trained my brain to have a Pavlov-type response. When that white noise goes on, my brain says "time to go to sleep" and I'm able to quickly fall asleep instead of having my brain run a mile a minute in the dark. (At least, on most nights. The Pavlov response isn't strong enough to overcome me being stressed about something if I go to bed.)

The sleep mask with Bluetooth cost me about $30 and it was worth every penny!

I heard about Boost coming to Lemmy also. I don't have any information about development progress, but I'll definitely be trying it out once it launches.

Boost is still working for Reddit because Reddit realized that turning off their API access was harder than they thought. It will take them a few weeks to do this. Once they do, Boost for Reddit will be dead.

I'm still using it to look into a few subreddits every so often. (Ones that I haven't found Lemmy replacements for.) When it dies, my time spent on Reddit - already very reduced from the pre-API crisis levels - will drop even more.

I like Liftoff and Jerboa. I flip between them depending on my mood.

The only reason that he seemed like a "Genius CEO" with SpaceX and Tesla was because those companies had layers of management dedicated to protecting the company from Musk.

If Musk marched into Tesla and decided that all Tesla cars should have eyeball shaped headlights, managers would tell him what a genius idea that was and that they'd get right on it. Then, they'd distract him with something else while the idea went in the trash can.

Twitter has no such management layer so every Elon Epiphany becomes Twitter policy no matter how bad or destructive it is. SpaceX and Tesla were successes despite Musk and Musk gained his "genius" reputation because those companies were able to filter out his idiocy.

I was assuming that the reason was that Twitter fired all their system administrators so the services are basically held together with bubble gum and string. If too many people use the services, it'll crash so they need to limit usage.

They can't admit that the rate limits are due to unmaintained servers, though, so they trotted out the "people are scraping Twitter" excuse.

Come to think of it, didn't Reddit use something like that as an excuse for the huge API pricing? Are they coordinating on how to ruin their services? If so, they're doing a great job!

Including sites that are hosted outside of the US. Does Virginia think that a site hosted in the Germany and run by people in the Netherlands will care that Virginia says they need to verify the age of their visitors? (I picked those countries at random. If I somehow picked countries that wouldn't work due to local laws, just substitute different countries.)

He's an anti-vaxxer that echos a lot of Russian propaganda. He even tweeted an image of a woman wearing his campaign merchandise - and then people noticed that the sign on the cafe in the background was in Russian.

If anything, he seems like a right-winger trying to pretend that he's a liberal and hoping that people vote for him based on his famous family name.

As soon as they stop doing things worthy of criticism (and undo what they've already done), then I'll agree that the liberal justices should stop criticizing the court.

The last one is Imposter Syndrome. I struggle with it too. Despite having worked in web development for 25+ years, I'm constantly finding myself thinking that I don't know anything and any day now everyone else will realize it. It's a constant battle to remind myself that I'm actually talented and knowledgeable and not just a huge fraud.

Building with LEGO can be fun, but obviously buying tons of sets costs a lot of money and displaying them takes up a lot of space.

A nice alternative is using BrickLink Studio. This software lets you build LEGO creations using a 3D CAD-style software. You can not only build creations, but can generate photorealistic images. Here's a recent virtual build of mine:

You can upload your creations to Rebrickable.com and download other people's creations.

If you really want to build your creation, you can upload the parts list to BrickLink and buy new or used pieces. Obviously, this last part takes real money, but buying used pieces can bring down the cost.

Republicans seem to want to turn back the clock to the 1950's and in one aspect I agree with them. The top tax rate back then was 90%. That should be returned for anyone making over $10 million.

Unlike Republicans, though, I think people should be free to be who they are - whether they're LGBTQ or straight/cisgender, black or white, Christian or Jewish or atheist, or any other group I didn't list. (I didn't list all groups only because I don't want this comment to be novel length.) Basically, as long as your actions affect only yourself and consenting adults, I'm fine with them.

I'm also fine with parents having some control over what their kids do. I'm a parent myself and know that as a parent you need to make judgement calls as to what's best for your child. I wouldn't want someone else questioning my parenting based on their beliefs. However, there are limits. If your child is LGBTQ and you try to force them to be straight/cisgender, you aren't acting in your child's best interests. If your 10 year old child is raped and their life is in danger, but you refuse to allow them to have an abortion because your religion doesn't allow it, then you're harming your child.

Also, a person's "parental rights" shouldn't mean that they get to decide that certain books are banned from everyone reading them. My son actually just finished reading a book because it had been banned and we laughed over how innocuous the "ban triggering passage" was compared to some stuff in the Bible.

Basically, I think I'd call myself a Pragmatic Progressive. I advocate for progressive causes, but I also realize that society can often be slower to adapt than we like. While we would love to be able to pass X and have it be widely adopted immediately, there's often a series of slow moving battles to get X passed and another slow march to get wide acceptance. We can't simply throw in the political towel at the first setback. Neither can we pass up 10% of our goal being within our grasp because we're holding out for 100%. We need to get whatever advancements we can while continually pushing for more.

Birthright citizenship is in the Constitution - the 14th Amendment. DeSantis couldn't just have Congress pass a law repealing it. Now, he could have Congress try to pass a new Amendment removing it. That's possible, but extremely unlikely.

First, he would need to get two thirds of each chamber of Congress on board. Right now, the chambers are basically divided 50-50. DeSantis might get one or two right leaning Democrats to jump on board (Manchin), but there's no way he'd get enough to pass this hurdle.

Let's say he did, though. The Democrats suffer a mass outbreak of temporary insanity and wind up passing this. Now, it would go to the states. DeSantis would need three fourths of the states, or 38, to ratify it. 27 states voted for Trump so lets assume they immediately jump on board. Georgia was close and is run by Republicans so we'll give that to DeSantis also. This still leaves 10 states. He'd quickly run out of swing states and would need to convince some blue states to approve his amendment.

Is it possible that this happens? Yes, but it's also possible that I find a winning lottery ticket on my front lawn tomorrow. I wouldn't count on either one happening though.

They want the First Amendment to only apply to straight, white, Christian men.

Of course, they want all rights to apply only to them and all restrictions to apply only to everyone else. It's why conservatives were very pro-gun control when black groups started marching while legally carrying guns. "We can't have 'those people' using the Second Amendment! It only applies to us!!!"

It's pretty much the playbook of all of DeSantis' "accomplishments."

1. Make a broad law banning or mandating some action.

2. Brag about how great, conservative, and anti-woke you are for passing this law.

3. Law gets struck down for being obviously and egregiously unconstitutional.

4. Either denounce "liberal activist judges who push the woke agenda" (ignoring that the judge was appointed by a Republican) or just ignore the ruling entirely and keep touting the law you passed regardless of the fact that it's been junked.

The right to practice a religion ends when it smacks me in the face with its zealotry and steals bodily autonomy.

I'm religious and agree 100% with this. I'd never want my religious beliefs to be used to tell you what you can and can't do. They're my religious beliefs and should only affect me. On the flip side, I don't want anyone else's religious beliefs to dictate what I do.

There are too many people, though, who say "this is a Christian country and we need to follow Christian rules." I'm Jewish and not Christian so I know that these people getting their wish would make me a second class citizen. And that's if they don't go all "deport all Jews to Israel" (which I'm not from) or just go full Nazi and decide to kill all Jews. (And, yes, I've met at least one Nazi who faulted Hitler for "not finishing the job." These people are out there, they're scary, and some of them are getting into positions of power.)

I started working from home in March 2020 also. I was convinced that my productivity would suffer working from home. Previously, I had only worked from home during snowstorms and that was me sitting on my couch or bed working on just my laptop screen. When the pandemic hit, I got an second monitor and set up a dedicated working area. That made all the difference.

I'm actually more productive now than I was in the office. I can get through an entire days' worth of tasks in a matter of hours because I can focus without people walking up to me to talk.

I'm also healthier at home. When I went into the office, I needed to pack my lunch and any snacks I wanted. I'd often overpack and since my lunch container was on my desk next to me, I'd snack all day. Now, all my snacks are in my kitchen, but that means getting up and walking downstairs. Laziness actually helps me eat less. Go figure. Plus, I can make a salad fresh for lunch instead of relying on frozen meals.

Do I miss talking to my coworkers? Sometimes, but the advantages vastly outweigh the disadvantages. I'm also now technically working for my company's home office which is in another state. A commute would be about 10 hours each way for me. (9 hours if I cut through Canada.) So I'm pretty much permanently working from home now as long as I stay in this position (which I have no intention of leaving at the moment).

Ask him how Prohibition is going since Amendments can't be changed.

I make "egg muffins" and freeze them to reheat every morning. To make these, I steam a bag of broccoli florets. I break these apart and put them into greased muffin tins. Then I add some shredded cheddar cheese and egg beaters. I bake these (400° for about 15 minutes or until done). Then, after they cool, I stick them in the freezer. I make sure I have 12 in a Tupperware tub in my refrigerator.

Every morning, I microwave 3 of them and have that with some whole wheat toast and cream cheese. (I take more out of the freezer as needed and they are mostly defrosted by the next morning.)

I usually can't get close enough to get pictures. This one let me get in my car (which was right by it but I was entering on the other side). I was then able to lean over and take a photo through the passenger side window.

There is no such thing as expunging an impeachment. You can't do it. Once someone is impeached, they're impeached. Of course, the Republicans won't let a little thing like facts stand in their way.

Does the money go poof if you spend it? For example, say I buy some jewelry with half of the million dollars. Then, the time limit passes. Does just the half a million I still have on hand disappear or does the cash I spent vanish as well?

If the cash I spend vanishes, then I might be opening myself up to fraud charges after the hour is up. Going back to the jewelry situation. I buy half a million in jewelry and hand over the last of the cash just as the time limit ends. If the money in the store clerk's hands suddenly vanishes, they're going to demand their merchandise back. If I'm already walking out the door when it goes poof, they'll call the police on me.

Of course, if the money that I spend doesn't vanish after the time limit expires, then that's a different story.

She thinks many people in the mainstream have assumptions about women who get abortions that don’t match the reality she sees when she protests at clinics.

“They’ve never actually gone out to an abortion mill and seen that the majority of women who come in here — they have very hard hearts,” she said. “They’re flipping us off and screaming obscenities, just wicked things.”

Gee, you're saying that when you go and call people murderers when they're going through a stressful time of their life, people don't tend to be polite back to you? Who knew?!!

Biden wasn't my top pick in the primaries. (Bernie Sanders was.) When he was the nominee, I jumped on board because any issues I had with Biden paled in comparison with issues I had with Trump. I figured that Biden wouldn't be perfect but would be decent. He definitely hasn't been perfect, but even on his worst days he's been SOOOO much better than Trump on Trump's best days.

And when you hear he did something, your first response isn't "Oh God. What did he tweet out now? Did he declare war on a country? He declared war on a country because they criticized him, didn't he?!!!"

And it's not like we had some recent example of people thumbing their nose at safety only to have their "safety is waste" vessel catastrophically fail... Oh, wait.

Beyond the whole porn issue, as the victim of identity theft, "put all your personal information in this one big database" make me very nervous. Either that database will be hacked or someone with access to it will grab data for nefarious purposes.

It's not a matter of IF it will happen, but WHEN.

Well, I know that I'm definitely not voting for Hunter Biden in 2024!

It sounds like the "Swedish Meatballs" my mother would make: Stir together tomato sauce and a can of the jellied cranberry sauce. Toss in the meatballs and let them simmer.

(I'm sure this isn't how you really make Swedish Meatballs, but that's what we called it growing up.)

That's actually a big debate happening in the kosher community.

On one hand, you don't need to do things like check every organ for signs of illness. As long as the vat doesn't get infected with something, it's good. You also don't need to drain blood from the resulting meat since it doesn't have any.

On the other hand, if you take a cell from a living animal, is the whole mass in the vat considered a living creature? If so, eating from it might not be allowed (eating flesh from a live animal is forbidden). The lack of any kind of slaughter process could either mean they want harvested meat is fine or none of it is.

There will likely be rabbis ruling both ways for awhile before any consensus emerges. If any ever does. (Judaism is very decentralized and consensus is often difficult to impossible.)

Their goal is to get the cases to the Supreme Court. There, they hope the conservative Supreme Court will rule "gender affirming care is child abuse and can be banned." Then, they will make more extreme laws and repeat the process. If the Supreme Court justices ever balk, they'll just go back and reword the law so the Court approves of it.

They're using the Supreme Court as a "backdoor legislative tool."

Great to hear! Sync was my first third party Reddit app. I eventually switched to Boost (IIRC, Sync was having some problems with image uploads and so I moved clients), but Sync was still a great Reddit app.

Even though I'm liking Jerboa, I can't wait to see what the "third party Reddit developers" can do. The more Lemmy apps, the better!

We're not all insane. The problem is that there's a very vocal minority that's insane. There are between 10% and 30% of our population that think anyone who opposes them should be violently overthrown. They justify any actions they take with "the liberals would do this to us so we're just beating them to it." (Note: We would not.) This vocal minority is getting more representation than any other group and they still complain that they are underrepresented and that the entire country should bend to their whims.

Unfortunately, things are going to get worse before they get better unless the majority of sane people vote to ensure that the crazies stay out of power.

I buy Beyond Meat bricks for $8.99 a pound. That's pricey compared to regular beef, but I'm an outlier with pricing. I keep kosher at home and kosher meat is VERY expensive. Between the price and hassle (it requires separate pots/pans, plates, utensils, etc), I keep vegetarian at home. It's just cheaper and easier.

Beyond Meat lets me cook "beef" dishes for less than kosher beef would cost me and with more flexibility. (Tonight, we had pasta and Beyond Beef meatballs with cheese - a dish I couldn't make using kosher meat.)

There's still a market for products like Beyond Beef, but I agree that they'll need to hit "normal need" price levels before it really takes off.

My worst experience came just before the API disaster started. Someone posted on the ELI5 subreddit asking what autistic people experience when they are nonverbal. Now, I'm autistic and, while I'm verbal most of the time, I do have moments where I can't speak even though I want to. Typically in moments of high emotion or stress. (It feels like the words are in my brain, but the highway to my mouth has a twenty car pileup blocking all traffic.)

My comment was upvoted many times and many people replied positively to my comment. Then, suddenly, my comment was deleted. The mod said that because this was my personal experience, it was too subjective. Meaning, only an "objective" experience from someone who wasn't autistic would be allowed.

Needless to say, I was upset and needed to vent. I vented in the Autism subreddit about the situation and got people replying in support of me. Now, I did make a mistake where people started asking to see my original comment and I posted a screenshot. That was on me - especially because I forgot to blank out the original poster's name. (In my defense, I had nothing against the OP or their question so nothing lept to mind saying "better blank that out.")

The whole thread was suddenly deleted from the Autism subreddit for "doxing." I deleted the person's username and asked for the thread to be restored. Instead, I was given a 30 day ban. Then, I quickly got notified that I was permanently banned from ELI5 for "sh*t-stirring." My goal was never "raise an army of autistic people to attack the ELI5 mods," but just "blow off steam for something I felt wasn't just."

I decided not to contest either and just stop going to either sub. In fact, I was deciding to reevaluate my Reddit use altogether. And then the API debacle started.

Even if cultivated meat was initially bad for the environment, I'd guess that it would be easy to minimize it's environmental impact versus traditional meat. There's only so much you can do to stop cows from belching CO2. However, a factory making vats of cultured meat could install pollution controls to reduce their emissions.

I'd definitely like to see peer reviewed studies backing everything up, but my guess is that cultivated meat will on par with or be better for the environment than traditional meat and will only get better.