Martell Spy
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Posts posted by Martell Spy
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California’s fast-food workers win fight for $20 hourly pay and industry council
A new legislation will create a panel that will set wages and other standards for the industryhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/california-fast-food-workers-minimum-wages-victory
QuoteIn the face of recent intense pressures on fast-food workers, employees in the sector in California are about to get a boost with the creation of a body that will set wages and other standards for the industry.
The move is a hard-fought win for the labor movement in the state and is expected to be signed into law – called the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act – by Gavin Newsom, the California governor, later on Thursday. -
11 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:
I thought he did a decent job the previous episode explaining, but
it is curious he was ready to abandon his apprentice. My guess that's the dark side in him, seducing him to act selfishly. There are theories about he's after, but considering the internet's current track record, I won't discuss.
I did like that he was a wild card in Thrawn's strategy, eventually tipping the balance of power in the fight away from Thrawn's forces.
QuoteI thought he did a decent job the previous episode explaining, but
No idea, but the 2 force users keep getting called mercenaries. Which implies they are getting paid. Paid what is the question. I imagine it's not just credits and that it goes to Skoll, not the apprentice.
I prefer to hope that he's going to build a restort world out there and invite his true love, Lucius Vorenus.
- JGP and Ser Scot A Ellison
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Supreme Court rejects Alabama’s attempt to avoid creating a second Black majority congressional district
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/politics/supreme-court-alabama-redistricting/index.html
QuoteThe Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an emergency bid from Alabama, setting the stage for a new congressional map likely to include a second Black majority district to account for the state’s 27% Black population.
The one-line order reflects that the feelings on the court haven’t changed since June when a 5-4 Supreme Court affirmed a lower court that had ordered the state to redraw its seven-seat congressional map to include a second majority-Black district or “something quite close to it.”
- JGP and Ser Scot A Ellison
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Blame the US supreme court for the Bob Menendez scandalhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/25/menendez-scandal-supreme-court-corruption
QuoteThe problem is that supreme court justices have for years been legalizing – and personally engaging in – similar kinds of corruption. At the same time, top Democrats are constantly assuring justices that no matter how repugnant their behavior, there will be no serious challenge to their power.
Considering that, the high court may feel emboldened to use the Menendez case not to counter Americans’ perception that the government is hopelessly rotted through with corruption, but to instead make the rot even worse.Justices could use the case to further whittle down the definitions of terms such as “bribery” and “official act” to almost nothing – thereby making corruption not a crime, but the legal, court-approved ethos of American governance.
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US prison labor is cruel and pointless legalized slavery. I know first-hand
Dyjuan Tatro
I was paid 10 cents an hour to do menial work that taught no skills or life lessons. Without a college-in-prison degree, I’d probably be back in prison todayQuoteIn New York, all state prisons were built upstate as economic stimuli in rural districts and failing farm communities. The facilities imprison predominantly Black and brown inner-city residents who toil under a class of white overseers. I remember a guard bending over to shackle me one day and saying, “I just want to thank you for being here because I’m too old to be digging ditches.” My body and my labor made him an easy living. The parallels to slavery are stark and visceral.
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Hopefully he enjoyed riding that Trump tiger. Now he goes off into disgrace smelling of tiger piss.
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Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) and Final Fantasy 1 were also major turn-based RPG releases around that time period.
Much as I loved them, I do think it's good thing games have evolved past the old type of random encounters. It could be pretty frustrating to have half a dozen random encounters happen as you try to cross a stretch of overland forest, each with a loading screen. You knew what you were getting into though when you played these games. Almost all of Wizardry's gameplay is random encounters.
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Fetterman blasts Boebert: ‘If I take up vaping ... they’ll make me a folk hero’
“If I take up vaping and grabbing the hog during a live musical, they’ll make me a folk hero,” Fetterman wrote.https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/19/lauren-boebert-fetterman-00116734
QuoteSen. John Fetterman blasted Rep. Lauren Boebert for her behavior that caused her to be booted from a play in her home state of Colorado earlier this month.
“I figure if I take up vaping and grabbing the hog during a live musical, they’ll make me a folk hero,” the Pennsylvania Democrat tweeted Tuesday morning.
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If all boats will be lifted, why stifle it with regulation? The increased prosperity will cancel out ill effects.
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On 9/17/2023 at 12:39 PM, Werthead said:
There's a remaster of the original 1981 Wizardry (Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord) on the way, which is pretty crazy stuff.
Yeah, Wizardy was huge to me. I assume it was huge to 1980's computer people, too. But I couldn't get a PC until adulthood, but I found a NES copy of Wizardry. There weren't a lot of NES turn-based RPGs. But also playing Wizardy was like playing D&D, and this was before I got to play that so it was a good stand in. I couldn't find a copy to buy, but rented it often from a video store.
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but on most days I really did like 2-3 hours of actual work. Every job I've ever had since graduating college has been like this with most of my bosses being even lazier than I was.
I had a tech job where the expectation was about 2 hours or work a day, but 8 hours of clock time. Actually, I think you could get yourself fired if you really made a problem for the bosses by finishing your weekly quota in 10 hours and pestering them for more. We played pool a lot, there was a table in the cafe. And I personally enjoyed the work, there just wasn't a business need for more to be done.
Authority is the difference between a worker and a manager not working and/or goofing off. And that's what makes the whole Musk working 100 hours thing so ridiculous. He could be wanking off in the closets 98 of those hours. He owns all the closets and can forbid anyone from entering. He enjoys torturing workers and counts this activity as part of these self-reported working hours.
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Got Starship Design and it was definitely worth it. Got access to better engines. Replaced the old hab with a bigger one, added another hab with armory. Then to complete the design I had to upgrade the grav drive and add 2 more engines. Also upgraded a gun. Cost about 50 k, but was worth it.
It was confusing at first, but now that I ripped a ship apart I think I see how to create a whole new ship. It's going to cost a lot of money, but I think it's actually cheaper than buying whole new ships. And there's a lot of customization options I haven't even gotten into yet. Like designing the ship to support a huge crew. I've been mainly focusing on more cargo space right now. Got another rank in Starship Design as I like what I see here.
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This varies by planet. On corrupt Neon's it's easier to bribe people than on ultra-law-abiding New Atlantis. However, you really need to put points into Persuade (can't remember if there's a specific bribe skill) to talk them down or get them to accept bribes.
Yes, there's a bribery skill, I think it's Negotiation. I can see it on the skill tree, it's a 2nd tier skill. Actually, it's the only other social skill I know of that has an effect on conversations. (Others like intimidation and diplomacy might, I just have no experience with them) At least in the skill tree a lot of the social skills seem to do stuff like make NPCs run, or fight for you, etc. (manipulation and intimidation as examples)
I still have zero social skills. Probably need to fix that. I've been able to get by with wines, drugs, and fancy suits. I was actually relieved though to run into an NPC I couldn't persuade. (And sometimes they just don't give you an option, I ran into a couple powerful NPCs like that)
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Football coach who won Supreme Court case for right to pray on the field resigns after one game
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/us/washington-football-coach-pray-resigns/index.html
QuoteA Washington state high school football coach who won a Supreme Court case in 2022 after he lost his job for praying at the 50-yard line after games has resigned from his position.
The nation’s top court ruled the Bremerton School District violated coach Joe Kennedy’s First Amendment rights, saying prayers amounted to private speech and could not be restricted by the school district.
On Wednesday, Kennedy announced his resignation on his website, saying multiple reasons factored into his decision, including taking care of an ailing family member out of state.
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Court throws out Alabama GOP congressional map for violating Voting Rights Act
An independent court-appointed expert will now draw Alabama’s congressional map for the 2024 election.QuoteA three-judge panel has struck down Alabama’s congressional map on Tuesday, after GOP state lawmakers refused a court mandate to draw a second majority-Black district.
The federal judges wrote that they were “deeply troubled” that the state legislature declined to draw two majority Black districts. The same court ruled last year that it should draw a second majority-Black district to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court affirmed the ruling from the lower court earlier this year.
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Judge says DeSantis’ congressional map is unconstitutional, orders lawmakers to draw new one
The ruling is a rebuke of the governor’s map that broke up a North Florida district.QuoteA judge Saturday ruled that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ redrawn congressional districts in North Florida violate the state’s constitution and ordered the GOP-led Legislature to create a new map.
Judge J. Lee Marsh’s ruling is a rebuke to the governor, who previously vetoed the Legislature’s attempts to redraw Florida’s congressional maps and pushed lawmakers to approve his map that dismantled a North Florida seat formerly held by Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat.
“Plaintiffs have shown that the Enacted Plan results in the diminishment of Black voters’ ability to elect their candidate of choice in violation of the Florida Constitution,” Marsh wrote in his ruling.
The section violated is commonly referred to as the Fair Districts Amendment, which states that lawmakers can’t redraw congressional districts that “diminish” minority voters’ ability to elect someone of their choice.
- Ser Scot A Ellison, LongRider and JGP
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‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’
Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogentheguardian.com/world/2023/sep/02/alabama-execution-nitrogen-kenneth-smith
QuoteNine months later Smith has been singled out for another undesirable distinction. If the state of Alabama has its way, he will become the test dummy for an execution method that has never before been used in judicial killings and which veterinarians consider unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for animals – death by nitrogen gas.
Alabama has announced its intention to become the first state in the nation to kill a prisoner by forcing him to breathe pure nitrogen. The attorney general has asked the state supreme court to set a fresh execution date for Smith using the untested system.
The method, known as “nitrogen hypoxia”, theoretically works by replacing the oxygen breathed by the prisoner with nitrogen. In minutes that would reduce oxygen levels in the individual’s brain and other vital organs to fatally low levels, leading to death by suffocation.
Death penalty experts have decried what is in effect a human experiment. The choice of Smith as the first candidate for the technique, less than a year after he experienced a failed execution, has also been criticized as a double violation of the eighth amendment protection against “cruel and unusual punishments”.
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it’s like how Han Solo was still a smuggler 30+ years after ROTJ with no change in character basically.
He was an old man and now divorced. So yes, there was changes.
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Edited to add so I'm not putting out misinformation: It launched last night if you paid for the Premium edition.
Played a few hours of Starfield. It launched last night at 5 pm here in Pacific time. Looks solid. Zero crashes or even visual bugs. It seems like they may have even accounted for caught behind object errors as the robot Vasco got in my way once and I was backed in a corner, then there was a slight movement from the robot and I was out.
Ground combat is very crisp, really looking forward to getting into the jet packs and stuff later.
Space dog fights are a lot of fun. My main advice would be to remember you have a thruster. Forgot that a while and it made things difficult, but it's night and day using them. Playing a Long Hauler so I have ship skills. The early space combats became easy once I figured that out, with me getting on their tails and destroying them pretty easy.
I haven't seen much of the game yet, I'm in the early stages searching for the pirate captain at the research base. My general sense though is the writing is at a pretty high level. Found lots of books with interesting lore and tidbits in them in the base, reminds me of Morrowind in that sense. I've met only one major character so far, Barrett, but I was very impressed. Just a really cool guy. Someone my character would actually want to work with. Better than most of Fallout 4 characters.
I'm annoyed I can't make many choices on what to do yet, but that's typical Bathesda. The early mission annoyed, but it was kind of genius as it was very short. And they immediately offer you a way out. I wondered if it would be very railroadish when you join Constellation, but it makes total sense for 99 percent of characters, even surly ones. Here's a way out of being a miner wage slave, and by the way we are loaning you a ship.
Great looting in the base, great items in general. One of my favorite things to do on Bathesda games.
Love the scanning mechanic. You can scan flora, alien animals, and mineral deposits. Also I really like that you can apparently later sell this knowledge, but I'm not somewhere I can do that yet.
Can't wait to design and modify my own ships. Also to see the big cities. Plus, smuggling and piracy, but I'll have to make another character for that, as it's outside this character's moral bounds. I usually make 1 character for a Bathesda game for a long time so I can really get into it, but I am probably going to end up making four or five relatively fast this time. At a minimum I want to do a crook and a scientist, probably eventually a diplomat.
Skill tree looks great. It was a lot of fun to go through it all once I got a chance.
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Alabama attorney general says he has right to prosecute people who facilitate travel for out-of-state abortions
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/31/politics/alabama-attorney-general-abortion-prosecute/index.html
QuoteAlabama’s Republican attorney general said in a court filing that he has the right to prosecute people who make travel arrangements for pregnant women to have out-of-state abortions.
In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote that providing transportation for women in Alabama to leave the state to get an abortion could amount to a “criminal conspiracy.”
The court filing comes in response to lawsuits against Marshall that was filed in July from two women’s health centers and Yellowhammer Fund, an organization which says it provides “financial and practical support for those who are pregnant and require assistance.” The plaintiffs argue that Marshall violated their constitutional rights by publicly stating that organizations which help pregnant women in Alabama get an abortion out of state could be criminally investigated.
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GOP salivates at the biggest campaign finance win since Citizens United
It could be a seismic shift in how tens of millions of campaign dollars are spent.https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/29/gop-campaign-finance-citizens-united-00113235
QuoteThe GOP is growing increasingly optimistic about their prospects in a little-noticed lawsuit that would allow official party committees and candidates to coordinate freely by removing current spending restrictions. If successful, it would represent a seismic shift in how tens of millions of campaign dollars are spent and upend a well-established political ecosystem for TV advertising.
An eventual victory in the lawsuit, filed last November by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, would eliminate the need for House and Senate campaign committees of any party to set up separate operations to make so-called independent expenditures to boost candidates with TV ads.
Committees could work in concert with their candidates, opening up millions of party dollars to individual campaigns and allowing party committees to purchase TV air time at the much cheaper rates offered to candidates.
“What they’re trying to do is just pry open another barn door to get very large unlimited contributions toward candidates,” said Tom Moore, a former longtime aide to a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Election Commission who now works for the liberal Center for American Progress. “This is money that they don’t have to raise in small-dollar increments from actual voters.”
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139.84GB for Starfield on Xbox. Bigger than Red Dead Redemption. I got lucky though, deleting GTA 5 alone gave me the rest of the space I needed. It must be a beast.
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Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Interview: The Most Important Improvements, Making Dogtown, and More
We talk to CD Projekt Red about all the big changes in Cyberpunk's anticipated expansion.QuoteWhat are your favorite parts of 2.0 that you're very excited for players to get their hands on?
GA: The police system and how that is very organic and it escalates to where, like I was saying, at certain points they'll start bringing out the big guns, vehicle combat. You can get into a fight with MaxTac. There's five different MaxTac archetypes, four of them come down in the Navy at once. They can hack your vehicle and stop you. This is probably the part I'm the most excited about.
I'm equally excited about all the new ways you can play, the new skill trees. You can be a Terminator now. You can pick up a heavy machine gun. Before, you were like this when you're shooting it, and now you can steady shot it. You can pick up bodies and throw it at people. You can leap and smash. You can push your Cyberware to limit and get into a fury mode, very much inspired by David in Edgerunners, and your health starts going down. But the more you press your attack and that build, the more you're getting your health back. So it's a new way to play right in the mix of the action.
We still have the traditional cover fire and stuff like that, but we've got new AI, new mechanics. The Netrunners have a new way to play, the Netrunner NPCs have a new way they come at you. They can proxy their hacks through devices. Like I said, I could go on for so long. There's so much new stuff to talk about.
US Politics: Killin' Ya Hard With Hate
in General Chatter
Posted
The American public voted Trump out.