Rhaedas

Yep, and the important thing about keeping a Democrat governor is their veto power against one of the worst state congresses ever. I actually haven’t looked into what changed at that level, but I don’t have much hope that the GOP stranglehold was broken.

Nvidia Riva TNT, because the onboard graphics were only going to play EverQuest (beta) and Rogue Squadron like a painful slideshow, if at all.

A quote attributed to a few people, Heinlein and Pournelle for two, “If you can get your ship into orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere.” Both space and planets have shared and their separate problems to solve. In my head I prefer the image of most populations moving into habitats in space, customized to their preferences, with smaller settlements on various bodies for their own purposes. In my realistic view I don’t see us getting that far before we get bogged down with all the problems we’ve created on this planet. The window to a permanent space civilization might have already shut. A sad thing, as a 70s kid I grew up convinced we were full speed into some version of what scifi had sold to me.

Hardly okay with it. Some Americans don’t even know how things work to begin with, so ignorance is worse than knowing things are broken but what we have at the moment. Just because I acknowledge that’s the current election system doesn’t mean I don’t think we could do a lot better. That is its own topic with a lot of hills to climb, but some states have started.

And it’s a representative democracy with various flaws, one being not the proper number of constituents per representative, and far too much influence from other places that override the public’s opinions. Another separate debate.

Someone on another planet around another star is probably asking the same thing about their conditions. Once you understand how they could be there, you understand why we’re here.

You forgot the other scenario. You talk of not having leverage because of a vote, and yet the other choice absolutely has no leverage at all, and possibly makes things even harder to change.

Let me ask this - would you recommend not voting for either President, but voting on the rest of the ballot? Because telling people to not vote usually implies don’t show up at all, and that is part of why nothing changes. Local and state representation can matter more than the President.

I knew I’d get downvoted by some for asking how to arrive at some solution with the given dilemma we’re in. Maybe some people don’t want to fix it.

It boils down to if you think any admin will ever change how the US deals with Israel. And if that’s true, then how does change happen? Maybe if the rest of the world pushes against the US? Other countries are having their own struggle with any change suggested being labeled as a convenient antisemitism. This is a huge US problem, but not JUST a US problem. And I know OP didn’t want to get into the politics of it, but it’s hard to avoid when that’s exactly what it is, politics while people die and other people try to object and question it but get stomped down for doing so.

Does refusing to vote stop your family from being executed?

For a vote, yes. I can’t even imagine what Trump would do with the situation given another chance. Some may say the same thing as the US has always done, which is one of the problems that will need to be addressed regardless of who wins, but Trump also likes dictators, so support would probably be bumped up even more for Netanyahu.

The vote should be for someone who can get enough electoral college votes to win in the first place, and from there the one who is more likely to listen to public pressure, as well as the same for any congressional seats on the ballot. And probably not vote for the one who is threatening to send the military after those who disagree with them.

Everything is through OneDrive. Even stuff that doesn’t need to be. Desktop shortcuts…really?

Also - I hate Teams, refuse to use it. The one time I did use it for some irrelevant confirmation message, it stuck and now not only does it load every time I log on (to get closed immediately), it also has the history of that one message. That I’ve tried to delete, and it keeps coming back.

My favorite feature was how the air conditioner had a condensation collection tray that would fill with water as it operated.

That seemed to be a thing for that time period of cars, as I can recall others that did the same thing. How was that better than just a tube to the outside? Why?

Also a feature of cars then, having the vent to recirculate air close from the inside. Why is that a problem? Well, it isn’t until the car is moving fast, and then air pressure from the outside pushes the door open just enough to whistle. Again, was money saved by doing it wrong?

I can’t recall the year, but it was a Dodge Aries K-car, to pin down the era. Jesus. It was a replacement for when my 1970 VW Beetle died in an accident. It was not as good as the Beetle, which says a lot.

I did once for a job briefly drive a Chevy Chevette. That might have been worse than the Aries.

I owned a Ford Escort that ran with a similar program of trade between Ford and Mazda (I think it was 96 or so). So the engine and such was Mazda in a Ford body. It was worn down from past abuse, but it ran a long time regardless before it gave up. Apparently the flip side of Mazdas in Japan that got the Ford mechanics were terrible, so I count my blessings.

From the perspective of a kid in the 70s, I thought for sure some level of space colonization, whether it be a Moon colony or O’Neill type settlements. Along with that would be moving industry into space to tap unlimited resources and allow the Earth to heal.

It had its issues, but for the time it was good. Probably depended on the machine and what you were running. That was back in the days when making things work meant the right drivers, and the Win98SE CD usually made it work.

ME was so bad that MS forgot about it themselves. I bought a new laptop with ME installed that ran terribly, replaced it with 98 and it ran great.

98SE, XP, and 7 each were relatively solid for their time. They all had issues, but were far better at being an OS than what we have now or are trying to be sold to constantly upgrade to.

🌎👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

May not be the same in all cases, but with my insurance mental healthcare is its own separate thing through a completely different company, much like dental and vision usually is. So if OP is in the same situation it’s a different bucket and would have its own costs not associated with the medical deductible being met.