Just the phrase “both sides” on it’s own can get this ridiculous charade going. Both sides are political parties in the US, both sides further America’s geopolitical interests, both sides are largely financed by corporate donors who donate to both parties, both sides are economically right wing, both sides engage and amp up the post-political partisan spectacle. “HEY THIS RUSSIAN TROLL SAID THE BAD WORDS!”
Yup there’s no alternative being offered to the current economic arrangement, the parties offer different brands of neoliberalism. Democrats want to ensure everyone can be included in this system, or at least the idea that everyone can. You get this in things like Kamala’s “authentically me” videos or the tax incentives, just work hard and you’ll succeed. Republicans offer a more fashy brand of it with the socially reactionary pandering but economically they generally pass bland neoliberal shit with extra loosening of regulations. Like Biden’s biggest legislative victory is probably the CPA/Consumer Protection Act which restricted conditions people could file chapter 11, this benefits the debt holders ie credit card companies at the expense of making sure less people can escape their debts.
I think the “kids in cages” issue highlights how these things are processed by these politics. That treatment of immigrants is a byproducts of this neoliberal capitalist structure, people know it’s wrong and use these politics as a way to morally absolve themselves when opportunities arise. Democrats being in power doesn’t change the kids in cages, if anything climate change and mass migration will only get worse, however now it’s not politically convenient for the kids in cages to be an issue. The result is it continues and people wash their hands clean by pointing to the other neoliberal faction as the source of the blame, when the issue is the system itself and having no alternative option.
Yeah classic food truck venue here is an event at a brewery where they’re legally required to serve food. So you buy tickets and then provide to the vendors, but if you work out the prices it ends up being insane with super small quantities. They always have to make the food weird too, sometimes it’s cool but sometimes you just want normal shitfood.
I wanna do one where it’s like simple lowbrow stoner food done just a little fancy. Like grilled PB&J, but the peanut butter is the good stuff and the jam has the full berries in it, sourdough bread that can really take a heavy fry in some salted butter. The kind of stuff that’s dirt simple to make but really shines with a bit of extra love.
It was PHLAK back in the day. I just like Kali because it has so many tools ready to go out of the box. Run Debian as main OS though and it’s pretty simple to add their repos and install them.
I definitely don’t equate intersectionality with culture war, but I think it’s important to understand why capitalism has adopted intersectionality in the specific way it has. A lot of the debates about it on the left seem to be rooted in conflating intersectionality with how it’s commodified. Like you can think Robin D’Angelo is ridiculous without throwing intersectionality out the window.
All the big names I’ve seen labeled class reductionists are basically involved with diversity and intersectionality at some level, and openly express their support of those sort of initiatives, or have actually benefitted from them and admit it. Adolph Reed had a great example of when they were negotiating their collective agreement the EDI commitments were one of the first thing signed off and agreed to, but it took them a year of arbitration to get more sick days or something like that. It’s the same with my union as well. It just shows how capital is not against EDI or intersectionality, they’re against exploiting people less.
The hilarious pizza regulatory body in Italy says it’s not real pizza though!
This is maybe a hot take but some of the most authentically branded and certified pizza in Italy happened to also be some of the worst pizza I’ve ever eaten, and the best pizza I had in Italy was no better than a good quality pizza anywhere else. I mean they’re damn good pizzas, but turns out baking a circle of dough with tomato sauce and cheese on it is a pretty basic thing to do well. And yeah I know there’s complexity in all of this but it’s not materially complex. Use the proper flour and hydration, knead it well, let it cold ferment for a day, shape it properly. Oh you didn’t use the Roma tomatoes from Mt Vesuvius? Sorry not real pizza.
Also the demand for authentic Italian pizzas from foodies in North America has created some of the worst pizza abominations, because the skill required to shape a ball of dough by hand isn’t widely present in the service industry workforce. Like yeah when the right person is in it’s great, but even at these upper range places tough gummy dough inconsistently shaped is common. “Never frozen though so it’s real!” Nobody can taste the difference between frozen dough that’s been thawed, let to rise, and baked, if anything the longer ferment time makes it taste better.
If you can’t tell I detest the ironic authenticity trend in these heavily market-researched upper range investment restaurants right now. That’s not even to say the notion of authentic food is bullshit, but it seems like a lot of these type of places are more focused on creating a commodified form of what people think authentic food is, than actually making good food. Unfortunately this trend has plagued the humble pizza. I think the way to judge if a pizza is “real” is if you can consume it while walking down a street having a conversation, that’s real pizza.
What all of this effort should really go to… Italy should invalidate the Italian ancestry of anyone involved with calling Chicago deep dish “pizza.” That shit is a casserole, delicious as it may be. NOT PIZZA
Yeah pretty much, most linux distros are at a usable state by default and you spend productive effort learning how to manage it, it’s probably easier than Windows at the end of the day especially for general use. I’m a heavy user of Ableton Live with plugins and using Windows is the only way to run it on your own hardware. Also becomes my gaming machine, but everything else is Debian.
I just built a desktop for Windows 11, unfortunately I need a Windows desktop in the house even though Debian is my main OS. Last desktop was 13 years old and just wasn’t working for my needs anymore. Default 11 install is horribly bloated but I actually like the desktop environment now. Here’s some stuff I did:
Customized USB image to bypass Microsoft account with easily found steps if you Google. Used Chris Titus Tech’s tool to remove a bunch of shit, install apps, disable telemetry, configure windows update to security only. Used “Reclaim windows” script from github and customized for my purposes. After that I confirmed if all the shit was gone and did a remove-appxpackage for anything left, like widgets etc.
So I have a bare bones install, no Microsoft account, no Microsoft store, no “apps,” no default associations to builtin tools, and a bunch of common foss utilities and all my favorite windows-dependent apps working. Can’t believe it took the amount of effort it did but I like it now, given what my expectations were it definitely exceeded them.
Gambling addiction is so crazy to me, I could never tell if anyone was addicted though at the counter. I used to work at a pharmacy with a lotto machine so that probably determined customers a bit. The older retired ladies coming in with their pouches was kind of charming and they weren’t very big spenders overall, they seemed to just enjoy organizing and managing it all.
Slot machines in casinos really affect me in a depressing way though, seeing rows of people just pressing buttons over and over while they stare at the machine I find disturbing.