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Nice Guy Eddie

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Nice Guy Eddie

  1. A fair amount of Twitter content is related to free content that Twitter takes from other sites, with the inherent acceptance from those other sites. You tweet out a NYT or Fox News story, those news sites allow Twitter to display a story pic and a short summary. There is a mutual benefit in that Twitter has content and a certain % will click out to the news site. Put the tweet behind a paywall and the news sites may be inclined to want more including $$. Even if Twitter only requires a registration to see the tweet/content, why shouldn't the NYT tell Twitter that they want the registration info as well. Twitter says no, then the NYT might decide to block Twitter. Twitter's only leverage is (was) their large user base which is dwindling by the day.
  2. lighten up Francis. I was saying that a speech itself isn't enough. I wasn't expecting a hand delivered note to everyone today.
  3. On a different note, the S&P 500 is now up 16% for the year, at the halfway point. NASDAQ up 32%. This wasn't something I expected to occur so fast. My financial independence looks a helluva lot more secure today than it did in December. I'm not looking to retire yet and I know anything can happen but everyone saving for the retirement should be happier these days. Unless of course you listened to the fearmongers late last year and moved out of the stock market due to recession fears.
  4. That's nice but student loan debtors need to see the personal amount they "lost" today not hear a generic speech about it. I also doubt that many will be listening to a presidential speech going into 4th of July weekend.
  5. I agree that property taxes can be punitive for someone that has a house that is valuable and is a high multiple of someone's income. Tax policy can easily flip into political discussions but at the end of the day the govt needs its money. Texas will not add a sales tax nor will we significantly increase sales tax. The only remaining item is property tax and the maths don't math if you lower property tax. Getting mad at Texas property tax is like getting mad at hot weather. You can leave but you can't change it. I agree that many are foolish if the retire in Texas. Retiring to a low property tax state can often be the most advantageous when it comes to optimizing personal finance.
  6. The Administration should send a letter to every student loan debt holder explaining that the conservative wing of the Supreme Court voted to not allow debt to be forgiven and that he, Biden, will continue to fight for them. I would even include an estimate of how much that cost each individual debt holder to educate them. Seems appropriate for any President to communicate how they're fighting for constituents.
  7. Anyone, that even remotely cares about gay rights, should only work with organizations that don't discriminate. Especially when that discrimination doesn't readily impact you. Teach the bigots that actions have consequences.
  8. It's a forgotten movie for most but there was a minute in '81 or '82 that HBO or Showtime broadcast Chu Chu and the Philly Flash every few hours. Arkin and Carol Burnett. Decent cast including Danny Glover, Ruth Buzzi and Jack Warden.
  9. You're saying that property tax is a reason that people do not retire early in Texas? I could see that along with health insurance costs and general housing costs, if they don't outright own their house. Honesty Texas is a horrible place to retire (early or not) if you are "house rich" but don't have a corresponding high income. I know some property tax burdens lock at 65 but that doesn't mean it's not a major burden for retired people. It just means that the burden may not grow as much.
  10. If business or people can now legally discriminate against gay people, can't a business owner effectively discriminate against anyone by just claiming that they thought the person was gay? If a restaurant owner felt their cooking was an expression of their free speech, but didn't want to cook for an African-American, then they only need to claim that they thought the African-American was gay. And even if that person states they are not gay, they could be lying so therefore the business owner can make discrimination decisions on their assumptions. And why the above is a hypothetical, it now appears that hypotheticals are eligible for SCOTUS decisions. As an aside, I think wedding websites should be unconstitutional across the board. No one cares about that except 1-2 people in the wedding.
  11. I don't blame Twitter for wanting users of their service to register/login, but Elon appears to be using a stick instead of an carrot approach. I understand the concept of requiring a logon as they can then present you content (& ads) that are relevant to you. However many users & lurkers only want to see the precise tweet they're clicking into. The result will be is that Twitter will lose additional views and generic ad revenue. And when Twitters posters see fewer interactions, they will ultimately post less. If I'm not mistaken Facebook has almost always required that you log onto their site to read a post. While I'm sure there security concerns to do so, the real reason is that Facebook wanted to know who you were so they could track you across the web for advertising purposes.
  12. If so, it’s particularly eye rolling that Thomas and Alito will vote against “hand outs” when they themselves need another 90 days to document what friendly financial assistance they’ve received over the last 365 days.
  13. From all reports, the judge only required that they’re responsible for the bond if George doesn’t show up. They put $0 down.
  14. Agree. I’m already ready for next season.
  15. I have the Beam Gen 2 soundbar and love it. I want to add the Era 300s for surround. Definitely overkill but I've transitioned to caring more about the audio than video for my TV setup. Also interested in the Sub Mini but bass isn't as important to me.
  16. tangent. I'm assuming you didn't create this but what an ugly graph. Can't stand when people decide to display every irrelevant # on a graph. /data viz rant over
  17. from what I can tell, Airbnb has recently responded well to protect their guests with changed policies or changes to the website. I imagine that some Airbnb hosts are not happy with the changes and/or they see their reservations plummet. If hosts can’t handle more transparency or competition, then they should look to get out. There isn’t a profit guarantee, and sometimes business have to operate at a short term loss.
  18. I see zero movement to building desal plants at least not until we empty the aquifers first. Taxpayer dollars cannot be used until after the destruction occurs. Map of Texas lake levels. To me there's a pattern of where lakes are suffering. https://www.waterdatafortexas.org/reservoirs/statewide I assume that some lakes are naturally susceptible to low levels. Lack of historic rainfall must create hardships in correcting drought-caused low levels. And if people/companies are using that water for fracking, lawns, farms, whatever, they're not going to stop just because the levels are low. Not that most Texans care, but is there any chance that Amistad or Falcon ever recover?
  19. What a horrible quote from Thomas: The non-legal document, Declaration of Independence" says that we're all equal, so let's not worry about protections.
  20. So he wants to use the IRS to punish “woke” ideology? If we take him at his word, he would support (but dislike) Biden weaponizing the IRS to punish conservatives.
  21. Looks like you now have to log onto Twitter to read a tweet. I'm fairly certain that wasn't required before.
  22. Of course we want rural America to participate in communicating with the world. Of course..."
  23. The Texas GOP must laugh at how bad the Texas Dems are about messaging. Cornyn can lie but the Dems can’t figure out a method to call him out about it.
  24. If Whitmire ends up winning against SJL, I’m interested to see what SJL does regarding her House seat. No law against changing your mind and running again in ‘24.
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