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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • There are three practical reasons Trump does this:

    1. Deflection: Trump doesn’t have an affirmative platform. As a populist strongman, Trump’s platform is situational and entirely based on what his supporters want to hear in any given moment. If health care is in the news, Trump will say his plan is coming in two weeks (it won’t ever come). If immigration is in the news, Trump will say he will build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it (he won’t). But what’s even easier? Focusing on the shortcomings of the opponent’s platform. Any time this works, Trump saves himself an opportunity to be put under the microscope.
    2. Deflection: Manipulating the media works. Trump knows that the more ludicrous things he says about Kamala, even if the media then starts to talk about how he’s wrong or fact-check him, the focus is still on the thing he said rather than Kamala’s platform. It’s subtle, but it really does focus the media effectively on whatever he says, and use his frame of that issue as the media’s frame.
    3. Filling the echo chambers and other spaces. We’re in our own echo chambers like never before. Trump says these things so that the people in the right-wing echo chambers have a plausible response to Kamala’s policies, or even just need filler for their broadcast/websites/Facebook groups. Ultimately there is only so much media people can consume every day. If Trump has filled all relevant supporter spaces with his own opinions & framing, there is no time or energy left to explore other opinions and framing.











  • Just for fun: this would have worked so much better if they price dropped the PS5 and introduced the PS5 Pro at the old price.

    People are anchored into thinking the PS5 is a certain value, and if they did that, it would instantly make the PS5 Pro and the PS5 appear to be a bargain, and so much of the PS5-owning public would have bought another system because it would be “such a good deal,” while PS5 fence-sitters would jump at the core system. I’m not trained to say for sure, but I think while their profit margin would be lower they’d be making much more money.




  • My good faith response to your good faith question: because having a DRM-free copy on your own server or hard drive is the only way to be sure you will be able to play it tomorrow.

    Streaming services are a complex collection of licensing deals that are by design temporary. You may not hear beforehand when your favorite artist’s label’s parent company’s conglomerate’s CEO decides to pull their content because they’re going to start their own streaming service, or another service gave them a lucrative exclusive deal.

    And while you’re never going to have a hard time finding Taylor Swift, that one 70s esoteric album may become instantly impossible to find once it drops off a streamer.

    In the end there are no promises with a streaming service. On the other hand, you put in a small amount of work to grab MP3s or FLACs, set up your own Plex server (or Emby, etc), and you’re good for pretty much forever.

    Similarly, support artists by buying their direct merch, going to shows, and so on, but they are barely seeing any Spotify money. Between Spotify and the labels, they are cleaning the plate and artists are getting whatever crumbs fall off the table (unless you’re Taylor Swift or another global artist).




  • I wish I knew as well. I’ve been using Chromecast Audio myself, which works with PlexAmp self-hosting my music.

    The problem is Chromecast Audio has been discontinued for years of course - Google did their Google thing, and unfortunately I never found anything else like it on the market. But you can connect those devices to any speakers and sync multi-room high quality audio very easily. I managed to pick up 4 of them when they did their fire sale, and I think you can find them on eBay for now still.


  • The practical answer is 3-4% above to counteract the right-wing effect of the electoral college. Yes, it all matters on what states she wins.

    The theoretical answer is that Kamala could get less votes, just like Trump did in 2016, and still “win.” It’s not practical because the swing states are more conservative than the median population of the country as a whole, which means it’s extremely unlikely those swing states will vote for Kamala while Trump gets more votes elsewhere.

    The places you need to watch are Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and to a lesser extent Ohio, Minnesota and Florida. The 538 polls will give you a sense of where those states are leading, and you can see different maps here. polling is imperfect, and frankly I can’t take the anxiety of watching that data day-to-day.