Agreed. And even if there are devices plugged in and always running and (miraculously) always functional, what do you do in a disaster situation where all infrastructure is knocked out? That is the exact time you’d want to make sure there are no impediments to foreign support being able to enter the country. But with nothing physical to fall back on for identification, what would you do?

I’m all for digitizing currency and the like, I really never carry cash anymore. But ID documents are still crucial to have physical copies of, and the passport remains the only internationally recognized standard.

From the article, it sounds more like they’re using shared databases and facial recognition more than smartphones or similar. So they’d presumably have the requisite devices at customs.

Amazing story 10/10 I cried at the end.

Sometimes you just have to, though. A lot of mobile sites are incredibly watered down and try to tell you that you need to use the app to do any basic function, but then the desktop site lets you do it without issue.

All love is.

What if we held hands while eating the new Taco Bell® Chicken Nuggito™?

The borderline pedophilia in so much anime is what turns me off. So many popular series are lolicon degeneracy but heavens forbid you try to call it out, or the anime fans come out in droves to tell you that you’re an unappreciative normie who just doesn’t get the themes and how profound they are.

I still watch some series, but I simply cannot engage with an anime community ever again.

If an indie game can’t rival the best AAA experience for a cost of no greater than free to $5, it’s garbage. It also needs to be lengthy to keep me entertaned for an indefinite period but also not too long. And there can’t be any DLC or microtransactions, but I need free content updates for at least 10 years.

If I don’t get all of these, I’ll give a review of “zero stars, trash game, do not recommend (550 hours played)”

Not gonna lie, I’d still love to eat that donut.

Should’ve used one of those photos of McDonald’s where they look at an ad for a menu item and then show a sad photo of the real thing.

I had no idea this happened, and now all I can think is that the writers of the HBO series Succession were coming from a very real place. I know the family in that series was inspired by the Murdochs but I didn’t think it was that faithful to reality.

Vendors use parts and designs from other vendors all the time.

As another example, Apple still uses displays made by Samsung and cameras made by Sony for the iPhone.

I used to live in China, where socialized medicine was in theory available for everyone, but in practice most everyone who had a decent job had private insurance from their employer not unlike in the US, which was my situation. It was…fine, but I was a healthy young adult and didn’t have much going on medically. I’ve heard some horror stories from others about the degree of care they received, and had one experience where my doctor simply attributed my migraines to my “unhealthy American lifestyle”, but I never had to worry about coverage.

When I moved back home to Massachusetts a few years later, I didn’t have a job lined up right away, but I did gain immediate coverage through MassHealth (the system the Affordable Care Act was based upon) and it was very cheap. I didn’t have to pay for coverage, but did have a couple copays here and there which weren’t anything crazy.

I started up one job, was laid off after just a couple months when the pandemic happened, and MassHealth was still there to give me some peace of mind. It’s not a perfect system, but it beats running the risk of suffering a health episode that leaves you financially destitute for years and years. I don’t know how well I would have managed elsewhere.

I eventually landed a more stable-long term career and get employer-provided insurance through Tufts. And it’s okay, but I recently had to fight a months-long prolonged battle to get a prior authorization approved for a med I had been taking for years that they just decided out of the blue I didn’t need to take anymore. And it took a lot of back and forth from my doctor to really stress that I needed to stay on this med before they eventually caved and gave me a 1-year approval, but now I’m worried I’ll have to go through this whole song and dance again when that time elapses in a few more months.

I think it’s just a bit ridiculous that the insurance company can simply decide they know my health situation better than myself or my doctor who I’ve been seeing for years now, and out of the blue make life-changing decisions without even having spoken to me or my doctor first.

Sadly, though, this may not be helpful for much longer.

Some films are beginning to completely forego physical release in favor of digital only, and we’re veering back towards “You need a dedicated set-top box for movies” territory with computers and game consoles trying to do away with disc drives.

I’ve always heard it said to never skimp on the things that come between you and the ground. Shoes, mattresses, tires, chairs, etc. Gravity is an unforgiving mistress and it has ways of subtly wearing down your body and your equipment if you don’t protect against it well enough.

I’ve lived in apartments most of my life, so I wouldn’t even know what to do with a big home if I had one.

What I will say is that, when playing Skyrim, Breezehome in Whiterun was always the house for me. Not nearly as big and opulent as some of the other ones you can get, but it’s compact and efficient, it doesn’t have a lot to maintain, and I don’t feel like I’m forced to fill it with stuff just for the sake of not letting empty space go to waste.

I feel like similar logic would apply to a real-world house for me. I’d like at least some space in there to be able to host gatherings of small groups of friends, but I like to live minimally and efficiently. I don’t want a lot of stuff to maintain or space to clean, I want to know where everything is when I need it, and I want to leave as small a footprint as I can (within reason).

I think my main grievance right now, looking at the housing market, is mainly that no one is building smaller homes anymore. All new developments are these massive mansions with huge yards which I don’t want, but when I’m looking for a smaller home, they’re all 50-100 or more years old and need a lot of work done.

Thanks to Lemmy, I don’t feel a need to return to Reddit, but I agree that we’re still essentially in “pale imitation” territory and I’m not sure if that will ever change.

In Twitter terms, it’s like everyone left for Mastodon but are really just waiting for a Bluesky to come around. I’d prefer to keep whatever platform I use open and free, but I’d like “approachable and vibrant” along with it if possible, which Lemmy is still struggling to accomplish.

It’s also normal for people to become nose blind to their own BO while still having an otherwise normal sense of smell. I think simply being direct about it is easier than trying to set up tests.

Usually Diablo and Diablo-likes are called ARPGs, a term that originally just meant “Action RPG” but is now mainly used to describe games similar to Diablo. Isometric, real-time, character builder RPGs.

Like: I guess I have to give it to Icarus and Daedalus. There’s something so sympathetically tragic about a kid who was just so excited to be free flying too close to the sun.

Dislike: Zeus disguises self and commits adultery, take your pick.

Honorable mention to Hades and Persephone; when I first heard this myth as a kid, Hades was painted in a villainous light where he kidnapped Persephone and then tricked her into eating the pomegranate seeds so she could never leave. But I prefer the reframing of the myth I see more often these days, where Persephone actually loved the unfairly maligned Hades and chose to elope with him.

The past is a good reference to learn from, but it can’t be a blueprint for the present. There are different circumstances between then and now which complicate things, like the aforementioned big money in politics.