Kid_Thunder
@Kid_Thunder@kbin.social
- Comment on How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals 6 months ago:
The conservative strategy has been to polarize politics in America in order to have a very aligned power. This means that if you aren't 100% behind them, then you are an enemy to them.
It is only through this that the GOP can both say that they are protecting individual freedoms but limiting or taking them away (of course opponents to this will be quick to point out the one and only counter point which is fighting against restrictions of the 2nd Amendment and only that), say that they are for smaller government but yet want private companies to be regulated that attempt to censor hate and misinformation (which has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment when it comes to non-government entities) yet still say that they are for businesses to operate as unrestricted as possible. They are anti-union because they are corrupt and take away accountability yet strongly support the worst of the worst of unions -- the police unions. The GOP constantly cries that there's a nanny government, yet they push laws to restrict people's choices, censor libraries and try to tear down citizen protections. The GOP cries that this country's deficit is out of control but when they are in power, they over spend. They complain that public schools indoctrinate but at the local and state levels attempt to indoctrinate in public schools. They talk about needing to stay in power to turn America around, yet when empowered in all three federal branches fails to pass meaningful legislation and run the government that they are overseeing and yet blame the government because they will eat each other alive for their own individual gains.
There so much more but the GOP is a party of hypocrites. Without polarization mixed with some fear mongering their party would likely cease to exist with any real power because they do not stand for the ideals that their own voting base supports.
The GOP constantly tries to create an environment of being constantly under attack and spews hate. Their voter base is simply a product of that.
- Comment on Steam is a ticking time bomb 7 months ago:
A 30% cut for steam games sold on steam and a 0% cut for steam keys sold by the publisher wherever they want with the caveat that they must give steam users the same sales at around the same time. They get their games hosted on Steam's industry best CDN, a page with support for images and videos, an API with features users like, workshop API for mod hosting and delivery, and other SteamWorks API stuff for stuff like multiplayer, patch management without charging a fee for it, forum hosting to hit the highlights. Pretty much all of that drives engagement and is mostly turn-key though you do have to programmatically interact with their API when it makes sense.
Steam provides a lot of benefit for a 30% cut of what is sold on their store front and a lot more benefit for getting all of the above for a 0% cut if they sell steam keys outside of steam.
- Comment on car insurance 7 months ago:
Depends who owns the car or who has the loan out against the car. If you own the car and hire the driver, you insure the car and put them on the policy as the primary driver.
- Comment on "Hey Google, find the nearest Burger King" - "Sure, here is one on the other side of the globe!" 10 months ago:
That's Magic Earth Navigation & Maps and the results are that app's fault.
You can tell from both the app icon and it's the exact same Burger King logo it uses (Google Maps uses a different one).
- Comment on The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion 11 months ago:
I'm about to start a playthrough for the first time myself. I couldn't believe that it is actually stand-alone. I thought for sure you'd need to have the OG Stalker games but you don't and it warns that you shouldn't install over them if you have them either.
I never could get myself into the originals but I'm looking forward to GAMMA. - Comment on Tax time 11 months ago:
Because Congress creates really, really complicated tax laws that reduce tax burdens for business losses and obviously favor a structure that if you're wealthy enough you can exploit it for things that aren't actually contributing to our economy. Regular person with a few deductions that might go over a standard deduction? You might want some help with that, even if you're "doing it yourself" with the help of software (just like almost all of tax preparers do) or if you're just doing a standard deduction, it is easy.
Why can't you just fill out a 1040EZ in a webform and file online through the IRS?
Companies like Intuit lobby Congress so that the IRS can't just make it easy for most people. For example, the IRS wanted to just have their own app on a website to help you do your taxes for free just like TurboTax but nope.
The same thing has happened with weather in the US. NOAA/NWS pretty much provides all weather data and RADAR data to the public for free. They also provide a public API and all those weather apps either directly or indirectly get their data from there for the US.
Why don't they have an app like all these weather services do? Well companies lobbied so NWS isn't allowed to. The best they can do is provide a website that you can "use like an app." Paying extra for that up-to-date RADAR feed in your weather app? Guess what? You already did through taxes and now you get to pay a private company to simply display it in their interface.
Congress has the power to end this non-sense but does not. I'm sure this won't surprise anyone when I say this but US law is slanted towards empowering businesses and lowering accountability.