I live in an area with a subscription fire service.
It’s not expensive - around $200/year. And if you don’t have a subscription they still come and put out your fire or cut you out of the car or whatever needs to be done. You just get a bill for $3000/hr/apparatus that responds.
But I still find it abhorrent. Just put it in my fucking taxes and be done with it. Jesus.
It’s been 15ish years since that polysci class. The project assigned a geographical location on a fictional continent, and other class members’ countries were on the same continent.
The final work required a fully written constitution, a history outlining relations with other student’s countries, a flag, and a travel brochure.
As I recall, I did get an A on the project.
There would still be things like police departments, federal bureaus, etc; all managed by… you guessed it: a council.
I had more details fleshed out, but this was 15 years ago and some details have been lost to time.
When I was in college, this was literally an assignment in my political science class - come up with a country and a new form of government. Write out a constitution for the country, and then write a travel brochure for it.
What I came up with is a lottery-based council government. The system is designed with none of the “gentleman’s agreements” that the US systems seems to be based on, and assumes that if it’s possible to abuse the system, then the system WILL BE abused. So it’s designed to minimize the ability for the system to be abused.
You want to get rid of career politicians? Make it so they don’t even have the option of running for office in the first place.
The way my system worked is that all governmental tasks are performed by a council created for a specific purpose. Every council is made up of an odd number of members, with a minimum of 5. Councils can be created to manage a geographical area, such as a state, county, or city, or for a topical purpose, for example, medical oversight. Each council has the ability to create lower councils that report to it, but only within the purview of the parent council. For example, a State Council can create a Municipal Council for a city within the state.
Sitting at the top of the entire structure is the Prime Council, which always consists of exactly 11 members. Decisions of the Prime Council are final except in the case of a supermajority overrule as detailed below.
Lower councils are subject to the decisions of higher councils with one exception - a parent council’s ruling can be overturned and vacated if a supermajority* of child councils that existed at the time of the ruling vote to overturn it. For example, if a State Council outlaws gambling, but 75% of Municipal Councils vote to vacate the ruling, it is overturned. But, for example, if a Municipal Council votes to allow prostitution, the state or national council can overturn that ruling on its own. Again, however, this overturning can be overridden by a supermajority of child councils. However, the chain ends there. A parent council CANNOT vacate a supermajority vote passed by the collected child councils. Child councils must have a reason for existing can cannot be created simply to stack a supermajority vote.
A singular case can only be tackled by ONE council at a time and cannot be interfered with during the proceedings by any other council at any other level. For example, if a Municipal Traffic Council is considering a motion to raise a speed limit on a road, no other council (Municipal, State, or even the Prime Council) can interfere in that case or tell the lower council how to rule on it. However, once the case is complete and the ruling announced, THEN a higher council may take up the issue and/or vacate the lower council’s ruling.
Decisions of lower councils can be appealed, but a parent council has no obligation to take up the issue and can simply deny the appeal.
Courts, as we understand them, do not exist in this system, per se. Civil and criminal cases are handled in the same way; there is no separation between the case types. Likewise, there is no differentiation between the natures of the decisions that can be handed down. Every court case is presided over by a council created especially for the purpose of hearing this single case. All the other rules surrounding how councils work detailed the Councils section still apply.
Council members are selected by lottery from all eligible citizens. Each lottery is specific to the seat being filled. To be considered eligible for a given lottery, a citizen:
Must be a member of the geographical area that the seat’s council represents. For example, if the seat is on a Municipal Planning Council, the citizen must live within the city.
Must meet the qualifications defined by the higher council when this council was created. In this case, perhaps, qualification requires that the citizen hold a bachelor of science degree in any subject.
Must NOT have previously served on this same council.
Must NOT have been declared unfit for service by a medical professional.
All citizens of legal age are automatically in the lottery pool by default, and the lottery operates on on opt-out basis.
If a citizen is chosen for a council, they have the option of declining the position. In which case, another eligible citizen is selected.
Additionally, a citizen can elect to be removed from the lottery pool for any or no reason for one year at a time. This election can be renewed indefinitely, but it must be renewed UNLESS a medical professional declares that they are unfit for service. An unfit-for-service declaration can be made for a specific amount of time or on a permanent basis.
Any council member can resign their position on a council at any time before their term is over. In addition, a council member may enact the right of “Antagonistic Resignation” whereby they remove both themself and ONE other member of the council. There is no veto or override process allowed. To clarify, any council member can remove any other member from the same council by also removing themself at the same time. The replacement council member(s) will be chosen via the lottery.
A council member MAY NOT vote on or interfere with the vote on any issue the results of which they may directly benefit from. That is to say that if a council member could personally benefit from a decision on a matter, they are REQUIRED to recuse themself from the case and may not interfere with the case in any way, including but not limited to public discussion or press releases related to the matter.
A council member with a conflicting interest in a single case must either resign from the council or recuse themself from the case. As with Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member chooses ONE other council member that must also recuse themself from the case to preserve the odd number of council seats. Again, there is no veto or override process allowed. However, unlike Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member MUST choose one other member for recusement - they do not get the option to decline. If the number of active seats on the council would drop below five for this single issue, interim seats will be created and filled by lottery for this specific case only, after which the additional seats will be removed from the council and the interim council members’ terms will be considered complete.
Serving on a council is a full-time job and may require taking a sabbatical from work. While an individual citizen has the ability to decline a council seat, NO other entity, individual, or organization may punish or otherwise act against a citizen for choosing to accept the responsibility of service. Therefore, it is considered unconstitutional for any entity to retaliate against a citizen for accepting a council seat, punishable by a fine of not less than 50% of that entity’s yearly income. It is understood that this is a harsh penalty, and the severity and calamitous nature of it is intentional and intended to avoid even the outward appearance of impropriety or retaliation. If a citizen CHOOSES of their own accord to decline a council seat out of a sense of duty to an organization, that’s allowed, but it is absolutely not acceptable for an organization to demand, tell, ask, or even imply that a seat should be declined.
It is required by law that an employee (and this shall be construed loosely, to include any person who is in any way a member of an organization) of an organization be reinstated at the end of their council service to their same position, pay, benefits, and tenure as though no sabbatical had been taken at all. This is inclusive of any required “re-onboarding” time.
Council members shall be paid the greater of 125% of their reported yearly income or 200% of the average salary of the relevant lottery eligibility pool. This shall be to incentivize citizens to fulfill their duty and serve on a council.
At any time, the citizens may petition a geographical council (Prime, State, County, Municipal, etc) for a status of Councilar No-Confidence. This petition shall require the signatures of 55% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented. Upon submission of a completed petition, the council will be dissolved, and a new council will be chosen by lottery according to all the requirements for the council being replaced. This action is automatic and cannot be vetoed or overruled.
If instead, the No-Confidence petition contains the signatures of 75% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented, the council and ALL LOWER COUNCILS created by it, directly or indirectly, are dissolved and replaced as above. This is akin to pruning a branch from a tree - every branch and leaf connected to the branch is also removed. Note that this applies to EVERY level of the system, so a No-Confidence petition signed by 75% of the citizens of the entire country and submitted to the Prime Council results in the entire system being wiped away and reset.
It went a lot deeper than that, but I’ve already typed a LOT and think this mostly gets the gist of it.#
It’s a point raised in the movie. There were no people in the buildings because the bombings were done at night and the only people that would be in the buildings were a part of the group and knew to be out of them.
Lot of jargon in this that most of us don’t understand. Dnm? Ddg? Can you explain it more clearly for us general admission ticket holders?
Also, thoughts on shrooms?
I simplified a bit. But it’s easy to bork the cable in the process, and it’s also possible the cable didn’t follow standard wire coloring.
Here’s the step by step process for anybody who wants to do this but doesn’t know for sure what to do.
You will need a razor blade or wire stripper and a wire cutter, as well as a roll of electrical tape.
Also it should go without saying, but unplug both ends of the damn cable before you start. And if you’re using a blade, please be careful not to cut your finger open. Paying $800 for stitches in your finger hurts, defeats the purpose of being a cheapass and modding a cable to save a few bucks, and gets blood everywhere.
Verify that the usb cable is a CHARGE AND SYNC cable. A charge only cable will not work.
With your razor blade, make an incision into the usb cable about 6 inches from either end. Don’t cut too deep. Only go deep enough to cut the outer jacket. The cut should be slightly longer than your tape is wide. If you have a wire stripper, strip about a 3/4 inch section of the cable about 6 inches from either end.
If using a blade, cut around the jacket at both ends of your incision and peel off the jacket between your cuts. You should have about 3/4 inch of unwrapped cable.
If there’s a wire mesh wrapping the inside of the cable, cut SOME of the mesh, being careful to ensure that the mesh is still connected on both ends. If there’s a foil wrapper, find the seam and peel it back to expose the inner wires. You can cut the foil if necessary, but do not remove it entirely. Ensure that SOME of the foil and/or mesh is still attached at BOTH sides of the exposed section.
The inner wires should now be exposed. There should be 4 wires - red black white and green. There might also be a 5th wire with no insulation at all, but this won’t be in all cables. It’s okay if it’s missing. However, if you don’t see ALL of those 4 colors or see different colors STOP. Tape the cable back up and get a different one. If you only see TWO wires, you have a charge only cable and it won’t work. Tape it back up.
Clip the red wire TWICE, about an 1/8th inch apart. There should be a gap in the wire now if you line the ends up. DO NOT cut anything else inside the cable. The black white and green wires MUST remain intact for the cable to function.
Bend the red wires up and out of the jacket. Close up the foil and/or mesh and wrap ONLY the exposed portion of the cable with ONE layer of electrical tape, leaving the red wires sticking up on either side of the tape. It’s okay if some metal is exposed on either side of the tape, but the red wires should be able to lay down on it without the ends touching anything metal.
Lay the ends of the red wires down so that the ends are laying on the tape. The metal inside the red wire should NOT contact anything else that’s metal in the cable.
Wrap the whole opened section of the cable with electrical tape to an inch or two on both sides of the open section.
Plug it in and give it a try. You should have data-only usb cable that doesn’t deliver power now. Mark or label the cable in some way so that you don’t lose your mind trying to figure out why this damn usb cable doesn’t charge your phone when you pull it out of a box of random shit 5 years from now.
I bought a X1C and have never leveled it once. Everything is completely automatic, and I’ve never had a failed print.
If I can see that the print quality is starting to go down (and by that I mean I can see a little ringing or something), I just hit the calibrate button and it does everything on its own with zero intervention besides the initial button.
Or just sacrifice a usb cable - carefully open the wire jacket, snip the red wire, then tape it back up. Easy peasy done in 2 minutes.
I had more money for food and started eating out more and got a lot fatter. Now I’m trying to improve my health by not eating like an asshole anymore.
I also got access to more credit and promptly ran up a bunch of debt. Now I pay $1000 a month in minimum payments and I’m working on chipping the balances down, but at least my car is paid off now.
I also bought a house, which turned out to be the best financial decision I ever made. Got locked in at 2.9% before the market lost its damned mind. Now my $145K house is worth $330K. I mean, on paper at least, but it’s a useless number because everything else has gone up too, so selling and buying something else would be a wash price wise, but my interest would go to like 7%. But I only pay $908 a month for my mortgage, escrow, and pmi, so I’m doing better than paying $2K/mo for rent to line somebody else’s pocket.
So a handful of ups and downs. Best advice, control yourself - eat right and don’t spend money just because you have it. Sure, a new couch, etc might only be $100/mo, but all that shit adds up and you’ll end up with a 6 figure salary and a cabinet full of ramen noodles. Ask me how I know.
I’ve always thought that ADHD is the most poorly named condition I’ve ever seen. It’s borderline offensive. They named the condition after the fact that other people find us annoying, and even then, the name describes a single sign, and is far from all encompassing. It’s like calling Parkinson’s Disease “shaky hand syndrome”.
The group responsible for the DSM needs to get off its ass and do better.
By dumb luck I bought a house right before the housing market lost its goddamned mind.
$145K for a 3 bedroom on an acre of land. It’s more than doubled in value since I bought it, and I pay less than $1000/mo at 2.9% interest.
I keep getting letters from my mortgage company offering me $80K in a cash-out refinance at like double to triple my current interest rate and I’m like “how about blow me?” I’m riding that interest rate until the wheels fall off.
He sold them.
On the downside, sad to see the kids go, but on the upside, you get a free pair of Nikes every month.
Boot from a usb stick, mount the fs, use the live environment’s chmod command to fix stuff.
Well, it’s multiple things.
People are paid for their time on the council, and by law the pay is AT MINIMUM 25% more that whatever you were already making, but could be considerably more depending on the pool of eligible citizens. Remember, the pay is the GREATER of 125% of whatever you were already making in your private job, or 200% of the average pay for the eligibility pool. So if you’re making $40,000 per year and get called to council, you’re gonna get paid a minimum of $50,000 for your term, but if the average pay for your eligibility pool is $40,000, then you’re gonna be paid $80,000 for your term. It’s structured so that there’s always a strong financial incentive to serve.
People don’t vote because they feel their vote doesn’t matter. When you’re part of a pool of 10 million people, one vote is more or less negligible. But, when asked to serve, you’re now one of only a handful of votes. Maybe one of 5. Maybe one of 11. But your vote absolutely matters in a way that nobody could dismiss.
And tbh, if somebody declines, it’s really not that big a deal. Eligibility pools would be big enough that a nontrivial number of people could decline the position and we’d still have plenty of eligible citizens. Worst case scenario is come kind of coordinated general strike against serving on councils, but to be fair, if the population is pissed off enough to enact a general strike in a meaningful way like that, they would have enacted a Branch No-Confidence movement long ago.
Funnily enough, I had this exact scenario assigned as a project in my political science class in college.
What I came up with is a lottery-based council government. The system is designed with none of the “gentleman’s agreements” that the US systems seems to be based on, and assumes that if it’s possible to abuse the system, then the system WILL BE abused. So it’s designed to minimize the ability for the system to be abused.
You want to get rid of career politicians? Make it so they don’t even have the option of running for office in the first place.
The way my system worked is that all governmental tasks are performed by a council created for a specific purpose. Every council is made up of an odd number of members, with a minimum of 5. Councils can be created to manage a geographical area, such as a state, county, or city, or for a topical purpose, for example, medical oversight. Each council has the ability to create lower councils that report to it, but only within the purview of the parent council. For example, a State Council can create a Municipal Council for a city within the state.
Sitting at the top of the entire structure is the Prime Council, which always consists of exactly 11 members. Decisions of the Prime Council are final except in the case of a supermajority overrule as detailed below.
Lower councils are subject to the decisions of higher councils with one exception - a parent council’s ruling can be overturned and vacated if a supermajority* of child councils that existed at the time of the ruling vote to overturn it. For example, if a State Council outlaws gambling, but 75% of Municipal Councils vote to vacate the ruling, it is overturned. But, for example, if a Municipal Council votes to allow prostitution, the state or national council can overturn that ruling on its own. Again, however, this overturning can be overridden by a supermajority of child councils. However, the chain ends there. A parent council CANNOT vacate a supermajority vote passed by the collected child councils. Child councils must have a reason for existing can cannot be created simply to stack a supermajority vote.
A singular case can only be tackled by ONE council at a time and cannot be interfered with during the proceedings by any other council at any other level. For example, if a Municipal Traffic Council is considering a motion to raise a speed limit on a road, no other council (Municipal, State, or even the Prime Council) can interfere in that case or tell the lower council how to rule on it. However, once the case is complete and the ruling announced, THEN a higher council may take up the issue and/or vacate the lower council’s ruling.
Decisions of lower councils can be appealed, but a parent council has no obligation to take up the issue and can simply deny the appeal.
Courts, as we understand them, do not exist in this system, per se. Civil and criminal cases are handled in the same way; there is no separation between the case types. Likewise, there is no differentiation between the natures of the decisions that can be handed down. Every court case is presided over by a council created especially for the purpose of hearing this single case. All the other rules surrounding how councils work detailed the Councils section still apply.
Council members are selected by lottery from all eligible citizens. Each lottery is specific to the seat being filled. To be considered eligible for a given lottery, a citizen:
Must be a member of the geographical area that the seat’s council represents. For example, if the seat is on a Municipal Planning Council, the citizen must live within the city.
Must meet the qualifications defined by the higher council when this council was created. In this case, perhaps, qualification requires that the citizen hold a bachelor of science degree in any subject.
Must NOT have previously served on this same council.
Must NOT have been declared unfit for service by a medical professional.
All citizens of legal age are automatically in the lottery pool by default, and the lottery operates on on opt-out basis.
If a citizen is chosen for a council, they have the option of declining the position. In which case, another eligible citizen is selected.
Additionally, a citizen can elect to be removed from the lottery pool for any or no reason for one year at a time. This election can be renewed indefinitely, but it must be renewed UNLESS a medical professional declares that they are unfit for service. An unfit-for-service declaration can be made for a specific amount of time or on a permanent basis.
Any council member can resign their position on a council at any time before their term is over. In addition, a council member may enact the right of “Antagonistic Resignation” whereby they remove both themself and ONE other member of the council. There is no veto or override process allowed. To clarify, any council member can remove any other member from the same council by also removing themself at the same time. The replacement council member(s) will be chosen via the lottery.
A council member MAY NOT vote on or interfere with the vote on any issue the results of which they may directly benefit from. That is to say that if a council member could personally benefit from a decision on a matter, they are REQUIRED to recuse themself from the case and may not interfere with the case in any way, including but not limited to public discussion or press releases related to the matter.
A council member with a conflicting interest in a single case must either resign from the council or recuse themself from the case. As with Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member chooses ONE other council member that must also recuse themself from the case to preserve the odd number of council seats. Again, there is no veto or override process allowed. However, unlike Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member MUST choose one other member for recusement - they do not get the option to decline. If the number of active seats on the council would drop below five for this single issue, interim seats will be created and filled by lottery for this specific case only, after which the additional seats will be removed from the council and the interim council members’ terms will be considered complete.
Serving on a council is a full-time job and may require taking a sabbatical from work. While an individual citizen has the ability to decline a council seat, NO other entity, individual, or organization may punish or otherwise act against a citizen for choosing to accept the responsibility of service. Therefore, it is considered unconstitutional for any entity to retaliate against a citizen for accepting a council seat, punishable by a fine of not less than 50% of that entity’s yearly income. It is understood that this is a harsh penalty, and the severity and calamitous nature of it is intentional and intended to avoid even the outward appearance of impropriety or retaliation. If a citizen CHOOSES of their own accord to decline a council seat out of a sense of duty to an organization, that’s allowed, but it is absolutely not acceptable for an organization to demand, tell, ask, or even imply that a seat should be declined.
It is required by law that an employee (and this shall be construed loosely, to include any person who is in any way a member of an organization) of an organization be reinstated at the end of their council service to their same position, pay, benefits, and tenure as though no sabbatical had been taken at all. This is inclusive of any required “re-onboarding” time.
Council members shall be paid the greater of 125% of their reported yearly income or 200% of the average salary of the relevant lottery eligibility pool. This shall be to incentivize citizens to fulfill their duty and serve on a council.
At any time, the citizens may petition a geographical council (Prime, State, County, Municipal, etc) for a status of Councilar No-Confidence. This petition shall require the signatures of 55% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented. Upon submission of a completed petition, the council will be dissolved, and a new council will be chosen by lottery according to all the requirements for the council being replaced. This action is automatic and cannot be vetoed or overruled.
If instead, the No-Confidence petition contains the signatures of 75% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented, the council and ALL LOWER COUNCILS created by it, directly or indirectly, are dissolved and replaced as above. This is akin to pruning a branch from a tree - every branch and leaf connected to the branch is also removed. Note that this applies to EVERY level of the system, so a No-Confidence petition signed by 75% of the citizens of the entire country and submitted to the Prime Council results in the entire system being wiped away and reset.
It went a lot deeper than that, but I’ve already typed a LOT and think this mostly gets the gist of it.
Yeah I know, and maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems like the stuff I get in store is better than the stuff I get online.
Jealous!
I live 4 hours from the nearest microcenter. I still make the drive periodically.
Nah, don’t need to actually have one. Just need to request one.
“Hey man, haven’t heard from you in a while. You alright?”
“Yeah, everything’s great man. Just sitting here drinking a Bud light lime.”
“Bud light lime? For real?”
“Yeah, man. Definitely a bud light lime kind of day.”
“You need me to call the cops?”
“Sure thing man. Thanks for checking in.”
Hell, it doesn’t even need to be in production anymore.
(Looks at my credit cards)
Yall got any more of that 20% interest?