That is a great idea!

If your representatives are Republican, I’ve heard it’s a good idea to frame your complaint in the form of complaining about big government/ government overreach. I’m not sure if that would convince them, but I do think it’s the most likely way…

I posted about H.R. 9495 a couple of days ago and the danger it presented; and I thought it was important to share it got rejected too.

Going from almost unanimous support to 145 nays, is a pretty big swing. I would imagine a lot of it came from the fear of the next president abusing that power, but people contacting their Reps cannot be undersold here as well.

Over the next four years a lot of nasty bills are going to be floated, but please let this be a reminder that contacting your Congresspeople can help make a difference.

You can view the results of the vote here.

If your representative voted no, please contact them and let them know you appreciate it. I’ve heard that helps too.

If you aren’t sure who your representative is, you can find that here.

From my understanding, this was co-authored by a Democrat, so I’m not actually sure if it has other Democratic support. On its face, it sounds pretty staunchly authoritarian, so I would be surprised if it had widespread Democratic support. Having said that, I have no idea how enticing the hostage relief section is.

I would hope that this act would fail automatically, but as last week reminded us: you can’t count on rational decision-making. This is why I encourage everyone to contact their congressperson to make sure they know we expect a rational decision from them.

Right now things seem pretty bleak, and I know it can feel like we are powerless; but we can still do small things to make a difference. In this case, I highly encourage you to reach out to your Congressperson and let them know you do not support this act and that you, their constituent, want them to vote no.

There are nonprofits who will work every day to do harm reduction over the next four years, but they won’t be able to if this goes through.

If you aren’t sure who to contact, you can find out here.

This raises a more philosophical argument as to what signifies the fall of a body like the Federation.

The Federation is a union of other bodies who through the spirit of cooperation decide to work together. If the majority of the bodies that make it up decide to pull out, does that constitute the fall of the Federation?

If one body leaves, of course it has not fallen; and if they all leave, it no longer exists at all. How many planets still need to be in a union for the Federation to successfully exist?

The fact that Vulcan/Ni’Var and Earth both pulled out and are two of the Charter members is certainly notable (though it doesn’t prove the fall of the Federation).

If it felt like the Federation had been weakened but was slowly rebuilding, I would agree with your idea that the blow to the Federation was meant to show its resilience; but the fact the Federation was not picking up steam at all (and felt much more in decline), to me indicates that the writers intended for us to interpret this as the Federation in its death throws until the Discovery showed up.

Perhaps this speaks to my own mindset as opposed to how the writers intended it, but it’s certainly how it came across to me.

As an aside, it could be interesting to explore what a Federation not primarily influenced by human/Vulcan influence could look like, as well as explore the idea of what constitutes the Federation (for example, could you have a Federation with no planetary members made entirely of individuals who have left their planet in the name of galactic brotherhood?). I am not sure the Federation is still in a place where such concepts could be explored, but it could certainly be interesting…

I’m definitely excited to see Lower Decks hopefully going out on a high note, but I’m definitely sad to see it ending.

As someone who only recently got into Star Trek specifically because of Lower Decks, I am curious what show Paramount is hoping will act as a gateway show, so to speak, for new viewers.

Oh interesting. I haven’t used Jerboa for some time, so I’m not really sure what is causing the issue…

Thanks! I think I probably spent 15 hours on it between the wallpaper and icons. I’m definitely proud of how it turned out.

Are you sure about the spoiler formatting? My app doesn’t honor spoiler formatting, so I double-checked it in a web browser and it seemed functional.

This isn’t KLWP, it’s a Samsung app called “Wonderland.” All things considered, the interface for Wonderland isn’t great, so if you have KLWP already installed, I might try messing around with it more before installing Wonderland…

That stuck out to me as well. Disney probably made 50k USD in the time it took me to write this comment. This feels more like sending a message than trying to avoid a costly payout.

I’m sure they want to discourage lawsuits, but I’m worried they did this just to try to set a precedent on EULAs being the end-all-be-all.

I just hope they get enough bad publicity from this move to cost them more than the payout would have.

The fact that Disney is asserting that whether a EULA has been read is irrelevant and that a EULA signed five years prior for an unrelated use is still enforceable feels more than insidious.

I hope Disney’s claim gets thrown out because I worry about the precedent this could set for EULAs going forward.

At this point, I’ve lost count of the number of times Elon should have been let go. I recall him recently saying that dosing himself with cat tranquilizers was cool and a good business decision actually.

That’s not even getting into turning Twitter into a Nazi bar (and throwing out its extremely valuable branding) or pushing for the cybertruck that cuts its passengers, looks like a dumpster, and corrodes if you look at it funny.

The fact any board of directors considers this man employable at all is mind boggling to me.

Honestly, that’s my main hope as well; that all the charging team talent will disperse across the market and help other chargers spread as well. The article mentioned Tesla having 60% of the fast charger market, so hopefully we will see other companies fill the gap.

My concern is that if no companies pick up the ball Tesla just dropped (or more accurately angrily chucked over the fence), that this could set the EV charging network back significantly; which would definitely be a problem for mass adoption of EVs.

When this news dropped a little while ago. I saw a lot of speculation that basically Elon got mad that a woman said he was wrong and laid off possibly Tesla’s biggest asset in a tantrum.

Honestly, at this point, the most surprising part of this situation is how unsurprised I am at that being exactly what happened.

Hopefully, this will not set back a widespread EV charging network (Tesla or otherwise) too much; but it definitely sounds like damage has been done.