I’m a power plant operator who will be working day shift on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The shout-out is appreciated. Even our own families often don’t understand that this is just how it’s gonna shake out most of the time. My in-laws get annoyed that we just won’t be able to visit at the same time as everybody else, but they just don’t really think about the power they’re relying on for their holiday at home. They’re weekday office workers, and they could probably do more than half of their work from home.

Thankfully my wife very much understands it and we schedule all holidays based on actual availability instead of expecting me to try to cram things in before or after my 12 hour shifts plus 1 hour commute each way on the day of. A lot of people in this industry wind up divorced, and I think the schedule is mostly what’s to blame.

The paycheck will be great, but it’s still nice to hear that appreciation for the time we and our families are sacrificing to provide for the rest of society. In this way, I sort of get to be one Santa Claus of many. We are making sure that Christmas comes to everybody.

You son of a bitch, I’m in

Idk about you, but at this rate, I don’t dare try to tell them otherwise.

I appreciate the nuance and detail of your comment. I wanted to make sure I started with that so you don’t think I’m just here to shit on your comment. I’m upset that we’re here and slapping bandaids on this shit instead of actually thinking about solutions.

Congress can’t pass a budget, but they can raise their own pay. They haven’t passed any meaningful legislation in two years, but they can raise their own pay. They can’t raise our minimum wage, but they can raise their own pay. Idk about you, but I’ve never gotten a raise for pisspoor performance at any job I’ve ever held. I’ll be receiving a 3.5% raise in a couple weeks, and I’ve very much earned that, and it’s thankfully a bit higher than the ~2.8% inflation over the past year so it’s an actual raise. Not everybody has been so lucky. I’m completely on board with paying Congress well so that it’s not gated off for only the wealthy elite to have access to, but let’s not pretend that passing a raise for themselves right now is eradicating all semblance of corruption once and for all.

Why does Congress actually need to be in DC anymore anyway? Why not have an office in their district and securely remote vote? Having them in DC maintaining two residences is costing them more, keeping them physically distanced from their actual constituents, and making corporate lobbying significantly easier since they can easily talk face to face with dozens of reps/senators in a single afternoon. We could also raise the cap on the House since it’s been undersized for proper representation for decades; no need to cap it to a number that can regularly gather in the chambers anymore. I’d rather they just stay in their district and lock their pay to their local inflation rate. If they want better raises, then they need to actually help their district.

They could certainly try, but the trump appointed judges will throw that shit out. I would love to be optimistic, but how could anybody have faith in the judicial system that got us here to reverse course to achieve actual justice in any capacity? It’s hard to win against cheaters when you adhere to playing by the rules. “When they go low, we go high” will be the death of us all.

Oh good, that’s me. 9/11 in middle school, wars through high school, '08 housing crash in the middle of college which pushed me to pivot to an AA instead of bachelor’s, COVID wedding at 31, insane inflation through now. We finally bought our first house a few months ago and I turned 36 a few days ago. Things were starting to seem like they might turn out okay after all. Serves me right for having a whisper of optimism in my brain for once.

Pensions in this country are nearly non-existent. Without social security either, only the wealthy can retire. Thankfully, I’ve had retirement accounts for years, but they’ll be wiped out by the first late life medical emergency I experience. Without social security to look forward to, I think a lot of people would rather live through total societal collapse than give their everything just to prop up this system that gives nothing back. It’s a bad fucking deal.

8 year olds still have a lot of potential to grow. This piece of shit has shown a track record of about 70 years of non growth. Imagine getting rewarded for a behavior for 70 years straight. Even if he had the humility and intelligence to do it, he doesn’t have the time left it would take to rewire his brain against that kind of conditioning.

To be clear, I’m not excusing him. I’m explaining that his brain is irreversibly fucking broken. Anybody holding on to hope that he changes in any meaningful way, don’t you think that getting shot at would’ve been a humbling moment if ever there were to be one? By being a disgusting, hateful, stupid predator asshole consistently for his whole life, he’s gotten absurd wealth, a model wife, an army of cultist followers, and he got to be president. Twice. When was he supposed to have learned that he should really take the time and energy necessary to do some growing?

I took my now wife window shopping for rings when we were getting close to engagement time so that I’d know what she would want. It was clear that the answer was gonna be yes no matter what, but I knew she’d have a ring preference anyway. She saw prices and explicitly said that she’d like white sapphire on sterling silver. I found a bridal set that she adores which very much did not cost a month or two of salary.

Because we didn’t blow a ton of money on engagement/wedding shit, we’ve had much more resources to support the marriage itself. I’ve heard of regular everyday people spending $3-4k on a fucking ring. We spent 9 days in a few different places in Spain for about that cost instead lol.

I for one believe that the question of whether a food service establishment has rats is very relevant to the business.

The character of the staff and clientele as well as the financial state of the staff as a direct result of how stingy their employer is can also be very relevant. Do you want to eat somewhere if the people preparing your food there will sell their morals and decency? Kinda seems likely that I could pay somebody there $100 to put their pubes into your quarter pounder.

I don’t think they want the identity of the rat getting out. I’m willing to bet that there are plenty of people who really want to publicly remind everybody that snitches get stitches. Word on the street is that this rat can suddenly afford a $60k hospital bill, unlike UHC customers whose claims get denied every day.

Their opinion on your opinion is more interesting than your opinion. Ratio, my dude.

Breaking news! Conservatives are bad at media literacy!

Guys, are you all just now realizing this? You never noticed a lot of people liking RoboCop and Starship Troopers for all the wrong reasons? Are you just now noticing how many shitty douches were fans of Rick and Morty, and it never occurred to you that they didn’t recognize the toxicity of the characters and that they legitimately thought that they were brilliant people who need not show any amount of patience or respect to others because of the invincibility awarded to them by their sheer incomprehensible genius? But really they’re just cringey, frustrated losers looking to bully a world that has always bullied them, and they want to drown their dino nuggets in their goddamn Szechuan sauce while bellowing “PICKLE RICK!” into the corners of their smelly studio apartment from the comfort of their used futon bed. Things aren’t getting better for them, and things were allegedly better before, so in a fit of frustrated desperation, they vote Republican to try to live a life like they saw in those older movies and sitcoms.

They want to be Ferris Bueller so badly, but they’re nostalgic for a time that never really existed. They completely miss the point of fiction. These stories they love were written with intention to deliver a purpose, and that purpose is rarely just surface level entertainment. The audience is supposed to learn something. It’s like reading The Fox and the Grapes and thinking “yeah, grapes suck.”

Oh no.

Anyway…

Dope! I appreciate you taking the time! So it sounds like a slightly less bloated version of 10 that gets more support, but it may not be exactly legal and breezy to obtain for my personal home use.

With the possible exception of finding drivers for a device or two, it sounds like I’ll be better off just pivoting to a Linux distro mid 2025. I have been happy with SteamOS on my docked steam deck with m+kb and controller, so I’m sure I won’t be missing much by picking a popular distro that I can find troubleshooting guidance for when I hit inevitable snags.

A few questions since you seem to know much more about this than I can probably even find from searching:

• What is “IoT”? What is “LTSC”?
• Other than update support, how is this different from my existing home laptop’s Windows 10?
• Is this free? Will there be obnoxious limitations or reminders to pay to activate?
• Why should I as a medium skill home computer user without work needs opt for this over Mint, Ubuntu, Nobara, Arch, or whatever other distro somebody would insist I use? I don’t need Office.

Just choosing to phrase it with an air of plausible deniability paired with a pun related to the industry.

So deny their preventable death?