Well yeah, as the owners they have the exclusive right to determine what's okay. They're just following the rules as they've been laid out by centuries of corporate lobbying for more exploitable copyright laws. Those are what we need to focus on if we want more fair use of intellectual property that the rights holder has already sufficiently profited from - the thing that such protections were initially meant to ensure to a much more reasonable extent.

Well, it worked with the news.

My mom died of cancer a few months ago because she was convinced that a combination of sunlight's natural vibrational frequency and some expensive "medical" herbal teas would cure her. Placebos affect people, but if you let them believe that they're an alternative to actual science and medicine, then they'll use them as such.

Makes sense. I've always been disappointed that instead of using better processing power to make bigger, more complex games, we used it to make the same games with more complex animations and details. I don't want a game that only differs from its predecessors through use of graphical upgrades like individual blades of grass swaying in the wind, or the character starting to sweat in relation to their exertion; I want games with PS1-PS2 graphics and animation quality, but with complex gameplay that the consoles of that era could only dream of being able to handle.

I think the biggest issue is that we don't know what to do when we're mad anymore. People think that being mad is all you need - that if you say you're mad, things will change. I often see people get pissed about something, then calm down and move on, as if they somehow achieved something with their anger alone.

I'm hoping that there's some pressure going on under the surface, and people will eventually reach a point where enough anger has built up that they can't take it anymore and they really take action, but from what I've seen, people are so against the concept of acting upon angry feelings that I worry they'll just hold it in until they die.

Ah, but if a president can do whatever they want without being held legally responsible, then they can punish someone regardless of whether or not they're legally responsible for what they did.

That comes with a fun loophole - if the courts decide that presidents are immune to all legal repercussions, then Biden can just illegally arrest Trump and throw him in prison for no reason, and suffer no legal repercussions for it.

I hope this goes as well as it's being marketed to be, but I've long since stopped trusting people who have enough money to make a news-worthy purchase. Time will tell on this one for me.

Stupid cosmetic designs have been an issue for a long time. There was a theater fire in Chicago in the early 1900's where a bunch of people died because they couldn't figure out how to use the fancy door handles while panicking and being crushed by everyone trying to get out. That's the reason why exit doors on buildings with a high occupancy are now required to swing out, and have those pushbar locks that allow the door to open even if you're just falling on it.

If it's possible that someone will need to use something while panicking, it needs to be as simple, intuitive, and failproof as possible

I'm a millennial, and any amount of casual customer interaction was quickly killed at my first job. I was taught how to speak in a professional manner, and was told I'd be written up if I was found to be speaking too casually to customers. Speaking to customers as if they're your equal is just not something that was acceptable, even 15 years ago - you had to speak as if you were their servant.

I'm glad it's changing - there was never a good reason for it in the first place - but I still cringe when I hear an employee speak casually to a customer, because I still think they're going to get in trouble for it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: when a company does something that shows it doesn’t have its customers’ best interests in mind, it's imperative that it be immediately and wholly abandoned.

Companies have long since learned that we'll ignore major red flags for the sake of convenience, and at this point they're not even trying to hide the flags - they're proudly flying them and laughing as we continue to give them business.

I'm a fat guy, and at 27 I was a virgin who didn't shave or shower as often as I should, but one day I just decided to say "fuck it" and tried to look nice. I watched some instructional videos on how to shave correctly, got a good haircut, got some decent clothes from the thrift store that fit me well enough, started showering every day, took some standard pictures of myself doing various activities I enjoyed, and joined an online dating site.

On the dating site, I spent hours reading every girls entire profile, even if I wasn't fully attracted to some of them, just to get a sense of who they were and what they liked, and get some experience interacting with women; I sent each one a message that at least slightly referenced something from their profile. Most women never responded, and most that did stopped shortly thereafter, but after a couple weeks I was able to hold a few conversations, and schedule a few first dates. Within a few months I found a girl who responded, agreed to go on a date, and enjoyed herself enough to let me schedule a second. 6 years later, that woman is now my wife.

You can be ugly as sin and still improve yourself to an acceptable level in just a couple weeks if you really try. My face, chest, and back are still covered in pock marks from the terrible acne I had throughout my teens and twenties - it started clearing up when I started showering regularly, but the scars are permanent - but my wife loves me anyway. Every year or 2 I have to go up a pants size because I'm still unable to get my eating habits under control, but my wife loves me anyway. Hell, my dick's not very big and I mostly have to use other methods to get her off, but she appreciates the effort, and yes, she loves me anyway.

You might hate yourself - I know I did - but that doesn't mean nobody can love you. Even if you have no confidence, just go through the motions. Do what you think normal people do, and adjust as necessary if you come off as creepy at first. Make an effort and you'll see results over time, I promise. That one day when I said "fuck it" was the most pivotal day of my life.

Efficient workers get more work if you're in the office. I work from home, and that allows me to work efficiently until my work is done, set up scheduled emails to go out at the time I would've otherwise been done, then do what I want until then.