That's the worst part imho. We should hold Ford accountable and demand that money back if they unilaterally decide to axe the plan we collectively funded.

Couldn't agree more. Politics (and politicians by extension) should represent the constituents, not force the constituents to fit into one of two camps. The whole system is backwards currently and the sooner we fix it, the better we'll all be for it.

What boggles my mind though is that three consecutive pollings on electoral reform have failed here in BC (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/electoral-reform-referendum-results-1.4954538). You'd think people would like to get rid of FPTP but apparently they consistently vote in favor of the status quo.

Personally, I think the first golden age ended with the decline of the shareware model that was used by many of the classics in the nineties.

Sure, it wasn't the decline of shareware that ended it, but de decline of the model went hand in hand with the rising cost of development and longer development timeframes that ended the games boom of the nineties.

That's my take at least. Might just be an old man with rose tinted (shareware) glasses.

This looks like an average road in the Netherlands. The only thing that seems odd is the lack of a bike lane, but otherwise this is pretty mundane over there.

We have a great term for the realm between murder and suicide - assistance in dying.

It bridges the gap between the definition of murder (where one party unalives the other party against their consent) and suicide (where one party unalives themselves with intent) by having the person looking to be unalived explicitly expires their intent and consent for the other party to assist them.

I feel as if you're trying to create a false equivalency to undermine the validity of this option.

And as to whether this is less traumatic than suicide - you have got to be kidding or you've never had to deal with the reality of someone committing suicide versus someone choosing assistance in dying.

One generally involves a lot of shock and someone finding a dead body in some state, the other is generally a peaceful affair where loved ones say their goodbyes before the person peacefully falls asleep for the last time.

They are nowhere near the same thing for the survivors and you claiming otherwise is an insult to both. And if you can't see the difference between these two options I'm frankly done debating this with you.

My wife signed on for SFI after she moved, and found that the level and expectations were so low she had difficulty staying engaged with the classes and course material.

She looked into private tutoring and was fluent in Swedish in 4 months, and ended up teaching Swedish to highschool aged kids after just 2.5 years.

To this day she wonders if SFI wasn't secretly designed to push anyone with any kind of ambition out of the system.

I personally think it's a case of bigotry of low expectations, but it's clear it really doesn't work for the intended purpose.

These days, when someone starts appealing to common sense I automatically assume their position is fraught and their other arguments weak. I have yet to encounter one instance of this not being the case. Demagoguery has destroyed whatever was left of common sense.

I get your point about motive, but I'd argue it's only relevant depending on your argument. If the argument is "we need gun control and government buy-backs to reduce gun violence through the availability of firearms" then using mass shooting statistics as defined by the gun violence archive is relevant. If the argument is "we need better mental health facilities to prevent people enacting public mass violence intentionally" your perspective is relevant.

Honestly thought, I would argue the US is so far down the hole any measure is better than nothing. Either fix gun ownership, the insane number of guns on the market, the mental health crisis, or any of these at once and you'll see improvements. Anything but "thoughts and prayers".

While shooting themselves in the foot even worse. They are truly adapt at cutting off their own noses to spite the face.

Morrowind memes in the wild. What a time to be alive!

I know you're being funny, but to answer the question I posited: every summer, after people came back from towing their caravans up through the mountains, my dad's shop would be replacing loads of clutches with people complaining about the weird smells their car started making. Or the sudden trouble they had shifting.

That game concept still has so much potential, I'm kind of bummed they're focusing on Alan Wake again first. Let's hope they do give us a sequel/prequel at some point.