ThePowerOfGeek

The Prestige. There are so many layers to that movie. I’ve watched it 4 or 5 times, and each time I notice new details.

It’s interesting to me how Ackman was portrayed in the 2016 Betting On Zero documentary as some kind of social champion for the poor who wanted to end the exploitation of regular working/middle class Americans by Herbalife.

When watching that that depiction of Ackman rang hollow, no matter how hard they tried to push that narrative. It just seemed like a financial battle royale where both sides were scumbags. And now, of course, that’s been confirmed (yet again). He’s just another entitled ultra-rich asshole peddling bullshit for his own selfish, exploitative intentions.

“…And your wonderful corporate family takes priority over your shitty personal family!”

They are too used to the typical news cycle where they bombard the public with lies to the point where everyone starts believing those are real. They’ve grown complacent.

Grilling chicken in Ohio, eh? Hmm, I hear there’s a huge orange chicken who is scared to have a second debate because he got so badly humiliated in the first one. He might want to stay away from Ohio since they are grilling his kind.

Ahh okay. That would explain it. Yeah, it’s disappointing that DDG is selectively selling out. I get that they need to make money. But the content in that screenshot you shared is just ridiculous.

Wow. Yeah that sucks!

Not doubting you here, but I just tried searching for two very different terms on DDG on two different devices (Windows laptop and Android phone) and two different browsers (Firefox and Brave), and I didn’t really see any ads or dodgy stuff.

The mobile Firefox version had a couple of main links at the top (they don’t look like ads), and some news cards under that. But the links were all relevant. The desktop DDG was super clean, again no ads.

This was without ad blockers enabled too. I also tried it in private mode, and still clean.

What am I missing? Why is my DDG experience so clean compared to yours?

Oh man, if word gets back to Trump that some of his advisors told CNN behind his back that they were stunned (in a bad way) by his debate performance, he’s going to completely lose his damned mind. It’ll push him into a massive paranoia complex. The screaming, the tantrums, the threats against his own team… They will be unreal.

So… Who wants to ping him on Twitter about this? 😈

This happened to us when we wanted to get my son help for some behavioral issues. Trying to find a counselor who specialized in helping children was a nightmare.

Our health insurer’s website listed a few dozen, which was encouraging at first. But when I started calling them most were no longer in business, no longer accepted our health insurance (despite still being listed on the insurer’s website), or didn’t accept any new patients. And of the few who did have some availability, their evangelical Christianity beliefs were a fundamental part of their work - to the point where Jesus preaching was going to be a constant focus of the therapy.

We finally found someone (she was a devout Christian but it didn’t interfere with her counseling strategies, so that’s fine). But even she stopped accepting new patients soon after we signed up because she was so slammed with demand.

The state of mental healthcare in America is fucking atrocious. There are too few therapists in general, especially ones who help children. And as this article points out, health insurers deliberately make it so difficult for those counselors to use them that they refuse to work with with many insurance plans. And so many therapists are outside the pricing of families, even when they have insurance, and even with those therapists giving discounts.

A big part of this is the legacy that mental healthcare still isn’t seen as a legitimate practice by many in the corporate world, despite their false marketing claims. Considering how frequently big insurers screw people out of claims for physical illnesses (cancer, etc.), you just know they will screw people with mental health challenges at least as much. Because to some of them - especially older boomers who are still lingering in senior management rules - it’s all fud.

Another part of the problem (which relates to my previous point) is that mental healthcare isn’t as quantifiable as most physical healthcare (because the brain and feelings are very complicated), so corners are cut and the industry is seen with suspicion and frustration by insurers who are focused on making as much money from their customers as possible.

The net result? A ton of people who are struggling through daily life with their own challenges, and exhausted family members and friends who are having to try to help them as best they can.

Until we massively overhaul the broken healthcare/insurance system here, shit like these ghost networks and the underlying causes and their other effects will continue to break our society.

Cool. As a parent, I’m happy for you.

I was looking into something similar recently, and asked around on Lemmy. The general consensus I heard was that a Mini PC weren’t ideal, mostly I think due to the fact that they aren’t designed purely for streaming.

One think someone said piqued my interest, and I might try this. They recommended buying a cheap, Android TV compatible streaming box (like an Onn brand one), and side-loading an open source (and ad-free) launcher onto it.

I found this thread over on the Huffman Shitshow that had some good instructions.

Yup. As in: Eric is the king of the vacant-looking wet fish.

He’s shaping up to form a truly unique cabinet…

• RFK Jr - Secretary of Brain Worms
• Tulsi Gabbard - Secretary of Bullshit
• Elon Musk - Secretary of Arrogance and Hubris
• Kari Lake - Secretary of Bootlicking
• Mike Lindell - Secretary of Shouting
• Roger Stone - Secretary of Crime
• Stephen Miller - Secretary of Child Snatching
• Donald Trump Jr - Secretary of Self-Loathing
• Eric Trump - Sturgeon General

Surprised it took him this long to blame Biden and Harris. Pretty sure all the MAGAs had already shipped this stupid conspiracy to Mars and back. Their Mango Messiah needs to get with the program.