RememberTheApollo_

Not sure if this is a showerthought, but it popped into my head randomly due to anothe member’s comment that “karma farming isn’t a thing here.” It kinda is…just not as blatant and open as Reddit. If the instances grow in size and number it could become a real thing, we’d have the same issues as Reddit with huge numbers of bots, shills, and karma whoring users.

What if every year we zero out Lemmy points but replace them with a [insert thing here: colored bars?] that maybe qualitatively show positive post and comment levels and sort of show “years of service”?

Get rid of the incentive for points accumulation, but denote consistent positive contribution?

Edit: or leave the comment/post points as the are, but make them only tally a rolling 365 day count and participation in the last 30/60/90 or similar. Continued participation would be obvious, but no substantial amount could ever be collected.

If the points aren’t worth anything, then why would it matter if they change or go away?

E2: welp. People think it isn’t a problem, and they say it will not be. Can’t argue with a position that demands Lemmy/fediverse remain static in its present form. Discussion closed, I guess.

Kroger, America's biggest supermarket chain, is being investigated over its use of electronic price labels on store shelves nationwide. US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey announced they were looking into the practice to see if the chain was engaging in surge pricing. So-called 'dynamic pricing' is common in other industries, such as flights, hotels and car-sharing services like Uber . It sees customers paying more or less depending on demand

There are multiple posts on lemmy about the stores switching to digital tags, some of which claim they will "save the customer money", obviously an outright lie as the point is to make more money for the store.

Ex: https://lemmy.world/post/16718848 , https://lemmy.world/post/17161297

Heavy question, I know. This is not intended to be political, please leave “taxes/government evil” out of it, I’m interested in a pragmatic view.

Infamously the US has mostly private health care, but we also have Medicare and -aid, the ACA, and the VA.

Most other nations have socialized health care in some format. Some of them have the option to have additional care or reject public care and go fully private.

Realistically, what are the experiences with your country’s health care? Not what you heard, not what you saw in a meme, not your “OMG never flying this airline again” story that is the exception while millions successfully complete uneventful and safe journey story. I’m also not interested in “omg so-and-so died waiting for a test/specialist/whatever”. All systems have failures. All systems have waits for specialists unless you’re wealthy, and wealth knows no borders. All systems do their best to make sure serious cases get seen. It doesn’t always work, but as a rule they don’t want people dying while waiting.

Are the costs in taxes, paycheck withholding (because some people pay for social health care out of paychecks but don’t call it a tax), and private insurance costs worth it to you?

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspectin Saturday’s shooting, was registered as a Republican voter, according to Pennsylvania records.

Already the republicans are dismissing his voter registration as meaningless. Here comes the “mental illness” angle.

Edit: apparently it’s not uncommon to register with the party you oppose in PA. This is going to be a fun ride.

A federal judge ordered former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon to report to jail by July 1 to begin serving a four-month sentence for his contempt of Congress conviction.
The order by Judge Carl Nichols came three weeks after federal prosecutors urged him to lift a stay on Bannon’s sentence pending an appeal of his conviction.
He was found in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena from a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

The U.S. government has taken notice of far-right extremists’ renewed interest in targeting critical infrastructure, releasing numerous bulletins and warnings to educate the public and communicate transparently about the nature of the threat. According to CNN reporting, in late April 2023, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bulletin noted that domestic violent extremists in the United States are increasingly sharing tactics with each other, trading best practices related to how to attack electric power stations and other forms of critical infrastructure. In February 2022, DHS released a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin noting the following: “Domestic violent extremists have also viewed attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure as a means to create chaos and advance ideological goals, and have recently aspired to disrupt U.S. electric and communications critical infrastructure, including by spreading false or misleading narratives about 5G cellular technology.”

One of the primary drivers of this increased focus is the growing popularity of accelerationism among extreme far-right and white supremacist groups, the ideology that influenced Russell and his Atomwaffen Division co-founders and that continues to contribute to far-right extremist radicalization. “Accelerationism is an ideologically agnostic doctrine of violent and non-violent actions taken to exploit contradictions intrinsic to a political system to ‘accelerate’ its destruction through the friction caused by its features.”

The prize should hit a limit and be divided into another prize drawing. For example, make $300 million the limit. Still a massively life-changing sum after taxes. When the prize reaches $300 million a new drawing is established alongside the existing one and gets its own numbers for drawing. So now you have twice as many chances to win, albeit one large pool and a smaller, growing pool. Repeat when the second pool reaches $300 million. You could have had 4 simultaneous drawings for the billion+ pot that was just won by a single person.

More people get a shot at a huge sum of money. Seems like a better deal, more winners, more exciting because you get more chances per drawing if there are multiple prizes.

(I’m not encouraging anyone to play if they don’t want to, and pedants need not repeat the odds of winning. Don’t play if you don’t want to, but obviously someone wins.)

Carl Weathers has had a storied career in Hollywood, spanning 50 years. The actor known for a number of impactful roles, from Apollo Creed in Rocky to Greef Karga in The Mandalorian, has passed away at the age of 76.

I wonder if Arnold will comment?

"Texas this week erected new barriers along part of the state's border with Mexico, blocking Border Patrol access, a court filing said on Friday, as conflict over migration escalates between the state's Republican governor and Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden. The Texas National Guard added new concertina wire and fencing to a stretch of the border near Eagle Pass, blocking U.S. Border Patrol access to a city park that contains a boat ramp agents use to reach the Rio Grande, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court."

Further:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/15/us/what-we-know-about-the-drownings-of-3-migrants-in-eagle-pass-texas/index.html

"The drownings – as well as the rescue of two other migrants on the US side of the Rio Grande by Mexican authorities – “underscore that Texas is firm in its continued efforts to exercise complete control of the border and land” in the area “and to block Border Patrol’s access to the border even in emergency circumstances,” the administration wrote. "

...

"“At the very least, however, Border Patrol would have had the opportunity to take any available steps to fulfill its responsibilities and assist its counterparts in the Mexican government with undertaking the rescue mission. Texas made that impossible.” "

“ Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday at a pair of cable networks not named Fox News for their decision not to air all of his Iowa caucuses victory speech as it happened, suggesting that what they did was so heinous that they should “have their licenses, or whatever they have, taken away.”

Dictators gonna dictate.

I’ll offer “A reading list”. There’s no shortage of good books to read, and to no longer read anything for entertainment and/or knowledge would be a bad thing.

do you find it difficult to get into games? I’ve got Epic Games and Steam Games libraries chock-full of classic top-tier games along with many other newer games like Stray or 2077, and a bunch of indie titles. I just can’t be bothered to download and install them, much less try to get into the characters and storylines. Used to be I couldn’t wait to see what happened in the story, what new items you could collect, what new worlds the developers had created. Not anymore. I return to playing the same franchise for a quick FPS match or three and then I’m done.