“Hope he’s okay”

I don’t. I hope he’s very not okay.

I may disagree with the main thrust of your argument, but I respect that there’s some truth to it, even if in my cynicism I think it’s ideologically unrealistic to expect better, and do agree that it’s a massive disappointment that we can’t get more progress.

But… what will happen to all the bustling cross-border traffic??

The vast majority of those deplorable candidates are still losing and Democrats are still pushing forward, albeit PAINFULLY slowly, with a productive agenda. The red wave never happened, and despite the absolutely horrible examples that slipped through like MTG, Republicans are generally NOT winning. All of that goes to hell if we let the ONE apparently “charismatic” one take control again.

You’re right about Starmer. And the people who deeply care in the UK should be working towards building up a viable alternative right now. How many progressive candidates were you helping build a support base for in 2021? How much were you donating to their campaign funds? How much were you canvassing and campaigning and getting names out there?

Right wing extremists do not actually care what Democrats do. If Joe Biden decided to throw out all the immigrants, give everybody assault rifles, and outlaw abortion, and publicly send out bibles, they STILL wouldn’t be on his side, and in fact they may actually entirely flip ideology just to be contradictory. Because Republican supporters, no matter what they say, it isn’t about POLICY for them. It’s about POWER, and you are not going to take away their pursuit of it through more action on EITHER end of the spectrum.

This whole argument reeks like parents who scream at their children when they spill water because “It’s the only way they’ll learn.” The children already know they weren’t supposed to spill that water, and Democrats already know their choices aren’t God’s gift to progressivism. So like that parent, all you’re accomplishing is giving everyone the promise of years of trauma followed by decades of therapy IF they’re lucky enough to make it out on the other side, all so you can feel like you made your position on the spilling of water perfectly clear. I’m sorry, but I don’t find that compelling or reasonable.

I will give you this… I appreciate your HAVING and SPEAKING your opinion, as much as I think it’s nonsense, as opposed to the anonymous downvoting cowards.

I’m so sick of hearing about how she won’t do anything constructive.

Even if that’s true, so what? Who the hell cares?

Who are you going to rent your free room to, the woman who is gonna leave it exactly how you find it, or the guy who’s going to drill holes in the wall to mount the equipment to run his meth lab and store his garbage there for weeks on end? I swear to God, some people have the risk assessment ability of krill making a beeline for a group of whales.

I’ll never forget those glazed eyes…

Oh, I know. I’m not specifically talking to YOU. Just making a general comment in the second person.

Just move the whole setup towards the camera by about 2 feet and you’ll not only hide that power outlet, you’ll get the recliner away from what looks likely to be a VERY poorly insulated front door. I can feel the cold radiating off of it in the winter already.

Apparently, there is no worse election interference than giving the people accurate portrayals of the beliefs and behaviors of the candidates.

Edit: Sorry! I misread your comment at first. Yeah, now that you say that, that makes the most sense.

But from the standpoint of anti-competitivity and Android vs iOS with Apple…

One’s behavior is denying access to their app store without agreeing to a set of device restrictions, but everything on the app store is available without the app store at developer discretion.

The other is an app store which MUST be installed, and is in fact the ONLY way to get software for the device.

One is CLEARLY more anti-competitive than the other, and yet the one that’s LESS problematic is the one that gets court action. It’s a joke.

https://source.android.com/license

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)

“At its core, the operating system is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP)[5] and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. However, most devices run on the proprietary Android version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed,[6] most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS),[7] which includes core apps such as Google Chrome, the digital distribution platform Google Play, and the associated Google Play Services development platform. Firebase Cloud Messaging is used for push notifications. While AOSP is free, the “Android” name and logo are trademarks of Google, which imposes standards to restrict the use of Android branding by “uncertified” devices outside their ecosystem.[8][9]”

Android itself DOES NOT require ANY concessions of ANY kind to Google.

Android itself DOES NOT require ANY concessions of ANY kind to Google. Maybe “opening the app store” means making Google’s services available without requiring those concessions to Google, in which case, that both makes sense and is a great idea.

This is the clearest and most sensible explanation of the situation, but I’m still not sure what’s meant by “opening the app store”. The reality is apps can be sideloaded and distributed freely on Android, even unrooted. Sure, Google requires OEMs to push Google services and tracking, and that’s evil and horrible and nasty, but do they actually force that onto app developers as well?

That’s not actually true though.

Android is open source and many devices, mostly Chinese products, launch with custom Android builds completely free of Google services. This is not a Google constraint - manufacturers CHOOSE to use Android builds that use Google’s services. Creating your own build simply stops you from integrating Google’s services into the OS, which is actually a PLUS if you ask me.

Even if they WERE requiring it, that would have nothing to do with end user store front installation, which is already something you can do, as shown by the 2 non-Google app stores I have installed on my phone.

Again… I’m not defending Google as some kind of good company here. I’m simply stating there is no way to make an anti-competitivity argument against Google in mobile that doesn’t apply at least as much to Apple. This is a nonsensical double-standard.

The problem with that is “these areas” is more or less the entire state.

I appreciate you guys fighting the good fight.

At least SOMEONE’S on it.

I wouldn’t say Google has been “beaten into submission”. They still interweave their crap services into every Android phone with no ability to remove or disable them, couple their apps with an intrusive, privacy violating, system degrading backend with special rules for its own apps versus everybody else… even force the default system web browser to be an unremovable Chrome installation, and not even a peep from regulators that any of this might be anti-competitive.

No company has been properly beaten into submission since Ma Bell. Even the big Microsoft browser decision in the 90s turned out to be a joke - they’re right back to doing the same thing with impunity.

Apple was first. And the courts ruled it no problem.