Azal

Strange that politics who call for deregulation never deregulate useful things.

Funny that right? Those that call for deregulation would probably call for deregulating the legal time frame that a company has to support their devices.

And as to what we did with ours, effectively trash. We have a medical junk guy who comes through yearly and picks up the stuff thats getting thrown out, he parts pieces out he can sell, sells scrap otherwise, etc. Also sells a lot of equipment to smaller hospitals out in rural that will make do, and a lot of stuff we have goes to Project Cure which sends medical devices out of country to places in need. The funny part about the rural hospitals and Project Cure is... neither of those can happen because, as I said earlier, can't verify their accuracy anymore so for my hospital, about 30 units of trash in one day.

I work as a biomed, our hospital had to buy completely new sets of a type of ultrasound machine we have. Why?

Because in order to do the yearly preventative maintenance you have to go through the manufacturers program to test calibration. They stopped supporting it this year and shut it down. Legit these machines were working just fine, but now in order to keep up with verifying accuracy they're essentially bricked. They did it on the exact day they hit the year mark that they legally were required to support in order to sell medical grade equipment passed.

This is only going to get worse, not better.

Yea, I read this as a biomed and was like "We're definitely not getting this."

How to fix: Bloody revolution, that’s about it.

I disagree with this. It'll take some revolution, but can be avoided bloody.

On revolution I do say vote. The 2022 election was a turnout of 52% of the voting age population. Just barely over half, and that's the second highest turnout to a nonpresidential election year since 2000. All the oxygen always goes to the Presidency but what OP is dealing with comes up in local elections, and the local and state shit deals far more with your day to day than the national. Hell, when national laws even come up, weed is still schedule 1 "more dangerous than cocaine" to the federal government but just about every state has legalized it.

It's not a quick solution, and it's not as simple anymore as "go out and vote" but gotta kick everyone up who hasn't given a shit (if they're not voting, think they'll back you in a revolution?). It's a fucking slow ass slog that takes daily fighting, like I've got a group that I'm the one who posts the ballots, the dates, the links, honestly do everything but bang on their doors and drag them to the polls but it's a little bit that helps. As I saw "A vote is not a valentine. You're not professing your love for the candidate. It's a chess move for the world you want to live in."

The Republicans have been doing that for years, they've never let a single dem run even for superintendent across the country uncontested. They worked slow and methodically to get the supreme court. Their revolution can be argued to have started as far back as Nixon. We're arguably at their end game, but it seems like they've overreached this time, it's time to start clawing back territory.

The reason though I'm against a bloody revolution is, yes it's useful as a last resort, but it honestly is at that in the chess analogy above picking up the table, throwing it in the room and starting a riot. You hope you come out okay but at that point it's really up in the air who comes out on top. Guillotines come up a lot, and France is doing pretty well right now. But remember between modern France and the guillotines was a messy time post revolution that was stabilized by someone who declared himself Emperor and attempted to conquer all of Europe.

Remember 2016 when the media gave Trump an absurd amount of free publicity by covering every stupid thing he said and did then he won? It wasn’t the only reason, but it clearly didn’t help.

2016? Shit the press gave him all the free press when he was doing the birther shit with Obama.

FFXIV.

Would I be the Warrior of Light or some random scrub? Random scrub that world has godlike beings that just absolutely dominate your will just by existing, plus just massive monsters, and some terrifying organizations.

WoL, hooboy all the moments the story made me be quiet.

Another question is do I go as myself, or can I be a catgirl?

This one so absolutely fucking much, holy shit. After a year of dating apps and literally only getting one actual conversation (that didn't go anywhere, but they were very nice) I've pretty much just said fuck it, I do well enough being a hermit I don't need to be dating.

Frankly a lot less stress.

Oh no, instead she has step-children so was referred to as a "Childless cat lady" by checks notes the running mate of the opposing party.

The only place to the conservative crowd for a woman to be in is in a single relationship with her own kids. Though I'm sure they'd have a way to gripe about it too.

Damn, that's high praise, thank you! It makes me feel better because I woke up fighting myself on "Oh man I wrote way too long a rant" and "DAMMIT! I didn't even mention the Evangelicals worming their way into politics!"

To everyone else, reading this... read about history folks! I, like everyone else, thought history was boring in school. If I were to put on my tin foil hat, I worry it's done on purpose as it helps realize nothing happening is actually all that new. And it's rather easy to do, put a coach as the history teacher who just hands you a textbook and makes you regurgitate names and numbers that don't mean anything but meets criteria (No Child Left Behind, Bush Era for me) just makes everyone hate history.

Yes, I did drop names, policies, and a few dates, but those are examples to point to and you better believe I don't remember a single one of those by heart, I have to look them up when I reference them. The theory is there, and once you get into devouring the actual meat of history it is absolutely bloody fascinating.

He can live out his remaining time in Russia as a wanna-be oligarch, and Putin will treat him like a leader-in-exile.

Honestly think he'd be safer in North Korea. Kim Jong Un could at least see him as an ally of "the world is against us."

Putin already views Trump as a puppy that makes messes on the carpet... while running a dog fighting ring.

Personally I hope so. They're burning the world, it'll at least be fun to watch them flounder in the process.

Hell, I think my biggest problem is I can't think of anything dumb enough before they've already got it

I used to think I was a pessimist. But now after multiple "There's no way people are that dumb" and being wrong I must be an absolute optimist.