kirklennon

1. Most Americans already knew he was a criminal and either strongly opposed him or strongly supported him, in part on that basis. There are a lot of other people who usually or often vote Republican, but also just don’t always vote. Those people aren’t going to be enthusiastic about showing up to vote for a felon. I think we’re looking at extremely low turnout among non-MAGA Republicans. Optimistically, this scenario can also lead to a blue wave as those same people skip down-ballot races as well.
2. First-time offenders get lighter sentences. He’s going to be convicted in multiple upcoming trials, and in all of them he’s now going to enter the sentencing phase as a felon. We can look forward to extended prison sentences in Georgia and the federal cases.

It’s up to the judge and can range from no prison to four years. A nonviolent first-time offense usually means a lighter sentence, but the judge can also factor in the complete lack of contrition and the numerous egregious gag order violations. These make prison significantly more likely than it otherwise would be.

A fine of less than $1 million is absolutely not what anyone except Google is asking for.

The DOJ can really only ask for treble damages. If Google paid ~$3 million, that’s realistically as good as the DOJ was going to get. It sounds like the initial estimates were just way off. Nobody should be shocked that the inept antitrust division screwed up again. They’re going after big, buzz-worthy names without the facts or law to actually back it up.

The headline is strange. The DOJ sued for money and Google just straight up gave them the money they could have won upfront. That’s not a “pay off”; it’s literally what they asked for. It’s a win for the DOJ. Google’s argument against a jury trial also seems on solid ground. The right to a trial by jury is meant as a protection for Americans; the government itself doesn’t have the right to demand a jury. If the defendant thinks the legal issues in the case are too arcane and a judge is more likely to get it right (and get it right faster, which is cheaper), that’s their prerogative.

You’re leaving out the most import part. Class members are:

Individual persons who are United States residents and who own or owned an Apple iPhone 7 or 7 Plus between September 16, 2016 and January 3, 2023, and reported to Apple in the United States issues reflected in Apple’s records as Sound-Speaker, Sound-Microphone, Sound – Receiver, Unexpected Restart / Shutdown, or Power On – Device Unresponsive

Based on the amount of money allocated for the settlement, the class members represent significantly less than 1% of iPhone 7 owners.

A long exposure allows more of the light to be captured but that’s not the reason for the color discrepancy. They really are as colorful as they appear in photos but human night vision is primarily black and white. We just don’t see a lot of color unless it’s sufficiently bright and since auroras are still quite dim in absolute terms, our eyes aren’t capable of recognizing the full intensity of the color.

Honestly I don’t get why they apologized at all. This was a lame story yesterday. The apology stretches the story an extra day. Say nothing and nobody remembers the pearl-clutching next week.

I think it’s pretty wild that criticizing something as ill-conceived, arbitrary, and protectionist government overreach will get you labeled as a fascist by some people.

I agree that it seems like inconsistent thinking though. (EU vs China)

The EU is ostensibly capitalist democracies. Publicly criticizing arbitrary and ill-conceived regulations, that can perhaps be improved, is useful. China makes no pretense about being a free country and I think the moral calculus is rather simple: are Chinese citizens better off with Apple there, doing the bare minimum to comply with Chinese law, or with Apple taking the “principled” stand of leaving?

China banned Signal and WhatsApp but has not banned iMessage. If you want secure end-to-end encrypted messaging, iPhones offer that built right in. Apple could leave, but the inevitable result of that is less privacy for Chinese citizens. It’s a binary choice. Apple can’t make China free, but they can at least offer services without bending over backwards to go above and beyond the CCP’s demands, as Chinese companies do.

I think Apple’s position is quite consistent: it tries to change the things it can change, fights the things it can fight, and does the bare minimum to comply with things that it doesn’t want to but must.

Of course you can. The iPhone never lost any of the basic features of the iPod and is perfectly capable of storing and playing DRM-free music in popular formats.

How is this relevant to anything at all? If you want a streaming music subscription, you can pay for one. If not, don’t. You can use any service you want on an iPhone, and you can likewise use Apple Music on an Android phone. The availability of services is just a totally separate issue.

Tell me you’ve never shopped at the market without ever telling me you’ve never shopped at the market.

I’ve shopped at the market many times. The main market with the produce is on a narrow strip between Pike Place and Western Avenue. Due to the slope it’s level with Pike Place and above Western Avenue, but that’s what elevators are for. By actual walking distance the difference between parking on one side versus the other is trivial.

Pretty disingenuous to say a person that can’t carry $400 worth of groceries shouldn’t be able to drive.

I’m saying they should drive on a street for cars, not a street for people, which is what Pike Place is. We’re literally talking about parking only the western side of the market rather than the eastern side. It isn’t some distant hinterland.

It will cease to be a market is my point

This is just ridiculous. It’s a huge market with tons of people who walk there and tons of other people who park at the easily accessible parking garage. Telling a handful of people they can’t load their purchases on a street with negligible available parking and hordes of people walking between shops (because it’s a busy market) will not harm the market in any capacity.

just fill in that space with more corpo restaurants

What are you on about? Do you just want to rant about corporations? The issue is that it’s in practice a pedestrian street and already filled with pedestrians, so cars should be restricted. If you ban the cars, it’s still full. That’s the whole point of banning the cars.

absolutely do drive through to get loaded up after shopping. Many of those customers are retirees that absolutely could not carry their purchases down to the parking garage.

Maybe we shouldn’t be encouraging elderly citizens to drive through a street that is crowded with pedestrians? If you can walk through the market, you can take an elevator to Western.

The market is a very unique place and if it caters only to the tourists it will kill what makes it a tourist destination in the first place. It would become even more hollowed out as it drives away locals.

Locals are also walking on Pike Place, dodging cars that don’t belong there. Making the market safer isn’t going to drive people away.

It baffles me that there’s even a discussion about this. Customers do not drive down Pike Place to access the market. It’s already functionally a pedestrian space where occasionally some person takes a wrong turn and accidentally drives through. Vendors use it, but they arrive early in the morning before customers. It should be closed to regular traffic during normal shopping hours.

No, because aspartame is not unhealthy.

it’s as valid IN ENGLISH to use it to refer to the country as it is to refer to the continent(s)

It’s really not but you already know that, just as you know the (s) is incorrect because, in English, there is absolutely no such thing as a continent called America.

It’s not about confusion, it’s about the US acting like the center of the fucking universe.

It’s about you being a hypocrite and accusing a group of people of acting like the center of the universe because they use a word differently in their language than you use it in yours. You are being incredibly disrespectful of other cultures by trying to impose foreign definitions on how people describes themselves.

when the “America” in that name actually refers to the continent too

In English, there is North America and there is South America. Collectively, you can call them the Americas. Just “America” on its own refers to the country. It doesn’t matter what A-M-E-R-I-C-A mean in a different language. Spanish has what is fundamentally a different word, with the same spelling, to refer to something else. In linguistic terms it’s a false friend. The etymological origins are, indeed, the same, but it took on separate meanings in different languages. Nobody is confused about this, however. You’re just being an asshole.

I consider your comment highly offensive. You can’t tell a people what they are allowed to call themselves in their own language just because the same word means something else in another language. In English “America” refers unambiguously to the United States because there is no continent called “America.”

I would love to see people’s reaction if France started calling itself Europe or China called itself Asia

This comparison would work only if “Europe” meant one thing in French, and if the word “China” meant one thing in Chinese, and they both meant something entirely different in other languages.

Do not install any third-party antivirus software. It’s unnecessary and is itself a massive security risk. You have to literally override the built-in protections in order to allow the antivirus application to scan the other applications and files.