People are homeless not because the government lacks funding, but because the government doesn’t give a damn. Those billions being given to Ukraine were never going to be spent addressing poverty had the war not happened, and if Congress suddenly had a change of heart, they’d have zero problems finding and allocating as much money as they want to anti homeless programs Ukraine war or not
The 3 Gorges Dam in China slowed the Earth’s rotation by .06 microseconds per day due to the amount of water moved altering the Earth’s moment of inertia
I pirate ebooks, especially textbooks, when I can’t get something through my library. I don’t watch enough television to bother pirating shows and movies. With video games, the circumstances that would make pirating a game worth it rarely come up for me; pirating games means losing out on updates and bug fixes, multiplayer, Steam cloud saves, and more. For new games, not getting bug fixes and updates makes my experience worse, and older games usually go on sale for cheap enough that I might as well buy it
Another interesting approach to trash management is what Taiwan does. Taiwan charges per bag of trash, and residents have to manually bring out their bags on trash day to garbage trucks that sing like ice cream trucks. This makes each person care about how much they are throwing away, as unlike in places that charge a flat fee per bin per week, you could spend or save a lot of money and effort on trash days based on how much waste you make. However, in most municipalities, recycling and composting are free, encouraging residents to choose items with the least amount of recyclable/compostable waste to save money. While such a system would not go over well with the people if it were implemented in a place like the US, the program is successful in Taiwan and has done wonders for reducing their waste and keeping their cities clean
Countries have the right to expel foreign diplomats and embassies as long as they don’t arrest them or go through their stuff when they leave. The newly couped Niger junta requested the French ambassador leave and revoked his visa, but the French are still refusing to leave, claiming that because they don’t recognize the legitimacy of the new junta, they don’t have to follow the junta’s orders to leave. Regardless of your opinion of the new junta, in how does a former colonial power be in the right when they are blatantly ignoring the legal rights and sovereignty of their independent former colony’s government that is doing things by the book? They stopped sending the ambassador food and are confining him to his embassy until he leaves, especially given the current junta that is extremely gentle treatment
The best reply to “God made you a man, be a man, he doesn’t make mistakes” is “God made you nearsighted, take off those glasses, he doesn’t make mistakes”
Try Linux in a virtual machine or on a live USB for a few days to ease into it. There’s plenty of beginner friendly distros to choose from that don’t require using the terminal. You could even try dual booting Linux and Windows if you decide to make the jump. I’m not going to lie and say that Linux is pure smooth sailing compared to Windows, but I can say that as a former Windows user who was terrified of Linux, after using Debian for a few days I’ve never booted into Windows on my main PC again
What’s even more mind boggling is that despite Starlink being so critical to Ukrainian communications, neither the Ukrainian government nor the US entered into a contract with a clause obligating Starlink to maintain service. Musk can just legally turn off Starlink for them with no legal repercussions because they never negotiated something against that into a contract with him. Even if they had to pay a premium rate for Starlink, for a service that critical to the Ukrainian Armed Forces it’s worth it
The value of their investments is lower because they’ve been pulling out of Russia. The article you sent says they’ve slashed the value down by 90%, and they’re still going. Liquidating hundreds of millions in stocks while getting a decent value out of them takes time, and so far they’ve done a pretty good job selling off 90% of their Russian holdings with just a few more millions to go
As long as your new instance is federated with lemmy.world, you can access all of their content. Additionally, there are a lot of instances lemmy.world is not federated with for various reasons whose content you will be able to access as well from a different instance
They’re abrasive enough that they couldn’t even get along with lemmy.blahaj.zone, a dedicated LGBT friendly instance ran by several trans women, out of accusations of said admins being transphobic
HFCS is a better alternative to sugar for the US. Not necessarily health wise (they both are about as equally terrible for you in the amounts Americans consume them), but in a logistical way. The other sources of sugar are sugarcane, which are only farmed in parts of 3 US states, and sugar beets, which are only farmed in 11 US states. Corn is farmed pretty much everywhere in the US, and we produce a lot more of it. This ensures that we have a much more stable supply of corn, which is important for a widespread staple ingredient in most US foods. This also means the US is not reliant on foreign imports for HFCS since it’s produced domestically, ensuring US food security if a major exporter of sugar has to halt exports. This also gives the US an excuse to farm even more corn, increasing the supply of corn and making our supply more stable in the process. Outside of HFCS, corn is used in everything from animal feed to gasoline and batteries, which means running low on corn one year due to an unstable supply would devastate the US; HFCS helps prevent that. Federal corn subsidies also help make HFCS a much cheaper option than conventional sugars, keeping food prices lower which helps people afford to eat. The main argument against HFCS is the serious health effects that it causes when eaten in high amounts, but regular sugar which would replace HFCS in most foods causes the same problems in the amounts they are consumed while being significantly more problematic logistically for the US
They’re encouraging it because the studio sacked most of the team abruptly. The developers who actually made the game are long gone
Barely anyone uses Linux, and among those who do, distros vary wildly enough between each other to the point of breaking viruses that it’s just not worth the effort to make viruses for them compared to Windows or Mac
They didn’t intend for there to be a war. They fully expected to just walk in without much resistance, take over the country without much hassle similarly to how they took over Crimea, install a puppet government, and have the west barely react just as we haven’t been reacting to their annexation of parts of Georgia, Crimea, and their conflict in Donbass for years
I had 2 American style futons through most of my 20s. One had just a normal cheap futon mattress, and the other was basically just a normal mattress that has the ability to fold up. As a daily sleeper, it’s way too much effort to fold it up and down everyday, and after a few weeks I just accepted that I was only going to use it as a normal bed and rarely folded it up except for special occasions. The first mattress left my back sore everyday, but the second was very comfortable to the point that I used it as my mattress for a while after switching to a normal bedframe. All in all, I got a better sleep on a normal bed. I still have my old futon in my office that I use as a couch and a spare bed for guests, but I wouldn’t go back to it as my main bed
Disney is heavily unionized, they’re one of the better companies on that list to work for. From entertainment unions such as writers and actors guilds to their theme park workers being unionized, they can’t just walk over their workers like most US companies because they will fight back
Ironically, jobs that rely on tips are some of the most inflation resistant besides CEOs, since tips are usually a percentage of the price. It’s unreliable, but very well paying. Employers are also required by law to make up the difference in pay if the tipped worker does not make minimum wage with tips, though many times the employees won’t do this since its incredibly common for tipped workers to not declare tips for taxes
It’s bad management if they do that. That employee is going to file for unemployment and will probably get it, which companies have to pay a premium for. The company also has to hire and train a new employee to replace the one they sacked, costing the company even more. I know of times that sort of situation has happened, but in my experience working for various companies most managers aren’t that incompetent to take every Karen’s word at face value and immediately fire their staff over a random person’s word about petty BS, even if they humor said Karen on the phone pretending that they will to get them to shut up
Without any crime to suspect you of, they might detain you and question you. It’s not uncommon for people to turn themselves in for crimes, and there are legitimate reasons to do so especially with a lawyer, namely to get out on bail easier, avoid having the police raid your home or place of work, and perhaps used to sway the prosecution for a more favorable sentencing, but if the police have no clue what to even charge you for and they can’t figure one out, they’ll just be confused and frustrated, which is a dangerous combination for police