I would add a caveat to your statement. It might not be just through a lawsuit but the threat of a lawsuit. A lawsuit will cost big money, but having a lawyer right the company a letter shouldn’t cost more than a couple of hundred bucks. Most people give up immediately and that’s what they are counting on. Worst case scenario is what? Tack a couple of hundred on to the thousands you will already owe? Basically a drop in a bucket.

Also, as scummy as the profession and some lawyers are, there are plenty who just want to do right by people. I have only paid a lawyer once, but I have talked to around half a dozen in my life time with questions about the law and some of the issues I was having. One or two probably spent at least a couple of hours on me over the course of a month or two when you factor in the initial 20-30 minute conversation, reading the documents I put together, and answering some of my follow up emails, and despite my insisting they charge me, they were insistent on not doing so.

(I suspect because in many of the situations what was happening to me was morally wrong, but legally more or less fine just barely grazing the gray area, and taking payment for their time could be construed as them acting as legal counsel as opposed to just answering some questions)

I’m based in the US and that’s where I used my Huawei phone until recently. OnePlus is among the manufacturers that still do IR blasters, and it looks like the OnePlus 12 has one and is easily purchased from their US store page.

As far as I can tell Samsung hasn’t released a phone with an IR blaster since 2015 either. Essentially, IR and Samsung hasn’t been a thing for a long time. If we are going by total volume then I would agree that the most common manufacturer in the US that has/had IR is Samsung. If we are going by new phones available today, then Samsung isn’t even in the conversation.

I’m not entirely sure what this comment is in relation to yours, I don’t think I disagree with you, I think I’m just adding some context or nuance.

IR blasters are very common on Chinese brand phones even today. It’s easily the feature I miss most from my Huawei.

I saw Dennis in an add read a couple of weeks ago. He is still around as far as I am aware.

I think you are right, and I hate that it is a fact.

What I want right now is a small electric kei truck or utility van for use as an in city daily driver. Just make the cargo area large enough to put 4’x8’ sheets of plywood in it and close without any fuss and I am sold, but I don’t think that’s going to happen here anytime soon.

Ford discontinued selling their small Transit Connect van here recently so that isn’t even an option anymore.

Unless your brain is fucking broken like mine, lol.

The issue I have run into a lot is that they have the “wrong” kind of experience. Somewhat inline with the adage “practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect”. I spent a lot of my teens and 20s being introspective, working on myself, and becoming the kind of person I would want to date. A lot of people I have had experiences with in my 30s spent a lot of that time in bad relationships creating reactive responses to various things rather than addressing the core issues or learning how to, and as a result they often have a lot of “bad habits” or expectations going into dating or future relationships.

I have met more than one person that has said they need someone who can be patient with them while they heal and deal with their past, while also not necessarily wanting to, or being capable of, providing that same level of patience and understanding to a partner. That seems…uhhh not really appropriate or fair? But I’m the one that’s been single for quite a while, sooooo it’s just as likely I could be the one with my head so far up my ass I can taste my tonsils.

Not OP, but I was sterilized in my mid 20s. Not only am I not interested in having kids, but I would not be a good parent. I have still dated people with kids who made it clear there would never be an expectation that I become a parent or interact with their kids, which does address those issues, but there are others. Understandably their kids take priority over basically everything except for maybe the factors that effect their ability to provide for their kids (or at least I think they should). That often means they don’t have nearly as much time to hang out and build a connection, nor are they able to be as free to do other things due to constraints on their time, finances, or both like going on fun trips. Another factor I have run into that is that usually the reason someone is single and has kids due to entirely positive reasons, and there is often at least some amount of trauma in their past that is often not entirely behind them.

To be clear the above is in no way an absolute and are merely my anecdotal experience and correlations in the given area I live. It is also always worth keeping in mind that I am in no way perfect myself and that it’s possible there is something about me that results in the above being my experience.

If you have a rooted phone and Magisk there is a module that essentially turns the stock YouTube app into the Premium version without adds and background play enabled.

Sorry to hear that mate. People suck sometimes, I’m rooting for you though.

Yes, but in your example your location is not posted to publicly available records. If she doesn’t like that an air planes flight records are publicly available for anyone to look up, she should contact her representative, or otherwise campaign to have the law changed, not harass someone who is basically just copying and pasting information from one public database no one is on to a public space everyone is on.

Beyond that I would also add my opinion that for the average person hiring extra security or taking extra precautions is an undo burden. For someone who is worth more than I will make in 250 lifetimes I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that is one of the costs of the path that she has chosen to travel.

I could be wrong, but the reason I’m annoyed with her specifically isn’t because of the use of private planes (I am annoyed by it, but that isn’t specific to her). I’m annoyed with her legally harassing the person that made a bot that used publicly available data to track her plane(s).

That’s why I am specifically amused by these posts, not sure if it’s the same for everyone.

Researching anything that happened on the internet right now in the future is going to be absolute hell considering how much useful user information and interactions are “locked” behind Discord. Is there a term for something worse than link rot? With link rot it’s a case of a known unknown. With information on Discord it’s an unknown unknown.

Yeah like… fuck. I get where they are coming from, and I can’t really fault them on a human individual level. Even if Ukraine comes out of this as the undisputed victors with all of their land and resources returned to them and full EU and NATO membership (and I REALLY hope they do), the people these protestors are advocating for are going to return home permanently changed by what they experienced.

Like you said/alluded to though that’s better than the alternative. I don’t know, maybe some kind of rotation could be implemented where they get to go home for a couple of months to rest and get a lot of mental health related services to help them maintain their effectiveness?

| War is war and Hell is Hell and of the two war is a lot worse -Hawkeye Pierce

I was just coming in to question the use of the word “escape”. Such sad bull shit.