Republicans in Congress were elected expressly to allow Trump to do as he wishes.

>A populace with a functioning representative democracy deserves its leaders.

Yes. Despite Trump himself being a fascist, the government continues to operate as a representative democracy. Most Congresscritters have their thumbs up their asses waiting for things to get much worse, which mirrors the vast majority of voters.

Is it national apathy? Decadence? Addiction to the drama, anger and depravity of Trump TV?

Elect an abuser, get abused. Is this surprising?

If they refuse, sue them in small claims court.

The Congress could solve this in a week. Impeachment and removal from office.

I don't know what "equally annoying" would be for a company and its customers, i.e. a fair compromise. But we need a law requiring companies open source their hardware within X days of end of life support.

And somehow make sure these are meaningful updates. Not feature parity with new hardware, but security parity when it can be provided by a software only update.

Otherwise a company in effect takes back the property, without compensation.

Colorado law recently changed permitting merchants to pass on the actual cost of processing, except for cash, check and debit payments.

https://colorado.public.law/statutes/crs_5-2-212

This law overrides any prior contractual agreements with banks/processing companies that prohibit surcharges. This is previously how MasterCard and VISA coerced merchants into absorbing the processing fee, by contractually requiring credit same as cash pricing.

Not a significant cost. But they sure as shit aren't getting what they think they're getting. Meaningfully farther ahead.

I now see it all as a risk assessment rather than as ritualistic combat.

Telling illiberal authoritarians to go fuck themselves is reasonable. But power is still more important than insults.

In theory the law doesn’t require victim cooperation. In practice, I’ve found local prosecutors won’t touch a case with an uncooperative victim. And most victims don’t cooperate whether out of humiliation or rejection pf the very idea they can be scammed. Because to them all scams are obvious, and only morons are scammed. They consistently lack imagination for the sophistication and manipulation component of scams, thinking it’s all about obviousness.

I’m sure it’s not only a case of “save the children”. Saving grandma’s retirement accounts is also important. The internet is a cesspool.

If the executive branch is lawless, then there’s selective enforcement. We are seeing the emergence of the dual state. Authoritarianism that follows the law sometimes so it sorta looks legitimate but sometimes isn’t at all legitimate.

America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State (theatlantic.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43454004

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2026/01/trump-ballroom-dono...

Therefore the customers of these companies are contributing some of their hard earned money to help these companies grovel to a would-be dictator, and build his precious ballroom.

I'm not a big fan of the general strike idea whereby people forego income to send a message. Why not stop spending money with these companies for some period of time? I think telling these companies to go fuck themselves will put more money in everyday people's pockets than not showing up for work.

Apple consumers would be on more ethical grounds paying a tariff than what Tim Cook has committed them to. He showed up at the White House on Saturday well after the reporting that the government had murdered a law abiding citizen, while that government protected the assailants, and smeared the victims.

It's disgusting. I find him disgusting. I find all of these companies disgusting.

This is not correct. See 14 CFR 101, 103, and 105. There's a long history of the FAA concerning itself with hobbyists flying model aircraft, moored, and unmanned balloon, rockets, kites, parachutes, and ultralights. I mentioned this, you glossed over it. Their histories predate 2012.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14

>Helicopters, planes, and quadcopters could be flown freely under general guidance, with no actual enforcing regulations.

Helicopters and airplanes have been regulated under 14 CFR 91 for a very long time, and were regulated by the CAA (the Civil Aeronautical Authority, precursor to FAA), and their operations are certainly regulated below 500'. And it is definitely enforced.

If you're referring to the years long regulatory lag for drones/sUAS before the The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 which also gave us 49 USC 44809 "Exception for limited recreational operations of unmanned aircraft" - ummm, well all I can say is welcome to aviation. It's been significantly regulated the whole time, and just because some folks were not aware of this fact, doesn't mean it wasn't.

Maybe check out The Great Waldo Pepper with Robert Redford though. That begins in a genuinely unregulated era.

I'm now curious about the engineering of the displaced threshold. This is a portion of the runway that aircraft can taxi onto and use for takeoff but not for landing. I thought (assumed) that the landing was harder on the runway surface than takeoffs, hence the displaced threshold wasn't designed for that force.

The displaced threshold could also be used to ensure obstacle and terrain clearance on landing - simply disallow that portion from being used in order to create an offset from the obstacle. But I don't know whether this is a very common reason for displaced threshold usage.

-- Video also mentions https://skybrary.aero/ which I'd not heard of previously. Looks neat. I'll have to check it out.

FAA has asserted jurisdiction below 500' for a long time: balloons and kites since 1963, ultralights since 1982.

FAA certainly asserts regulatory authority over aircraft below 500', everything does takeoffs and landings of some sort, but ground operations are also subject to regulation.

The movement opposes equality because equality stands opposed to their need for hierarchy. It is a domination and submission movement. It boasts about its application of double standards. Double standards are not logical fallacies, when they use them they are virtues. To enjoy for themselves what they deny to others is a display of dominance.

https://bsky.app/profile/bellingcat.com/post/3md6vlu7hb22t

https://bsky.app/profile/bradmossesq.bsky.social/post/3md6pi...

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Related, six days ago. Since then, the FBI agent who indicated a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Renee Good was warranted, has resigned.

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mcpk34cyu22p

But what about unsophisticated users? In aggregate it might be true data exfiltration is worse than data loss? I don't know if that's true.

But what is true is enabling encryption by default without automated backup and escrow will lead to some data loss.

It's difficult for me to separate the aggregate scenarios from individual scenarios. The individual penalty of data loss can be severe. Permanent.