Obviously, don't tell me exactly where you live, no actual addresses please! You can be as vague as you like.
I live in Central Missouri in the U.S.
Pros:
This is an absolutely beautiful place, green rolling hills, lots of rivers, lakes, ponds, and natural springs, cool caves to explore.
Lots of farming here, so great access to quality fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, and dairy.
It's relatively inexpensive to live here compared with other states, because it's a "flyover".
I'm close enough to three major cities, that it's an easy day trip, and I'm about halfway to anywhere in the U.S.
We have one of the best Conservation departments in the U.S. and this is one of the few things that is a bipartisan issue. Lots of awesome nature programs that are free or cheap, state parks, conservation areas, bird watching, hunting, boating, foraging available to everyone.
Cons:
Yeah, it's a big one, it is a RED STATE, while a lot of the cities are blue, there is a large rural population, that votes red. Abortion is not legal here. People often vote against their own self interest.
While I'm not against responsible gun ownership, lots of people aren't responsible, and people have access to guns that definitely should not.
We have very few employee protections here, while the cost of living is relatively low compared with other places, it's taken years to get to a $12 minimum wage, and it's still not enough.
Beautiful here but local governments are full of idiots. The electorate keeps electing them. When we have an opportunity to replace them, extremists show up and they pretty much guarantee the idiot gets re-elected (see: Ted Wheeler & Sarah Iannarone). I had been pleasantly surprised by our new governor, until dirt on how her (unelected) wife was leaked. Our previous governor was terrible, the alternative was Republicans, so basically worse than what we had.
First warm event on Sunday with the #ORSCCA. I finished 4th out of 7 in S1, 45th overall PAX out of 127 drivers. Getting better, but still lots to learn. I did the #StartingLine school on Saturday, and I just signed up for the #EvoSchool events May 18 & 19 at #SheltonWashington. I still have enough points to lead S1, but the more experienced drivers will eventually push me down in points. To combat that, I'm going to try to improve as much as I can with formal #autocross education.
A natural basic income experiment began in the mid-1990s and how the kids (now in their 30s and 40s) are doing is incredible. As adults, they have fewer drug problems and their average IQ is higher. By age 26, the benefits of the UBI exceeded its cost by 3-to-1 thanks to better educational outcomes and reduced spending on crime and medical care.
@scottsantens I'm curious how it would pan out in our current system of skyrocketing housing prices. If landlords just raise rent to absorb most of the UBI benefit, will the outcomes be the same?
@stux I'll pay attention to plebian electric trucks when they can pull an enclosed stacker with 2 prepped race cars from Portland to Crows Landing / Laguna Seca. Until then, it's just a fancy soccer mom car with a slightly different body to make it look like a truck.
Had a serious database failure earlier due to cascading bad decisions. I started deleting a bunch of old data, rather than using #tootctl. This led to a bunch of errors in the #pgsql#docker container.
I moved the database into bare metal using a #nuc with 32GB of RAM and 4 cores. I'm going to use this for other services too, and it was on my roadmap of transition. #nextcloud will be moving to that as well.
Ran in the second #BridgeCityAutosports#Autocross with my #Nissan350Z. Took first again in my class, though it was pouring down rain and I landed somewhere in the 30s for PAX times. Car performed well. I figured out more of the #SoloStorm idiosyncrasies, and I'll be better set for the next #OregonRegion#SCCA event. I even put down my fastest time carrying a passenger who wanted to film some high quality video. Overall, another great event.
@mattblaze@mike This is literally how we vote in Canada: a cardboard box and a paper ballot. Granted we're only 40 million people, but no one ever feels the need to question the results.
@mattblaze@mike@mike We just need to go back to voting in person on plain ballots! Everything was secure back then!
I like the way Oregon does it. I know when the ballot is sent to me, I know when they've received it and I know when it's been successfully processed or rejected. If they need to recount, it's easy because it's all Scantron based. On top of that, they do manual recounts, at random, to ensure consistency. It's the only way I've ever voted (since 98).
@JohnLAlford I'm sure election fraud has been a thing since elections. At least with the mail in ballots we have in Oregon, there's some kind of paper trail, and there's automated alerting for voters. Back in the Box 13 days, not so much. I'm personally glad I've never had to stand in line to vote.
Because my life is a low to medium grade crisis everyday lately, now my new AC split seems to be dripping significant amounts of water. My sister, an expert at nothing, says I have to vacuum out the drain line. Itโs only been a few months in operation. Are these things that fussy ?
@glowrocks Rest in peace, Aiko. Kitties are such a wonderful part of our lives. They are too good for this world, but I am also glad they are here to share it with us.