Sure you can get a cheap 4k TV way less, but without a good refresh rate and response time it’s not suitable for gaming. $2k may be high, I’ve not been in the market super recently but it’s certainly wrong to say an entry level 4k Samsung from Costco is suitable for gaming, the response time isn’t close to give the right experience. Same logic as setting graphics to 4k and playing at like 15 fps on a computer on a dog of a GPU.

A computer does need a monitor, and honestly a decent one does cost often upwards of $300, but smaller size without any of the bundled processors etc make it way cheaper than a TV that can do the same.

I think this is completely misguided. An equivalent GPU as in the ps5 is reportedly an RTX 5700 XT ~$200.

The RTX 4060 Ti ~$400 or RTX 3080 ~$450 is comparable if you want 4k gaming, but since most people don’t have TV hardware suitable for 4k gaming it’s a dumb comparison unless you include the $2000 TV in addition to the cost of the console. The TV alone compares the cost of a competent 4k PC rig before you consider the $500 console, multiplayer subscription cost and higher price of games so unless you’re part of the niche that has a very high quality TV already, the claim that console gaming being cheaper seems mistaken.

If you just look at numbers maybe, we can see from Russia (large navy) vs Ukraine (no navy) that there are serious disadvantages when waging a war of attrition, even with relatively near distances and supply lines.

The Israeli navy has no meaningful capability control Norwegian waters and they would be insane to try.

Norway having a small military and being easy to bully sounds familiar, perhaps the Russians remember how that goes and can explain.

*words hahaha

Only the first 7 letters words of this headline are needed.

They are literally fighting for the extermination of the Jewish state and aim to eradicate the Jewish population from the region.

The Islamic colonial powers have a long history of persecuting the Jewish population in the region which was (and should Hamas be successful, again will be) every bit as despicable as what Israel are doing to the Palestinians now.

In this conflict, the only possible justice is for both sides to lose and a two state solution be implemented.

To be clear, what I said was “I think that’s a strange comment” to someone saying “Americans want to kill me” in comparison to those in the Middle East.

If you read that back carefully, you might notice that I was careful not to say “I support the systematic and brutal murder of millions of people” - that’s because, like any sane person, I see that what Israel are doing is abhorrent. I never argued or insinuated that lgbtq people should support the genocide of bigots, but again for the sake of clarity my position is that only a literal insane person could think that. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

So, with that said, your post that I responded to seems to imply that you think Americans (in general) hate you in the same way that many in the middle east hate you. To me, that is an incredibly naive view, and a very strange thing for someone who’s never lived there to make.

I think that it’s possible to condemn elements of a culture, in an honest way ie. that the Islamic attitude to LGB is worse than that in western countries, however bad western countries often are (for some reason I think there’s sometimes less hate for the T in Islamic culture) but pull short of supporting the worst elements of western culture (like islamophobia) and absolutely without endorsing literal war crimes.

Have you ever spent time in a middle eastern country and been visibly “out”? (I’m assuming you’re saying this in reference to existing somewhere on the lgbtq spectrum)

If the answer is no, but you have spent time in America, then I think this is a strange comment.

XP sp1 and 2 were more or less the same as me with an updated UI and non existent 64 bit. However flawed vista was, it added an actual tangible benefit for 7 to further improve on.

I’d argue 7 was the last windows os that could be described as “better” in some way than what came before (which most, even the ones we remember as “bad” at the time, did offer some real step forward which isn’t true for 8/10/11).

Poland is one of the largest militaries in NATO and have a special hatred of Russia. I imagine alongside the UK and France, Russia has nukes aimed at Poland already.

They are plenty threatening already, though obviously adding nukes, even if American controlled, exacerbates things.

The “speculative investors removing housing stock to drive up costs” folks tend to be corporately owned and industry coordinated properties that deliberately keep units open above the clearing rate, in hopes of driving up the prevailing cost of new housing.

This is dependant on the market (the post didn’t say where they are), but I understand is true in the US.

In Australia, the speculation is driven by individuals who get incredible tax incentives if their income is above a certain level. Because of this, the housing market is distorted to the point where housing values are detached from rent potential, with all the value being driven by capital gains and tax offsets. This further leads to a situation where it’s often more economically viable to leave a house empty (and therefore not have to maintain the property or deal with tenants) while the value grows and the tax is written down.

Dude he’s losing money year on year and capital gains carry it through to make it profitable longer term. The problems isn’t “landlords make a profit”, the problem is “speculative investors are removing housing stock driving up costs”.

Through that lense this guy is no saint.

Because he has unrealized capital gains - in yearly income/expenditure their losing money but big picture, when they sell, they profit.

In Australia, rental returns are paltry (less than 2%) compared to any other investment, but steep tax concessions on and insane capital growth (often higher than 6% annually) incentivises speculative investment in real estate… This is what’s driving up the cost of housing to the cartoonist levels they currently are in. It’s not unusual for these speculators to not even bother with tenants, because like op suggests they often lose money maintaining the property, it’s cheaper to speculate and maybe renovate immediately before selling.

The problem has nothing to do with landlords and everything to do with speculators going for capital gains. Greedy landlords can be a problem where there are no rentals protections, but that can easily be resolved with regulation.

And I think it’s nearly universally acknowledged that ceding to the government the power to decide how its individual citizens should live their lives is a terrible idea. If we were talking about almost anything else, there would be an uproar.

Marijuana among many other drugs are illegal in New Zealand with no uproar. How is that different than cigarettes?

If you’re saying it’s tyranny to prevent people from taking actions, that the majority feel shouldn’t be allowed, that drive up healthcare costs then that’s one thing. However if your position on this is based on a liberal ideal of people being allowed to do what they want, then it should surely equally apply to the taxpayers (particularly if they are majority voters) who don’t want to pay for the decisions of others. Either way that is government intervention restricting individuals freedom.

I think it’s not right to say “the governments money” as if an administrative body that is beholden to the voters has true autonomy over how it’s spent - that is the populations money and should be their choice on how it’s spent. One can argue it’s immoral to refuse migrants access to the country and healthcare but that isn’t accepted as justification for open borders. I also don’t understand, assuming cigarettes are some special case different than immigration where morality should trump democracy, why it’s more valid to say this taxpayer control over how their money is spent should be restricted based on your moral judgement compared to someone else’s moral judgement who’s claim is cigarettes are immoral (for whatever their chosen reason).

The claim of smokers dying younger and therefore costing less is something I didn’t consider and is an interesting point (that very well could prove true). But even if you discredit the taxpayer funded health argument, there’s moral arguments around selling addictive substances, human pain caused by premature death and sickness etc. that could just as readily be made as any argument based around individual freedoms. Why should your claims on what’s moral have precedence over someone else’s?

Most new zealnders don’t smoke, if most new zealanders don’t want to fund smoking how is that different than any other drug being illegal? Would you describe illegal cannibas or prescription only medications as tyranny of the majority?

There are checks and balances in place to prevent actual human rights abuses. You still haven’t answered why tax paying new zealanders should be forced to pay health costs for smokers when the majority don’t support it. If banning smoking is tyranny of the majority, forcing taxpayers to fund smokers against their will is surely tyranny of the minority.

It’s a democracy, the people have the right to value different things differently if they choose. The previous administration ran for office with the cigarette restrictions as part of their policy package and people voted for that. They didn’t vote for alcohol or fast food or whatever else your claiming is the same, if people wanted to ban other things they have the right to vote accordingly.

New Zealand has publically funded health care. If the government can force me to pay for your medical treatment (via tax), why is it a stretch for them to prevent you from running up those costs by engaging in self destructive drug use?

In any democracy, the voting public should choose how tax money is spent. If the majority don’t want to pay to manage smoking related illness, or pay to enforce a two tiered medical system, a democratic system would restrict or ban smoking.

Hard to see something if you’ve got your eyes closed. There’s plenty of liberal support for Assange, just this week the centre right led government of Australia passed a motion to urge the UK and US to return him to Australia.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-15/motion-to-urge-us-uk-to-allow-julian-assange-return/103469226?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other