Copy that. Thanks. I wanted @zadillo to know that as well. 
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What if Musk really ran tho, thatās a different type of Nightmareā¦ But who is a good candidate at this point?
No one is clean, but one should be willing to clean up.
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It took this long to react to that video because it took this long for me to stop laughing. And then I got mad because I then have to acknowledge the damage that fucking zombie has done. Some say it is irreversible. I tend to take a more optimistic view. Time will tell.
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putin already won without realizing, in that clip, i swear, I was on the floor for a bit. GodDamn!!
that video is a fucking drug trip. Wooo!!!
on the other hand, the guy was a literal figure head, everything was run by someone else, There was no way this guy was in the seat, he was just in a driverless car on his term. Jeezus
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Voter eligibility and voter id requirements are technically two different issues. In terms of who is eligible to vote, here is the current state of eligibility:
Essentially you have to be a citizen, you have to meet your stateās residency requirements (there are usually provisions for people who are homeless) and be 18 or older. You also have to be registered to vote by the stateās registration deadline.
A lot of efforts around elections have to do with getting people registered, and counter efforts to make registration more difficult. Some states try and support it (including registration up to and including Election Day).
Voter ID requirements by state:
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id
As you can see there, states have a lot of different variations on voter id requirements. There are usually combinations of showing some form of id, providing information that is checked against voter registration or a signature that is checked. Usually in places where id is required there are options to do provisional ballots if you donāt have id. The link above provides a lot of detail on the different variations.
I lived most of my life on the East Coast, voting in Virginia, DC and Maryland. For the most part there I voted on Election Day. I usually lived in fairly wealthy areas and voting usually was not difficult - rarely dealt with long lines, or weird issues with polling locations, etc. Frankly itās because I experienced such painless voting that I generally became even more frustrated reading the experiences of fellow citizens in other states (like having only a handful of polling places for major urban centers, people waiting in long lines for hours, etc), I just want a system where there are as few barriers to exercising the right to vote as possible.
I moved to Oregon 8 years ago and frankly I love the voting system here. I was automatically registered to vote when I got my drivers license, so that wasnāt a separate process. Weāre one of the few (maybe only?) states that do mail in ballots only. At first I sort of missed the communal experience of going to a polling place and voting with other people. But Iāve found that Iām actually a better voter with this system, because I find trust I actually review my ballot in detail, can sit there and do research on the candidates, the ballot measures, etc.
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Thanks, for what itās worth I didnāt think you were bring disrespectful. I think we just have different perspectives probably on what voting should look like.
My replies here have mostly just been to lay out the features and issues with our system that I do and donāt like.
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Thanks for taking the time to explain!
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I doubt Newsom has much of a chance. Thereās a certain type of Dem that he appeals to because he tries to match Trumpās caustic style. And honestly part of why thatās appealing is because most National Dems barely seem willing to stand up for anything or are still playing an old game where they think they can get traction by pointing out hypocrisy or somethingā¦.but they failed to learn that no one actually cares about hypocrisy anymore.
so thereās probably some portion of Dems who will vote for Newsom because heās at least got some style and humor and tries to compete with Trump on his level and they think thatās what is needed.
But this is such an obvious losing strategy. Most people who support Trump arenāt going to flip to Trump lite.
I donāt really know what the 2028 election has in store. There really arenāt any obvious Dems other than Newsom, and Harris is making hints of running again.
And Newsom is basically anathema to a lot of Dems, especially the progressive wing, because of his shitty policies and what he says about the homeless, trans issues, etc.
The GOP problem is that Trump is such a singular figure that there really isnāt an obvious replacement for him. They very clearly are making a heavy push with Vance, but I donāt really see a lot of passion for him. Thereās been more recent talk about Marco Rubio being presented as an option but I donāt really see it either.
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Just as a small point here, I would probably argue weāre well under way from a major shift in the media landscape.
At the national level, historically one would argue that pretty much all of the major news networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN) have been left/center left best. This was frankly the environment that spawned Fox News as a genuine alternative (and this was also why right wing talk radio thrived). On the newspaper side weāve historically had conservative papers like the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, etc.
But weāre seeing so many changes lately.
Especially as news media becomes part of larger media conglomerates, weāve seen much more effort to become centrist or non partisan or even actively court more conservative people.
CBS is probably the most obvious example of that now, with David Ellison and Skydance exerting much more control over Paramount and thus CBS. Weāve seen that shift with Bari Weiss overseeing CBS News.
A lot of what weāre seeing is basically to try and get favorable rulings from the current administration, especially approvals for media mergers.
On the newspaper side, Iāve especially noted this with the Washington Post under Bezos, especially in the Trump era. Thereās been a fairly dramatic shift in its editorial voice and views (and Bezos was fairly explicit with his 2025 memo where he said the editorial pages would shift to focus only on free market and pro capitalist viewpoints).
The other big one is local news. Lots of stations are owned by conservative media outlets, the most notable being Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Theyāve been known for basically sending out scripts to local newscasters, requiring them to air specific packages, preempting some national media and programs, etc. So even though a station might be part of left leaning ABC, if itās a Sinclair station theyāll exert a fair amount of influence.
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This is one of my biggest probs with politics in general.
Democrats policy hurt them if exit polls are to be believed, most didnāt trust them to execute in traditional parts f their platform
They lost black and moreso Latino voting partially on immigration.
Kamala running again would bring out the secret Republicans/ fake independants again. Thatās the best way?
A Platform of āFuck Trumpā just lost them the Presidency and the Senate and the house iirc?
Republicans are missing many chances to counter Trump with a young charismatic person who is actually a Republican.
Trump is not a Republican. His fiscal policy and his Geo politics of abandoning Ukraine amongsta shit load of other stuff are not core.
They could EASILY put a person to chip block Trump here and there to appeal to core and have values that some minorities thought Trump had. Basically do what Trump said heād do sans the racist whistle shit both sides did and not be a fucking pedo with a super sketchy criminal past.
Both sides are so unprepared for what comes next itās hard to believe really.
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One last thing about Newsomā¦. Unlike Trump, who at least writes some of his social media (usually itās fairly obvious when itās Trump written as opposed to someone like Stephen Miller), Newsom doesnāt have anything to do with the trolling social media posts that are probably 90% of why anyone says they like Newsom at all. Theyāre all done by Camille Zapata, the Digital Director for Newsom and her team. If the Dems had any sense theyād hire her for National comms. Although even then their most notable accomplishments are trolling Trump as opposed to communicating appealing political messages.
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Yeah, I donāt know exactly where the GOP goes from here. A lot of those āactually a Republicanā types have either been driven out of the party, or have so compromised themselves (because Trump wields enough influence to essentially make them not want to risk him targeting them) that itās a bit hard to get out from under that shadow.
The names that probably seem most compelling once you get outside of the Trump circle are probably figures like Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton, who have generally managed to thread the needle between not ticking off the MAGA movement but carving out their own positions (i.e. Cotton is very hawkish on foreign policy).
But I think something will have to go very wrong for the 2028 nominee to not be Vance - heās specifically been picked and positioned for that role, and he basically is supposed to be that āyoung Republicanā. I just looked up polling and it does seem like he has pretty strong MAGA support still, so weāll have to see how that plays out.
Generally I think weāre moving more towards a focus on a wider disparity in priorities between a lot of Americans and what the main people funding the parties care about. As a country we seem to care a lot more about stuff like critical minerals, etc. which are important, but not necessarily top of mind for the average voter.
But I suspect the push will be for Vance, and for a continuation of current administration policies (and people like Stephen Miller driving a lot of the actual focus and agenda).
On the Dem side, national dems essentially continue to operate as being afraid of being called commies, etc. and just seem too cowardly and afraid to actually do much of anything. So we basically just get a bunch of people who donāt really resonate, arenāt appealing to progressives, but also arenāt appealing to moderates/centrists and certainly not enough to convince anyone conservative.
Generally I donāt think Vance has the charisma or singular magic Trump has (and heās so compromised whatever principals he held at some point back when he was actually critical of Trump), but I think heāll be able to get by on the strength of being the official continuation of Trump. I donāt really foresee a strong opposition or compelling opposition to him, either from within the GOP in the primaries, or from a Dem or third party even in the national election.
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Even if the IEM inside isnāt great, the shipping box still brings joy 
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PS Saw this one on Elise while browsing for anything new and exciting:
Thatās the one someone posted some time ago by the former CEO of Cayin. It really does look like a Cayin clone design wise IMO. And pricey.
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Battle 
bot
What happened to that Binary Mems set? It was spammed everywhere and I donāt hear anything now
Anyone still rocking it?
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The N30LE is the father of that set. I think the evo is ugly in comparison. I am super biased though since I love the design and sound of the N30LE
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I think I saw one review, canāt remember where though, that was positive.
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I honestly wonder if the EVO will bring anything Cayin doesnāt already bring to the table (other than availability is it mimics the N30LE). Iāll be going to CanJam London again this year so if Elise has it there for demoing purposes Iāll definitely give it a try.
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I met a guy who sells iems today, we were generally talking about the iems that sold in the kilobuck range. I was told that if Iām making an iem, its gotta be hard to drive to impress the guys buying it. What do you think about this? Personally, I wouldnāt want an inefficient iem.
A few posts back, I yapped about Damping Factor, Reality hit hard. The current tax to do that is a lot.
If I had to explain to a Layman.
A single dd iem, lets assume 16ohms. That one has a damping factor of 160 on a 0.1ohms Output Impedance Amp. it goes lower as the ampās impedance goes higher. Of course a thatās a staggering number which is not really possible if we look at a few stuff. Add a cable, the connectors and stuff, lets say you had shit luck, theyāre 1ohms. The new DF on the 16ohms dd is 14.5. Basically, Damping Factor = load / source impedance
A multi-driver iem, the Bass driver by default loses a fuckton of DF, hovers around 1~5 if you are lucky on a 0.1ohms Amp, not accounting for cable and connectors resistance here.
If I want to force a local DF10 in my crossover circuit, i gotta find a 1.6ohms resistor. The current consumption for the DF shunt by itself is 10x what the driver takes. this makes the iem 10x inefficientā¦
I donāt know why tf I opened a can of worms hereā¦ Now i gotta shelve the idea of retaining a good df, the only thing i can do is lower the series resistor on dd as much as possible to retain as much natural df as I canā¦
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