If you have Google translate, Android has a feature where a long press on the home button gives you a translate option.

While all that is true, at least in Portland it will be partially off-set by the need for added security.

We ALREADY see it as is with the paid system, it would just get worse in a free system:

https://www.kptv.com/2026/02/11/man-charged-with-bias-crime-after-attacking-transgender-woman-portland-max-stop-court-records-say/

https://www.mcso.us/news-information/transit-police-investigation-results-grand-jury-indictments-three-suspects-charged

https://www.kgw.com/trimetattack

https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/court-docs-suspect-covered-in-blood-after-attacking-man-with-boxcutter-on-max-train-trimet-portland-oregon-82nd-avenue-jonesmore

Locally, our transit system gets most of it’s funding from a payroll tax on all the businesses in the Tri-County area (why it’s called “Tri-Met”, Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties.)

https://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2025-adopted-budget.pdf

$62.4 million from passenger revenue.
$540.4 million from payroll tax.

The payroll tax is 0.8237%.

https://trimet.org/taxinfo/

So…

0.8237/$540,400,000
x/$602,800,000

Solve for x…

0.8237 x 602,800,000 = 496,526,360
496,526,360 / 540,400,000 = 0.9188126573

So if we increased the payroll tax 0.0951126573, an amount absolutely nobody would notice, we could make our mass transit system here free.

If it had JUST been a colonoscopy, yeah, but they wanted an endoscopy as well (“Oh, a spit roast!” - “Don’t call it that!”)

I’ve had so many medical things done that I always opt to be out when possible.

Was struggling with anemia, low energy, out of breath, blood panels showed low hemoglobin, poor red blood cell counts, small and irregular red blood cells.

Something was chewing up all the red blood cells. Had a colonoscopy / endoscopy (“Oh, so a spit roast!” - “Don’t call it that!”) and they found 17 polyps. 2 were abnormally large (>5mm) one was 20mm, one 30mm.

No cancer though, wanted to re-do in January.

Went back, 6 more polyps, one 20mm + stage 2 cancer.

Don’t trust ANYTHING taking this. 😉

Mine went from zero to stage 2 in 6 months, no family history, no genetic pre-disposition. Surgery 1 week from today.

March is colon cancer awareness month, get checked and wear blue.

Pro-tip, the stuff they make you drink before hand is NASTY. It tastes like salt water and not even GOOD salt water, salt water made with that fake potassium salt.

But if you add Gatorade powder (lime or arctic cherry, green or white drinks only, no orange or red) it’s drinkable. One glass every 12 minutes for 2 hours, wait 6 hours and do it again:

.

Colonoscopy itself is no big deal, you’re out for the whole thing!

That’s just the way elections work. There’s no process for changing things midstream and the Democrats are not in power.

Once the election flips the House and possibly the Senate, then we can move forward.

The #1 thing people need to do before November is organize. Get people registered, get people to vote. Make it clear that the Republican party is intellectually, fiscally, and morally bankrupt.

There’s probably money to be made in purchasing the IP of these failed live service games and using the assets and art to make good single player games with an actual story.

I’d play the hell out of an Assassin’s Creed ish game in the Brink universe.

Ask them what they want to do.

Gaming? Windows. SteamOS is great but there are too many games that require Windows.

Creatives? MacOS. Yeah, you can do all that (and more!) on Windows machines, but the creative space is largely all Mac all the time.

Office Productivity? Anything. Libre Office is cross platform.

Want to complain about how you don’t fit in and it would be a better place if the world would just accommodate you? Linux.

Hey, I survived Spinal Stenosis, Charcot Foot, 2 heart attacks, open heart surgery, congestive heart failure, a stent, 3rd degree full thickness burns and skin grafts, nothing scares me any more… but I am just so very, very, tired. 🙁

I can only speak to my experience, January 2024 had a heart attack and as part of that, my heart stopped for 8 seconds.

No idea it happened, had go be told.

Hones-tea

My wife says I’m not allowed to buy her the fun shirts:

so I have to settle:

Maybe not affordable and I wonder to if it’s like an anti-biotic. Once you start, you commit to the entire treatment.

We’ll see what the docs say once, you know, I get gutted like a fish. 😉 I already got cracked open like a lobster for the open heart surgery, what’s one more?

Chemo depends on the results of the surgery. Right now, it’s stage 2 which is resolved with surgery. If it gets into the lymph nodes, that bumps it to stage 3 and requires chemo.

So they pull the entire sigmoid colon and the related lymph nodes and send it all off for biopsy.

Hard to say, recovery is going to be a bitch because, get this… 12 days after my diagnosis, 1 day before the CT Scan and 2 days before meeting the surgeon, my wife felt a numbness and tingling in her legs, tried to stand up and fell to the floor.

An infection she had been fighting in her foot moved to her spine and tried to paralyze her(!) She had emergency surgery on her spine that night, a lower leg amputation a few days later, and has now been in the hospital… (checks math) 14 days.

So there’s a real possibility we’ll both be hospitalized at the same time or, best case, in surgical recovery at the same time. She can’t come home until she completes rehab for the nerve damage and amputation.

0/10 - Cancer surgery in 11 days.

I would also accept Wilford Brimley.

Depends on what standard of living you’re used to. 😉

My mortgage is $2,200 a month, $26,400 a year.

Add to that other bills, living expenses, etc. I could probably get by on $50K or $60K a year.

Now then… lifespan. If you expect to live another 30 years (unlikely for me, but possible), that’s between $1.5M and $1.8M.