u/Cydonia921

I'm certain that this has been brought up multiple times on this subreddit, but it is something that's been bothering me for some time now. Way longer than I can recall, honestly, before I started my journey into left-wing politics.

For context, my father worked for Nestle in the early 2010s, and a supervisor simply did not like him one bit and fired him without just cause. This caused a big union riot at the facility, which unfortunately did not reinstate my father to his position. But it was my first exposure to that sort of thing, the thought of total strangers wanting to help my father get his job back from an unjust policy.

Then Scott Walker of WI came in as governor and defanged the unions, alongside a lot of other reprehensible policies that I've come to loathe and detest the older I get. But where I grew up, a lot of people supported him as "sticking it to educated elites," from gutting education, decimating unions, and also rigging election maps to help the Republican party stay in power, which has been a massive flashpoint in Wisconsin politics both back then and now in recent years.

But it's always confused me on how people, even if they're uneducated, can actively drink poison and continue to drink poison to 'spite' other people. I know there is a thread throughout American history of 'rugged individualism' that I find completely bunk, but these are the kind of voters that corporations would have loved to see in the 60s when they began fomenting the seeds of late-stage capitalism into the works of our nation.

Addendum: Thanks for all the interesting comments! It's a pleasure to have a place to discuss this sort of thing without tearing each other down.

As stated above: what bike locks do you guys recommend? I need something strong and hard to break through since XP4 750s are quite a bit of money.

I've recently made efforts to join the Chippewa Valley DSA to start to get my political affiliation and journey going. Former Social Democrat turned Democratic Socialist! I've read quite a bit on the former, but not much on the latter; what are the best that this place recommends? Going to start at the basics with Marx and Engels to see where it all began.

I recently got an Lectric XP4 after looking at it for quite some time now. Pine green. And oh boy, I've been super enjoying riding it! I've lost some weight from doing so, and it's been incredibly liberating to find myself rolling through the city I live in on it with minimal problems.

However, there's one thing that's been making me wonder: what tires would be best for this once the current ones give out or go bald? I like the grip the ones currently have, but looking at the website it doesn't look like the XP4 'standard' tires are available for sale. Anyone got any ideas on anything close? Or how do the tires offered on the site compare to the standard?

Edit: I should clarify I bought directly from Lectric and the website in question for the tires is Lectric Bikes.

Normally I wouldn't come out to this forum, since I build my own PCs. But because of the market, I felt that it was more practical to upgrade my aging Windows 10 build from 2017 to something new. Decided to splurge with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950x3D processor, 9070 XT graphics card, etc. Basically ensuring that this should be future proofed for a long while.

When I got the PC in, I was excited, of course. This was April 2nd, 2026. I saw how big it was, how heavy it had been, the case looked durable. Plugged it in, got Windows 11 set up, and I was on my way to playing some Baldur's Gate 3.

However, as time went on, I noticed some... strange things with this PC. For one, the case (MA-01R) had no screws, grooves, or easy access to inside. I didn't think much of this in the moment, but it did mean that the setup ran extremely loud. I put water cooling in as a major upgrade, and my understanding was that this should run quietly. But it was so loud that I questioned if something was wrong with it. Coupled with the loudness, the PC ran very hot. Sometimes I sleep to YouTube playlists if I'm having difficulties getting to sleep, and my room had been far hotter than I anticipated with a new PC, sometimes waking up drenched with sweat.

Monday had been the final straw that broke the camel's back. I come back home and turn on the PC per routine. Amber flashes on the power button: not good. So I troubleshot it as best as I could, taking off peripherals, changing power cords, changing the power socket that the PC plugged into. But it would not go into POST. That's when I realized that the case absolutely has no way to open it up. I called tech support on Tuesday, and they confirmed that the specific case is, "Not designed to be opened in any capacity. Once it is built and shipped, it can never be opened again." (Not exact words, but paraphrasing).

I lost it.

I was willing to deal with the PC if I could open it up in some way. I can deal with defective parts if I can open it up and troubleshoot it. But when the case is designed to never be opened up, and it removes the capacity for a skilled person to fix it, that is ridiculous!

So heads up: I won't be purchasing from this company again, sticking to building my own machines. But I very strongly advise people to warn others who see the MA-01R case to avoid it at all costs.