Private owners and small businesses still get to have principles or choose to do things the right way. For all its faults, Steam is often talked about in this way. Corporations on the other hand have to view every square of toilet paper through the lens of profit and loss on the timescale of a single fiscal year or even a single quarter. I often wonder if it is even ethical to invest because doing so profitably seems to inherently feed this system of economic cannibalism.

We are incentivising companies to find the maximum spread between their expenses and their revenue at any cost and we are arming them with the tools and data to ruthlessly pursue this goal. You WILL be monetized. A scam is the most lucrative business of all because it only takes into account the benefit of one party. No wonder almost every brand name now days carries the reputation of a used tissue. They’re just taking the whole pie because the middle class isn’t needed anymore. It served its purpose by distracting Americans from some of the “communist” ideas happening at home and elsewhere in the world in the 70’s. That’s not needed anymore because they’re projecting power through surveillance and social influencing instead.

I’d rather see everyone share and contribute to open-source code that moves all of humanity forward than private companies stealing other peoples work because they don’t want to share credit.

Yup. And a good chunk of the people who left went on to the next proprietary or centralized clone following in former Twitter’s footsteps.

I’m starting to run out of ideas about how to get through to the kind of people who touch an electric fence twice.

That’s the first thing that came to mind for me too. That’s more or less what we did back in the day. Some kid brought a backpack full of remotes, we found one that worked, and we kept turning on the TV during the social studies teacher’s lectures. :-D

On a more practical note, If anyone is annoyed by TVs and background noise, a universal remote, phone with an IR blaster, or a flipper are all a good investment. There’s a lot of grey zone where it’s not necessarily forbidden to turn something off but a remote hasn’t been made available to the public.

I get OPs frustration with the AI slop. I don’t want it to be normalized further, so I don’t use it. I think mocking AI mercilessly every time it messes something up and treating CEO type people who advocate for it like buffoons will keep public sentiment on the humans’ side.

My yard looks just as messy as my house, though I would like both to be neat and orderly. Those perfectly mowed crisscross lines in the grass give me goosebumps!

I listen for a bit, then I listen to some tunes with a similar BPM, style, or key. I think, though I’m not certain, that it’s my brain telling me that I need to stimulate it by going new places, hearing new things, doing new stuff, etc. It usually stops when I find something else cool enough to hold my interest.

May I ask, what song you have stuck? I had “Golden” from Kpop Demonhunters such in my head for a few weeks recently but my earworms come from an genres.

I looked for info about my 20 year reunion and couldn’t find anything, so I didn’t go and I’m not bothered one way or the other. I guess it might be cool to see some folks again, but no guarantee they come.

Afroman. We were watching the trial on the news and I asked myself “Does this dude still tour?”. Coincidentally, when I looked it up, he was going to be in the same tiny Midwest town we were visiting in only a few days, so I bought tickets. The guy is a born entertainer!

Germans call them “Flachspüler” (flat washer). I appreciate that the falling dookie doesn’t splash water onto your ass. A fine feat of engineering and VERY off-topic. 🤣

I tried MX for a while. It was alright but not the distro for me beyond that short period of time. I’m glad it exists but a bit mystified at how it ended up topping the charts.

Yeah, I bought a Dell laptop for that reason. Turns out the spec I wanted wasn’t available with Linux preinstalled, so I had to buy the Windows machine and install it myself anyway. At least I never had any real driver issues or anything else like that. Laptop lasted 10+ years running Linux practically the entire time.

Props to any OEM who supports Linux, bigger props to anyone who ships Linux preinstalled, biggest props to those who favor Linux by default and charge extra to install Windows or refuse to do it outright!

Some US states allow citizen initiative so we could ban something similar in our state constitution. For some reason we haven’t done this. Does the EU have a citizen referendum, a way to update the charter, or any law that would prevent a defeated piece of legislation from being attempted over and over? Perhaps we should introduce a law to publish every politicians text messages publicly. When it fails, we’ll just submit it over and over again.

Seriously, the way things are going I’d be happy pouring more cash into a bucket of bolts than it’s worth just to keep it running. Mine is only a 2015 but I’m gonna keep up the maintenance because it was one of the last model years not to have an upgraded radio with the newer round of anti-features and spyware. I drive all of 20-40 miles a week. Not really worth buying a $50k car, is it?

Very true. Many hobbies have rituals. Cyclists assemble their gear, clean their chain, and choose their wardrobe before their ride. Card collectors and collectors of all kinds of things often have detailed ritualistic organization of their collection. Potheads might pack and burn their bowl the exact same super optimized way every time. Gardeners might walk meditative paths and talk to their plants. Those descriptions are outside observations of people and their hobby rituals that anyone can make. OP has given us an inside look into their hobby, which is pretty damn cool and insightful!

I was in tech, both IT and business enablement roles. I got replaced by AI so now I’m a professional curmudgeon.

I’m suspicious of the whole “noai” thing, especially when it is championed by companies with presence in AI. What wouldn’t these companies just capture the noai search revenue to overshadow alternatives, continue to invest all their profits into AI, then kill noai and go full AI when the ideologically pure alternatives have fallen?

I was on Evernote in the distant past and remember their pricing strategy pushing everyone out. If companies want to fail that bad, don’t let us stop you. It was a loss though because, at the time, Ever note was one of the most functional mainstream connected note apps.

Yeah, having the physical medium gives you a more trustworthy backup. Instead of all your hard drives getting wiped by the solar flare, you have multiple different mediums with strengths and weaknesses. I’m also inclined to hold onto physical copies.

I was always a sport and hobby hopper growing up and rarely stuck with the same thing long enough to get good, just competent. The two exceptions are biking and dancing.

In dancing there’s a common story about getting good: When you are new, you know you are bad at it, and go to beginner classes. When you get better you start overestimating yourself and going to classes well above your skill level. When you get good… you know you suck and you go to your friend’s beginner classes.

The people I dance with tend to appreciate solid basics and good etiquette over perfect flashy moves. Never lose sight of the basics because the 1% that makes you stand out at something relies of the 99% foundation of becoming competent that you build by being a well rounded human being and putting in the time to get some experience.

Good luck!

I’m a guy, and I imagine you’re correct. Hormones change over time and with age. I usually get blood work done when I go in for a physical and have had those conversations. Everything is looking good, I’m just getting older. He did encourage me to keep up the exercise.

The average American lifestyle kind of discourages exercise and eating well. It’s also very stressful. I certainly can’t fault people for not doing it. I imagine those conditions exist a lot of other places too. I also started gaining a bit more weight in my mid to late thirties but I also rediscovered bicycling during that time. I didn’t really lose any weight, but the way it was concentrating in my belly slowed down or even reversed a little bit. I’m amazed at how much it balanced my mood. Still working on those glutes of steel though.