The problem is that the more you fight change, the more you change things. Your movement becomes more and more focused on resisting change, and less focused on preserving any good qualities it once had. It's an inescapable bit of futility, hard coded into the human condition.

Seems like they adopted the world fucking, transformed it, and diversified it into new areas. World fucking used to be about war, finance, manufacturing, and pollution. Now it's about war, finance, media, fashion, manufacturing, the internet, politics, tech, society, food supplies, religion, pollution, and making the rich feel better about themselves.

Most of those things were products of earlier times, when our economic system and industries were more regulated and had a larger number of competitive entities. "Innovation" now is just more cupholders in the RV to put your chicken fries in. All flash, no substance. Everything is an AI wearable tacked on to something else we've already had for years.

EV battery tech, there's some decent work being done there. A few other niche cases like that. But the rest is one big fucking con game. It's all a race to find out how much money you can gouge out of people before the system just breaks.

I feel that the majority of innovation occuring in modern capitalism is confined to two key areas:

1. Regulatory capture and market control.

2. New ways to mindfuck people into overpaying for goods and services.

Thanks for posting this.

Also bi, also happily married, my partner is supportive, but it hasn't really changed anything in our lives. So while it's not a completely moot point, I don't really share this part of myself outside of similar circumstances.

I sorted things out later in life. So to be honest it's still a little strange for me to talk about it online, but it's definitely part of who I am, and I have to wonder how many other people out there are living like this.

Seconded.

I've got a pair of Skullcandy Mods. The sound quality is decent but not stellar, battery life is good, charge time is good and they feel pretty solidly made. Pretty good deal for $40 on Amazon.

I previously had some of their ANC overears that while not spectacular, were much better than I expected given the price point.

This. I just want to write something I'm somewhat satisfied with and have people appreciate it.

That's pretty much it.

There are plenty of user friendly Linux distros out there and a bunch of them can serve as a daily driver for general computing. What's more, the learning curve isn't that steep and you can find tons of solid guides and tutorials out on the Internet.

But if Windows is working and you don't care about the privacy issues, ads, and it's general downward direction in user experience, there's no motivation to switch.

Sadly, the whole "Linux is only for power users and nerds" misconception is going to stick around until Windows becomes all but unusable for most people.

I switched in 2021 and I thought the same then.

I usually recommend Mint, Zorin, MX Linux and Pop OS starting out. But since Linux is free, all it costs you is time and energy if you want to shop around. DistroWatch.com has an expansive database of distributions.

There's a lot of good reading material and tutorials out there. And while you might find some folks who can be dismissive or elitist in the community, genuinely helpful and friendly people are out there too, so don't be afraid to ask for help.

Mint is pretty good at "it just works" thing and has a very friendly UI. It also comes with a few very handy tools developed in house by the Mint team (though these can be installed on other Debian/Ubuntu based distros). It's usually high on the list of recommended distros for people new to Linux or who just need general purpose computing without a lot of fuss.

I figured it was a given. If Trump gets elected, climate change accelerates. Does anyone think any different?

The rest of us shouldn't have our freedoms restricted because of irresponsible parenting. You'd think people who place such a premium on personal responsibility wouldn't need the government to help them raise their kids.

Sure they do. Just don't have sex. Then you won't have kids and won't have to worry about them seeing porn on the internet.

It's simple, if you're not responsible enough to keep your kid off PornHub, you're not responsible enough to have sex. =P

Supervise your kid while they're on the internet. Install nanny filters on their phone and computer. Monitor who they hang out with. If you can't handle raising your kid, you should have thought of that before having them.

I have a few servers that I've put together, both towers and rack mount, that are fairly old in IT terms but would still sell for thousands used.

I pulled most of the parts out of the trash.

If you don't mind a more military look, Maxpedition and Sandpiper of California have been my go to for a while.

Ishmael

I don't, I stopped buying AAA games a long time ago. I stopped buying a lot of games in general, because this kind of greed and enshittification has sucked a lot of joy out of something that I used to enjoy. But that isn't a fix for the problem.

A relative handful of boycots won't do much in the face of manufactured demand and market dominance.

Just stop buying games is essentially the "don't like it, leave it" argument. And if you simply leave quietly, little changes. This is a discussion that should be had, and not just about games. This business model is bad for consumers, it's pervasive across many industries, and far too many people just swallow the bullshit most corps spew about it's supposed advantages.

These issues need to be pointed out, this needs to be a subject of public discourse. It should remain in the public eye until consumer rights are respected. It's not about just not buying games, we should be pushing for better options.

Forrest got it.