I think people are placing too much on this. Being registered is just sending a piece of mail with a checkbox checked, I think. You don’t even have to donate or anything. I registered as a Republican to vote in their primaries a long time ago, and I have literally never voted for a Republican candidate for any office.

If we’re doing a betting pool, I’m putting my money on Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Video games. Don’t get me wrong, there are still some great games, but the entire experience has degraded on average.

• The inclusion of obnoxiously long, often unskippable, intro sequences with studio credits and such. There used to be maybe a logo, maybe a very short sequence at worst, and almost always skippable.
• Most of the big budget games are intended to be a grindy slog, often to get you to spend more money on micro transactions. Fun takes a back seat to intentionally addictive but objectively less enjoyable experiences.
• Others are intended to be cinematic experience. Some of that can be fun, but sometimes I just want something like the old Sonic or Mario games that I can just pick up, play for a bit, and put down.
• Enjoy a game? You could talk to friends about it at school, or buy a magazine that talks about it. The experience now is largely an unregulated online wasteland… If you find a community, it may quickly be beset by people that you really don’t want to associate with, posting crap that no magazine ever would have published. Except for some of the funnier magazines, which may have published it just to rightfully mock the person.

The graphics have improved. In some cases the gameplay has improved. I don’t want to downplay those. I’m just annoyed with how the overall experience has gotten worse on average.

I’m with you in some cases. Who you take money from is not the same as who you give money or support to, necessarily. I think the worry in this case is that it’s a surveillance company.

Why pre-wipe? This feels like washing your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.

Oh that’s easy. Encryption is only legal when communicating with a business that is registered with the IRS and not when doing peer to peer. There, we’ve hopelessly broken digital privacy while letting the US government determine who gets to exist online.

Generally when people bring up some personal detail, my immediate reaction is to assume the opposite. Especially if it begins with “as a.” For example: “as a woman,” this person is a man. “As a black person,” this is the whitest person you will ever meet. “As a 60 year old,” definitely ten.

In theory I guess it provides better security in some ways, but certainly not all over giving you hardware and a VPN. So there’s that. But yeah, it sucks.

Beaches are tougher but I believe there’s a nudist resort in every state in the US. You can visit the AANR website and find the closest one. If it’s a “family resort” that means it’s probably very welcoming, if a little boring depending on location.

We all know that the hate for Mexico is nonsense. They aren’t coming over the border and stealing highly coveted jobs. The jobs that have actually been taken by immigrants are largely middle class jobs that require degrees, things like IT and medicine.

In part, this has been fine. It drives the salaries down a bit because they’re willing to accept less to move to the country and even the lower salary is still much more than they would make at home. Companies win because there weren’t enough qualified people to go around for a while, so immigration closes the gaps.

This is pure conservatism though. Allow foreigners to come study here in unlimited numbers, then let them stay to take middle class jobs at lower salaries in these non-union industries. It’s like outsourcing but everyone is in the same time zone and they won’t resist your return-to-office mandate.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an ad from the OS on Android. I know some manufacturers, Samsung in particular, include ads but that’s not “Android” so much as “Samsung’s shitty skin of Android.”

The closest I’ve gotten to an ad on Pixel is a thing to review new features after updates.

It’s the downside of open source: You’re at the mercy of companies that don’t care and developers who are primarily interested in the hardware they’re using rather than the hardware you’re using.

The best experience is going to be hardware that’s built and certified for Linux. System76, Tuxedo, a bunch of other smaller names and the rare Dell or Lenovo. But that’s definitely not practical for everyone, or a good idea to convince people to buy new hardware for Linux.

It’ll be a slow transition. The more enthusiasts hop on the bandwagon, the more manufacturers and hardware vendors will care about support. The more Microsoft keeps irritating their customers, the more companies will move away. The support will come, it’s been improving for a long time.

All that said. I’d recommend CachyOS or PopOS if you get the urge to try again. I’ve tried a bunch of distributions and those seem to have the best focus on “just make consumer hardware work right out of the box.” That’s no guarantee of course, but it’s a start.

My fear is them going public or selling. If that happens, it’ll probably be Microsoft willing to spend any amount, and the government hasn’t really been in a “preventing monopolies” mood for a while now.

A moral panic is when people freak out because they’re scared for the nation’s morals or values. The Jungle made people, rightfully, freak out about their health (whether that was the intention or not). I don’t think it qualifies as a moral panic.

The trick is that it has to be a threat, and if we’re being honest then the more money and power you have the more obviously threatening it must be.

DON’T SAY: “I’m going to kill you.”

DO SAY: “It would be great if you died right now.”

And if you have influence and/or money, feel free to say: “I wish someone would kill you.”

I spotted the problem. It talks about “education” which is really just code for “communist indoctrination” obviously.

I think the problem is that search does not make money. Ads make money, and subscriptions make money. Convincing people to switch from Google ads to New Google ads would involve dumping tons of money into becoming popular enough to attract advertisers. Convincing people to pay for search, like Kagi is doing, is probably even harder.

I’m so sorry.

That’s how deep the conspiracy goes. These damn climate scientists are somehow changing the climate to prove themselves right!

Here’s the thing. You’re sometimes right. There’s definitely negligent parenting that leads to juvenile crime. There’s also circumstances outside of the parent’s control… The community, the schools, the other children they interact with outside of the home, any mental illness or problems the child might have.

The common theory here is that the parent should be more involved. But two things:

• Children NEED some level of freedom. I’m so fucking sick and tired of the people who believe children should be monitored at all times. When you see it in practice, you immediately recognize it as a problem. Those children are stunted socially, emotionally, and in terms of their abilities. A parent who can 100% ensure their child does no wrong is 100% ensuring their child becomes a neurotic or entitled mess.

• Available time and resources are not split evenly. Before someone says, “but someone who can’t raise a child shouldn’t have had a child” please keep in mind that peoples circumstances change. Ignoring the whole abortion debate, access to birth control, etc, a person who has a child with a loving partner with plenty of money can end up destitute and alone and still have that child. A person who has a support network of siblings and parents can lose them. A person with a reasonable amount of money for having kids can be financially overwhelmed caring for a child that has unexpected difficulties in life.

Yeah, there’s shit parents in the world. But the law is a hammer that lacks the ability to discern a terrible parent from one who is just unlucky. It’s not the right tool for this job.