But the IRS is like “Sorry. Hands tied :(” going after all those Swiss bank accounts and offshore shells within shells where 0% goes to taxes.

I agree with you for the most part.

The thing that bugs me is myself and family not being that way here, but the system that permeates every single interaction starts to clench on you. You’ll be content, but the water keeps rising and trying to take more and more from you.

The costs keep rising, the packages keep shrinking, the wages are always stagnate so you’re supposed to hustle harder, work longer, get another job or clown around for attention or ‘sell feet pics bb’ or whatever other ridiculous hustle just to maintain a basic standard.

For people who see the consumerist rat race for the scam it is, we’re passively and actively punished at every turn.

That’s the part I’m sick of. I just wanna live simply, splurge on hardware every few years, and make videogames.

I struggle to imagine it being different elsewhere. It’d be cool to be smart / valuable enough to be a desirable immigrant to a civilized country. Lol

Yeah, for ages I thought pocket computers were the coolest idea. I loved my Palm devices, for instance!

The iPhone turned everything into a direct brain-line to exploitative commercial interests and that became the norm. I think that’s where things went wrong.

The economy of attention has been one of the most destructive forces of our modern culture.

“Smartphones” would look a lot different if they were designed as tools for users, instead of profit farming equipment for tech giants. I don’t think we would be seeing nearly as much harmful addiction and spying and de-educating if these stupid things weren’t designed primarily for “maximum engagement at all costs.”

Some of these little victories I’m seeing are Linux phones and people designing cyberdecks!

Definitely try things out on a little single board computer (SBC) like a Pi, or a VM (virtual machine), or even an old laptop. It’s harder to break things than you might think, especially when using containers and stuff, but it does happen.

Rolling back or reinstalling a VM is sometimes way less hassle than trying to decipher cryptic issues.

It’ll feel easier to play around if you can always just start over, as opposed to risking “I hope this works” with your precious data.

Oh yeah, whatever you do (and I know this is hard advice given the price of storage now, UGH), figure out what a 3-2-1 backup strategy looks like to you, for your most important things.

Most importantly: Have fun! Sounds cheesy, but having an exciting goal in mind will definitely encourage you to keep learning and enjoying the process. :)

Ya caught me bein’ a bit lazy! X_X

Thanks for the formatting help. :)

QGIS sounds really cool! I’ll definitely bring that up so she can practice that Environmental Sciences degree. :)

Insane about the liability angle. I had never considered that! Sounds like far too serious a business for my tastes.

I’m glad there’s a lot of open source libraries, and Linux is heavily employed in scientific and academic circles, at least. :)

It’s funny how I was learning Brazilian Portuguese and the days of the week are like Sábado (Saturday), Domingo (Sunday), but then everything starts becoming “days of the fair”, segunda-feira, terça-feira, quarta-feira, quinta-feira, sexta-feira…

And I, an English speaker, have the gall to still find this confusing when it comes to intuitively using non-weekends.

Like “BuT wHiCh DaY iS tHoR’s DaY?!” Asks the Californian who’s never been a Norseman to their knowledge 😂

This makes it even funnier with exchanges like:

“My phone’s at sixty nine percent, bro!”

“Nice! 😎”

These days I’d expect large number of people in college to not even know what a file system is. I’ve read articles where professors complain about this.

No no, not like “NTFS / BTRFS / ReiserFS / TempleFS / EXT4…”

…like…“Folders are how you organize files. And you can rename files. The extension tells you what the file is.”

Haha I’m an aspiring game dev and I know a little bit about a ton of software!

…and I suck at most of it. But I can hold a conversation about it at least! :D

P.S: Haven’t heard of QGIS tho! My partner used ARCGIS though, and would always get annoyed when I pronounced it “Ark-jizz.”

it’s so incredibly easy to highlight some text and click search that it it shows a profound lack of curiosity and a lot of laziness.

100%. People will ‘Google’ celebrities, memes, “Why is my poop green?”, but also just be like “Somebody hand me an answer.” When they risk learning something.

“The Internet is like having access to the Library of Alexandria, and everyone wants to just gossip about each other in the lobby.”

–I think I read this on bash.org at some point

Don’t quote me on that tho.

–Me.

BUT ALSO like the others said…if somebody’s legitimately curious, let’s be nice about it because somebody new learning about our thing is a net positive.

Are we talking about that original one? Where he tried Pop!_OS and tried to install Steam and the package installer gave a big message that something wasn’t right, so he chuckled, TL;DR’d and hit “yes anyway” and was shocked he borked his install?

That LTT?

I’m never gonna fault somebody for unfamiliarity, but we should absolutely fault people, especially ones with any tech experience, for not reading helpful messages right in front of them.

YEP.

I used to work in a library computer lab. It was soul sucking, how many people older than millennials couldn’t friggin handle a basic computer. I heard the words “I clicked the ‘E’ for ‘internet’.” multiple times A DAY. (Thanks, 1990’s Microsoft and No Child Left Behind.)

“CaNt I jUsT uSe My PhOnE?” (Which would be a million more steps on my part…thanks, 2006 apple, and defunding schools.)

The biggest ragebait for me was “I dOn’T kNoW cOmPuTeRs, I’m oLd ScHoOL.”

I’m like “PCs have been increasingly commonplace since the mid-1980’s. It’s currently the 2020’s. You’re like 56. HOW ‘OLD’ IS YOUR SCHOOL?! Because somehow you drove a car here!”

I imagine a certain weird kind of “privilege”, to have been able to somehow dodge computers and learning this entire time, when they were so often found in homes, schools, and workplaces.

Like it takes significant effort to somehow avoid even an accidental education. HOW?!

It’s…infuriating. These rubes can gleefully scroll tiktok and dump all their personal lives into Facebook, but freak out about sending an email.

Many of them were even around to try the Internet during Eternal September and AOL, and now they’ve exchanged the squishy fat in their skulls for convenient slop.

I’d bend over backwards to patiently teach, but few cared to learn.

Their collective, willful ignorance is why we’re fighting a constant uphill battle against attempts to turn the entirety of computing into nothing but a commercialized authoritarian hellscape.

I left that job because if I heard one more “Kids are born so smart with these computers because my (grand)kids can watch their cocomelons all by themselves.” I would’ve snapped and been booked for assault.

Lol /rant

…clearly this is a button for me…I have sought help in the past…

“And even the word “raptor” means… “Bird of prey””

The line delivery of so much of this film is stuck in my head.

LOL. Quite mischievous. Although I feel the poor sucker having to remove them would probably end up being another working class person, as funny as it is to imagine someone scratching vainly with rage at a sticker ridiculing their Dear Flawless Leader. 😂

Hey I really appreciate you updating me with that! Thank you. :)

It’s not always easy to know if it’s a “My machine” problem or a “They’ve gotta fix it” problem.

👐Pop! POP! 👐

How big is this ship, anyway??

This was a particularly goofy handwave in the Lost in Space show as well. :D

As a Christian myself, 10,000x this. SO much.

I really can’t stand the hypocrisy of America-brand Christianity: swearing oaths to a star-spangled idol is not following Christ.