Our first past the post +presidential election system means that a third party, particularly a splinter third party will just pull votes from the not as terrible party, strengthening the opposition parties electoral strength. Funding third parties in close races to split the opposition has been a strategy of both Republicans and Democrats.

I have one reason that I fire up a Windows VM once a quarter. I do the financial reporting for the local branch of a volunteer run non-profit. All of the reporting is done through an Excel sheet that is over 20 years old which is heavily macroized with VB Script. It doesn’t run in LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, Apple Numbers, Google Sheets, or even online in MS Office 365(!). It only runs on a locally installed copy of Excel running on a machine with a printer installed. We’re working on moving to something better, but the people at the higher levels are incredibly resistant to change.

I can’t wait to visit Starfleet Medical to get my back and stomach fixed, live in a post scarcity utiopia, see other worlds, and study whatever I want.

EDIT: I think the worst thing will be contemplating the metaphysics of transporters. But maybe I’ll just never take one.