Could you help me understand something? Is this person also… dumb? I don’t mean to be disparaging or judgemental, but I’m trying to navigate all this and I’m having a hard time understanding how someone can lack this much self-awareness and still function in society. Unless, they can’t do that either? Thanks.

On the one hand, the shock and horror that people experience when their government goes hard on bigotry, demands some kind of retreat to psychological safety. On the other, the above is not the kind of copium one should reach for. What’s sad is that, as a group, they probably had the resources to actually do something useful to help themselves, rather than offer mutual support to ignore all the warning signs.

I agree and disagree.

The premise is solid: unify config so it’s standardized and machine parse-able for better integrations like an easier-to-build UI/UX. It could even have ramifications for cloud-init and older IaC tech like Puppet.

The problem is Linux itself. Or rather, the subsystems that are cobbled together to make Linux a viable OS. You’re not going to get all the different projects to pivot to a common config scheme, so this YAML standard would need a backend to convert to/from whatever each little deamon and driver requires. This creates a few secondary problems like community backlash (see systemd), and having multiple places where config data must be actively synchronized.

I think the current crop of GUI config systems are aleady well down the most pragmatic path: each config panel touches one or more standard config files, wherever they are, and however they are structured. It’s not pretty under the hood, and it’s complicated, but it works. These tools just need a lot more polish on the frontend.

For a while now I’ve been paying attention to the way customers are treated, and noticed a kind of symmetry with how the employees of a given business/institution are treated. If you’re seeing one kind of abuse/neglect, the other is very likely to also be the case, because it all comes from the same place.

In the case of Walmart: employees under a rather heavy yoke of part-time-no-benefits-never-unions labor, and customers are given a dis-compassionate choice between poorly made and barely viable goods from dubious origins. It’s not that management/ownership doesn’t care about this or that, it’s that they generally don’t care about people and are grotesque about it. It’s all here.

i did not know what all those bins of tiny electronic hobby parts were for, but I desperately wanted to learn.

From what I understand, prior to the personal computer boom of the 1980’s, HAM radio was kind of a big deal with nerds. The parts were there for all manner of electronics tinkering, but a big mainstay was building and modifying radios. Yeah, you had people tinkering with computers in the 1970’s too, but it was more niche (until it wasn’t).

Possibly the grossest thing about all this, is how the RNC wasted no time trying to turn this into something it’s not.

Those who resort to violence to undermine our state and nation must be held accountable

While in principle I agree, nobody was hurt. That’s because this was arson, not assault.

Today, we see the same dangerous tendencies play out in new forms—attempts to suppress free speech, silence dissent, and use fear to control the political narrative.

Ironic, no? Nevermind the whataboutism regarding the old DNC and GOP roles back in the early 20th.

Maybe, but as I recall, it was a Civil Rights protest. I had to look it up. Back in 1963:

https://sandersinstitute.org/event/bernie-sanders-arrest-at-chicago-civil-rights-protest

Edit: maybe the most based human being alive at this point.

I did this once. Only way to get rid of it was to sell my house.

I was gonna say: we didn’t vote for him! Approval rating should be at 0% on that point alone as zero voters approved of this.

I agree. The environment in which this must function is corrosive to the very idea, hence why I’m asking it openly here. It’s a pretty dense minefield.

I’m no lawyer, but I’ve mused a lot about some kind of legal “dead man switch” that somehow renders the company value-less if it deviated from the intended path. Something built into the company’s charter and founding documents, not unlike some kind of constitution.

Real question here: is it possible to walk all this back from the edge with more ethical companies? I’m thinking co-ops, Mondragon corps, union shops, etc. Basically build businesses that have motivations other than deepening the pockets of VC’s and the like, yet have some kind of growth trajectory (or federate with other corps) to gradually subsume the market.

I get that massive funding makes certain things possible, like disrupting the market, or aggressively buying your competitors. And yes, the company charter would have to be bulletproof against hostile takeover, buyouts, and enshitification, in order to go the distance. But is that really all it takes, or am I missing something huge here?

This reminds me of the dolphin jokes that Lower Decks got away with in almost every season. Dolphins + Universal Translator = Instant workplace harassment.

That also sounds like the kind of prank that Cards Against Humanity would pull if they had access to as much cash. I love this so much.

It has been pretty depressing to me that the tech literate have been so easily lulled into accepting such things in the name of “cool toys” and “security” virtually everywhere in modern life besides the PC/laptop/server spaces.

From my exposure to supporting said folks with PC related problems, its easy to see the reality here. Phones provide a streamlined experience with zero frills. They don’t want super flexible computing devices, they want appliances. More to the point, the level of care and maintenance needed to have a top-shelf PC experience is time and effort most people would rather not expend. Doing this right was inconvenient to begin with, and left the field wide open for anything that would be easier.