There’s 7digital, which has a music store offering DRM-free MP3 downloads, as well as FLAC for many selections.

Linux requires tinkering and Windows doesn’t? Is that some alternate-universe version of Windows? In my experience, the difference is social/psychological. When Windows fucks up, “everybody uses it,” so the blame falls on the masses, not the user, who was just going along with what’s normal and expected. People sort of mentally elide memory of the Windows fuck ups, because that’s just how Windows is.

Linux is different and weird, and you have to stray from the herd to use it. Straying from the masses is scary, because when Linux fucks up, it’s your fault for being contrary. That threat to one’s place in the social order is quite memorable. Hence the reluctance of Windows users, who hate it, to even consider trying another OS that they know nothing about.

I never switched from Windows. I never used Windows as my main OS. I had an Amiga, then learned Unix on SunOS, so I was used to being weird. Once I got a PC, I used FreeBSD. It did require a lot of fiddling back in those days, and when I got tired of that, I switched to Ubuntu, which was amazing in that it Just Worked™. (Aside from manual installation of the Windows driver for the PCMCIA WiFi card with NDISWrapper.)

(I still do tinker with it, and sometimes break it, but the base OS has been rock solid. I noticed the other day that my main PC was installed with Ubuntu 18.04, and upgraded to 24.04.)

Laboratory instruments controlled by shitty software that’s somehow tied to a particular version of Windows, and won’t work with 11. And, of course, the manufacturer won’t update it, because they’d much rather you drop a quarter million on the new model.

There’s a reason New Yorkers hate going to Times Square :]

They’re privacy-conscious and don’t want to appear in stock footage?

Crikey, very well-written and well-reasoned! I would just add:

(4)(b) Human have perfect information about the world.

In order to make rational choices, producers and consumers need perfect information. This also ignores so much of reality. Again, there are so many examples, but even in a simplified model transaction of buying a loaf of bread includes so many variables that it would be impossible to know them all: All of the bakeries offering bread, the prices they ask for their loaves, the sensory quality of the bread, the nutritional quality, the bakeries’ food safety standards, and so on. Imagine trying to investigate the food safety record for the producer of each item in your typical grocery cart—an impossibility.

Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what people say, the truth will reveal itself no matter one’s feelings about MAGA or liberals. Whatever people have said about other politicians, I’ve been watching the President’s mental state deteriorate in a manner congruent with the progression of dementia since the early signs in his first term. And, for the record, no, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be gone soon. The life expectancy after diagnosis is years; he might die before the end of his term, or (with the best care in the world) he might not. We’ll see about Schumer, too. I haven’t seen any dementia symptoms in him, but I haven’t paid any attention to him, either.

But Trump was showing early signs of dementia during his first term. He’s showing signs of rapidly-advancing dementia now. Non-dementia health claims about other politicians without evidence in no way discredit the claim that he’s visibly declining with dementia symptoms. The difference here is evidence. (And is it really an improbable that an elderly President would suffer dementia in his second term, and that his staff would try to cover it up?)

That’s weird, even by hyperbole standards. Which politicians, exactly? I’d only heard it about Biden, because Repiblicans project enough for an IMAX multiplex.

Hardly. Bill Gates came from a wealthy family, attended a private school, and through it had thousands of hours of computer programming time several years before even the Altair 8800 came out. He had a personal connection to IBM through his mother, which is how Microsoft got the DOS deal. His circumstances were unique, and his success the result of a hefty dose of luck.

I’m forced by the government to give up a bunch of money so that people can feel important rolling around in their $50,000 toys with heated seats and entertainment systems, while simultaneously destroying the planet.

It’s no use. Resistance is futile.

Signed,

Someone Who Raged Against the Destruction of “FUD” Back in the Day

No.

This is kind of like asking a man being attacked by a bear, “When did bears become your whole thing?”

With all due respect, you’re telling on yourself.

It’s the other way around. Residential properties are used as investment vehicles, because it’s profitable. It’s profitable because the prices are high and rising. The prices are rising because of the housing crisis, which is caused by lack of supply. Lack of supply is caused, in large measure, because of restrictive zoning.

If there were a glut of housing on the market, prices would crater, and it wouldn’t be profitable, investors wouldn’t buy residential properties. They could still try to buy up all of the properties, and create artificial scarcity that way, but the idea is to make a profit, not just collect residential property for the sake of having it. As soon as they started selling or letting properties in large numbers, supply would rise and prices drop again.

It’s the artificial scarcity mandated by law that’s driving the high prices. This explanation is confirmed by many cities, like mine, that have a very low rate of private equity ownership, and still have a housing crisis.

Because the rest of us have a right to life, too. Ever heard the saying, “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins”? That’s colorful, but it’s not even true; people have an expectation of a certain reasonable amount of space around their bodies, and even entering it with your fist might be considered assault. The concept that one’s actions and choices affect other people is what’s important here.

That’s the problem with giant pickup trucks: They affect other people on the road, and the problem with giant pickup truck drivers is that they either refuse to recognize this fact, or they enjoy infringing on the rights of other people to enjoy life. Either way, it’s bad for society, where we all have to live together somehow. Mullets and man-buns, by contrast, don’t materially affect anybody else in the slightest.

I have to, take issue with this, one. The rules of commas are, pretty, easy actually: Use a, comma where you’d, pause when speaking. If, you read it out, loud and sound like Captain, Kirk then you put, a comma in the, wrong spot.

I appreciate the gamer aesthetic when scientists need to buy gear with the power to run scientific calculations for relatively cheap. The RGB lights under the case windows bring a bit of pizzazz to the laboratory.

That just makes it worse! (From my point of view here.) People behaving reprehensibly because an authority figure asked them to do it? That’s just the Milgram experiment, but without any apparent hesitation!

The Milgram experiment. The Zimbardo prison experiment. The bystander effect. At the end of the day, humans are just monkeys with smart watches. As social primates, it’s really hard to be the one to stand up against the crowd. Our brains decide how to act based largely on the reactions of other humans around us.

It’s disheartening.