My son fell into a bad group of mostly straight A kids in middle school.

They collected a large collection of webpage based games. They started out attempting to host them on the schools network through shared docs etc. The IT guys wised up to them and shut it down.

Then they turned into 14 year olds and took it up a notch.

Got together and paid for a hosting location overseas. Built a video hosting webpage with thousands of pirated educational videos. Made a secondary menu without any links on the homepage. They have to type in the index page in the URL. All of the games pages show up as educational videos in the history.

Most of the teachers in the school are using the free educational videos so the webpage is on the trusted site on the school districts content filter.

The IT teacher at highschool figured it out. Instead of ratting them out and banning the webpage. He started working on getting them scholarships to colleges. Now most of the ringleaders have full ride scholarships.

My son was invited in because he is extremely good at games (unusually fast reaction times). He holds the high score on most of the games. I don’t play against the little shit. It’s pointless to try to beat him.

He would never admit to it (I met him several times early in my career), but he was a very much a Shiva character to history.

His work destroyed thousands of years of landraces. The genetic pool that we desperately need in our race against the evolution of pests and diseases.

His work also hurt impoverished farmers in third world countries even more. As high yields drove down commodity prices. Industrialized nations subsidized their farmers to ensure supply further depressing global price.

His work fed billions and has been instrumental in reducing early childhood fatality rates.

His work also freed up massive amounts of income to spend on other things. As food prices fell other industries developed rapidly. Poverty and hunger are no longer causes by not producing enough food but from the greed and selfishness of the parasitic top wealthy people.

I honestly would love to. Unfortunately my banking and accounting apps for my business won’t run on it.

Also the reason I have an iPad for two apps that are not on Android that I have to have for business.

M business laptop is W10 instead of Linux mint like my personal one for the same reason…

I am typing this on a pixel 8

Try disabling and removing the Google search bar. Can’t be done. Since Google search has gone down hill I never use it.

How about removing the the news feeds? You have to disable the Google app to get rid of it. If I want to read the news, I do a quick search. It’s not hard to do. I don’t need a news feed on my phone.

What about the stupid at a glance at the top of the home screen? It just takes up space for no benefit over the notification bar. It can’t be fully removed.

I also never us any voice assistant etc because it’s faster to type it in than repeat myself.

I currently have 19 apps on this phone disabled that I can’t uninstall… No fluff huh…

All of my apps are organized into folders and I am never more than one swipe and two taps away from opening the app I want. I don’t scroll, I don’t search, I know where everything is and have it opening in under a second.

I have used both iOS and Android for more than a decade. After every update on both systems I have to go through and delete/disable junk I don’t need/privacy issues.

The stock android pixel UI has gotten so full shit I have to use a launcher.

iOS’s UI is terrible to use with everything taking twice as long as it should. So many illogical hidden commands.

Everything has gotten randomly harder to get basic things done.

My win 10 business computer with classic shell will stop being supported the end of the year… Oh joy…

If I recall correctly they linked a bunch of powermacs together with FireWire.

Large corporations rarely innovate and try new things. Most innovation comes from smaller players with limited market share taking risks.

Large companies buy out smaller ones who create cash cows from taking large risks. The large company then milks the cash cows until they are completely dead.

The consolidation of studios to a few megacorporations has led to this inevitable end. The solution is simple: break them up. If we have 30 or so similar sized studios competing, we will get better movies/TV again.

I am of the opinion that most “supply” issues are due to investors. Except in certain geographic areas we do not have a shortage of actual physical housing. What we have is a shortage of available housing at a mixed pricepoints for purchase.

All housing that investors purchase for rentals removes it from the supply.

Traditionally investors have sought out entry level housing for rent. They invest in building rental complexes. They make all cash purchases and then rent it out to people who otherwise would have been first-time homebuyers. Investors used to be the low end offer. Blatant price fixing has increased rent outrageously. Now investors are the high end offer and removing supply constantly.

With AirB&B, the middle and even upper range market that traditionally has had less investor competition is now a major target. This has led to price wars for investment purposes on previously safe segments.

The first solution to the housing supply is simple: taxing income from rent so that selling the property is financially more lucrative. It will have to include a prohibition against rental increases to cover the taxes as well.

The second is to mandate zoning and new construction to match the market needs not the needs of the investors.

Last would be to create a program where builders who focus on entry level housing receive incentives from governments (also include hefty penalty for substandard construction).

Windows did a few vital things that Apple failed miserably on in the 90’s.

Mac dropped support for legacy software and hardware on every new OS in the 90’s. Microsoft maintained backwards capability. It was a major reason windows was more resource intensive and had more bugs. It was a smart move because windows OS was able to handle more software and hardware than Macs. This is the top reason why windows demolished Mac in sales.

Microsoft’s business model allowed greater range of pricepoints. Most users in business or at home do not need the capabilities of the lowest priced Mac model. You don’t need much to check e-mail, browse the web, and do some basic word processing. Apple did not service this largest section of the market at all.

Jobs was his own worst enemy for a while on the compatibility issue.

New OS launches- all your old programs don’t work on it.

Want to use a floppy to transfer files between a Dos/Win and a Mac? Nope, not compatible. When USB drives started coming out they dropped all support for floppy drives, even in machines with them installed.

Constant driver issues with all sorts of things. Many never got resolved. To be fair the market share for Mac’s was so tiny, offering support for them didn’t make business sense.

Want to play a game? Good luck. The majority of games didn’t work on Mac. Same reason as the drivers.

As for stability issues, for a while I ran a computer lab for a college 50:50 win/Mac machines. They both crashed about equally as often.

That’s an ad for Mormons. The Mormons are a corporation disguised as a church that has gained extreme wealth. They own a huge real estate empire, universities, and farms plus over a hundred billion in one investment fund.

Thy have been caught numerous times breaking all sorts of financial laws but because of their status as a church it’s hidden.

For the Mormons it’s all about profit and hoarding wealth.

For lesser known subjects, a literature review in a dissertation works. It at least gives you a list of papers to review.

Hey me too, birthday buddy.

Been on my own since I as 17. The first few years were rough to say the least.

I worked 2 jobs, 30-60 hrs per week and went to college. I shared shitty apartments with some pretty creepy people. I moved so constantly I ended up paying for a post office box so I could get my mail. I did not have a vehicle (no car) so I rode a bike for up to 60 miles per day. Even all that wasn’t enough without government grants and student loans to pay for college.

Food was something that I ate when I had it. I spent a few months with mybe 4-5 real meals. Cornflakes and ramen where the bulk of my diet for a while.

I took the first professional job I could find. It was terrible but it paid well. I gained 50lbs to be at a healthy weight the first year. The next few years I jumped around jobs until I landed in one I liked.

The last few weeks before I graduated college I met my wife. Her family has become mine over the past 25 years.

Today my income alone puts us in the top 10% of earners. My wife makes close to the same. At many crucual times in our lifes we’ve taken advantage of government assistance. To be blunt, it’s not possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You need a helping hand once in a while no matter how small.

High value crop consultants - good ones can make a surprising amount of money (200k+) This isn’t your dumbfuck row crops like corn and soy. Think fruit trees, nut trees, viticulture, vegetables, organic production etc.

Many college graduates have a job offers their junior year. Anymore you’ll want to have a double major of biology/Ag.

Weed guys can’t pay me enough. 😉

I am an expert in crops. I have traveled the globe to learn about them. I have created new varieties to plant. Landowners around the globe seek me out for knowledge and seeds.

I have a strict, “do I give a fuck” policy when it comes to security.

I keep the harder to crack passwords for critical things like banking, etc… since there’s only a few I can remember them. I also always use MFA.

For all the other shit that I don’t give a fuck if it’s hacked it’s the good old *Banana$1234" type password that I reuse for decades and save to firefox’s password manager.

I have priced out Airbnb vs. hotels quite a few times over the past few years at my spouses request. I have never stayed at any of them as they have always been much more expensive for shittier accomodations. It simply doesn’t make any sense to me.

This past christmas, renting 2 hotel rooms at a nice hotel was cheaper than the worst dive of an Airbnb near my in-laws.

I am waiting for the same thing. The amount of shit you have to disable, block, or unistall on android is getting ridiculous. It’s getting really old.

Most of the new “features” that either apple or google add anymore are absolute trash. I am constantly having to go through the settings and disable shit.

The stock android is so full of non-romovable crap that a launcher is required anymore.

It’s the same for windows, win11 is only usable with a launcher like startallback.