Tally marks versus uppest case E.

It’s been so long that I’ve gamed on Windows that I’ll have to take your word for it.

The grapuh of Linux suitability as a function of user skill is a U. At the bottom of user skill, you’ve got your aunt who needs a Chrome bootloader. Linux is perfect for them, maybe better than Windows.

As you get into the middle, you get into “I just need to use Photoshop” or “I just want to play Valorant”. It’s gotten to where software that doesn’t run on Linux is a deliberate choice, but they’re still out there. Gaming has been easing up in large part due to Valve, so the middle of the U has been rising, but it’s still a big dip.

At the top end you’ve got the computer science types developing all these internet and AI based systems almost all of which run on Linux servers in the back end. Linux dominates literally every computing platform except desktops.

…that’s why she uses clam shells.

The most perfectly cast part in all of cinema.

If you witnessed a toothed cutting implement in action, you saw a saw saw.

To paraphrase Tim Curry, communism and capitalism are both red herrings.

Oh that big punch up between the Soviet Union and the United States, decadent capitalism vs brutalist communism. Who won? According to the scoreboard as of 2026: Israel.

The catch phrase I’ve always heard about communism is “the people own the means of production.” Has that ever been true in practice? Did Soviet citizens own any piece of the means of production? Did anything resembling “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” ever once happen under the hammer and sickle? Or was that the false narrative the idiot asshole in charge used to cow the unwashed masses?

Similar questions could be asked of my fellow capitalist Americans. Capitalism is allegedly about the free market, supply and demand, if there is a demand someone will provide a supply, probably multiple someones, competitors will compete, those who do it faster, cheaper or better will succeed until someone else does it even fasterer, cheaperer and betterer repeat until someone else comes along with a completely different idea, welcome to the infinite cycle of meritocracy where the cream rises to the top. How’s that working out? Some substance has risen to the top, not sure it’s cream.

A common problem I see between the Soviet Union and the United States: Weak systems for preventing psychotic despots from ruining it all.

Further expanding on this: My understanding of the Soviet Union: Something something the Bolsheviks, something something communist revolution, They just about have an election, that Lenin overthrows because it isn’t going his way. Lenin is King Shit Of Turd Mountain until his death, then the dumb guy from the ghetto he kept around because he’s good at hurting people, Josef “probably worse than Hitler” Stalin takes the throne. The entire run of the Soviet Union is essentially a dictatorship with a command economy and remains thoroughly miserable.

The United States, meanwhile, has gone through phases. Tides have ebbed and flowed, robber barons have come and gone, consumer protection laws have come and gone. Times when a very few, very rich men have been mostly miserable for most people; times when those assholes get knocked down a peg and the common man has a chance to make a decent living get better.

The problem is a few ultimately rich assholes in charge.

For being trained to think within tolerances?

I can list at least one.

Can’t think of a communist democracy, though.

Can you trust what a Pixel is doing with its 5G modem?

As a man, that’s been my experience.

That is true for Signal, the FBI extracted Signal message content from Apple’s push notification system: https://www.404media.co/fbi-extracts-suspects-deleted-signal-messages-saved-in-iphone-notification-database-2/

The only thing to learn is everything is bullshit and nothing has ever been okay.

Former chemistry student here. In chemistry, every single thing you ever do gets multiplied by a ridiculously big number. A few drops of water has 6.02*10^23 molecules in it. So even the tiniest chemical reactions are massive exercises in parallel processing, and measuring in human-scale units means you might miss by a few hexillion in either direction.

Isn’t it amazing internal combustion engines…ever work?

I think chemists would use the word “averages” but basically yeah.

I’m all ears for ideas.

I think the thing with Signal is “Oh it’s secure. Very secure. You don’t get better security in an app you can just install and use. You can get better security but you gotta like, learn shit about security.” And that makes people use Signal without learning shit about security. So they make mistakes on their end. Those mistakes range in stupidity from “handed a cop my unlocked phone” to “didn’t know Apple and Google peek at all your push notifications.”

Basically any games with public multiplayer will end up full of tryhards. I sometimes do multiplayer with friends, I mostly just play single player games. Often that are at least ten years old.

College girlfriend flashbacks.

Was that the plot of Black Snake Moan?

Cause Amps can be a serious bitch when she really gets going, you’ve got to keep her in check.