Technically the Falcon is much more like an 18-wheeler than a van. It is a cargo pusher/hauler, by design.

But still, the comparison is apt.

Abolish all patents and copyrights, everywhere, except for a creator’s ability to assert “I made this”.

Against Intellectual Monopoly

PowerPC performed much better and made design changes that made much more sense long-term.

There were also volume production issues and architecture advancement issues.

Essentially, they couldn’t get volume guarantees and they were at the mercy of a much slower improvement cycle than they would have liked.

PowerPC was absolutely an excellent top-tier processor, and the current Power11 line absolutely smokes anything else out there from either Intel or AMD, at the cost of being 100-200× more expensive. Like, think $30,000 USD for a single entry-level workstation, or $70,000 USD for the high-end one.

Windows 11 refusing to install on hardware it can absolutely run on.

RUFUS is not only a great tool with which to build your USB installer (it has an option to download the correct and latest ISO directly from Microsoft), but in the subsequent steps it also asks if you want to modify the installer in some pretty useful ways. Such as bypassing a Microsoft account in favour of a local account, and neutering some of the more recent requirements. IIRC the TPM 2.0 requirement can still be nerfed.

Guardrails are only enforceable by the state. Without the state to smash capitalism and enforce guardrails against corruption and the power of greed, capitalism and authoritarianism will always step in to fill the power vacuum.

This is why communism has always failed within a few months to a few years of initiation: lack of guardrails and laws that are effectively enforced against capitalism or authoritarianism. It’s why every “communist” state in history devolved into an authoritarian, anti-communist political structure very, very quickly. Hell, even in Russia communism was effectively dead by 1918.

We are so close to having the technology to implement direct participatory democracy (A.K.A., political communism), where things like presidents and premiers and politicians in general just don’t exist, and only minor functionaries and coordinatinative councils remain to carry out the people’s directives.

What is still needed, however, is a highly educated and literate population that values education, facts, and meritocracy - thereby suffocating conservatism and strangling it to death - and for that population to have an exceedingly tiny level of economic inequality, such that the wealth is returned properly into the hands of the Working Class that created it, and most people can then acquire the mental headspace to focus on more than just daily survival needs (as in, focus on community-level or even nation-level subjects).

A strong state is not necessarily a dangerous one. What makes ours dangerous is that power is concentrated at the top, with those who have money (capitalists) calling the shots. A distributed, citizen-directed state that is utterly immune from money and power hierarchies can be built that will only ever feel oppressive to those who are inherently abusive, greedy, and malicious.

Am I unreasonably disappointed to not find “Correct Horse Battery Staple” - or some variation thereof - in that list?

The irony being that putting all of a user’s eggs in one basket makes things far riskier for the user, and not less.

I might even start making mix tapes again.

This is when having a high-end 1989 Technics cassette deck in your 1986 VW Jetta Carat comes in really handy.

You would hate me.

The last free-to-run version of Sketchup is from 2017, and ironically you can download it from the official website, you just have to dig for it. It isn’t immediately available, and they try their best to sell you the latest version.

I’ve never been blessed by the CDS. It’s pretty frustrating and disheartening that I have to chase them down manually and explicitly

The Socratic Method tends to be effective in many cases so long as the other person remains open to reason and logic, especially the requirement for evidence.

Brainwashing gets increasingly easy the younger the subject is. Children, in particular, have an evolutionary need to automatically trust adults and what adults tell them, as they don’t yet have the cognitive tools to handle the world around them. Trusting adults have been baked into that part of childhood development because, historically speaking, it gave a distinct evolutionary advantage. Those children that listened to adults had a much stronger probability of surviving until adulthood.

It’s why religions so strongly proselytize the young – get them young, get them for life.

All you have to do is make it illegal to expose or proselytize religion to anyone under 22, and religion would likely die out within 2-3 generations.

When you have been raised as a rationalist and know, at a fundamental level, the bullshit detection system called the Scientific Method, you need to have some pretty powerful mental illness in play to willingly grasp at religion.

All Lemmy instances need to implement Anubis ASAP.

My wife, right after showing her this image: “I’m socially vegan. I hate meat-ing people”

Never owned a single vehicle - or even knew of one - where this was a thing. And yes, I’ve had my share of dilapidated 70s and 80s vehicles when I was young and poor.

Yeah, my heat exhaustion event was a quarter century ago. It’s just gotten worse and worse over the years.

Ever since I had a heat exhaustion event in my late teens, I have been exceedingly sensitive to heat. Think actively sweating like I’m in a sauna - only in normal office temperatures. I have to shave my head for nearly half the year in order to not look like a drowned rat - and carry a “sweat towel” with me at all times to wipe the dripping sweat off a half dozen times an hour.

My home office is set to between 15℃ and 18℃ because that is the temperature where I feel the same amount of comfort as most other people do between 24℃ and 28℃. Throw a business suit into the mix, and that comfort range drops by 4-6℃.

There are times in the winter where I throw all the office windows open, let the -20℃ air roll in from outside, and actually enjoy wearing long pants and a sweater.

…I live in Canada. Near where it hit 50℃ during the heat dome a few years ago. Climate Change is going to be brutal for me.

I have a really big thing for 70s PNW homes done really, really well. The vaulted ceilings, open concept main areas with multiple levels, the sunken living rooms, the cedar used everywhere… just leave out the shag carpet and I’ll be A-OK.