I’ve always wondered if the world’s major governments all have their own secret, bespoke operating systems for highly sensitive situations. Like, not Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD, or anything even remotely known to the public. But then you see high-ranking admin officials using bootleg Signal on an off-the-shelf phone or whatever.

I’d assume the actual intelligence agencies are more sophisticated. I doubt they’re running some “hardened” version of Windows or Android or whatever. But maybe I’m being naive and they all are just working with vendors.

Putting Bill Gates’ dick in my mouth is far too high of a licensing fee. I’ll just play Oregon Trail on an Apple IIe instead. But no judgment. You live your best life.

I’m American but I’ve travelled a lot and the only place I can remember seeing anything close to as many flags was Greece. And it wasn’t that close. Americans are absurd about flags. Plus, the Greek flag is aesthetically lovely and the American flag might be bottom 5 on pure design principles.

No one get offended. I’m not insulting my own country’s flag. I’m just saying, 50 fucking stars and 13 stripes is a design nightmare. The Greek flag is simple and nice looking in lots of contexts. This isn’t a comment about honoring the flag. It’s a comment about vexillology and design.

Yeah, but I doubt they’re close to having the capacity to offer full 5G service like a traditional carrier. I have T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom‘s US subsidiary) and they have a deal with Starlink but it’s (a) in beta and (b) limited in what you can do. Unless things have changed, even when it launches, it’ll be just LTE text and voice and you need a pretty modern phone.

So, it’s not like a drop in replacement for a land-based plan where you get internet and stuff. Plus, Trump and his kids aren’t going to do any of the hard work. Even before his presidency, “Trump” was just a licensing brand and now it’s a pretty shitty brand. It’s not like the family was running Trump Steaks and packing boxes for shipment or whatever.

If he actually launches a Trump phone service, it’s going to be a MVNO that just piggy backs off the main operators’ infrastructure. It’s not like he or his idiot sons are going to buy spectrum and build towers.

He wouldn’t really be competing with T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T. He’d be competing with Boost Mobile and companies like that.

I quit GTA V when it told me I had to drive from Beverly Hills to Long Beach and I was just like, “I’ll just play Tetris.”

I find myself playing games that involve exploration or retro arcade games. Missions and assigned side quests often feel like doing chores. I can follow a line on a map and get frustrated in real life.

That being said, I had a nice time playing Breath of the Wild and old arcade games were designed to take your quarters so they can be quick to play if you suck. Gradius doesn’t take me long to die in even with the Konami code.

Fly fishing would probably be similar. I just want an activity and some water. I can get fish at the store if I catch zero. It’s about being on the water and enjoying a nice day.

Lakes. I live in Louisiana so it’s more “water” than freshwater lakes but during the pandemic, I’d just go out to a lake and cast a fishing pole with no bait and be outside with something to do. I wasn’t interested in catching anything. I just wanted to do something and sit by the water.

Also, it should never be used for art. I don’t care if you need to make a logo for a company and A.I. spits out whatever. But real art is about humans expressing something. We don’t value cave paintings because they’re perfect. We value them because someone thousands of years ago made it.

So, that’s something I hate about it. People think it can “democratize” art. Art is already democratized. I have a child’s drawing on my fridge that means more to me than anything at any museum. The beauty of some things is not that it was generated. It’s that someone cared enough to try. I’d rather a misspelled crayon card from my niece than some shit ChatGPT generated.

My skepticism is because it’s kind of trash for general use. I see great promise in specialized A.I. Stuff like Deepfold or astronomy situations where the telescope data is coming in hot and it would take years for humans to go through it all.

But I don’t think it should be in everything. Google shouldn’t be sticking LLM summaries at the top. It hallucinates so I need to check the veracity anyway. In medicine, it can help double-check but it can’t be the doctor. It’s just not there yet and might never get there. Progress has kind of stalled.

So, I don’t “hate” any technology. I hate when people misapply it. To me, it’s (at best) beta software and should not be in production anywhere important. If you want to use it for summarizing Scooby Doo episodes, fine. But it shouldn’t be part of anything we rely on yet.

TikTok shows me BBQ techniques, random models, and teenagers trying to be professional stuntmen and almost dying. And that one time sea shanties. You have to train the algorithm.

Fuck yeah. Google is finally getting some hair on its peaches.

*reads article*

Oh, they meant the other direction. Well, that’s no fun.

Thank you for the clarification. None of us know their cap table, obviously, but that’s more plausible than me just guessing based on Tesla.

Take it! I mean, people act like he “owns” his companies but he owns like 8% of Tesla and SpaceX is probably similar. No one gives a shit about his monkey torture project and X+xAI is worthless. Boring Company isn’t doing anything. And if you’re the “CEO” of more than one company, you’re actually running zero. He’s a mascot. We could probably be rid of him for less than the price of widening an interstate for ignorant reasons.

When I worked in IT, we only let people install every other version of Windows. Our Linux user policy was always “mainstream distro and the LTS version.” Mac users were strongly advised to wait 3 months to upgrade. One guy used FreeBSD and I just never questioned him because he was older and never filed one help desk request. He probably thought I was an idiot. (And I was.)

Anyway, I say all that to say don’t use Windows 11 on anything important. It’s the equivalent of a beta. Windows 12 (or however they brand it) will probably be stable. I don’t use Windows much anymore and maybe things have changed but the concepts in the previous paragraph could be outdated. But it’s a good rule of thumb.

It’s amazing that the billionaires in the new robber baron age who just buy a sports team and ask for subsidies for a new stadium are in the top 10th percentile of billionaire human decency. (There’s a handful of philanthropic ones, obviously, but they seem vanishingly small compared to the ones who just use their money to corrupt everything.)

Like, the last gilded age blew but at least Carnegie, Vanderbilt, etc. felt enough guilt and shame that their old man pissing match was to see who could build the most arts venues, esteemed universities, and other similar institutions. Today’s billionaires are just insane and are like, “Let’s wreck all human progress.”

And before you blame drugs, remember that in 1900, there was cocaine or morphine in everything. (7up had lithium in it so maybe that balanced things out.)

Dockworkers are now officially “the elite” according to the media. Congrats! Welcome!

Yeah, of course. We did team building. Some were absolutely harmless. Field trips can be educational and fun for all. Like, once we all got a special tour of our city’s infrastructure system that wouldn’t have been possible without a team. That was cool for everyone.

Another (which came up from one of the teams) was that someone would pick a theme and each Friday, someone brought in a dish from their hometown. I offered to reimburse for ingredients and they were usually like, “I don’t know how my grandma makes these.” and never filled out an expense report.

And like a Christmas Party (or equivalent where you live) happens, the company pays. That’s once a year. Part of the job.

All I’m saying is that when you are at work, you should get paid. If you get paid in shares, you’re grown and can decide. But going to an escape room on a Sunday is not OK.

I’m not a video game executive but I’ve been an executive and every single second you make a person do something is on the clock. If you pay people for their time, sure. Go for it. If it’s on your employees’ time, no pay, then absolutely not.

Work is not family or friends. They will cut you like a bad branch and forget you existed. Work your ass off when you’re getting paid to do so. But don’t work for free.