Quote from: The Sceptical Chymist on August 06, 2025, 04:22:34 AM

That terrorism bullshit excuse is just one of several that cocksucking politicos pull out of their panties when they want to squeeze our nuts.

Thanks for that, TSC. Gave me a good giggle. I've always enjoyed your turn of phrase. Wink

Quote from: The Sceptical Chymist on August 07, 2025, 03:47:33 PM

I could go toe to toe with TMAN any day of the week when I'm in that headspace--and I'd be damn glad to have him back on the forum as well.

I don't doubt it (both your talent for funny flame-crafting, and your desire for the forum to be more colorful personality-wise).

What makes me really appreciate your angrier posts is that I know you're a fundamentally kind and good-natured dude. I hope you don't mind me sharing the following anecdote about you, but, it's something that got me smiling heavily the other day: I remember you and I having a few conversations (maybe in 2023) and (for context: I'm quite pranky IRL and it's normal for me to goof around with the people I like) at some point I thought I spotted a good opportunity to tell you (in a completely deadpan way) that this song was the "power ballad" masterpiece that had gotten me through some tough times (I think I even asked you to listen to it carefully and keep an ear out for the wisdom it contains). Lol. Anyway, I remember being mightily impressed that you replied to that with a very kind-hearted response and managed to avoid saying anything at all negative about the song (but, be honest now, you had to be thinking: "Holy shit that's a terrible song, and to rate it so highly... PowerGlove must be a few fries short of a Happy Meal.")

Quote from: The Sceptical Chymist on August 07, 2025, 03:47:33 PM

It might be really hard to do, but you've got to vote with your clicks, i.e., if your prediction comes true....you've got to say goodbye to Google, fuck Apple, use linux instead of Windows, and in general do not support your oppressors by fellating them at your computer desk.

Exactly. But, my fear (after watching my own family members and friends) is that people aren't really prepared to deal with much (or even any) inconvenience, and they'll continue to use whatever it is that they're already familiar with or that can otherwise get them where they're going without requiring too much thought on their end. I've basically stopped trying to convert friends and family because I've had very little success with it over the years (I've gotten pretty close once or twice with getting family members to turn their backs on Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. but, it never seems to actually take). If I get one more call from friends or family asking me to unbork something for them after they've systematically ignored years and years of my advice, Imma say: "Yeah, well... That's the way she goes, buddy. The fuckin' way she goes." Cheesy

Having said all that, it is getting seriously hard to find a sane computing environment, or to have anything even approaching real digital privacy, and here's a piece of a conversation I had about this a few months ago:

Quote from: PowerGlove on February 09, 2025, 01:35:14 PM

Hmm... The thing is, I've noticed that for something like ~25 years now, little personal-computing freedoms keep getting taken away from people (mostly without them seeming to care, or even realizing that it's happening). So, the advice I'd give you today is unfortunately much more complicated, nuanced, and error-prone than it would have been even 5 years ago... (It's almost as if there's some off-the-books department out there whose mission it is to infiltrate the technology sector and then push for various unnecessary things that will slowly sink personal private computing under such a pile of complexity that it'll no longer be feasible for anyone but the most disciplined hackers to achieve.)