Blogging to work out my thinking about issues in technology, programming, religion, and politics.
I legitimately miss this age of computing. RedHat Linux 6, Windows 98 and NT 4, Mac OS X, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, AIX, and BeOS. It was a great time to be a “computer guy.” We were all trying to figure out what it could be. Now we have <gestures at everything>… this.
Fun fact: Be (the company) noticed this screenshot and comments I made about their OS on my website back in those days, and sent me an actual CD with the latest version.
Chronic pain is your body’s way of telling you that you’re a horrible person, and that God hates you.
This is a snapshot of my inbox. I think it tells the story well enough that it doesn’t need explanation. This is my life: battling crappy web sites. All day. Every day. This is all of our lives now. We gloss over this constant, digital friction in our lives, but I remember when it wasn’t like this, and it drives me crazy.
The best part is that all of this nonsense was to figure out that this account has been closed, and the remaining whopping $8 has been moved to another, similar service, where I don’t even know how to get started to get to this point with that service. So there’s another battle looming. I’m not done. I’m never done.
I’ve seen about 18 doctors in the past 3 years. I’ve honestly lost track. Every single visit was about one thing: I’m in constant, extreme pain. Yet every single doctor has refused to prescribe me ANYTHING to help with the pain. Not one. Not one time.
I just saw 2 pain specialists today, and they wouldn’t do it either. I was told that it would interfere with treatments. First, I can NOT take pain meds when we do procedures, you know. I mean, we all understand that, right? Second, it’s taken me THREE MONTHS just to get that appointment because of our stupid insurance system, and now it’s going to be ANOTHER month before I come back for the first treatment. Can I not get something for this next month of waiting around? No, go home and suffer in silence until you’re summoned again.
I’m just so utterly exhausted and angry and worn out. I’m LIVID. I’ve been LIVID for HOURS now. I understand that doctors not wanting to prescribe pain meds is a giant overreaction to too many opiates in treatments, but of all the situations where pain meds might be called for, this seems to be the TEXTBOOK case, and I get NOTHING. For over 3 years now. Endless, constant pain, and all the mental anguish that implies, but I’m just supposed to see counselors and pray.
I’m sorry, I don’t have magical powers. Whatever mental, emotional, or spiritual reserves I could have used to simply “deal with it” were exhausted a LOOOONG time ago. I’m sitting here at an 8 this evening, and I want to throw things through walls, break windows, and trash my stuff like I was a drug-abusing rock star in a hotel room in the 80’s. The Bible says God won’t put more on you than you can bear. I’m declaring I’ve officially hit my limit. Your move, God.
Meet the new C64 Edition from the 8BitDo Keyboard line. Packed with programmable keys and an intuitive control panel.. Compatible with Windows and Android.
This hits all the right notes for me. I recently bought a full set of SA Retro keycaps for my WASD CODE v2 (in blues), on my Mac. While pricey, I love them. I get warm fuzzies every time I sit down at it. I use this board on my Mac, and out of a dozen mech’s I’ve tried, I just don’t think it gets any better than a WASD.
The article also mentions new buckling spring boards. I have a Mini M from Unicomp on my work computer. The action doesn’t seem as crisp as I remember on actual Model M’s from back in the 80’s, but given that it’s supposed to be the same internals, made on the original tool dies, I have to chalk it up to memory. I like it too.
For “just” $110, I will probably buy one of these. I don’t have a Kailh-based board, though I’ve liked the feel of that brand of switches in various testers I have.
Sigh.
<gets out wallet>
“It’s always the quarterly profits,” he continued, “the only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say ‘shit I’m out of developers’ and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it’s just broken… “You don’t have to,” Vincke went on. “You can make reserves. Just slow down a bit. Slow down on the greed. Be resilient, take care of the people, don’t lose the institutional knowledge that’s been built up in the people you lose every single time, so you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off.”
Source: Baldur’s Gate 3 boss blasts publisher “greed” behind layoffs | Eurogamer.net
This isn’t unique to the gaming industry. This is the same problem all corporations have had since the 80’s. The problem is tying executive compensation to stock options. The “number must go up,” no matter what, so that the charade of the stock price being tied to news about the company’s financial position can continue, and thus everyone in management and the Wall Street banks makes money. Until this loop is broken, this short-term thinking will continue, in every industry and every large company in the US. (And as private equity continues its death march from coast to coast, there won’t be any small companies soon, anyway.)
AI-powered PCs built for a new era of work We are excited to announce the first Surface AI PCs built exclusively for business: Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business. These new PCs re
Source: Introducing Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business | Microsoft Devices Blog
I just love how Microsoft sticks “FOR BIZNESSSSSSS!” on the end of things. “Skype FOR BIZNESSSSSSSS!” “Teams FOR BIDNESS!” “Outlook FOR BIZNAAAAAS!” Sigh. How can you take this stuff seriously? Anyway.
Windows stays because Microsoft caters to corporations which abuse the poor, defenseless OS into doing things like locking users out of changing the desktop background and the sleep timeout. Until Apple offers power-hungry corporate IT middle managers the same level of user-hostile malfeasance in the name of “security,” Microsoft will hold the high ground in corporate deployments.
This becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of not-so-micro-aggressions, as it continues to skew all the Microsoft-bought-and-paid-for Gartner polls that show how much more prevalent Windows is over OSX, and self-justify corporate America that they’re doing the right thing. This, in turn, leads to an entire sub-industry of corporate “security” software which must be installed on Windows, because, bought-and-paid-for auditors told them they had to.
Thus, I wind up with a corporate laptop with something like 3 or 4 different “endpoint” security products installed on it, and something like 30-40 different scripts and checks that run almost by the hour to make sure that the inherent weaknesses of Windows hasn’t compromised our precious meeting PPT’s, which corporate IT considers as sensitive as the US nuclear arsenal codes.
Apple offers an alternative to this madness, and I’m very glad they do. I would rather they stay as they are rather than corrupt their ecosystem in this way to make some corporate sales, and I will happily continue to use my personal MBP to do as much of my work as I can.
Heartland, by The The, from the album, Infected. As poignant today as it was in 1986.
Beneath the old iron bridges, across the Victorian parks
And all the frightened people running home before dark
Past the Saturday morning cinema that lies crumbling to the ground
And the piss-stinking shopping centre in the new side of town
I’ve come to smell the seasons change, and watch the city as the sun goes down againHere comes another winter of long shadows and high hopes
Here comes another winter, waitin’ for utopia
Waitin’ for hell to freeze overThis is the land where nothing changes
The land of red buses and blue-blooded babies
This is the place where pensioners are raped
And their hearts are being cut from the welfare state
Let the poor drink the milk while the rich eat the honey
Let the bums count their blessings while they count their moneySo many people can’t express what’s on their minds
Nobody knows them and nobody ever will
Until their backs are broken and their dreams are stolen
And they can’t get what they want, then they’re gonna get angry!
Well it ain’t written in the papers, but it’s written on the walls
The way this country is divided to fall
So the cranes are moving on the skyline
Trying to knock down this town
But the stains on the heartland can never be removed
From this country that’s sick, sad, and confusedHere comes another winter of long shadows and high hopes
Here comes another winter, waitin’ for utopia
Waitin’ for hell to freeze overThe ammunition’s been passed and the Lord’s been praised
But the wars on the televisions will never be explained
All the bankers gettin’ sweaty beneath their white collars
As the pound in our pocket turns into a dollarThis is the 51st state of the U.S.A.
This is the 51st state of the U.S.A.
This is the 51st state of the U.S.A.
This is the 51st state of the U.S.A.
This is the 51st state of the U.S.A.
This is the 51st state of the U.S.A.
This is the 51st state of the U.S.A.
This is the 51st state–
Source: You’re being targeted by disinformation networks that are vastly…
TL;DR: You know that Russia and other governments try to manipulate people online. But you almost certainly don’t how just how effectively orchestrated influence networks are using social media platforms to make you — individually– angry, depressed, and hateful toward each other. Those networks’ goal is simple: to cause Americans and other Westerners — especially young ones — to give up on social cohesion and to give up on learning the truth, so that Western countries lack the will to stand up to authoritarians and extremists.
And you probably don’t realize how well it’s working on you.
This is a long post, but I wrote it because this problem is real, and it’s much scarier than you think.
The best part? The very best part? Reddit is one of the biggest parts of the problem, and I don’t see anyone in the comments with either that realization, or the guts to say it. The site got used like a 3-dollar whore in the run-up to the 2016 election, in favor of Trump. Then they “fixed” that algorithm problem, and now the entire front page is almost always filled with posts about people being awful to one another, in various forms. It’s ALL hatred towards “others.” It’s ALL moral superiority over someone else. Just zoom out and look at it without being logged in. It’s kind of like junior high, but way, way worse.