Don’t take anything I’ve said as being anti-Mac. I am much happier to be on Mac than Windows. I would be happy on Linux as well, perhaps happier, but the corporate world being what it is, it turns out Linux doesn’t make it easy to load a computer up with a bunch of spyware.

Okay, I’ll be fair. Windows and MacOS are like… 3 things (If you still support Mac on Intel). Linux is like… 500 OSes. Even if you strip it down and support the most common, you’re looking at Arch (so customized that might as well be a separate OS for each user), Ubuntu, Fedora, and maybe Mint. So it’s way more work to support Linux even if Linux were as easy to support as Mac and Windows, and I believe it is not.

I’m very happy with my Mac. But my wife hates things that change. She’s one of those people who will hang onto a 15 year old laptop because “everything is the way I want it,” even if it’s all janky as hell.

I think so. She has an oculus 2 and she is trying to connect wirelessly to Steam VR. I haven’t really tried myself for a couple of years. It used to work fine on windows, at least wired. Wireless never worked that well for me.

I never got it to work in Linux but I haven’t tried in a couple of years and I assume it’s gotten better since then.

I’d say here we go making os a hobby, but it took some effort in windows, too.

I can’t ever tell what is critical to people. I got my wife her first MacBook last year. She’s used it three times and hates it. I’m like… red yellow green, and everything else is just like iPhone. Nope, she despises it.

I moved my daughter from windows to Linux Mint, and she barely noticed. She can’t use her VR the same way, and that was the only difference that bothered her.

So I can’t say you wouldn’t hate Linux, but I can tell you I don’t want my hobby to be fucking with OSes and Mint was perfect. You can just use it. Steam games, browsing the web, damn near everything works exactly the way you’d expect on Windows. I don’t happen to need a second computer after my work MacBook, but if I did it would be Linux for sure.

Well, except no OneDrive. Which another point in Linux’s favor.

Look, it was a miracle I got myself laid, now you want me to tell you how? I don’t know, the 80’s were kinda crazy wild. Not like the 60’s or 70’s, but nothing at all like today.

10’s I’d say go play with the home team — gay hookup culture looked crazy from the outside — but now? Maybe AI can get you laid, but I sure as hell can’t.

Absolutely devastated. I got on my bike and pedaled away as fast as my little legs could go. I dried my eyes and went to my grandma’s house and had some cookies.

I’m old enough that I couldn’t even enumerate all the things. Let’s just say racism, homophobia, transphobia, nationalism, toxic masculinity, feminism, capitalism…

Oh and the idea that Republicans are more fiscally responsible and have a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy.

I honestly can’t think of any part of my upbringing that has held up to scrutiny. I wouldn’t say I’ve fully overcome all of it but I recognize it was all garbage.

I guess I could say religion. I went through the motions when I was much younger, but it never took even then. I’ve always thought religion is bullshit.

Open. In fact I could remove the door. My bathroom doesn’t stink and if anything is making noise in there then it needs maintenance anyway.

That being said, the doorknob has become a home for trash and recycling bags for the bedroom, so I guess that’s handy.

You’ve got two very different questions here.

Will AI be able to replace sexual partners? You don’t need AI for that. We’ve had sex toys for millennia. You don’t need a partner for sexual gratification. You need a partner for all the other things that come with being in a relationship.

Will you be able to have a friendship with an AI? No. Talking to an AI is essentially talking to yourself. If you can’t replace a relationship with an imaginary friend, AI won’t do it either.

That being said, it is possible that some people’s interactions in a relationship are so shallow that they could replace people with AI. Frankly it might be best is they did so to spare others from investing in relationships that are clearly one-sided.

I always make sure to tell my audience to remove any smart glasses. It’s just creepy doing it in front of them otherwise.

“By downloading this software, you agree you are a very naughty boy or girl.”

I want to argue. Not because you’re wrong, but because I love talking about B5. But also there is so much great setup. Babylon Squared would be so weird to watch in the this order. The setup and reversal of Londo and G’Kar. Like there is so much tapestry there to enjoy on a deeper level of you’ve seen S1.

I feel like in the suggested order you might watch S1 and think it’s kinda neat but why did I bother. Trying to figure out what’s going on was one of the funnest parts of S1.

But I can’t say you’re wrong, either.

I kinda have to disagree. I know they dis make things up as they went along, but I think they did it pretty well. The writing and acting are pretty good — though you’re right it would’ve benefited from being cohesively written.

The problem I have is the ending. I hate it, but unlike Game of Thrones I don’t hate it in a way I can never watch it again despite the amazing highs.

The drama and situations they put the characters through in BSG are mostly intense and well done. Some of the things feel a bit random without foreshadowing, but life can be that way. Anyway I think the series is well worth watching I just… I wanted the last few episodes to be something very different from what the show runners had in mind.

I don’t know about that watch order for Bab5. The first season was uneven but I feel like it’s a critical introduction to key characters and themes. I wouldn’t recommend anyone leap right in to the Garibaldi and Delenn situations for example. Back in the day there were lists passed around about key episodes to watch vs what could be skipped — and they were highly contested because mostly even the worst episodes had at least a scene that you’d later be rewarded for watching.

Anyway I think the better order is something like a select 1/3-2/3 of season 1, seasons 2-4, and the last episode of season 5 (which for reasons was originally shot as the ending of season 4).

Season 5 is only for if you loved S2-S4 and need more even if it’s not as good. It isn’t bad, it just feels weird with the main arc of the show resolved.

I really enjoyed Babylon 5. Especially seasons 2-4. The interplay between the characters, especially Londo and G’kar was excellent. The stories were epic and political, it would be relevant today I think. It was so quotable and parts really moved you.

The effects were dated even then, and the transfer to widescreen after the digital models were lost was an absolute travesty. Instead of widescreen making the show better, they cropped the 4:3 for every effects shot, making them all blurry and poorly composed.

Even so, the story and characters are epic and timeless.

Making windows worse, AI, and forced CPU upgrades in this economy? There really is something for everyone to hate here.

VC Lawyers insist. Not worth it for the company to fight for something (not going to arbitration) that no one will notice or care about if it doesn’t change. Or maybe they didn’t care.

I’m just saying capitalism ruins everything because investors only care about maximizing profit and minimizing risk, this forces bullshit like this onto everyone downstream. One solution is not to use the product. Better solution is to change the law to make mandatory arbitration illegal. Best solution is to throw billionaires into the ocean and stir the solution until the solid is fully dissolved.

I think based on the second part of your post you know this, but I’ll elaborate based on the first part:

I would think it goes slightly further. Let’s posit:
server-A: poster / does not support DV
server-B: Bob, Jim, Joe / supports DV
server-C: Sue, Ann, Kat / supports DV

Server-A is the system of record for post P.

Bob, Jim and Sue all downvote the post.
Joe, Ann and Kat all upvote the post.
All servers federate.

Poster sees: 3UP
Anyone on server-B sees: 2DN, 3UP
Anyone on server-C sees: 1DN, 3UP

I believe this is how it works. The upvotes federate across all instances and are seen by everyone. The downvotes do NOT federate to the home instance, and so they do not federate out to other instances. The downvote total you see for a post only includes voters on your own instance.

I have not studied the code or architecture so I could be wrong, but I think this is accurate.

I create new accounts from time to time and purge the old ones. That affords me the ability to share myself and experiences without accumulating too much identifying information in one account. So I’d recommend it at some point but where that point is is up to you.

An invitation to kill myself. That is, if nothing else, in perfect keeping with the morality that vexes me about Abrahamic theology.

Firstly, I don’t hate God. I’d have to believe in one to hate him and, without hesitation or qualification, I do not. I do take issue with the way these faiths weaponize fear in self-serving ways — by first amplifying our natural anxiety of death and then selling comfort.

No, I have no intention of killing myself and losing this precious, but finite commodity of time. I have maybe 80 years in which to experience as much of life as I am able, and when it is spent, I will still be racing against that clock to do more.

That is the key. We end. Faith often — specifically including Abrahamic faiths — tries to sell people on the idea that we don’t have to. It’s wrong to convince them to chase eternity when what they really need is to find peace with the necessity of ending.

Mortality is what gives life scope and meaning. It is the race against oblivion from which all human accomplishment must derive. It represents the passing of outdated views and ushering in a generation free from the biases that no longer serve them.

My children are my eternal existence. The ripples of my passing on the lives of those around me — creating further ripples which reach further into the future — are my eternal existence. But my consciousness, my soul if that’s what you want to call it, it will end, and that makes my time here precious.

In 10,000 years all I have accomplished, all I have wanted, all I have loved, all I have dreaded — all of it would be as nothing. And then I have more tens of thousands of years. Millions of years. Billions. Trillions. What meaning would this brief speck of time have against all eternity? I treasure my existence all the more for being so brief.

God has no carrot to tempt me with. I reject that eternal life is any sort of gift, in fact it would be a curse.

Now let me address gratitude. I have a pretty good life. And I am thankful for the people and good fortune that make it so. But if I didn’t exist, I would know no deprivation or loss. An unasked gift carries no obligation, so I am not indebted for an existence I did not choose.

And so God, stripped of eternal reward and the obligation of birth, is a deity who tolerates evil that would be unimaginable were it not so commonplace. A being complicit in such evil is not worthy of love or worship, but would deserve only contempt — if he existed.

There is nothing good about any version of the Abrahamic god. Everything about him is vain and cruel and unworthy of love or devotion. People get so caught up in the idea of not dying that they don’t even realize eternal life is hell, not any kind of reward. If God existed I would spit in his face and take comfort in being smote from existence.

Most likely I represent the other end of the spectrum because I doubt many see it quite the way I do. Anyway, it’s all good. What happens will happen regardless of what any of us believe. It doesn’t need me to speak it aloud to be true.