Funnily enough, that’s how we got to that- several of us going out to lunch, I was driving, so my music, and one of the Weird Al polkas was playing, and he was asking who it was … even my kids have heard of Weird Al so me and the other old farts are trying to figure out if he’s messing with us or really didn’t know… So we were listing off Weird Al’s works, and UHF came up, we described the plot, he asked if UHF meant something in the context of a TV station, and that’s when we old farts crumbled into dust.

I mentioned UHF to one of my (younger) coworkers, and he had no idea what that meant…

Yeah once they’re out of the womb, fuck 'em. We only care about the unborn.

How do we know you’re not an AI bot?

Hell if I remember so long ago, redhat was in the mix, then mandrake… I ran Gentoo for years on a server, until I got bitten by some upgrade woes, then switched to Debian, then arch, now truenas. Meanwhile on my desktop I bounced around even more… Ubuntu until the stupid wannabe metro UI, then switched to mint, which I used exclusively (as in without dual-booting windows) for a while… Meanwhile my laptop dual boots Manjaro alongside windows 11…

Mine was slackware in I think 1997?

There’s a name for it- euphemism treadmill

Hey look, I’m good at something.

Yes, but that’s why x86 assembly programmers do it…

Yes, but it’s not universal that xoring a register with itself is more performant than simply loading it with 0.

an x86 assembly programmer

Ftfy. not all CPUs have an xor register with itself instruction.

Possibly…

You know what really “cleans up” public transportation? More people riding it than just those who have no other choice. I grew up in Boston, lots of people rode the subway, I never felt unsafe. Now I live in Phoenix, the bus system sucks so bad I couldn’t even tell you what it feels like to ride one because I never have, anywhere I want to go would take at least 2 routes if not 3, with nearly an hour wait at each connection, I could seriously ride a bicycle there quicker, and have, even in 110°+ heat, at least in my younger days- damn near gave myself heat stroke last time I tried which was ~5 years ago… I have at least ridden the light rail, which isn’t terrible, but doesn’t run very frequently, and isn’t that close to my house, and doesn’t go that many interesting places… I could take the kids to the science center, but it’s a bit long for them to walk to our nearest stop, about a mile and a half… There’s a park & ride, but at that point, we might as well take the car…

I can honestly say I have never masturbated on a lunch break.

One of the first rules of robotics was always about not harming humans.

The first, in fact.

Me too. I’m finally starting to get the divorce ball rolling, not because I want to, but because she’s made it clear we have no future, but she’s too passive aggressive to do it herself. Last 2 days I’ve been riding the waves of a continuous panic attack.

better for PDFs

Sumatra!

Also, limitless consumption is unsustainable. Maybe we need to get used to the idea of deflation, learn to live with it…

Imagine your dollar would be worth more tomorrow if you didn’t spend it today.

That’s basically what happens with technology. Plenty of people still buy the latest TV even when there will be a better and cheaper one in a year or two.

runs in a web browser.

Or its an electron app.

Something something something history repeating