Talcosis

Of the four times I’ve gotten food poisoning in my life, once was from a taco bell. In college. At 2am, January 1st. Honestly you’d have gotten food poisoning anywhere open two hours after New Years.

So I don’t really have an unused side/old computer that is operational. I’m an engineer, but not the computer kind.

Might try the boot USB route. I wanted to do a virtual box so I could easily test to see if my current games/programs work

Error code Somethingxsomethingsomethingsomething hexadecimal-like

Edit: Hx4d3cim4l

I legitimately tried to switch to Linux a few days ago. Got virtual ox running, got one of the recommended noob distros (cinnamon?) and then got an error message that I cannot make sense of during install. Even googling it didn’t help

I’m not a computer guy, and I’m legitimately concerned that if I ask for help on the Linux forums I’ll be the punching bag of the week.

I got a Scepter 55" dumb TV for like, 600$ in Nov. 2024

I figured between tariffs and the orange, shit was gonna get more expensive and less private

I mean if we’re looking at pure economics, it’s probably not even worth running power lines to your parents. Matter of fact, they probably wouldn’t even have electricity if the government didn’t force electrical companies to build power lines to everyone, with the electrification act of 1968.

Companies get penalized if a lot of their former employees start getting unemployment.

Replied to wrong comment.

“American companies have long taken advantage of these trends. A leaked report from the 1980s, which was prepared for a waste-management company seeking a community for “locally undesirable land use,” listed the “least resistant personality profile” as: “longtime residents of small towns in the South or Midwest,” “conservative,” “Republican” and “advocates of the free market.””

See above comment for link

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-is-china-treating-north-carolina-like-the-developing-world-122892/

Specific quote:

“American companies have long taken advantage of these trends. A leaked report from the 1980s, which was prepared for a waste-management company seeking a community for “locally undesirable land use,” listed the “least resistant personality profile” as: “longtime residents of small towns in the South or Midwest,” “conservative,” “Republican” and “advocates of the free market.””

Facebook and shit don’t matter much, but whatsapp is the primary form of communication for a good chunk of the world.

Fun fact: in some places, whatsapp and Facebook (and a few other sites) isn’t even considered to be “internet”. Like, if you don’t pay an ISP you still get access to those. Then paying for “internet” gives you access to everything else.

Eh, some do, but not a majority. I think only about 30% really do. (Check out theauthoritarians.org for a dude that dedicated 60 years of psychology career to that)

I think it more illustrates the lack of imagination. People would fiercely defend the existence of their national borders, but for some reason they don’t much like the idea of being fenced into their house, for example. I guess there’s an arbitrary level of border that makes people feel nice.

I already seek out “made in China” for certain goods, because of the quality

It’s still being built, I think they had one of the planned production lines close to complete?

Chip fabs take like 10-15 years to get going

That’s just an argument the borders serve no useful purpose and should not exist.

Which I 100% agree with, borders are useless wastes of effort for the sole purpose of massaging the egos of people with not enough going on.

I don’t much like hypotheses that require certain size groups of people.

But I guess that’s just the instability of the dictator applied to the entire world.

That knowledge is nowhere near as restricted as you think. People regularly build small thermonuclear reactors in their basements for shits and giggles. It’s not exactly cutting edge technology.

Similarly, anyone with slightly more than a passing interest in model rockets knows someone who’s been visited by the ATF, as your average solid fuel model rocket engine is basically a pipe bomb with one of the endcaps taken off.

I came across this conspiracy theory the other day.

You know how back in the day, company towns had to use company scrip to make sure workers couldn’t leave?

Well, not you can be tracked by AI, and as soon as you leave your “boundaries” granted to you by your level of privilege, suddenly your bank card stops working, because that looks like a “fraudulent transaction”.

The systems are already in place, too. If I go on an impromptu road trip and spend money six states over, my bank calls me and tells me my card is being used in a weird place, and they ask if that transaction is legit. Usually I can be like “yep, let it through” and everything is fine.

What if the AI decides that in fact everything is not fine, and I don’t need to be able to spend money outside of my town?

This feels a lot like the collapse of the USSR. Like, yeah, shit wasn’t necessarily great before, but what comes after is worse.

Conduction sigh