You got an economic system in your back pocket that doesn’t allow money to funnel upwards? Bring it out! It’s not capitalism you’re complaining about, it’s plutocracy we’re living under.

Adam Smith would be horrified at our monopolies. 1980s conservatives would be horrified! Yeah, the economy has always served the wealthy, but it wasn’t anything like today.

He can’t. The strict command and control structure between POTUS and launch keys will break down, just as it did with 3 or 4 events during the Cold War.

Nah, SCOTUS pushed back on Trump, first time around and this time as well. The administration had a solid run of Supreme Court wins for several months because they only brought cases they thought were slam dunks. Now that we’re getting into meaty subjects like birthright citizenship, the justices look to stand firm. Too little, too late, I know.

Among other reasons you’ve been given:

• The figured MN folks would be peaceable and lay down.
• No open carry of weapons.
• Didn’t think they’d show out in deep winter. (HAH!)

This murder was 1,300 miles away. Shall I go up there and hunt them. Please provide explicit instructions. I’ll wait right here smartass.

Yes. My last 3 were excellent businessmen and treated employees exceptionally well.

The one before that was a buffoon, but that was a tiny 13-person company. Our main vendor said, “He’s a man who has found great success despite himself.”

O365 is a little different because of the utility and backwards compatibility of Excel. My last shop was all Google, but I still had to buy Office for accounting and HR (for some reason).

One can quickly learn their way around other office programs, but Excel is the killer app in office productivity.

You and I wouldn’t be able to use jargon or talk procedures. It would be immediately obvious we were faking. Come up on me and tell me you’re in IT, see how that goes. :)

ICE is the modern Brownshirts. Once they became too powerful, they were slaughtered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives

OTOH, we don’t have anything like the SS to replace them with. Yet.

We still need people doing ICE’s former job. Bet there’s not a country on the planet that has zero internal immigration enforcement mechanisms.

You can buy everything they wear, even POLICE patches, on Amazon, eBay and Etsy. That’s where I get my outdoor and gun gear.

What do you get when your search “terminal”? My home rig defaults to PowerShell, but I likely changed something years ago.

I’m a Windows sysadmin, this is the exact explanation. The only other thing, and this is going way out on a limb, is that terminal was installed through the Windows Store and something related is busted. I’ve never even heard of a company utilizing the Store for installations.

Could not have written my exact take as closely as yours.

Only thing I’d add is using it to screw around with personal photos. ChatGPT is cleaning up some 80s pics of my wife that were atrocious. I have rudimentary PhotoShop skills, but we’d never have these clean pics without AI. OTOH, I’d gladly drop that ability to reclaim all the negatives.

Very few laymen have noticed or give a shit about RAM prices. My young friend across the street and I are likely the only people on the block who know what RAM does, let alone are able to build a PC.

Business purchasing is where we might see some backlash soon. I’ve bought all the IT goods, hardware and software, for my last two companies, and I’d be screaming.

Boss: What the hell? Weren’t we getting these laptops for $1,200 last year?!

Skill in Excel is wholly different than skills in other Office products. But if Excel is on your resume, your better expand and show what real use you’ve made of it. Otherwise it comes off just as you said.

I do. Got a free license from my last job and Excel blows the doors off Calc, or anything else. For business, Excel is moat of the reason they’re so tied into Office.

The search option actually seems useful, assuming it works worth a shit, and like it or not, AI could fit the bill on a limited data set like one’s email archives. But I’m not ever going to let AI write for me, and I won’t trust what it reads for me. I hardly need a 4 sentence summary of a 4 sentence email.

Yes, other email providers are out there, but I’ve been neck deep in Google’s ecosystem for 20 years and having a hard enough time in life without having to trash my Google Minis, Androids, 2FA, countless logins, email, on and on.

OTOH, I’m fed up with, “TRY OUR NEW AI THINGY!” Fuck me, I hit something on Google Maps navigating home and was screaming, couldn’t turn it off, all while barreling down the highway. “Hey Google? EAT A BAG OF FUCKING DICKS!” “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” “Hey Google, turn of the FUCKING AI!” “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that.” My kids were laughing their asses off.

They could dial it in some. For example, I’m never not going to need a refill on Ropinirole, not like my restless legs are going to magically get better. But you can see the margin for horrific error.

Gun nuts dropped the “tyrannical government” government thing long ago. I watch a lot of GunTubers and it never comes up. As with any subject, I’m sure we could find fruitcakes propounding any nonsense, but no one even close to mainstream talks about this.

Reading comments like is reminds me of a conservative ex-friend telling me, “liberal believe bla bla bla”, and asking him, “What echo chamber is feeding you that bullshit?!”