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grue

@grue@lemmy.world

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grue ,

This is why "GNU/" is the important part.

grue ,

As well they should be!

grue ,

(I'm speaking generally, not criticizing you personally.)

It's amazing the great effort to which people will go to try to compensate for Microsoft's abusive behavior, often while simultaneously claiming that switching OSs is too much effort.

Projects like Tiny11 are the computer equivalent of "oh, this black eye? I got it falling down the stairs and definitely not because my partner hit me."

Folks get mad about Linux evangelism, but it's really no different than friends saying "leave his ass; you're too good for him!"

grue ,

I've already resolved to not buy cars newer than the ones I already have (from the '90s and 2000s).

(It sucks 'cause it means I can't have an EV unless I find one of those super-low-volume '90s fleet compliance cars or build my own.)

grue ,

My ebike odometer ticked over 1000 miles a couple weeks ago.

grue ,

I count that under "build my own."

grue ,

If you pay attention, you start noticing that a lot of DIY/maker Youtubers are former software developers.

grue ,

I mean, you could get a 70s-80s model American tractor, too.

grue ,

I can't think of a single piece of software that's "done." Even TEX is only at version 3.141592653, not π.

grue ,

If I were less lazy, I'd make a gif of myself zapping your comment with the uBlock Origin element zapper tool.

grue ,

In a country without special half-sized parking spaces for kei cars/city cars/smart cars, all cars are the same size (one parking space each) and are therefore equally bad.

I mean, sure, bigger cars are more dangerous to the people they crash into, but that's beside the point because crashes are the least of the harmful things about cars! The real problems with them are things that are inherent to the nature of cars -- all cars -- and cannot be fixed merely by making them 1980s-sized again.

Specifically, the biggest problem with cars is the way the built environment has to be absolutely ruined to make space to accommodate them, and how that not only destroys walkability and transit viability, but also causes stuff like obesity and lack of housing affordability. All these things are inherent problems of car-dependency, and it doesn't make the slightest shred of difference whether those cars being depended upon are Isettas or F-250s.

grue ,

I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that small vehicles have the same impact as massive SUVs/trucks.

I'm not saying its zero; I'm saying it's a lot closer to negligible than people desperately wanting to scapegoat one type of car while clinging to their own would like to think. The only thing capable of significantly moving the needle is not switching from big cars to small cars, but switching from cars to not-cars.

Bigger cars are not only more damaging in crashes with pedestrians/cyclists (which you’ve mentioned but seem to think is unimportant?!) but they also cause more accidents because of poor visibility and longer stopping distances.

Having smaller cars with better visibility and shorter stopping distances could provide a minor improvement in crash frequency and severity. But if you want to get it to zero? Then you've got to redesign the streets to quit prioritizing cars over other road users (pedestrians/cyclists/transit riders). And you've got to make it so that those alternatives are actually viable and get used, which means zoning reform.

Also, environmentally-speaking, larger vehicles have a much bigger impact than small cars. Not only are they less fuel-efficient, they also cause more damage to roads leading to more frequent need for repairs.

The environmental difference between a big car and a small car is tiny compared to the difference between a car and a bicycle. We need to quit chipping around the edge of the problem quibbling about car size and attack it directly by providing alternatives to driving via (say it with me!) zoning reform.

grue , (edited )

Here's another comment I made that better explains why this kind of article is actually harmful

(You can tell it struck a nerve with the car-brains because of the downvotes, LOL)

grue ,

as if it work from a guidebook on demoralizing your workforce.

Probably not a guidebook, but I wouldn't be surprised if the hired consultants specializing in exactly that.

grue ,

I started out my career as a traffic engineer because I hate traffic, but then realized I was just helping build more sprawl...

...now I'm a software engineer who refuses to work for FAANGs on principle.

It is extremely hard to find companies that aren't doing evil shit yet are still profitable enough to be able to hire people.

grue ,

That is a good question. I feel like I probably asked that during my site design class in college, but I don't remember getting a clear/satisfactory answer. I think it might just come down to which design happens to work better on the particular site, or the preferences of the client (for example, it seems like Publix prefers their parking lots to have angled parking, while Kroger's parking more often tends to be straight).

grue ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/61c09765-4a5b-4575-9a06-624a9539d485.gif

grue ,

it’s time to remind everyone that Tesla’s design choice to disengage self-driving in the instant before impact is intentional to ensure the driver is in control during the moment of impact

That sounds like not only an admission of fault for the collision on Tesla's part but also deliberate fraud to me. That shouldn't protect Tesla from liability; it should increase it.

grue ,

Yeah, and I definitely never pause a video because I want to look more closely at the frame I paused it at. Obviously, covering it over with something different is exactly what I was hoping for!

grue ,

part of me wishes there was a way to work towards getting bad drivers off of the roads.

There is: it's called zoning reform.

grue ,

People can't afford to live in the city precisely because so much of it is designed to cater to cars. For example, adding parking requirements to an apartment can easily increase the effective square footage by 50% (800 ft^2^ 2-bedroom apartment + 2 parking spaces = 1200 ft^2^). Then the price goes up even more than that because parking deck is more expensive per unit area to construct than actual living space.

grue ,

Traffic calming is a thing, but not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about repealing zoning restrictions in order to allow traditional development again, which (since property owners aren't forced by law to cater to cars), tends to have walkable density that discourages driving.

In other words, you don't have to worry about bad drivers if almost nobody's driving to begin with.

grue ,

That, plus GM literally bought up streetcar companies and shut them down or converted them to running buses.

grue ,

The US is not special. The fact that the country is big doesn't matter; people still cluster together in cities just like they do everywhere else. The only things that makes transit harder here than other places is the degree of regulatory capture by the automobile and fossil fuels industries and the degree to which the public has been brainwashed by their propaganda.

grue , (edited )

That's not just "at least decades away;" that's literally impossible. Streets, by definition, will always need to accommodate road users that will never be computerized, such as pedestrians, cyclists, horse-drawn carriages, etc.

grue ,

If you're commuting from Bumfuck to Fuckwoods, you should drive*. Nobody cares! There are so few people like you that it doesn't fucking matter what you do!

The issue is that people like you need to quit pretending your snowflake exceptions are an excuse to fail to solve the problem for the vast (80%!) majority of people who live in metro areas and are therefore not like you.

(* Actually you should just move to Fuckwoods, but that's not the point.)

grue ,

Maybe, but probably not because where would you put them? We're not going to bulldoze through the street grid again like we did for the freeways and "urban renewal" (read: kicking out the black people) back in the '50s. We learned our lesson about not displacing people like that and passed NEPA to make it extremely difficult to do from now on.

grue ,

I don't understand. "Turn... off?"

Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone (www.theverge.com)

Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu....

grue ,

You're not wrong, but there's a larger issue here: the fact that there's an alternative does not make what Microsoft is doing okay. This shit ought to be prohibited by consumer protection law.

grue ,

"world's most expensive brick"

Even this insult gives the Cybertruck too much credit. That piece of shit isn't worth anywhere near as much as the actual world's most expensive brick: a standard 400-troy-ounce gold brick, for instance, is worth about $930K today.

grue ,

Standard "Good Delivery" 400-oz gold bricks are worth about $930k today.

grue ,

...after which every non-Apple device attempted...

Well, also except for any other microcomputer that wasn't trying to run DOS. (Surely there were some -- Amiga, maybe? IDK.)

grue ,

Galaxy brain: "PC" means it runs CP/M or DOS, not Windows.

grue ,

We failed to hold the line at the goddamn horse armor.

grue ,

That's what generating some backup OTPs (e.g. like this, minus the Google part since this is !privacy) and printing them out on physical paper is for.

grue ,

This is Lemmy; we can put that slightly more extreme version right here!

(I don't think it really is NSFW, but I'll put it behind a spoiler tag to honor your opinion.)

NSFW

https://climatejustice.social/system/cache/media_attachments/files/112/303/378/431/889/363/original/c958f771d6ef5b99.jpg

grue ,

90s: corporations make everything plastic and disposable while people are told to recycle

It's worse than that: the plastics industry tells us to recycle -- even going so far as to plagiarize the recycling symbol into the resin identification codes -- despite knowing from the beginning that recycling plastic was mostly never going to be a viable thing. They did this purely to shift blame to consumers because the only way their business model worked was to not be held accountable for their waste.

grue ,

Yeah, but procurement of a combat pilot has about a two-decade lead time. You can build more jets a lot quicker (potentially even including the R&D phase).

grue , (edited )

What's the difference? A remotely or AI-piloted fighter jet is just a big drone.

grue ,

Aside from my old PCs that have optical drives, I also have an external USB one. I think I might have a USB floppy drive kicking around somewhere, too. It's always good to be prepared.

The EFF is missing the point with the American Privacy Rights Act (www.eff.org)

The EFF has been calling for national private legislation for a while but now that we have something on the table they are criticizing it. They are calling for state level laws but the problem with local laws is that there are 50 different states for companies to try to keep track of. The other problem with local legislation is...

grue ,

Did you link to the wrong article?

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/americans-deserve-more-current-american-privacy-rights-act

grue ,

Thanks.

Now that we've cleared that up, I'd just like to state for the record that I agree with the EFF, not you. Sorry.

grue ,

Agreeing with a persuasive argument is not 'being a follower.'

Frankly, the fact that this bill seems to have broad support among the same Congress that's not only renewing but expanding FISA is suspicious enough to begin with. The EFF's analysis about how it preempts potentially-stronger state laws to form a ceiling on privacy rights instead of a floor just proves the obvious: that it's a limited hangout designed to give the appearance of addressing the problem while actually shielding big business from real privacy protections with teeth.

grue ,

It's a clever line, but Musk hasn't invented a single goddamn thing in his life.

grue ,

No, they've got plenty of access. They just don't want to be exposed to anything that challenges their indoctrination.

grue ,

Don't hand it back; rip it up and then apologize and ask for a second one. Then rip that one up, too.

grue ,

I use Linux because I like to know that if my computer doesn't do what I want, it's my own damn fault (and not some corporation trying to screw me over).

grue ,

TL;DR: my property rights trump Youtube's business model.

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