Author: harold

I’m just going to point that out:

My Windows 8 laptop with 8GB of RAM and a USB hub with a dozen devices on it cold boots FASTER than my Windows 11 laptop with 16GB of RAM and no devices attached to it, WAKING UP.

Barely faster, but still. Twice as much RAM, waking up, still slower. That’s so messed up.

I think the most beautiful thing about Windows 8 in 2022 is that I don’t have to worry about updates; I control them. I’m a grown man.

The stress of automatic updates is unbearable. Will my settings be gone? Did I save? Did it crash, what happened? I absolutely hate automatic updates.

Look, I’m not nostalgic about the ’80s. Lots of things were wrong with the politics of the ’80s. But think about what happened here. The science was explained to ordinary people. They listened, they distinguished it from lies and conspiracy theories, and ordinary people banded together and pressured their politicians to act. And even quite unlikely politicians who were very hostile to government regulation, like Margaret Thatcher and George Bush Sr., came together. And as a result, the ozone layer is now healing. I feel absolutely confident that would not happen now if the ozone layer crisis happened.

I think you would get some people who would wear ozone layer badges, you would get other people who would film themselves spraying CFCs into the atmosphere to own the libs and make them cry. You would get people saying, “How do we even know the ozone layer exists? Maybe George Soros made the hole in the ozone layer.” We would become lost. We would not be able to summon the collective attention.

Sobering truth. Still giggling at “own the libs and make them cry” by spraying CFCs into the atmosphere lol. That would definitely happen.

The positive thing is that pressuring politicians and investing in elections and civic stuff, still works! We just need to be mostly together on topics.

And these days, that’s the most complicated thing.

I hate thinking about it. We were eight years in power, as Ta-nehisi’s book says. The thing I keep hating to think about is:

What’s Barack Obama’s legacy? Outside of being the first?

There’s none.

Nothing changed. The only thing I can think of that started with that administration is incorporating social media with politics. That’s like, not a so great legacy to have. I wish it hadn’t happened at all.

What else? Obamacare, but it’s still getting beat up by states and political opposition every now and then. The drone attacks never stopped (and no, I don’t blame him specifically for that; the US military is its own independent system and government at this point). Same sex marriage legalized, sure.

His swag was obviously much better than any previous president but the bar was in hell, so.

Those eight straight years with a black president feel like they didn’t happen. The 2010s will be more remembered for social media and 45 than Barack’s tenure in the White House.

I hate thinking about this.

But I love remembering them. This photoset is carved into my soul. A partnership that is quite a model.

Wonderful article over at The Atlantic. Allow me to quote.

“To survive, all living systems tend to maintain stable conditions as best they can.”

And that goes against our economic system, which pushes us not to maintain stable conditions but rather, pushes us to disrupt stability, to gamble for more. Even though this is not sustainable nor healthy.

“Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.”

The very interesting thing here is that what wealth is has dramatically changed: wealthy people prior to 2010s had access and owned things only wealthy people owned. Now? Not at all. Someone broke can have a 65” 4K TV, just like a wealthy person. A wealthy person will poop using a smartphone just like a broke person.

It’s called diminishing returns in economics. That is, being wealthy today isn’t all that, at all.

That’s a HUGE difference to me. There’s something pointless in wealth now. Same with fame! Who really wants to be famous these days with all the trolls, paparazzis, scams, etc? So you stay on your couch, shades down, scrolling Twitter like non-famous people? It’s weird.

The hedonic treadmill really, truly shows its limits in the 2020s.

“When people see themselves as little more than their attractive bodies, jobs, or bank accounts, it brings great suffering. Studies show that self-objectification is associated with a sense of invisibility and lack of autonomy, and physical self-objectification has a direct relationship with eating disorders and depression in women. Professional self-objectification is a tyranny every bit as nasty. You become a heartless taskmaster to yourself, seeing yourself as nothing more than Homo economicus. Love and fun are sacrificed for another day of work, in search of a positive internal answer to the question Am I successful yet? We become cardboard cutouts of real people.”

Sir. You too close, bro.

“As we grow older in the West, we generally think we should have a lot to show for our lives—a lot of trophies. According to numerous Eastern philosophies, this is backwards.”

Yes, that’s what I said last month, talking about “old ass Eastern philosophy”. It’s about the little, true, quiet things in life because when you achieve something big, it doesn’t last. It blinks. Frustrating.

“We can, in fact, find immense fullness when we pay attention to smaller and smaller things.”

I’m a master at this. I love to observe, see things switch, notice changes. I will enjoy every single sunset and sunrise in my life, even though I’ve already had so many of them. All the little things that bring me joy, never cease to bring me joy. Grabbing a loved one’s face and kiss it will never get old. Thinking about it satisfies me right now!

“It’s a lifelong battle against our inner caveman.”

You mean our inner capitalistman because cavemen I’m sure, were mostly chilling after running errands. Looking at butterflies and wondering what the fuck they are and why they fly so erratically.

Apparently there’s around 3 billion iPhones out there. People buy it because of its security.

Meanwhile, Pegasus exists. You don’t know what it can do? Here:

Pegasus can collect emails, call records, social media posts, user passwords, contact lists, pictures, videos, sound recordings and browsing histories, according to security researchers and NSO marketing materials. The spyware can activate cameras or microphones to capture fresh images and recordings. It can listen to calls and voice mails. It can collect location logs of where a user has been and also determine where that user is now, along with data indicating whether the person is stationary or, if moving, in which direction.

And all of this can happen without a user even touching her phone or knowing she has received a mysterious message from an unfamiliar person.

It doesn’t matter which update you have. This spyware is insanely clever (it basically creates its own virtual machine inside your phone, undetected).

How many iPhones have been infected? What kind of database is being built with all those biometrics? Who’s buying it? I imagine every single VIP, official, celebrity in the world has been hacked by now? Jay Z nudes soon? Please, no.

If Microsoft Windows had an undetectable spyware able to do that much, the tech world would be in flame. With Apple? Nothing exists. I don’t know, man.

Are you guys serious with this new Batman?

First of all, Batman the animated series was the absolute best and nothing can match that amazing run.

Then The Dark Knight was outstanding and no one can top that Joker, probably ever.

Now leave this shit alone for the next 30 years.

A billionaire wearing gadgets can never stimulate my mind like that. Especially these days.

“I’m getting an EV, oil can die now!”

Bro, oil is everywhere in life lol. It is derived and used for everything around you.

Also the cargo ships bringing you new oil-dependent stuff from China are not running on batteries lmao. They burn crude, nasty oil like there’s no tomorrow.

We’re never getting off oil.

We need to consume less and recycle it better. So, cease to believe in silver bullets. There are none.

#ClimateChange

Lots going on here.

I guess Joe will say he has black friends, including Dave Chappelle, so it’s all good.

Spotify, just like all subscription systems, can and will delete content at their discretion, the way they want, the way IP holders want it.

Any subscription business is ripe for censorship. You need to know that and act accordingly, dear customer.

Technologically speaking, podcasts are and can be hosted anywhere and played anywhere. Podcasts are like email technology, resilient and completely platform-agnostic. They’re just audio files.

Those 70 censored episodes will be online forever. Spotify doesn’t own anything here: they make you believe so and you believe them, for the sake of convenience. “Look at how powerful we are, taking down problematic content!” And then a prestigious “newspaper” makes it like the streaming media company is being accountable and shit.

Lots of nothing going on here.