That’s good for you, in the best way possible. I have not been so fortunate. I do have longer than normal legs. But we all need to adapt and over come in life. Toss in the me being a lefty also and things can be a hassle in day to day living sometimes.

Me, I’m heading out of my 6th decade. Shoveling cow shit, grain, silage, and tossing 50kg/120lbs hay bales nearly every day growing up as kid on a farm got me started on ruining my body early in life. 12 years as a toolmaker standing on concrete 10 to 12 hours a day and lifting heavy pieces of steel, Then 15 years spent dragging 115+kg/250+lbs patients up from basements and down from upstairs bedrooms as a medic has done little to nothing for my back either. A couple of knee surgeries later and now I have a hip that’s starting to act up.

Not an IP lawyer, (those people are EXPENSIVE), It’s perhaps less about the idea than it is about the process to get there. And yes the patent office does make mistakes at times. It’s just expensive and hard to correct those mistakes because it generally takes a judge to do so. And I’m willing to bet this patent is valid in the EU also due reciprocity agreements and trade deals. It would take an EU judge to invalidate the patent, which would cost as much as doing so in the US.

One thing that I have learned over the years is that no patent is actually really valid until a judge bangs a gavel and says yea or nay to the patent, (I’ve held a couple). Until then, it pretty much just a piece of ass-wipe paper you can wavy around and hopefully scare off others that don’t have the money or want to spend the money to challenge the patent.

Yeah something as simple as washing your hands can be painful at times when you are above average height. The vanities are too short and the faucets set too low. While my wife doesn’t want them in the bathroom, I did put a tall goose neck faucet on the kitchen sink. I don’t need to bend over to use it, so I tend to wash my hands in the kitchen. I would recommend installing one if you can.

A lot of tall people have chronic leg and back pain because nothing is designed and built for them in the everyday world. Everything is just a tiny bit to short or small. From stair steps to chairs and tables to desks, to cars, to toilets. Everything is always just a bit off. It doesn’t seem like much, but the accumulative stress and strain on your joints will cause pain. You don’t really notice in your 20’s, but by the time you hit your 30’s you will start to feel it. And as you get older, it won’t get better. Exercising won’t stop the accumulated wear and tear.

And the “Just remodel your kitchen” is a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that? Are you going to drop $50,000 on me to do that? That “Big and Tall” shit costs extra-- a LOT extra because it’s custom. And will you be explaining to my wife why SHE can’t reach anything in the kitchen anymore? And will you make up the cost difference if I sell this house? That remodeled kitchen that fits me will make selling it a lot more difficult because very, very few average sized people would find the extra 2" to 4" higher counter tops and cabinets to be at a comfortable height. Or do I need to remodel it yet again to fit the average person?

And being in a crowd isn’t much fun. The tops of everyone else’s head look pretty much the same. Kind of hard to tell the difference of who’s who. And since few can see over my shoulders, I end up at the back of the crowd to be out of the way which often separates me from my friends. Going to movies or a theater sucks because the seats are too close together and my knees are jammed up against the seat in front of me. It’s painful for me and annoying to the person in front of me. And the person behind me can’t see through my head.

And as far as “tossing and orange ball into a hoop to make millions of dollars.” Not everyone wants to play that game nor do we fall into the .1% of 1% of people on the planet that are actually good enough to get paid millions to play basketball.

Oh, and before I go. Would you mind picking up that pencil off the floor for me? You’re short and much closer to the floor than I am.

Vi or die!

At some point the toys would fail, they were 8 and 9 year olds after all, but it could take a month or more in the hands of children. I was pretty shocked. I did have a paper wad cannon that had a spring that was printed all in one inside the barrel. The first few had issues with the compression spring breaking when over compressed by the kids. But a bit of a redesign of the spring by making it beefier, it not only lasted nearly the whole school year but the kids got more range. Much to the other teachers and parents disappointment.

I’ve Printed LOTS of PLA living hinges and even springs. They do work just fine for the limited to moderate cycles they last. I’ve printed 100’s of toy catapults and other small toys in PLA and then handed them out to 8 and 9 year old children. They held up amazingly well under that abuse.

That’s nice for people who don’t need to be out of bed until 6ish in the morning. See how much you might enjoy it when you need to be up a 4:30am every day. The last damn thing I need is the sun being up until 10pm and a bunch of clowns whoopin’ and hollerin’ until 11pm because DST.

Like the Linux kernel, the cow is merely a means to an end in this example.

Been there, done that, and nope.

Orca has it’s charms for sure. I really like the scarf joint. But PursaSlicer still gives me the cleanest prints. But it’s drifting away from my trusty old and well used Mk3s+.

Kind of like the butcher who got his hands dirty cutting a steak and then a Michelin star chef cooking it for you.

One got his hands bloody. The other made it delectable for you to eat.

Which is more important to the process?

And that’s where you want to put them down-- the local and state elections. Controlling the house and senate is FAR more important than POTUS. Because the house and senate make the laws and write the checks.

Even Hookers need scheduling and accounting.

And with LFS, you need to breed, raise the sheep and then shear them yourself before you get to spin and knit the socks…

How else are you going to play FreeDoom if you can’t get Linux to run on it?

Yes, dictatorships and monarchies sometimes have a petition process, but they tend only to pay lip service. Not because they care, they will do as they please becaue they have the power-- hence a dictatorship. See: North Korea or a few countries in the middle east. Imagine trying to petition the Afghani government as a gay or worse, a trans person.

Governments of any kind are large and ponderous beasts. They cannot change direction as easily as you would like. And like it or not, there are rules and processes that must be followed to make changes. And those things are in place to provide continuity in government and protections to the populace at large. Imagine how much more damage trump could have done without those processes and rules. Imagine what he could do if he wins again after the last SCOTUS ruling.

Like it or not, Biden is bound by a lawful treaty ratified and codified by congress a long time ago. He cannot undo that treaty on a whim. Only congress can do that at this point. Make your changes there. And representatives and senators are local elections and not national. Best of all, YOU could be the change you want. Don’t expect someone else to do it for you.

But it IS the process to get it done. I never said it was ideal. If you don’t like the process, then vote for those that WILL change the process. But that takes time. Until then, we ARE stuck with the laws we currently have in place. That is the reality of the situation. I hope this helps you understand representative democracy vs a dictatorship.

I’ve never really the UI in LibreOffice either. It’s usable, but always felt clunky to me. And it feels so heavy and ponderous to use. That says something from someone who wears the sackcloth and ashes of FreeCAD…

I did use OnlyOffice for a bit and I thought it was better for my needs than LibreOffice. But it was still overkill my current needs. So now I’m down to just AbbyWord and Gnumeric since I only need the odd document and simple spreadsheet.

Or more likely, Chrome browser these days…