eighthourlunch

Same here, although it did eventually lead to years of employment as a web dev.

It was around 1991 in the university computer lab. Just a green screen dumb terminal for email and newsgroups. Played too much Nettrek after hours on the Spark workstations later on.

I live in the US and speak three languages. I almost never have an opportunity to speak anything other than English, and it’s not for lack of desire.

That said, I think the word pathetic is way too harsh. People just have different needs and priorities.

He’s one of the absolute best.

They want to get rid of ad blockers? They should base on the same model that keeps me away: namely, that Facebook is repulsive and useless.

Winter, you say. It felt like spring yesterday.

Nope. Not even once, and that’s just fine.

My Internet has Pihole and uBlock. I don’t know what these ad things are.

I used to live there a long time ago. It wasn’t terribly stable then. It’s sad that it’s only gotten worse. It’s a beautiful place, with some of the kindest people I’ve ever known. I hope they find a way out of this.

I’m not so sure about that. It took me forever yesterday to get my international keyboard setup to work on Ubuntu the way I wanted it to. I’m saying that as someone who’s been using Unix/Linux in a school, IT and home setting for 30 years. It was unforgivably difficult.

Sociologists call it anomie.

I think you might have it backwards. An empathy deficit (sociopathy) is highly correlated with the C-suite. It’s not that sociopathy makes a person a better leader. It doesn’t. It’s more that a person with dark triad traits isn’t going to care who they step on or what lines they cross to get there.

In other words, they were already screwed up.

There’s nothing objective about that opinion at all. I think Mariah Carey’s song is cynical corporate kitsch written for one reason and one reason only: to make money. That’s why I hate it.

I can tolerate some of the secular big band/swing songs, and there have been a few decent ones since then. Fiona Apple does a brilliant cover of Frosty the Snowman. Vince Guaraldi’s work for the Charlie Brown Christmas show is still wonderful.

They’re not great.

My dad signed up somehow years ago. He doesn’t even have a printer anymore. He swears he’s canceled, but I keep seeing a monthly bill. They aren’t even sending him ink. Thanks for reminding me that I need to get the bank to stop charges.

I’ve had a Brother laser printer for years now. Zero regrets. I’m never going back to the ink jet mafia.

I’m not sure I realized that. Are you getting that info just from the app store, or are you detecting it somewhere else?

Podcast Addict has worked for years for me, and he’s constantly improving it. Why the fuck would I ever want a paid service to manage and profit on the podcasts I’ve always listened to for free?

And they make it tricky as hell to find the hobbyist license. I really hate this exploitative shit. Same for Adobe.

What do they think we’ve already been doing this whole time? It’s why we prefer to have the lights out in the office.

Ditto on the Arduino. I built a pickup winder for electric guitar, and it’s more than made up for its price in entertainment alone.