You do realize that the humongous, vast, overwhelming majority of the federal workforce is not made up of elected officials and political appointees, right?

The federal government is the United States’s largest employer.

You don’t think federal employees get healthcare from the same providers as everyone else?

Windows ‘just works’? What about all the programs crashes that you need to go through endless YouTube tutorials to fix? What about having to fill up a form and register your credit card for every closed source program you need to install?

I’ve literally never had either of these experiences with W10.

At least not in the past 5+ years.

Yes it was longer than that.

My main thing is that, then and now (based on discussions I read between users), most any user experience that I relate to seems to be equal parts:

“try to figure out the Linux equivalent of what you were doing in Windows and hope it’s compatible with the rest of your needs”

“Try to figure out how to get Linux to behave like Windows to accomplish something you did with that os”

“Become a hobbyist…programmer? IT specialist? And get familiar with tweaking and adjusting the details of how your computer works just to get it to do things you want”

Like…for people who enjoy it, I’m happy for them. Really! But I don’t want to have to familiarize myself with commands, learn how to boot things up, or learn a whole list of things just to get the simple mindless functionality I have with Windows from decades of time in the system.

I think back then I tried Debian, Ubuntu, and…is ‘OpenSUSE’ a thing? I even had a group of three friends who were all super into Linux encouraging me and helping me every step of the way, and I was young and technically inclined and happy to have a challenge…and in the end, I went right back to Windows after a semester or two of that, because I just found that my experience was, broadly speaking, “Enjoy a problem solving exercise in software management every time you want to do something, just to get to a basic level of function, with added quirks that you’ll just have to deal with…and little real benefit for the order of magnitude of extra effort”.

And while I’m sure some of that would have had to get better in the years between, most of the conversations I still see about Linux are enthusiasts enjoying coming up with solutions to the issues of using their chosen system. Which again, that’s fine, but I don’t want to have to become an enthusiast of an OS.

Given a choice between, “have to learn how to get the OS to do everything” vs “put up with data collection and some intrusive ads once in a while”… I’m happy to go with the latter to have things just work without having to learn a new skill set just to get the same level of functionality.

I’m happy to use W10 well after its official support ends, though I strongly suspect there will be significant extensions to that timeline. Even then, I’m happy to use it until it’s no longer the path of least resistance, at which point, I’ll reevaluate my options. When we get there, if it seems reasonable, maybe I’ll dip my toes into the Linux pool again.

Man, it’s a toss up for me as to which I hate more: Microsoft threatening and badgering me toward W11 (and by extension, a new computer) or Linux fanboys evangelizing for their preferred system.

Both are complete non-starters for me. I’m not buying a new machine while my current one does everything I need just fine… And after a few years of using Linux on my laptop back in college, I have no desire to set foot in that environment again either.

My perfectly good PC has an incompatible processor with W11, so I’m not upgrading.

I imagine it’ll still be just fine next October, so even if Microsoft doesn’t extend support for W10, I’ll still be using it.

My guess?

He’s far less concerned about the specifics of this situation and far more concerned about what happens if/when his Twitter is host to something horrible enough that people are calling for his head, and/or he is wanting to sell…or being pressured to sell Twitter…but there’s something specific he wants to stipulate in that transaction that a precedent set here might fuck up.

For a few years, it seemed like everyone I knew who has having a little girl was naming them after old presidents.

So many Kennedys and Reagans and Madisons…

My girlfriend at the time did really like “Madison”, but I told her if we were ever to have a little girl and we’re gonna name her after a former president, we’re gonna have a little Eisenhower running around.

She laughed (as was the intention) but agreed the trend was a little ridiculous.

It shouldn’t be concerning, it should be enlightening.

But it won’t be. Not for the party leadership.

Over the past 40 years they’ve gone from being the champion of blue collar and union workers nationwide, and being able to take those votes for granted…to having the rust belt become the biggest swing region in the country (which their opponent swept this month). Did they take this as a wake up call and do more for the blue collar voters to win their loyalty back?

Nah, they just blame them and talk down to them, and tell them they’re too stupid to know what’s best for them.

In that same time frame, they were seen as abandoning the blue collar worker to court the minority vote, talking their efforts at helping factory workers and turning them toward helping minorities in race and gender. While they were actually doing this they did indeed appear to gain that loyalty at the ballot box. Of course once they had it, they felt no need to keep up the good work for these people and have slowly become a party who does nothing for anyone, and runs on a platform of essentially admitting they do nothing, but that their inaction is better than the other side, so they should still be owed votes.

Once again, this isn’t working out for them, and once again, rather than take it as a rejection of what they’re doing, no…it’s the voters who are wrong.

I despise the GOP as much as any reasonable person, and I firmly believe that many of their voters won’t like what they voted for once they start to get it…but there’s no denying that the GOP has a message, goals, and demonstrable progress toward them. And to counter that…the Democrats have…“I think things are good and I wouldn’t change anything. You should vote for me because I’m not MAGA aligned, and if you don’t, it’s your fault not mine.”

Arrogance is off-putting, and it appears it’s going to take at least a half century for the Democrats to figure that out.

First, an explanation isn’t an excuse. It’s a reason. It doesn’t make it okay, it doesn’t place or shift blame, it just correctly points something out.

In this case, Trump broadly received the same number of votes as he did 4 years ago, while the Democrats got millions fewer.

There’s no assumption there, it’s just an observation.

It’s not pushing or assigning blame. Maybe they didn’t vote because they were lazy. Maybe they didn’t vote because they didn’t like Harris. Maybe they didn’t vote because they didn’t like the process by which she became the nominee. Maybe they didn’t vote because they’ve lost faith in the entire system.

Regardless of reason, and regardless of how any observer decides to interpret it or assign blame, the facts speak for themselves.

She does! But that’s her mouth haha.

I was taking a pic and she decided she needed to rub against my phone.

I mean, it’s all very subjective, so “too much” for you seems to be what is a good amount for everyone else…but realistically, I don’t think this is a legitimate complaint since you still need to be able to make all these adjustments anyway… it’s just a matter of the way the adjustments are being made.

All a touch screen changes is that it can play host to multiple functions depending on context…but it loses much of the visual recognition and almost all the tactile feedback of a physical control.

And while vehicles keep getting more and more complex for sure, I feel like when I’m riding in a more touchscreen heavy vehicle, that screen is displaying the same static set of controls 99% of the time…and at that point, the flexibility it offers is largely irrelevant, and the tradeoffs mean giving up a lot to get very little in exchange.

They get really spicy!

Disagree.

Personally, I feel the problem is absolutely touchscreens.

I’ve only got five senses, and taste and smell aren’t helpful in a driving situation.

Of the 3 left, sight is the most important for the most important task: driving.

For other tasks, sound is best used to alert or remind about something, and is frequently diminished as a driving aid by music.

That leaves touch and sight for all remaining tasks.

Touchscreens are, despite the name, effectively 100% reliant on sight, since there’s no real tactile feedback to enable the user to make eyes-free adjustments. To use a touchscreen, you have to take your eyes off the road to see what the screen says and make your selections.

While some are better than others, I also feel like touchscreens are still embarrassingly and frustratingly prone to errors, missed touches, and generally not doing the things the user intended, requiring even more eyes off the road to undo whatever actually happened, get the interface back to the place you want it, and try again, hoping that this time it’ll work.

My mid-teens vehicle has a mix of a medium sized touch screen for the entertainment unit but physical controls for climate, driving, and a few of the entertainment adjustments, and while I was all about the advanced new touchscreen when I bought it, I find it’s my least favorite part of the controls this far along in ownership.

“I want things to be worse for everyone who isn’t exactly like me.”

You’re the worst kind of person.

I feel like most people I have heard talking about them while supporting Trump seem to know that tariffs are taxes, but have no concept of how they play out in a real economic situation. Most fall into one or both of two camps:

A) Tariffs are taxes, but they’re taxes for companies not individuals, and they’re only applied to importing, so they won’t affect me.

B) Tariffs are taxes for foreign companies, to level the playing field and keep American business competitive. Since the companies that have to pay it are foreign, it won’t affect me.

Spoiler alert, guys: no matter where the tax is levied in the system, the consumer is the only person who ever pays for it, since they’re the only ones that can’t pass that cost on to anyone else.

Also, while this can make domestic competitors more competitive, it’s important to remember two things: first, if it works, it’s only working by making things more expensive for consumers, and second, this assumes that the domestic competitors want more business, have the ability and posture to increase their production to meet the new greater demand, and will operate in good faith. Much more likely is that they simply also increase their prices in reaction to the tariffs, so they’re not producing or selling any more volume and aren’t creating any jobs… they’re just padding their profit margins at the corporate/shareholder level while doing nothing for their employees, all while having the average consumer foot the bill.

That’s exactly what happened with the steel tariffs in the first Trump term and that’s exactly what will happen now…the only difference is that this time it seems like there will be significantly fewer economic buffers between the tariff and the consumer, so more people will more directly feel the sting here…and presumably the mental gymnastics from the MAGAts will be even sadder in their attempts to somehow make it not a criticism of their orange leader’s incompetence.

You sure they’re feigning?

It’s like you’re mentally incapable of reading a comment and responding to the words in it.

And that’s how you permanently destabilize a market economy!