I vote in every election. New York has ranked choice for some things now, which is nice. The way judges are picked is pretty bad, though.

People may have heard of these things, but I don’t think most people could give an accurate description of what they are.

Yep. Place I’m at is in some sort of “hiring freeze”. They’re not replacing people who left. They also told the many (probably not strictly legal) contractors that they won’t be renewing them. It’s absurd.

What I was trying to get at is something can be worthwhile even if you don’t personally enjoy it.

Conservatism, probably. The whole in-group supremacy thing is pretty bad.

I think a lot about how “good” and “fun” are two different things.

You can have a game that’s a fascinating exploration of a theme that really unifies mechanics and story, but is an absolute downer of misery to play.

You can also have a game that’s a glorified slot machine with bugs, no real player input, and abusive monetization, but people’s brains light up playing it.

There’s some subjectivity of course, but sometimes I see games that are good at what they’re trying to be, but I don’t have any fun with them. Some people seem to demand those overlap all the time.

I use nano for quick edits. I don’t know more than the basics of vim, and don’t do a lot of editing on the terminal so I haven’t needed to.

Still on Linux. Updated to the new pop!_os LTS. It’s been pretty good. The new desktop environment has had a few quirks where I had to fuss with hitting alt+enter to get some games appropriately full screen, but generally it’s been good.

Worth it to be free of microslop

Ars is weirdly pro-windows sometimes , in the comments. I don’t read them as much as I used to.

Pop!_os has been fine for me. I’m not a tinkerer. It’s a machine for a web browser and video games.

Furthermore, if you are being paid the same but your productivity goes up, and the owner keeps all the new profits, you’re being robbed.

Cars ruin everything. The primacy of cars is upstream from a surprising amount of problems with modern life.

Off the top of my head …

• free public health care for all.
• forgive all medical debt
• free public education for all, including college.
• forgive all student loan debt
• universal basic income
• more public housing. Homes are owned by the people who live in them, or the state. No profit seeking private orgs.
• close the “buy borrow die” loopholes, where people get untaxed loans to access their wealth without paying taxes
• more tax on the wealthy
• look into making property tax progressive like income. That is, the first $nnn of your house is untaxed, the next chunk at some percent, the following chunk at a greater percent, and so on.
• all Republicans removed from office. They are barred from government positions for life, as well as any private role with decision making power.
• break up mega corps. Disney, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Their current leadership has their wealth seized, and they are barred from leadership positions for life.
• invest heavily in public transit and safety improvements to existing roadways. Cars are literally killing us as well as sapping our resources.
• mandatory profit sharing for employees.
• mandatory pay transparency
• maximum pay gap between roles. No more janitor making $7/HR while the CEO makes $300/hr
• accounting hijinks to pretend like your org made no profit, or “they’re not employees they’re contractors” are punishable by seizure of all wealth and a prohibition from similar roles for life
• come up with something so venture capitalist bros aren’t deciding the future, if the above doesn’t somehow fix it.

I keep seeing job posts that have requirements like “must be excited about AI tools”. If the shit was good people would be excited on their own.

It’s all slop from the worst, soulless, people.

Match group should be broken up.

Well surely you can agree that letting men into women’s change rooms

If the idea is that that’s a no-no because men are sexually attracted to women, then I must remind you that gay people exist.

If the idea is that men cannot be trusted, then there are many other spaces where men have power that should be examined first.

Skyrim. It was at best “fine” for me. I really dislike level scaling. The combat felt unsatisfying. I don’t remember the story. It’s not weird like Morrowind. The magic and enchanting was over-simplified.

But for many people it’s their grand joy. So I guess that’s good for them.

Did not expect caves of qud to be on anyone’s list, as I thought it was pretty niche.

I also really wanted to like the game, but it felt oddly empty. I wanted less lost in the wilderness, less static quests, more dynamic stuff to do and explore.

I have much respect for “it’s not fun for me” and less patience for “it’s bad”. Totally understand why you might not find the games fun.

I remember playing it at a friend’s house and thinking “quake is better”, but the four player local play on one game and TV was an overwhelming factor.