The ship was built as simply as possible and fueled with the precise amount needed for it’s weight, there was nothing else to jettison besides the young woman. The plot was intentionally structured around an impossible scenario because the editor of the magazine the story originally appeared in wanted to subvert the “engineer action hero saves the day with a clever idea” trope that was common when it was written. The heavily contrived scenario is the weak point by most people’s estimation, but overall the writing is well done and characterizations are very good.

The story bugs a lot of people due to the total lack of any safety margin for such an important mission as delivering emergency medical supplies. A guy named Don Sakers even wrote a rebuttal called The Cold Solution that was meant to point out a few things the original story overlooked without the idea of a bare minimum ship being changed.

I had intended the ‘Carry on’ as a sort of friendly valediction, but this was a fun bonus.

Well, that’s certainly a unique approach to dealing with a national crisis. Carry on.

And I suppose you’re the only one of those around, right? So why tear into people about the state of the US if, by your own admission, it’s probably a lost cause? There have to be better ways for you to kill time until the end.

Now who’s being defeatist?

Not that I don’t agree with you, but do you really think the elderly edgelord forum warrior shtick is the best play? Taking a point from your own posts, is it really a good idea to post content online that might alienate potential allies? Food for thought.

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Most of those things were products of earlier times, when our economic system and industries were more regulated and had a larger number of competitive entities. “Innovation” now is just more cupholders in the RV to put your chicken fries in. All flash, no substance. Everything is an AI wearable tacked on to something else we’ve already had for years.

EV battery tech, there’s some decent work being done there. A few other niche cases like that. But the rest is one big fucking con game. It’s all a race to find out how much money you can gouge out of people before the system just breaks.

I feel that the majority of innovation occuring in modern capitalism is confined to two key areas:

1. Regulatory capture and market control.

2. New ways to mindfuck people into overpaying for goods and services.

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Seconded.

I’ve got a pair of Skullcandy Mods. The sound quality is decent but not stellar, battery life is good, charge time is good and they feel pretty solidly made. Pretty good deal for $40 on Amazon.

I previously had some of their ANC overears that while not spectacular, were much better than I expected given the price point.

This. I just want to write something I’m somewhat satisfied with and have people appreciate it.

That’s pretty much it.

There are plenty of user friendly Linux distros out there and a bunch of them can serve as a daily driver for general computing. What’s more, the learning curve isn’t that steep and you can find tons of solid guides and tutorials out on the Internet.

But if Windows is working and you don’t care about the privacy issues, ads, and it’s general downward direction in user experience, there’s no motivation to switch.

Sadly, the whole “Linux is only for power users and nerds” misconception is going to stick around until Windows becomes all but unusable for most people.

I switched in 2021 and I thought the same then.

I have a few servers that I’ve put together, both towers and rack mount, that are fairly old in IT terms but would still sell for thousands used.

I pulled most of the parts out of the trash.

If you don’t mind a more military look, Maxpedition and Sandpiper of California have been my go to for a while.

I don’t, I stopped buying AAA games a long time ago. I stopped buying a lot of games in general, because this kind of greed and enshittification has sucked a lot of joy out of something that I used to enjoy. But that isn’t a fix for the problem.

A relative handful of boycots won’t do much in the face of manufactured demand and market dominance.

Just stop buying games is essentially the “don’t like it, leave it” argument. And if you simply leave quietly, little changes. This is a discussion that should be had, and not just about games. This business model is bad for consumers, it’s pervasive across many industries, and far too many people just swallow the bullshit most corps spew about it’s supposed advantages.

These issues need to be pointed out, this needs to be a subject of public discourse. It should remain in the public eye until consumer rights are respected. It’s not about just not buying games, we should be pushing for better options.

Wait, Gibbs is the least compelling character on the show. Maybe I just see things in a different light, but the only thing that separates this from a bog standard police procedural is watching all the other characters try to deal with the fallout from Gibb’s hollywood issue most-tragic-backstory-ever trauma and solving the mystery of why he hasn’t been shuffled off to a desk job where he can’t do much harm yet.

All of the supporting characters had more depth, development, and more relatable back stories.

EDIT: Mark Harmon is the executive producer, that explains everything. That should teach me to post without reading the full article, but honestly it won’t.

Yup, it’s easier for a user to justify a small purchase and lose track of how much they’re spending and that’s exactly why they do it.

It’s the same with in-app currency, they sell you 100 coins or gems or whatever for $2.99, then charge you 75 for the shortcut to the progression required upgrade. You don’t want to let a quarter of your money go to waste, so you’re more tempted to put another $2.99 down to utilize it and buy the next upgrade. Cue the leveling treadmill.

It’s a sort of weaponization of the study of human behavior IMO.

Yup, and as I said, it’s possible that I’m attributing these design changes to the wrong thing, but it’s hard not see them as greed driven when you consider what’s happening in other parts of our digital lives.