There’s 7digital, which has a music store offering DRM-free MP3 downloads, as well as FLAC for many selections.

Linux requires tinkering and Windows doesn’t? Is that some alternate-universe version of Windows? In my experience, the difference is social/psychological. When Windows fucks up, “everybody uses it,” so the blame falls on the masses, not the user, who was just going along with what’s normal and expected. People sort of mentally elide memory of the Windows fuck ups, because that’s just how Windows is.

Linux is different and weird, and you have to stray from the herd to use it. Straying from the masses is scary, because when Linux fucks up, it’s your fault for being contrary. That threat to one’s place in the social order is quite memorable. Hence the reluctance of Windows users, who hate it, to even consider trying another OS that they know nothing about.

I never switched from Windows. I never used Windows as my main OS. I had an Amiga, then learned Unix on SunOS, so I was used to being weird. Once I got a PC, I used FreeBSD. It did require a lot of fiddling back in those days, and when I got tired of that, I switched to Ubuntu, which was amazing in that it Just Worked™. (Aside from manual installation of the Windows driver for the PCMCIA WiFi card with NDISWrapper.)

(I still do tinker with it, and sometimes break it, but the base OS has been rock solid. I noticed the other day that my main PC was installed with Ubuntu 18.04, and upgraded to 24.04.)

Laboratory instruments controlled by shitty software that’s somehow tied to a particular version of Windows, and won’t work with 11. And, of course, the manufacturer won’t update it, because they’d much rather you drop a quarter million on the new model.

There’s a reason New Yorkers hate going to Times Square :]

They’re privacy-conscious and don’t want to appear in stock footage?

Crikey, very well-written and well-reasoned! I would just add:

(4)(b) Human have perfect information about the world.

In order to make rational choices, producers and consumers need perfect information. This also ignores so much of reality. Again, there are so many examples, but even in a simplified model transaction of buying a loaf of bread includes so many variables that it would be impossible to know them all: All of the bakeries offering bread, the prices they ask for their loaves, the sensory quality of the bread, the nutritional quality, the bakeries’ food safety standards, and so on. Imagine trying to investigate the food safety record for the producer of each item in your typical grocery cart—an impossibility.

Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what people say, the truth will reveal itself no matter one’s feelings about MAGA or liberals. Whatever people have said about other politicians, I’ve been watching the President’s mental state deteriorate in a manner congruent with the progression of dementia since the early signs in his first term. And, for the record, no, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be gone soon. The life expectancy after diagnosis is years; he might die before the end of his term, or (with the best care in the world) he might not. We’ll see about Schumer, too. I haven’t seen any dementia symptoms in him, but I haven’t paid any attention to him, either.

But Trump was showing early signs of dementia during his first term. He’s showing signs of rapidly-advancing dementia now. Non-dementia health claims about other politicians without evidence in no way discredit the claim that he’s visibly declining with dementia symptoms. The difference here is evidence. (And is it really an improbable that an elderly President would suffer dementia in his second term, and that his staff would try to cover it up?)

That’s weird, even by hyperbole standards. Which politicians, exactly? I’d only heard it about Biden, because Repiblicans project enough for an IMAX multiplex.

Seems like Germany could save a lot.of.money by not building lanes that you’re not allowed to drive in!

That’s utterly ridiculous. If the highway has three lanes, it’s because on average there’s too much traffic for two lanes. That’s why they added a third lane. What—the left lane is for passing, the right lane is for cruising, and the middle lane is for decoration?

I’m forced by the government to give up a bunch of money so that people can feel important rolling around in their $50,000 toys with heated seats and entertainment systems, while simultaneously destroying the planet.

C’mon, so lame. I mean, I agree with the comments saying that being obsessed with a war is dumb, but obviously the right answer would be the Thirty Years War. Far more factions, more casus belli, more fights. Plus, it bolstered German nationalism, which led pretty directly to the Great War, which led to World War II, so those are technically part of its history.

But maybe I’m biased, because my surname originated in the Huguenot diaspora?

It’s no use. Resistance is futile.

Signed,

Someone Who Raged Against the Destruction of “FUD” Back in the Day

But, here’s the kicker, if we don’t know anything about this other plane of existence, then how can we know that our universe couldn’t spontaneously arise from it without the intent of a creator? That’s the crux of the question: We have a mystery about the origin of our existence, and “solving” the mystery by saying, “God did it,” is just sweeping the mystery under the rug and pretending it’s not there. What OP was able to see at 7 or 8 years old was that the mystery was still there, but with an unexplained extra step added.

No.

This is kind of like asking a man being attacked by a bear, “When did bears become your whole thing?”

With all due respect, you’re telling on yourself.

Aww, 1990’s memes give me the warm-fuzzies. We can’t have the economic prosperity anymore, but we can still pretend that men are all simple-minded goons and women don’t like sex.

Here’s the thing, though, this guy isn’t one of “us.” I didn’t egg him on, or help plan. I only knew Kirk from the tiny-face memes. The nebulous “we” isn’t responsible; the shooter doesn’t seem to have had a network radicalizing him. He’s the proverbial lone wolf. That means he’s exactly the kind of unpredictable, stochastic agent that I’m saying is out there in the world to provide the fascists their justification.

They were gonna do it, anyway. They were just waiting for an excuse. Any excuse. In a world as big and complex as ours, probability would have provided them with some pretext sooner or later. As we can see, they don’t know anything about the shooter, or his ideology. It’s just an excuse. If the world didn’t provide them one, they’d manufacture it. Walking around on eggshells and trying to avoid giving them one was never tenable.