Good point. It’s really just a cheap key you have to have with you.

That’s one of the things Aldi brought with them when they came over to the US. I’ve always thought it was a pretty cool idea, though as inflation keeps going the 25-cent lock-in becomes less and less of a motivator. Maybe a good reminder, though.

The bottle filler is activated by proximity. I think that’s totally doable for the other part, too.

I don’t remember where I heard this, but someone a while back called America a “third-world country but with Walmarts.” And while the “third-world” moniker is a bit dated and problematic, I think the rest fits pretty well.

Strange New Worlds s1e6 “Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach.” Heavily adapted from Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

We are all the ones who walk away from Omelas on this blessed day.

Actually, I say “rat,” but the article immediately above this one in my feed is a scientific study about how rats are in fact quite altruistic.

I don’t begrudge anyone trying to get out of poverty. This is another failure of the system. Mangione struck against that system, and a different arm of the system struck back.

If the worker had been paid reasonably, if wages had not stagnated for the last three decades, if the ruling class didn’t demand infinite profit out of a finite system, neither event would’ve happened.

The real rat here is McDonald’s, making the reward money enticing by paying too poorly.

“Run and buy that turkey in the shop window and I’ll give you a shilling!”

“For what reason do you want a turkey on your Arch Linux, sir?”

This is such a bad editorial it isn’t just the worst one of the year, it’s on the short list for worst oped of the century. Right up there with the guy who said that we should replace libraries with Amazon stores.

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If I recall correctly, some companies can also add additional benefits that are paid for by the employer but administered through the insurance company. I don’t know if that might be what happened here.

That doesn’t mean we need to help them with their propaganda.

Being targeted by the FBI as a way to show action being taken.

Or weird nerds doing the Smithers thing.

Yes. And also there’s no way to reasonably do that anytime soon; our infrastructure just can’t turn on that dime. Electric cars are the bridge, particularly when charged via renewables.

frankly I think that focusing on helping the bottom end of the economic ladder is more productive than just talking about how it should be illegal to have more than a given amount of wealth.

Agreed. Generally easier to sell to the public, too.

That said, there’s also a bunch of stuff that wealth hoarding and extreme capitalism will still cause problems with, which isn’t directly tied to people living in extreme poverty. Climate change is just one example. Infrastructure is another. There are collective challenges that we can’t meet because of wealth disparity.

Maybe we just need to assign billionaires goals to achieve. “Hey, Elno, reduce world hunger sustainably over the next four years by 15% or we take all your money. Jeffy boy, you’re on housing; get us to zero homelessness before 2030, or we’re nationalizing Amazon. Oil execs, you get to tackle greenhouse gas emissions (I mean, you made the problem, you get to solve it). We’re replacing half of the gas stations in the US with fast charging stations, and we’ll sell off 1,000 a year to private owners; get us to net zero emissions and you get to have whichever of them the Federal Government still owns by that point. Whichever one of you chuckleheads gets done first gets all the other guys’ beach houses. And go!”

No. I mean the push to switch away from Windows 7. Windows 8 was released in 2012, which is when Microsoft began pushing users to switch. The end of extended support is almost a footnote; it doesn’t even register as a blip for most users. It’s the release of the successor that begins the big marketing push.

I don’t think so. The big switchover push for 7 (like what’s happening now with 10) happened in 2012.

When Windows 7 reached EOL in 2012, ChromeOS wasn’t even a year old, MacOS was too expensive, SteamOS wasn’t close on the horizon, tablets weren’t really usable, smartphones were severely underpowered, and most applications didn’t have web-based versions or replacements.

This time around, none of those things are true, and Windows 11 lost market share last month (which is frankly unprecedented).

Plus, even with that dearth of options, people griped and complained and refused for so long that Microsoft made a big marketing deal out of Windows 8.1. And even after that, they offered Windows 7 users free Windows 10 licenses to get them to upgrade.

Linux probably won’t get the crown (though I’d say a bump as high as 1-2% isn’t out of the question). It’ll probably be ChromeOS, if anything, simply because of the commanding lead Google has held for the past decade or so in K12. But in any case, if Microsoft doesn’t shift their strategy, they’re unlikely to win this one; there are a lot of options.

That’s not completely accurate. Remember, a lot of people want a full keyboard for typing; and an iPad with a keyboard is way more expensive than a mid-range Chromebook. Plus, a whole generation of students are growing up and entering the workforce having used nothing but ChromeOS for their entire middle school and high school careers; for them, a Chromebook feels very familiar.

Microsoft is VERY close to losing every install advantage they have. Gaming, corporate, devops, and government are the only use cases their leads are still in any way commanding in; and they’re fiddling while Valve puts the finishing touches on Steam OS, they’re about to lose their tenth consecutive K12 graduating class who will go into the workforce more familiar with ChromeOS than Windows, devops is increasingly moving toward web portals, and government…well, let’s face it, that’s not a particularly lucrative single game to win.

Google has already eaten Microsoft’s lunch and dinner. And now they’re about to split Windows’ breakfast with Valve. Unless they make some major changes, and quick, Microsoft is going to go into the 2030s less relevant than they’ve been in decades.