I should preface everything I’m about to say by saying there is probably a reason you are married and I am not, and that my response is probably wrong.

I lived a somewhat similar experience during his first presidency and COVID. Personally, I would have the most issues with my partner. By ignoring the abhorrent behavior and decisions of their family and choosing to interact with them anyway, they are condoning what their family is doing. Even if they are somewhat vocal in their disagreement, the family is avoiding the consequences of their actions since the spouse is still giving them what they want.

If my spouse shut them down and called them on all of their bull shit, I’d probably be OK with them continuing the relationship, but most people aren’t willing to do that.

Great addition. That was what was kinda in my head, but I didn’t state it explicitly.

You aren’t wrong, but I still see two distinct benefits assuming there is an IR reflective or absorbent coating that can interfere with facial recognition.

• For non government entities it makes direct tracking of individuals much harder (i.e. if you decide not to carry your phone or smart device any one company probably doesn’t know who you are).
• For government entities it’s about making their job harder and increasing the error rate. You are right that they can still track someone via those means, but any time they have to correlate data or use multiple sources it does become more resource intensive in some way.

Realistically will either of the above matter? Probably not. For it to be effective a large portion of the population would need to care about their privacy, or even their principles above convenience, which they usually don’t. However, I can’t control what other people do, only what I do. So in this kind of situation I do my best to be a good example of the behavior I would like to see from others and do my best to not contribute to the Prisoner’s Dilemma or Tragedy of the Commons.

It’s not much, arguably it’s basically nothing, but it’s what I have.

I refrained from talking about the gender role thing because per the post title it didn’t seem like a prejudice perse, even if related. It’s also a topic I always try and preface with stating that although the symptoms might be fairly plane and apparent the cause is very complex and nuanced and a result of a lot of different societal pressures and influences. Partially because it is very easy to paint someone talking about it as a red pill misogynist if that nuance is ignored. I also try and point out that this ultimately isn’t a gender issue or any other tribalism type thing, but merely a result of human nature. People are shitty sometimes. That’s universal.

In my experience, there are a lot of women that are very vocal about equity and equality, especially in relationships. However it’s often fairly unidirectional. For example they want their partner to be able to do things like cook, laundry, dishes, etc (which I can do, I think that’s part of being a well rounded person), but they don’t have much interest in learning how to do the traditionally male coded household tasks. Or they don’t want to be the one to approach and ask me out, I always have to be the one to pursue. Similarly in the bedroom I have never met a woman who is dominant or willing to try, despite the fact that I am very switchy.

In talking to these people and pointing out how their personal desires and behavior don’t align with their actual decisions and behavior they often default to, that’s just my personal preference.

That’s nice, but who cares? It’s not fair to have it both ways and ultimately feels like another form of pulling the ladder up behind them.

I have a lot of first hand experience with it via dating. In terms of outward Appearance and how I present I am an average looking straight cis white male. Mentally, in addition to being on the spectrum, that’s not really how I identify or am wired though. If anything, I’m probably more lesbian based on who I seem to get along with and am attracted to, lol.

As I am sure we are all (hopefully) aware there are a lot of men with very problematic behaviors (which is an entire other complex topic). As a result, within the liberal sphere I exist in it is very socially acceptable to shit on or otherwise have a negative bias against people that present like I do in a way that would not be acceptable if it were against another social group because of what they are.

I have had a number of interactions and conversations where my point of view/input/feelings/etc. were more or less dismissed or ignored by women when if I were a woman saying the exact same thing it wouldn’t be. I have also had people flat out say “that’s a very man thing to say” as a when what I am saying conflicts with their world view or how they feel and they can’t engage with it logically anymore.

Please note, I am leaving a ton of intricate context out of the above to try and avoid having to write a novel. I understand why women have the bias/reaction towards men who present like I do, and why it’s necessary. In the examples I am thinking of, these are women who know me, not strangers or randos. When discussing things I do my absolute best to have conversations in good faith and on the merits/logic of what is being said.

I don’t like pulling the autism card or saying that’s just how I feel, but I find that people are so unused to interacting with someone like me, rather than engage in the nuance of my experience and how it very much contradicts their world view, it’s much easier for them to find a reason to be dismissive of it. I also realize that from a third party perspective without any context my autistic behavior is indistinguishable from gas lighting.

Well, I’m mildly autistic with absolutely zero charisma, and follow through with my moral and ethical beliefs almost to a fault. I’m probably “smarter” than average, but nowhere near smart enough for it to offset any of the previously mentioned issues.

So I’d be dumb and charismatic at a minimum. Sounds like I’d be set for life and quite happy.

I can still find Unreal Tournament 99 game servers to play on. Now remind me Randy. What game engine are you licensing and using for your games? Unreal Engine?

Shut the fuck up Randy.

Graduated with an engineering degree just before the teens and have always had multiple round interviews :/

Quick question, you said air intake at the front bottom. Is that what the black oval at the bottom of your render is? Or is the black bar USB ports?

Oh snap, I found the user manual and it has a much better image

I know it’s super low resolution, but the Acer B300 desktop I found on their website in the Wayback Machine looks really close to your render.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030625223227/http://www.global.acer.com/products/desktop/index.htm

I can’t seem to find any other images of it though.

Not an answer but another idea for jogging your memory. I don’t know what PC magazines were popular in Germany, uhh well ever, but it’s not too hard to find archived copies of popular magazines here in the US from that time.

Here is a random copy of PC Magazine from some month in 2006.I didn’t see any PCs that matched your rendering, but there was an Acer Aspire that I had completely forgotten about.

https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf/PC_World_0606_June_2006.pdf

Really? Because I just got whipped with a switch or a belt when I had my little boy autistic meltdowns.

Have a look at Heliboard. It’s open source. To get swipe you have to import a component that is extracted from GBoard that doesn’t come with the app, but it can be acquired from… places.

This is one of the actually decent uses of this model. I have used Whisper to transcribe to phone calls, and just the other week I had to export the audio from a video I was working on to run whisper to get subtitles for the video. It’s still not a set it and forget it solution, but correcting it’s small mistakes here and there is so much faster than manually transcribing the audio.

Given how modular ffmpeg is with the way the switches work a user never has to interact with that portion of the application. I can technically use ffmpeg to trsnscode an mp3 without ever using the video components.

That’s what I’m sayin’! I’m mildly autistic and not very good socially. Even if I want to be there it can be difficult. Tending to the fire is a way I get to participate.

I’m an absolute slut for jackets and coats. I have more than enough to fit just about any weather or event, but I still get excited when I see one that is somehow slightly different than any of the other ones I have.

It would be nice if there was a way to use 2FA to unlock a phone. Using a password in combination with biometric or NFC token. That would also allow for the use of an emergency pin as well.

Oorah!

Not that I don’t think Bezos is a complete piece of shit, but he is no longer the CEO of Amazon.

Anyway, fuck Jeffrey Bezos.