Windows 7, first released in 2009, now well out of the most extended of support. Glad to see security of medical records is a top priority.

Conflicts over language have been tied to other conflicts (political, cultural, war) for a very long time. Cultural genocide against indigenous people has targeted indigenous language use among young people. Many people in India have objected to the establishment of Hindi as a UN language because they fear it will advance the extinction of their own language. I’m not saying some Replacement Theory bigot kvetching because someone dared speak a language besides English is equivalent. It’s more that language does have a special place in culture in a way that is very common.

I like that Google supplies repair parts straight to iFixit back to the Pixel 2. It would be nice if it didn’t require melting glue to get to half of the components, but hey, baby steps. And the latest models out finally have a decently long support period for security updates.

Legally, yes. But you’re going to have a bad time if you don’t speak at least some English.

I wouldn’t say it’s a point of pride in the US usually, because it does make life difficult and limited. In the US, a lot of situations simply require English. It means relying on friends and family as translators, so the person can be at their mercy. They also can become very isolated within their immigrant communities while they watch the younger multilingual generations be able to integrate. My impression is that it is usually older people who struggle most learning English that remain in this group. I can’t think of anyone who is even vaguely younger who didn’t make an effort to learn English.

I remember a middle aged Iranian woman who was taking ELL courses at my university. We happen to be at the gym at the same time some nights. I could tell it was a struggle, but she was clearly picking up more of the language.

I used OkCupid for some dates before I found my now husband. It took quite a few dates on my side, but I just considered that par for the course. For him, I was his first date on OkCupid. For that matter, I was the first man that he dated, though he had dated a girl in high school.

Unfortunately, in the decade since we’ve met, I think both straight and gay oriented dating apps have probably taken a turn for the worse. We both had extensive, descriptive profiles and talked for a long time before meeting up. I keep hearing that the gay apps have turned into mostly hookup apps, but I can’t speak for straight apps.

It can be easy to forget about the rest of the world from a linguistically viewpoint. You can go over 4,300 miles from the tip of Florida to Wainwright, Alaska and never leave a predominantly English speaking region. Then worldwide, English has a billion second language speakers, so many places will have someone around who speaks English.

I wasn’t able to get a good read on it either. I didn’t spot anything obviously wrong from a technical standpoint, but I’m not a systems developer. It just doesn’t have much that distinguishes it on a non-technical level. The design is neat, but other OS projects like Redox have shot past it in a shorter period of time. That tells me something’s broken, whether it’s technical or social.

I tried Debian/Herd on a spare box. I think that lasted for what, a week? It was a less than complete experience, so I moved on to more fruitful experiments.

It’s

Every single person on the planet is aware of climate change

I’m still trying to get my husband’s uncle to get off his easy out of “well I guess it’s happening, but humans didn’t cause it.” He, along with a lot of other people, are in an echo chamber. Obviously plopping pigment on monuments isn’t going to do shit to convince them, but I don’t know what will.

In my previous job, I was asked to break focus every 15 minutes to check my email and see if one of my coworkers was falling behind on dealing with a queue of tasks, then pitch in if he was. I hated the job in general, but that in particular just ruined any possibility of productivity. Hard for anyone, near impossible for someone with ADHD. Then I got blamed for falling behind on my work. And for being disorganized (we didn’t have a ticket tracker, hmmm).

Then there are the rotting watermelons over in corner, expensive books that a professor in college required and then almost never used. And now they sit, unlovable and difficult to resell because a new edition has come out with the problems at the back of the chapter rearranged.

I loved that one so much! The only flaw really was that the tech tree is incredibly massive. It’s feels unnecessarily difficult to learn.

The battery issue isn’t just in devices that go obsolete. It is also in devices like bike lights where the original functionality never changes. And even in devices like a smartphone, phone battery life often drops off far before the useful life ends.

This is so hard to answer because so many of these things you don’t miss it until it’s gone. I’m going to say physical keyboards. Like, not that physical keyboards will disappear entirely, but I think they will continue to get much, much less common. I think a lot of people will miss the tactile advantage of a good keyboard, though.

One thing I think we’re in for a rebound on is how we deal with batteries. Currently, the paradigm for many devices is that manufacturers put a rechargeable battery in and that’s it. When the battery wears down or breaks, the device is done too. This can’t go on forever. It’s creating too much e-waste, expense, and pollution.

I think the deal that customers are getting from streaming services is probably too good to last, in general. It’s already starting to degrade, with companies all going to start their own streaming platforms with smaller and smaller catalogs. You have to really plan for what you want to see. The rise of exclusive shows really damaged things. Vertical integration like that hurts competition.

Some of the Portland parking garages downtown have them as well.

Yeah, I’ve been learning some nushell. If you’re dealing with data, it’s just a great tool. So many sharp edges in the POSIX shell come from it being stringly typed, so having a strongly typed shell is extremely helpful.

If you want to skip having a big ass bag full of liquids, many products are available in solid form. Toothpaste comes in tablets, shampoo comes in bars, and shave lotion also is available in bars. Then you can save your liquid quota for what really matters, like a wide assortment of personal lubricants.

I mean, I feel like I’m probably not going to be shot or macheted while in flight, so that’s nice. But yeah, I know it’s not great.