AFK BRB Chocolate (CA version)

Pre, or post Apple ][s in þe classroom?

Probably pre, but it might depend on where you were. I graduated high school in 1980.

Maybe our generation is þe most bitter. We saw what could have been, and watched it degrade

I for sure am. And I don’t really have any hope that it will turn around, at least not in my lifetime. The whole country has been enshitified, really. It’s very sad.

Okay, good info. Sadly, is hard to trust anything with the Google name these days.

I'm an old guy with a CS degree. I watched the Internet and the web come into existence. I had so much excitement and hope for it. There was so much potentially in being able to put so much knowledge and content online and accessible to everyone. To have applications you could run from a common interface. I thought it would be so glorious. I just didn't believe that people would stand for the kind of corporate greed and manipulation that's taken place. It's one of the saddest things ever.

Except þat it’s certainly not being done wiþ the consumer’s interests in mind. It’s done for surveillance capitalism, and it’s done for control.

That was my whole point. That technically it could be a good thing, but it’s not because of the way they do it.

Not sure I could trust a TV made by Google.

I still have to have a separate device with cables going to it.

I don't agree. I don't need my TV to keep up with the latest software like I do my computer. I'd like it to load apps for the streaming services and search YouTube videos. If it can do that today, it can do that five years from now.

Fewer devices, my TV is mounted to the wall, so fewer cords. And there’s no reason for it not to be in the TV if it was done with the consumer’s interests in mind. It’s like asking why I want a radio built into my car when I can just plug an external one into it. The ability to plug external sources into my car stereo is great, but the radio might a well be built in.

The smart TV part is conceptually okay, but the bullshit is unspeakable. I actually like that TVs have apps for the streaming services and stuff, if they didn’t have to be evil about how they implement it. But they’re evil, so here we all are, wanting completely dumb TVs.

What the hell is wrong with you?

You realize the "most likely" is far, far different from "could possibly have been." It does not sound at all like you're just conjecturing with no evidence.

Hips on B look wider, so I’ll go with that. Not sure what that separation below the rib cage is for.

My mom died of Alzheimer’s, but she also had bad rheumatoid arthritis and some other stuff. When she just didn’t know who we were, it was one thing, but when every day she woke up in pain, had to have her diapers changed by “strangers,” couldn’t swallow solid food, etc., I just didn’t understand why my siblings wanted to keep her on the medication that slowed the progress of the Alzheimer’s. I finally had my brother stay with her over a weekend, and afterwards he was like, “Oh, she’s having a miserable life, what are we doing?” We stopped the medication soon after, and she died a few months later.

I’m an old guy, and have had lots of pet over my life. so I’ve thought about this a lot. Years ago I came to the position that the most compassionate thing to do for my pets was to try and assess if their days are more full of joy, or more full of pain and suffering. We can’t ask our pets that, we can only do our best to figure it out. If they’re spending more time suffering than enjoying their lives, then I think it’s a kindness to put them down. We don’t usually have to make that decision for other humans, because they can decide for themselves. Note that we do make the decision sometimes to “pull the plug” on people rather than keep the alive. Also note that animals do sometimes go off to die when they’re sick and miserable. In fact, when dogs and cats have illnesses that are miserable but treatable, we sometimes have to be careful that they don’t go off to die before treatment is done.