my friend, I want to impart something on you. I write this with the sincere hope it changes your mind.

The average user of a computer does not want to even think about the operating system it uses.

Most people, myself included, want to work on our computer, not work on our computer (which is why I use Mint). An operating system should be the software version of a motherboard – an invisible plinth upon which all the other things you actually care about, sit. In a hardware context the things you care about are all the components plugged into the motherboard – your GPU, CPU, RAM, storage devices, and so on. In a software context, this is email, web browsing, video games, and office software, the programs the average user actually gives a shit about. Notice: Nowhere in that list does it say getting up into the systems guts via terminal or command prompt or whatever flavor of blinking cursor you prefer. Most users just want their programs to run and to never think about the underlying system, and that is okay. Not everyone needs to be technical, and shouldn’t have to be to use a computer and reap the full benefits of using one. I choose to be because I’m a fucking spaz, but that doesn’t mean someone who doesn’t want to be should instead be condemned to inferior offerings from the likes of Microsoft and Apple. If Linux were, indeed, the best – as Microsoft seems determined to prove via Windows enshittification – then it should be, ideally, just as easy for nontechnical people to pick up as Windows. If it isn’t, that’s a problem with Linux that is yet to be solved, not a problem with people.

Fortunately, my experience using Mint for the past year has been largely exactly that. It’s very close to that ideal, if not already there – I’ve had a few very minor issues, but, nothing I was unable to fix via a quick internet search.

I say all this in the hope you’ll understand, if you want Linux to take off, it needs to be accessible to the average idiot. It must be, because I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but we are not cumulatively getting smarter.

you know that article is dated September 28th 2023, right?

now, I’m not saying Israel doesnt have a history of acting like bastards, but that’s just a wee bit before they started ethnically cleansing the Gaza strip.

who says I think Germany would be on our side?

at this rate, the US is looking more and more like it’ll jump into bed with Russia than the rest of NATO.

thaaaaank you, that’s goin’ in the seedbox

what is this from I must see this immediately

also, yoink.

That is absolutely gonna be a relevant gif in the near future, I can just see it.

I’d like to believe they’ll kick the Nazis out of the bar before they reach the levers of true power, but I’m American and you see how well having that naive hope went for us.

Having said that, I imagine the Germans are at least slightly more cognizant of the risks involved than we are. Difference between “It can’t happen here!” and “It has already happened here and it was bad.”

for the first time, Germany possibly gets to be the “good guys” in a world war! Quite a turnaround.

I’m already judging you, if it makes you feel better.

low effort crap is low effort crap no matter how it’s made, that said, there is plenty of high quality, high effort AI art out there that has a lot of prompt engineering put into it; it is merely drowned out in a sea of sludge. It’s just about as easy for someone to put in zero effort and churn out AI sludge as it is for them to scribble in MSPaint, the difference being scribbling in MSPaint usually has some level of charm to it for its simplicity. That doesn’t mean the guy who spends a lot of time tweaking their prompt to get it exactly right isn’t an artist, it means they create art with different tools. Whether you use a rattlecan and stencils, or pencils and paper, or paint and canvas, or a wacom tablet and stylus, or type in carefully crafted prompts, art is art is art is art. But if you don’t spend the time required to get good at it, your art will be shit.

Also, watching the artist crowd melt down again saying “that’s not real art!” is absolutely hilarious. Those who weren’t around at the time may not remember, but when digital art was starting to become a thing, there were plenty of people who firmly attested that if it was digital, it wasn’t “real” art. Watching the same set of creatives having the same meltdown ~30 years later, “REEEEE YOU CAN’T JUST USE TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE THE PROCESS EASIER”, is extremely funny.

fair enough, I only switched to Linux last February. I do remember it being an absolute pain in the ass in the mid 2010s, I’ve tried linux a few times over the years. But insofar as now goes, on Mint, the terminal is much the same as the command prompt or PowerShell in windows – nice for power user functionality, but generally unnecessary for the average user.

I mean, legitimately, unless you’re doing power user things, you don’t really need the terminal. And if you are doing power user things, then find me a Windows power user that has never used the command prompt or powershell.

sure looked like a concession to me, sport. also, “homophobic”? Lmfao. We were talking about animal fetishists, not gay people – further, I’m gay. Wanting to fuck your own gender is a recognized (and in some places protected) sexual orientation, wanting to fuck animals is not. It’s okay, I still forgive your stupidity. Better luck next time, champ.

This guy says that like “bombing Yemen” isn’t a de facto tradition for U.S. presidents. I’m pretty sure every president since Clinton has bombed Yemen at some point during their term. It’s old hat. It’s not news. It was Tuesday.

Like, sure, it’s terrible and no one will deny that, but we’ve been doing it for 20+ years. This? This clownfuckery? This was new.

I accept your concession. bye then! better luck next time!

god, I miss when Ubisoft weren’t shit

can’t wait for them to go bankrupt. Then we can have another good Far Cry game, hopefully, when the rights are snapped up at auction.

It’s adorable you think “fair” matters at all to these people.

If anything, they’ll give him breaks to take emergency shots.

The entire reason for furry porn is that the furries are more human than animal

really? then I have a wild concept for you, something even more human than furry porn: actual fucking human beings, you brainlet. If you were attracted to humans, you’d beat off to humans. by virtue of choosing to beat off to furry porn, you are clearly attracted to and therefor fetishizing animals. that isn’t “a weird puritanical view”, that’s simply an evident truth to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. But it’s okay, I forgive your stupidity.

so IDK what your goal here is other than yelling at people different from you.

I’m supposed to have a goal? that’s news to me. All I did was answer the question that some of us dislike being associated with animal fetishists, in response to someone else asking why a linux user wouldn’t want to be associated with them. At which point you promptly got offended on behalf of all animal fetishists and tried to spin it as being something other than what it is, and I don’t care to indulge your fantasy. If you want to delude yourself, that’s your problem, but nobody else is obligated to play along, least of all me – and if you don’t like it, then find another hobby, my guy, preferably one that isn’t disgusting. c:

feel free to keep being a salty degen though, too, it is funny to watch.

jesus christ they’re dumber than they look, and this administration already regularly looks like morons.

I am of the personal opinion that life is a meat grinder, and we’re the meat. A small percentage of people are born or become lucky enough to turn the crank or load the grinder, but most of us will suffer, and that’s just the way it is because it has always been this way, for all of human history, and will presumably continue to be so. There is no why. There just is.

Why you keep askin’ me that? Where his holiness does his business, is his business.