I’m not sure if this is a boring dystopia story. What I read is the story of a gullible man with no concept of saving for rainy days who struck it rich and lost it all. Sad, but hardly anybody’s fault but his.

See? Like all the others who posted the exact same comment before you, I managed to troll you.

Your statement is slightly disturbing because it implies buying a child is somehow normal.

Well, 14 states currently ban abortion. I am not a woman, but if I was and of child-bearing age, I would move out in a hurry.

I know it’s easier said than done for a lot of folks for a lot of reasons, but besides the risk of having to carry out a pregnancy I did not want for whatever reason, and having to go through that particular hell, I would be ashamed to live in a state that treats women like that.

The is the America trump wants you to have.

Surely you meant “This is the America you live in right now”.

There’s no wanting involved. The deed is done.

At least in this case, the baby boy now has a chance to have a normal life and is not in danger anymore. If there’s anything comforting to take away from that sad story.

that’s some top-notch contract writing.

You jest, but for all its faults, this “contract” is a lot clearer and to the point than most real contracts and EULAs I’ve ever had the misfortune to review.

Well if you say so, I defer to your higher authority on bullshit.

Not cheers, no. But it increased my problem-solving reputation within the company and it made Linux more appealing to key people in the company.

What’s wrong with that? What’s your butthurt? Are you bitter about something?

Well I’m sure they have very good reason and I’m not questioning them. I’m just talking from a user’s standpoint (and I’m a very poor Windows users): whenever I try to port any of our tools to Windows, wham the damn antivirus kicks in and puts my stuff in quarantine. If I use an engineering application that talks to some device on an unusual port - and I’m talking outgoing traffic, not incoming, wham it’s blocked. And unblocking it requires making a formal request to IT, that whitelists the application, until WithSecure updates itself and forgets about it, and here we go again.

It’s just a complete PITA. You constantly feel like you’re fighting an algorithm with stupidity built in just to get normal, honest-to-goodness work done.

The DoJ will never touch EMV. They’re much, MUCH more entrenched and powerful than even Google. They literally control payments worldwide - the very fabric of society. No government in the world wants to touch that rat’s nest with a 10-foot pool, because if payments start to show even a hint of added friction, it can literally bring down a country’s GDP.

That’s why EMV has been allowed to operate virtually unchecked, and dictates who gets to be on their network with zero pushback - especially since the people EMV strikes off their network are usually people the government would like to get rid of too, like Wikileaks. So the powers that be are very happy to maintain the status quo.

A true case of fascist-style collusion between the state and the private sector. This cartel will never be broken.

EMVCo has been a terrible monopolistic cartel for decades. They literally control who gets access to the payment network and they can cut you off instantly without a court order - virtually holding the ability of every company on Earth to conduct business at their mercy: if they don’t like you, you’re dead.

EMVCo is the most egregious and most dangerous global cartel nobody is talking about. And the DoJ only figured that out now? Justice is not just blind, it’s also asleep.

Not to mention, do you really want to eat somewhere where the food is prepared by people with a grudge? Because let me tell you, if I was forced to work anywhere for free, I’d do my best to botch the job six ways to Sunday.

24 dollars a month. […] we were paid

10c an hour. I can totally see how this is not slave labor.

I’ll tell you what made it slave labor: could you quit that job?

This can happen because, while slavery was abolished in 1865, the 13th amendment has a big loophole that carves out an exception to allow forced labor as a form of punishment - although 4 states recently rejected it.

In other words, McDonald’s is a slaver. If you don’t agree with slavery, don’t patronize McDonald’s.

Define normal…

If you go by the definition of being the most common thing, the current surveillance capitalist dystopia is literally the new normal.

What you mean is that you feel it shouldn’t be normal. And you’re right. But sadly, it is now undeniably the norm.

The TOR network itself is safe - at least assuming the TLAs don’t control at least half of the nodes, which is far from impossible. But let’s assume…

The weak point comes from the browser: that’s how the fuzz deanonymizes users. The only safe browser to use on TOR is the TOR browser, and that’s the problem: it disables so many unsafe functionalities that it’s essentially unusable on a lot of websites. So people use regular browsers over TOR, the browser leaks identifying data and that’s how they get caught.

I think it was worse befor

I didn’t say it was a new thing. Every time I read the news or open a hisoty book, I’m hit by a wave of nausea, How can a species this evolved be this terrible?

And the shame is, while I try to be a decent person, I’m still one of them.

I am ashamed to be part of the humane race.

Funny you should ask: I installed Debian 32-bit on an old Asus Eee PC netbook yesterday to breathe new life into that old machine and turn it into a controller for a piece of test equipment we have at work. My company keeps old stuff like that around until space is needed in case someone needs something.

Just in case I had to modify something in the tester’s control software, I figured I’d install i3wm and Vim. It didn’t take long and I was surprised by how usable the machine ended up being. Honestly I wouldn’t have minded using it as a bone fide laptop for light-duty work on the go.

So basically keep your expectations low and install super-lightweight software, and your old Aspire could live a few extra productive years instead of going to the landfill.

I have small flower stickers that I use on my car to cover nicks in the paint and prevent rust without having to do a full paintjob. As my car gets older, it gets more and more flowery 🙂

I would use the same thing over an unwanted logo on a prosthetic limb: if you can’t remove the tattoo, at least make it your own, and a sticker can be peeled off.