The ship was built as simply as possible and fueled with the precise amount needed for it’s weight, there was nothing else to jettison besides the young woman. The plot was intentionally structured around an impossible scenario because the editor of the magazine the story originally appeared in wanted to subvert the “engineer action hero saves the day with a clever idea” trope that was common when it was written. The heavily contrived scenario is the weak point by most people’s estimation, but overall the writing is well done and characterizations are very good.

The story bugs a lot of people due to the total lack of any safety margin for such an important mission as delivering emergency medical supplies. A guy named Don Sakers even wrote a rebuttal called The Cold Solution that was meant to point out a few things the original story overlooked without the idea of a bare minimum ship being changed.

“The person in front of me looks innocent…”

Most of them do.

In the documentaries there’s always a neighbor saying “He was the nicest guy, we never suspected he could do something like this.”

I’m no psychologist or sociologist, but it seems that most of the people who treat their kids this way had kids because of external expectations or for status. They treat their kids like property or as an extension of themselves. Raising them to be cis no matter what is not about their child’s well-being, it’s about how having a trans child makes them look in the eyes of their bigoted, greedy, status-seeking, peers. When their kids come out as trans, they see this as a personal attack on their place in the pecking order.

In general, they treat even their cis children like shit, because they don’t think of their children as people, children are just assets in what they think is some kind of cosmic dick measuring contest.

It’s incomprehensible because it’s pathological and generally sick.

He knows. He knows it’s bullshit. He doesn’t care that it’s bullshit. It gives him and people like him more power, and that’s all he cares about.

I had intended the ‘Carry on’ as a sort of friendly valediction, but this was a fun bonus.

Well, that’s certainly a unique approach to dealing with a national crisis. Carry on.

And I suppose you’re the only one of those around, right? So why tear into people about the state of the US if, by your own admission, it’s probably a lost cause? There have to be better ways for you to kill time until the end.

Now who’s being defeatist?

Not that I don’t agree with you, but do you really think the elderly edgelord forum warrior shtick is the best play? Taking a point from your own posts, is it really a good idea to post content online that might alienate potential allies? Food for thought.

Aside from the occasional hit show, the real product is the illusion of choice.

The problem is that the more you fight change, the more you change things. Your movement becomes more and more focused on resisting change, and less focused on preserving any good qualities it once had. It’s an inescapable bit of futility, hard coded into the human condition.

And they’ve even got one that leaves his shirt untucked! Definitely a wide range of experience and viewpoints in this squad.

Most of those things were products of earlier times, when our economic system and industries were more regulated and had a larger number of competitive entities. “Innovation” now is just more cupholders in the RV to put your chicken fries in. All flash, no substance. Everything is an AI wearable tacked on to something else we’ve already had for years.

EV battery tech, there’s some decent work being done there. A few other niche cases like that. But the rest is one big fucking con game. It’s all a race to find out how much money you can gouge out of people before the system just breaks.

I feel that the majority of innovation occuring in modern capitalism is confined to two key areas:

1. Regulatory capture and market control.

2. New ways to mindfuck people into overpaying for goods and services.

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Seconded.

I’ve got a pair of Skullcandy Mods. The sound quality is decent but not stellar, battery life is good, charge time is good and they feel pretty solidly made. Pretty good deal for $40 on Amazon.

I previously had some of their ANC overears that while not spectacular, were much better than I expected given the price point.

This. I just want to write something I’m somewhat satisfied with and have people appreciate it.

That’s pretty much it.

There are plenty of user friendly Linux distros out there and a bunch of them can serve as a daily driver for general computing. What’s more, the learning curve isn’t that steep and you can find tons of solid guides and tutorials out on the Internet.

But if Windows is working and you don’t care about the privacy issues, ads, and it’s general downward direction in user experience, there’s no motivation to switch.

Sadly, the whole “Linux is only for power users and nerds” misconception is going to stick around until Windows becomes all but unusable for most people.

I switched in 2021 and I thought the same then.

I usually recommend Mint, Zorin, MX Linux and Pop OS starting out. But since Linux is free, all it costs you is time and energy if you want to shop around. DistroWatch.com has an expansive database of distributions.

There’s a lot of good reading material and tutorials out there. And while you might find some folks who can be dismissive or elitist in the community, genuinely helpful and friendly people are out there too, so don’t be afraid to ask for help.