A college class introduced me to “The Birth of a Nation” aka The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

Did you enjoy it?

Fuck no. It is a deeply messed up racist pile of shit.

It certainly opened my eyes to it’s place in history.

Since the film itself is best left to the trash heap of forgotten awfulness, here’s two points from Wikipedia that feel worth remembering:

• “the most reprehensibly racist film in Hollywood history”
• was the first motion picture to be screened inside the White House (for President Woodrow Wilson)

If I recall correctly, it has been released for moile on and off as experimental builds. Last time I grabbed an APK, it wasn’t ready.

Put any person who has zero computer experience in front of a windows computer or Linux computer and I doubt they would say the windows computer just works and the Linux one doesn’t.

I did this experiment on my own kids. They find Linux more usable, and find it hard to believe people tolerate Windows.

There’s also some indoctrination involved.

But they have access to both, and they prefer Linux. I think that the “Windows is genuinely easier” argument doesn’t hold any water anymore.

Sure, but it’s not quite the compelling argument it used to be.

Today, I’m not sitting here pining for old Linux software that stopped working. And the small amount of old windows software that did finally stop working actually works now only works on Linux with Wine.

That’s another of the decision points that finally switched to fully favoring Linux, for me, in the last decade.

There is such a law, but many of us feel that Microsoft has proven malice a few times, when it comes to open standards.

Linux Mint is so nice.

I would turn off “Secure Boot” in BIOS before doing the upgrade.

It officially works, but can throw in unnecessary challenges - and Mom probably isn’t traveling with national secrets next week anyway.

We can take action. We can grab the die that Joel McHale has tossed into the air.

I’ll wait and see if they can add some AI to it. But if they can, I’ll invest my entire life savings.

Yes. That’s what AI actually adds - plausible deniability.

My partner and I used to use location sharing pretty much 100% of the time. We just felt better knowing we could find each other.

But today, we do not, because the trust is shattered.

Google just cannot be trusted with our locations.

kindness seems pretty exclusive to white people.

I suppose big portions of history would nod quietly at this, if they could.

With maybe a clarifying note that the real goal was classism, and racism was just a convenient way to achieve more classism.

THANK YOU. I AM PLEASED TO JOIN THIS DISCUSSION AMONG FELLOW NON-ROBOTS.

" ((Candidate who Lost)) ((Previous Election Year))" bumper stickers after it has been a few years.

It feels needlessly divisive.

Although I saw a “Bob Dole '96” in the wild recently, and I kind of grudgingly admire that level of procrastination.

“We could be in serious legal trouble.”

“Don’t worry. My billions will protect me.”

Tbf, the tsp by default I believe throws your money in a G fund which is basically bonds iirc.

Most funds now default to a “target retirement date” type of fund that correctly offers stocks early and moves into bonds later.

please stop taking absolutely everything as a permanent debate.

But I think there’s a case to be made that everything is a permanent debate. Let me just paste a quick wall of text here on the topic…

Sorry. Just trying to make you laugh. I will see myself out.

I don’t see how even Amazon can try to kill the competition in a market that huge, regardless of price or convenience.

So I assume you wrote this after picking up groceries from your locally owned grocery store? Because you still have one - it didn’t collapse due to a Walmart coming to town?

Most of us have a solid example of what driving a grocery store out of business looks like, though.

“Not everyone in the union will celebrate this corporate partnership. Some members have legitimate concerns about tech giants shaping classroom priorities through financial relationships.”

When has a corporation and a Union ever not seen eye to eye?

(Please don’t answer. This is sarcasm. Otherwise RIP my inbox.)

Many firms are now slashing their number of new hires.

Yes. This sucks.

The main cause of this is artificial intelligence

Unlikely.

The main cause for a chill in hiring tends to be uncertainty about the future. And we know that folks are feeling high uncertainty about the future, right now. (Gestures broadly at current headlines in general and “Not The Onion”, in particular.)

Historically, uncertainty about the future is particularly high when the people have low confidence that existing and new laws will be applied in a predictable manner.

I’ll leave exactly what changed on that front as a thought exercise.

AI is interesting, but it is not the primary cause of the chill in hiring new graduates.

and the internet (in the current form) never gets developed.

based on my recent online shopping experiences, we may get there, soon.

It feels like nobody knows how to Java a Script anymore.