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@hst3000
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abandonware should be public domain. force companies to actively support and provide products if they don't wanna lose the rights to them
Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don't want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for the 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago. Nobody who wants to play something for the purpose of retro gaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we're certainly not going to let the original dissappear. They're crying about opportunity cost for a product they're not even selling.
op i know you're probably talking about like, video games, etc, but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company's out of business, or the company decided to not maintain it, and it's a fucking nightmare. we have two windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware. one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research. part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make it difficult-to-impossible to convert those file types without their specific software. by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so that i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can't be converted.
for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.
so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post here and go "well op just wants old video games to play" (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and then close it off) but also this is critical for like. biomedical research. if y'all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.
Not allowing open source replacements for abandonware (or firmware for equipment operation in general) is like trying to stop a company making non-OEM gearing and belts for machinery.
explosion at health potion factory 0 dead 0 injured
Prayer Request
I don’t usually ask but I need prayers right now. The man I thought God had chosen for me to be my husband just broke up with me. I’ve never been in a position where I felt God speak to my soul like He did when I met this man. I was so happy and so thankful, but now I don’t know what to do. I know God doesn’t make mistakes so I’m wondering if I misinterpreted God, and that’s a hard thing to consider.
I also told my family about him, and I know they are going to mock and ridicule me because of this when I tell them it’s over. I haven’t been sleeping or eating for days because he’s changed and brought up breaking up. I just don’t know what to do, I’m so fearful I’m going to be alone forever and I just lost the love of my life.
the group chat when i ask whos available to hang out next week
Honestly this is one of the best formatted jokes of all time.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I 3.15 Destiny
For more information search for "Star Trek Rule 34"
The funniest part for me is that only the first three links are smut before you get to Ferengi rules of aquisition stuff.
Half the quote tweets on this tweet are just dragging her ass for saying this. Love to see it.
It is Men's Mental Health Awareness Month.
I swear to god it's so humid I'm thinking about throwing my bed away and setting up a hammock in my room, again.
I have to keep a window AC unit on full blast with 3 fans blowing just to not feel like I'm going to die of heatstroke from the damn humidity
A) make sure your mattress/box has clearance above the floor so air can get under it.
B) get air MOVING under it. Stick a fan down there shunting air beneath the bed and out the other side.
The amount of cooling that gets you is insane for the effort. Also invest in a dehumidifier; you can make the wet bulb temp (the temperature you feel) drop massively with one of those.
“we need to teach media literacy in schools” guys was i really the only person paying attention in english class bffr
I mean nowadays they don't teach it because 3/4ths of your classmates can't actually read.
Something something objectively funny crimes
15M÷8B ~= 0.19% of world population
9.10% (according to source) or 8.05% (276÷3428) of Billionaires
Someone who is Jewish is between 42 and 48 times as likely to be a billionaire compared to average.
It's almost like mutual community assistance and support along with strong emphasis on academic performance, hard work, productive work, and building generational wealth has knock-on effects.
Gosh, wouldn't it be weird if there were a bunch of ancient stories about Jews outperforming the locals because they followed God's commands, and the locals being salty about it.
Try throwing them into a furnace or a pit of angry lions. That's worked out great in the past. Those guys are still around, right?
Uhhh...neither is it Elon's fault either.
Just because someone is rich doesn't make everything their fault. I know this is a very hard concept for you people to understand, but for your own sake, try exercising your brain.
Musk is actually the reason a lot of people can afford groceries, because he invested in several companies that have been wildly successful and in turn provide thousands and thousands of jobs.
Not saying he wouldn't do well to pay his people more, but it's not like he's hoarding food or creating artificial scarcity to line his own pockets either.
That would be the governments who are members of OPEC doing that as one easy example.
Hate the guy all you like, maybe just try to have a logical reason for it if you can.
he is literally hoarding money: the power to buy resources. There is only so much money. Every $10,000 elon has is a $10,000 someone else cannot have. Having more money than he can spend is directly leading to someone else having less money than they need.
>the power to buy resources.
That's not money.
>Every $10,000 elon has is a $10,000 someone else cannot have.
Except OP is about Elon's net worth, which is almost entire stocks. Not actual cash.
Stocks increase and decrease in value without affecting the money supply all the time.
>Having more money than he can spend is directly leading to someone else having less money than they need.
How? Define the mechanism.
If Elon makes a few more bucks, is someone else going to check their bank balance or wallet and find they have less dinero?
"There is only so much money."
Tell me you're economically illiterate without saying it directly.
Elon is as wealthy as he is precisely because he is good at CREATING WEALTH. He runs companies that generate billions upon billions of dollars worth of wealth in the form of goods and services (Teslas, robots, starlink systems, etc) that did not exist before. Goods and services that people willingly pay to own or use because it makes their lives better. He also provides a livelihood to the many thousands, perhaps millions, of people employed directly by him, or by other employers which make a living providing things to him that his companies need to do their jobs.
His net value of over half a trillion dollars exists, and continues to grow, because it represents the amount of value (or wealth or "money") HE HAS CREATED. It didn't exist before. Everyone who buys one of his products or services does so because it represents the best use of THEIR money they could put it to; it fulfills a need or a desire they could not have fulfilled before, or does it better than any alternative. Every dollars they save can then be spent on OTHER things, including investing in wealth production (creating or expanding busineses) of their own. So even more wealth is created.
People in America, and throughout most of the world, live like kings compared to people throughout history--because we've collectively increased the wealth available to everyone immeasurably.
"There is only so much money."
But sure. Elon's billions are why you can't afford whatever bauble you're grinding your teeth over.
It's been a LONG time since I've seen someone that deluded about the fixed pie model.
You forget to cherish her
Ask the Soviets, they managed to kill the Aral Sea.
the leftism leaving people's bodies when they continue to hound someone over behavior that was accounted for, apologized for, and corrected years ago - people got on board for prison abolition then said "and let's replace that with perpetual ostracization and shame to the point where they can no longer function in society :) this is better because We, The Community, are pushing them toward suicide"
I think part of the problem is that forms of justice which rely on people making amends and changing their behavior are are superior ... and also require complicated and well organized social systems. They require the ability to trust that people who have apologized and made amends and changed their behavior have actually done all those things. That amends have been made, that people they wronged are not still so wounded that welcoming the former wrongdoer into the community spaces would drive those people out, that they have actually changed their behavior and they're not lying about that.
Well, for the most part we don't have those systems. And we do need social systems of establishing validated trust in reform, that someone has changed and that you will hear about it if that turns out not to be the case. Blind faith in people asserting they've changed turns out to be faith in an easy lie far too often.
And so long as we don't have those systems people will continue behaving in this way.
That's not saying it's a good thing, or even acceptable. It still sucks. It's just...
It's not *just* a choice, or an attitude shift. Saying that we should be able to accept it when people who have behaved in profoundly antisocial ways apologize and change is kind of like saying that food distribution should be better organized so that nobody has to starve.
Which is to say that it absolutely can be done. It's a cause I believe in with every fiber of my being. But it's not just a personal choice one makes, or even a collective choice. If every single person on Earth woke up tomorrow convinced that we should fix world hunger, it would still take quite a bit of logistical work to make that happen. And it's the same thing with social structures of amends, reform, and rehabilitation. We do need a cultural shift to believe that is how things should be, but that is not a function of cultural shifts alone. That will have to be a whole system of counselors and social workers and differently organized neighborhoods and communication networks.
And until then ... until then people will continue to make false amends and then hurt people, and so some people won't trust that even when it's sincere, and that mistrust will fester. And that's a problem, but not exactly a 'personal moral compass' scale of problem.
At least in my opinion.
additional issue i haven't seen anyone else raise: if the issue is just "redress the crime you did" then you're just back at "monetary fine in proportion to the harm caused" with the same "crimes are just costs for the sufficiently wealthy" - and then you say "make it proportional to income" and then you get things like "good luck, i knifed that guy for his wallet because I'm dirt poor and don't particularly care about the cost."
I am glad to inform you that I have never encountered a justice reform movement which thinks that simple monetary exchange is what redressing grievances should look like.
Redressing grievances is more like ... if somebody regularly goes and gets drunk at bars and gets into serious arguments and ends up physically assaulting somebody, redressing the crime might involve:
Being banned from bars until they have completed an anger management and substance management class, which if they choose to continue on imbibing alcohol includes spending a while only drinking at specific bars where the bartender is keeping track of them and will give a report on whether their behavior has improved (and if it hasn't they stay banned longer). In this case redressing the grievance is preventing that scenario from happening again in a way that's only incidentally punitive.
Or it could involve volunteering at a hospital in some capacity, to make up for the injuries in addition to getting to see the consequences of them.
On a more personal level, there might be an expectation of a personal apology. Or maybe a broader apology, maybe a component of all this is the societal expectation of returning to the bar and giving a speech about not using alcohol as an excuse to vent aggression. And if it was a more personal conflict, if these were people who knew one another and there could be a reasonable expectation of reconciliation and that this won't make the victim more anxious, the assault might be expected to help out the person they assaulted. Like if they broke their arm, maybe they have to hang around them for as long as their arm is broken and help them manage. (If and only if the victim is comfortable with that. If not, they might have to do broader community service to achieve similar resitiution more broadly.)
All of this is only scratching the surface of how you can frame these things. And the question of what you back them up with is a complex one which I'm not going to deny, reformists often don't want to engage with as much as they should. But redressing a grievance is not merely a monetary payment. It's actually engaging with the work necessary to correct the social wound created by bad behavior. Whatever that means.
understandable, but also avoids addressing the problem of "infinite recidivism" i.e. What happens when you have people who don't give a shit about others ans/or think they are owed the world for the indignity of living, and as a result feel no reason to change their behavior even if they complete all the mandatory re-education?
And after "the thoughtless" we can talk about "the sociopaths," who will see your restorative justice as a system to be gamed for personal profit.
Correct. What I said does not address that point because you had not raised it and I was trying to address your point, not write a comprehensive thesis on restorative, reformative, and rehabilitative justice. Which most definitely has grappled *extensively* with the problems of unrepentant bad actors.
To *briefly* summarize however:
1) That kind of behavior accounts for a vanishingly small fraction of what's punished as crime.
2) Existing punitive justice systems already suck at handling it.
3) Particularly, most prison based "solutions" to violent crime do absolutely nothing to prevent violent crime, in fact they increase it. They just localize it to within prisons, on supposedly "deserving targets".
4) Existing punitive prison systems often *increase* recidivism rates for harm done to others after leaving prison. Especially for violent crime and theft.
5) An alternative justice system doesn't need to be perfect, only better than what currently exists. Failure modes are *okay* so long as it can do better than the existing system.
6) No one ever said these justice systems related to prison abolition couldn't have coercive elements or escalate when necessary to prevent harm. The point is removing imprisonment (and other "bad people have bad things done to them" mechanisms) as a *punishment*.
To use the classic extreme example, I don't think anyone thinks one should simply let a confirmed serial killer roam free. But the point is that confinement would exist *only as an individualized solution* to such unrepentant bad behavior, for which there's no alternative, not as a punishment for it. And by removing prisons, we make it so that every single case in which somebody needs to be confined requires a level of individualized effort that's costly and complicated, removing imprisonment as an easy way to dump problems in a hole and forget about them - as opposed to actually trying to resolve them.
So, ultimately? I think this is just not the big deal you're making it out to be. There are simply so few crimes which:
1) Are actually stopped by existing punitive prison systems.
2) Cannot be resolved by any means other than incarceration.
3) Need dedicated holding facilities.
So why focus on that?
And it's fine if not all bad behavior is stopped. Really. Most bad behavior is not serial murder and rape. It's actually okay if a society doesn't have a solution to a particular bad behavior. Or if fixing the problem means the people around them do something to prevent harm while the bad behavior goes unchanged, and they just take the reputational hit over that. In fact it's very important that we accept that as an option! Because if we don't, then we end up automatically hurting people for the sake of hurting them when we don't actually have a solution to the problem.
Which is really the crux of the issue about prison abolition. Prison and other punitive justice mechanisms are often an answer to the question, "Well what *else* are we going to do to stop people if they won't behave?", rather than the question, "Do we have a response to this bad behavior that's better than doing nothing?"
Because that's the thing to remember. Prison and associated punitive justice systems are often much worse than doing nothing. We aren't starting from a society which has solved crime and evaluating the merits of choosing a gentler system based on whether or not it might permit people to behave worse. We are starting from a system which actively makes more crime for almost all of the issues it claims to address, which is brutally horrific to its targets, and which gives governments massive power to exert authoritarian control.
Alternative justice systems don't even have to be good. They just have to suck less. And that's a low bar.
sorry I couldn't respond, tumblr said my account exists but my email was no longer associated with the account. Past midnight here so I will follow up in more detail but my crux of the issue is "what crimes do you think are worth imprisoning the perpetrator for, and what do you think are worth rehabilitation for, how do you incentivize peopleto not break the law while making sure the 'rehabilitation' is not just an open-air asylum system all over again, and I think you have a poor idea of how many 'vanishingly rare antisocial humans' are required to be a disproportionate negative to society if allowed to roam freely (c.f. Copper Wire Theft as an example)"
Anyways, goodnight
Wait you think *copper wire theft* is an example of fundamentally antisocial humans who cannot be stopped by any means except imprisonment.
Copper wire theft.
Copper. Wire. Theft.
The infamously poorly paying crime which only has a financial motive, and which requires a large dedicated infrastructure of complicit partners on the small scale Industrial level to pull off. That crime. The crime which absolutely requires deeply pervasive economic deprivation across an entire community in the long term to exist at all, let alone be a pervasive problem. The crime which primarily affects absent landlords with unused properties, and vulnerable tenants of slumlords.
That crime.
That crime, copper wire theft, is your gotcha example of crime which is surely so deeply rooted in fundamentally antisocial behavior with absolutely no possible solution other than incarceration and which does such massive harm to society that we have no other possible choice but to maintain a prison industrial complex as an arm of the state.
That crime. Just to confirm. Copper wire theft. That crime. Is the crime that's your example for this. Which requires incarceration, that punishment which almost universally further impoverishes people once they get out of prison. That punishment, for that crime.
When told that part of the problem with prison as a punishment is that it gets used as a de facto response to problems, whether it works or not, which gives our society permission to not think about actual solutions to problems, your counterexample is *copper wire theft*.
I think you're misreading because you think of prison as a default answer of "punishment."
The question was not about who are the most evil people in the world. The question was about who is a net negative to society if allowed to roam freely. People who steal copper wire were given as an example of the latter group. Your arguments for why this is wrong sort of illustrate the guy's point about how much you underestimate the number of people who Pose A Problem.
There are certain people who refuse to be rehabilitated. They are methheads with no impulse control and no sense of responsibility and no ability to plan ahead. Every kindness you give them, they will find a way to punish you for. People constantly try to give them economic opportunities, which they always regret. If you give them money, they spend it on meth, and then ask you for more because they're so desperate and out of money. If you set them up with a job, they will not show up three days in a row and then they will rob the place while not wearing a mask. When you bail them out of jail, they assault three more guys on the way out. And if you give them a place to sleep, they will tear up the walls for the copper wiring and use it to buy meth.
Copper wiring theft is a synecdoche for this behavior pattern not because it is the most evil act ever, but for how much of a complete methhead dirtbag you need to be to do it. It requires you to destroy something that is far more valuable to you in the medium to long term (shelter, which you lose access to once you tear up the walls) in order for a comparatively very small immediate reward (sell copper to buy meth). If you were able to stop and think "is this a good idea?" you would not do it. People who cannot stop and think "is this a good idea?" cause harm to others.
The primary value of prison is not punishment and it is not reform, it is incapacitation -- people who are in prison who would otherwise be committing crimes are not able to commit those crimes. People who tear up walls for copper wire are an example of the kinds of people who are incapacitated this way: any time they are outside of prison is time they are harming other people because they have no impulse control or ability to plan ahead.
It would be very, very convenient to you if none of these people existed, and you could assert them away with "restorative justice." But they do. Poor and lower-class people know many of these individuals, and they hate these individuals, because they tend to commit crimes against the people around them. Who do you think gets their walls ripped up to steal the copper wire? Who do you think gets robbed by these guys? What kinds of workplaces do they steal from? Who do they stab? Because it's not "rich people." These guys are constantly victimizing everyone around them, and they are surrounded by poor underprivileged people, because the middle class and up are willing to do something about them.
And this doesn't even go into the fact that there are in fact the middle class and even Upper class equivalent to 'Copper Wire Theft' style criminals, it's just that we tend to have a harder time dealing with them because they go INTO the structures of power that allow them to be the ones deciding who gets arrested. Mayors who drive townships into bankruptcy or the people who become heads of the local HOA actively reduce the quality of life for everyone including themselves, but they don't see the problems because they keep pushing for more and insisting that they shouldn't be stopped. It's not even a situation for a class problem because fundamentally it's not that at all.
, I don't think anyone thinks one should simply let a confirmed serial killer roam free.
So when people say "abolish prison", should we assume they actually mean "abolish prison, except for some crimes we think are really bad?"
Because that seems like a pretty easy-to-fix marketing problem.
I've seen someon go "well, we don't get all the rapists and murderers NOW" as if that was a winning counterargument.
And went "Google it! Stop challenging my views!"
And needless to say, they blocked everyone.
Hey, consider why you couldn't just copy-paste those solutions from the thing that convicned you?
In case anyone doesn't get it, the answer is "because they're either bluffing, or they don't want to put in the effort to actually convince people, they just want to be smug."
More like, because the things that convinced them spent several paragraphs dissecting the question, deconstructing the question, discussing the question but entirely forgot the answer part. I don't think they're actually bluffing or trying to be smug - that requires more active malice in the low-level bad faith than I think is actually happening... I think they genuinely don't understand what people mean when they ask them to answer a question.
Wanting to be smug doesn't require malice, just self-righteousness. Plenty of people end up doing harm out of smugness with all the good intent in the world. I think that smugness also prevents the same people from actually answering important questions or criticisms, including involuntary strawmanning.
One problem with these proposals for restorative justice and rehabilitation and customized empathic reform measures for criminal penalties ignores that, by their very nature, they are unequal. You will receive a different punishment from someone else, for the same crime, based on who you are. Not only is this a ripe field for corruption and graft, this is actively antithetical to the entire concept of equality under the law.
Yet another foundational concept of small-l liberal democracy that people are happily taking an axe to without realizing that it's load-bearing.
how it's done
I'm disturbed by one of the developments I've seen in recent weeks in the writing and literary criticism world because I think a lot of people are now getting some mediocre advice.
"All books open the same way nowadays!" goes the complaint. Well, yes and no. They mean there's a formula. You immediately get thrown into who a character is, or what a major plot point is. The first sentence is dialogue, or a startling thought, or a vivid and amusing scene of a main character in action. But there are endless clever ways to do this. I disagree with those that say we need to go back to long-winded expositions and prologues telling you who or what everything is. That's boring. A hook is good.
What can be problematic is a hook followed by a flurry of action that leaves you confused as to what the story is even about.
Literary agents have explicitly told authors that publishers are always looking for books to start with action. I agree that that's not necessarily good advice. At least, that advice needs to be more clear. You should not start a story, especially a novel, in the middle of the rising action, even if there is action in the first chapter. There should still be an exposition and a buildup to more serious action.
But there's a lot to be said for having a pithy, funny, exciting, or eyebrow-raising first sentence and/or first paragraph. I remember Gone with the Wind's hook. Everyone smiles remembering the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice. The Dark Tower series pulls you in immediately. So does Harry Potter.
I think the most effective books do both; there's an interesting first page that gives you a good idea of a major plot point, followed by enough background to understand the context of the characters' actions. As an example, I read a recent book that was fairly well-acclaimed, Go as a River, which opened with the narrator meeting a stranger that would change her life. The reader knows the first scene was an inflection point in her life from the beginning. But in the first chapter, you also get a good feel for the location, the time period, and some of the characters who will be important to the story. I wouldn't say it was one of the best books I've ever read in my life, but it was an effective book. The structure just worked.
Context can be woven into the characters' actions in the beginning, too. Like a first chapter that describes the main street of the town where the novel takes place as a character is walking down it with a purpose.
I think, bottom line, there's a difference between opening with some sort of action or something pithy that draws the reader's attention, and opening in the middle of a story. And writing advice needs to be more clear about the difference.
The first paragraph or sentence of the book needs to be interesting.
And because writers obviously have attachment to their own work, it's difficult sometimes to tell whether it is or not.
elon wut r u doin
And of course, there were loads of reds talking about how everyone is currenrly working 10 hours a day slaving away to greedy corporations , therefore UBI UHI would be better*.
Ironically, some of them claimed that the AI and robots would be owned by "capital", and so the evil capitalists would be the only ones benefiting.
*Classic commie behavior; attack capitalism instead of supporting communism, and act like they win by default.
Also, I love how reds are always so mad about corporations, when corporations are just legal forms of companies. They need a state to even EXIST.
Bro, what? The Culture series is predicated on a shitload of completely impossible technology, primarily AI's that aren't just sentient but are a step or two away from ascending into Clarke-ian godhood, which we know because of the fact that there have been AI's and civilizations that do that exact thing and the Culture's ruling AI's chose to avoid it. Post-scarcity is only happening through hyperintelligent AI, which means we've now created artificial life and have many bigger fish to fry, or nanotechnology able to operate on the scale of Star Trek's matter replication(ie, at an atomic level) while also being so cheap to manufacture and control that there's functionally no cost to it.
Also, NO, everyone MAY NOT have a penthouse.
By definition, the penthouse sits on top a building, which is occupied by other tenants who do NOT, in fact, live in a penthouse. Everyone may, in fact, be able to live in a penthouse-quality apartment: large, luxurious, and so forth. But they're still living on the first floor, or the fifth, or any floor except the very top floor.
There's still only the one penthouse. So, in the absence of money, how do we decide who gets the penthouse? King of the Hill? First one to move in before it's completed gets dibs? Do we arm wrestle for it? A lottery? Good old-fashioned nepotism (my uncle owns the building, so I get the penthouse)? Violence? You can own the penthouse as long as you can successfully defend it?
Perhaps we use some sort of token system which determines your productivity to the community. Your contributions could earn these tokens, which would then be exchanged for penthouses and front row seats and priority boarding on planes. In fact, we could even let you give those tokens to others who please you, or who do things for you. The artist that you get a really cool painting from, or that chef who made you the awesome meal.
...Oh wait you just reinvented money and capitalist exchange.