Linux requires tinkering and Windows doesn’t? Is that some alternate-universe version of Windows? In my experience, the difference is social/psychological. When Windows fucks up, “everybody uses it,” so the blame falls on the masses, not the user, who was just going along with what’s normal and expected. People sort of mentally elide memory of the Windows fuck ups, because that’s just how Windows is.

Linux is different and weird, and you have to stray from the herd to use it. Straying from the masses is scary, because when Linux fucks up, it’s your fault for being contrary. That threat to one’s place in the social order is quite memorable. Hence the reluctance of Windows users, who hate it, to even consider trying another OS that they know nothing about.

I never switched from Windows. I never used Windows as my main OS. I had an Amiga, then learned Unix on SunOS, so I was used to being weird. Once I got a PC, I used FreeBSD. It did require a lot of fiddling back in those days, and when I got tired of that, I switched to Ubuntu, which was amazing in that it Just Worked™. (Aside from manual installation of the Windows driver for the PCMCIA WiFi card with NDISWrapper.)

(I still do tinker with it, and sometimes break it, but the base OS has been rock solid. I noticed the other day that my main PC was installed with Ubuntu 18.04, and upgraded to 24.04.)

Sure, lady, explain that again when they want to put Ivanka in the Oval Office after her old man croaks.

Hot take: The euphemsism “flipping burgers” is so dismissive of the physical and emotional labor of working at a fast-food place that anybody using it unironically needs a punch on the nose.

Aye, that is the one silver lining of this fascist take-over: Miller et al. have attached themselves to a demagogue who has a looming expiration date, so they are speed-running the creation of the fourth reich. Our best hope is that they’re doing it too quickly to really take root. (And that they can’t find another demagogue to step in when the orange one bites it.)

True, but like that famous saying goes, we do not negotiate with terrorists.

Rich people and islands, name a more iconic duo.

Are there still people out there moaning that “Americans won’t vote for a woman,” despite, y’know, Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote in 2016?

I’d like to point out feckless Democrats that while Citizens United is bad… money ain’t everything.

I started the day with the news that Dick Cheney is dead. Now I’m ending it with news that Zohran Mamdani is mayor. It’s been the best day in a long, long time.

Interesting that it’s turning out so similarly, then.

No, they just believe that they are God’s chosen people. Totally different.

Ah geez, I meant that the Constitution is irreparably broken, and that the nation it created is gone, but yeah, you’re right. I hadn’t even thought about him trying to rename the nation that we have now, but it makes total sense.

Don’t they get it yet? The United States is over. That country doesn’t exist anymore.

Erm, cops fit that description.

They all should have been on a plane to Gitmo before the sun set on inauguration day.

Nah, worse than that. The root of the conservative pathology is self-hatred. They fear that they are worthless, shit people. A person who believes that they are better than everybody else can sit smugly in the corner and be superior in peace. Conservatives need near-constant reassurance that other people are worse than themselves, hence the performative cruelty they crave.

I make my guess that there are two factors:

1. The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon (or frequency illusion If somebody has a chip on their shoulder about rude Linux users, the rude Linux users they see will be highly memorable.

2. People tend to get back the same energy that they project to other people.

My instance has a very laissez-faire policy, so it’s federated with almost everybody. My experience is the same; I’ve only ever seen self-aware mocking of the Linux-user attitude.

But, here’s the kicker, if we don’t know anything about this other plane of existence, then how can we know that our universe couldn’t spontaneously arise from it without the intent of a creator? That’s the crux of the question: We have a mystery about the origin of our existence, and “solving” the mystery by saying, “God did it,” is just sweeping the mystery under the rug and pretending it’s not there. What OP was able to see at 7 or 8 years old was that the mystery was still there, but with an unexplained extra step added.

The struggle is real! However, if you look closely, the U.S. capitol has a row of oval windows inset in its dome that the Wisconsin capitol does not have.

Hey, wasn’t this supposed to be an actual dome? The demented, old dingbat described it as a literal dome.