I am. That’s why I switched to DDG and deactivated it.

Apparently you can also try with Labubus.

It’s so fun to waste energy!

AI drives 48% increase in Google emissions

I love those energy hungry assistants! It’s wasting resources even faster than everything before but it’s so fun and useful!

I grew up with DOS and used Windows 1 (barely, DOS was better), 3.1, 95, 98, etc… But curiosity made me try a bunch of OS in the beginning of the 2000s, like BeOS, QNX, and Linux (Kheops, Mandrake, SuSE). I dual booted for many years, keeping Linux as my main OS but having to boot Windows for games. I preferred Linux but I was pretty much OS agnostic for a while. I even worked as level 1 tech support for many years, helping people with Windows and Office products.

But then came Windows 8, 10, and now 11, + Office 365 + OneDrive. It’s very difficult to stand any of those new versions, with the ads, the constant peddling for Microsoft products, the “forced” login with a Microsoft account, the updates whenever they feel like it if you don’t pay enough for Windows, if the updates are not breaking something. A few years ago I was helping a friend and discovered a version of Windows 7 where you can’t even change the wallpaper.

TBF, I knew it was coming. Anyone in IT knew for years that Microsoft planned of having everything subscription based. To me, every new versions of Windows or Office, or Teams, is now more intolerable than the previous one.

Anyway, at some point I stopped gaming/dual booting and pretty much kept exclusively on Linux. My workplace used Windows, and I use Linux at home. I’ve been using Debian for 15 years now and despite minor issues with sound recently, since pipewire, every time I use Windows, I’m reminded of how much worse it could be.

Recently I quit my job as a level 1 tech. I can’t help people with Microsoft products anymore. Having calls from people telling me they cannot delete files from their OneDrive when it tells them it’s full, then discover it’s a bug and users with their drives full cannot delete anything, is just disconcerting. Before all that, I could at least see/understand the reason why things were working like they did; I could help and explain it to the users. Now, I’m as frustrated as they are when I use Microsoft products.

One time I was working as a customer advocate in a hosting company and I had one supervisor that never wanted to concede and refund the clients. It wasn’t an issue with other supervisors, I was following policies and he was kind of an asshole.

At one point I told him he was wrong and he replied with the French expression “you will not live on love and water alone”, meaning do what I say or you will be fired and won’t have money to live.

Well, as this happened before lunch break, I went to lunch, wrote my resignation letter and sent it via email. When I got back at the office he was incredulous and asked if I was joking. Nope.

I didn’t have the monetary meams to quit and I had to go back to my previous job, that I also didn’t like, but at least my old supervisor was not such an asshole.

I had the same experience as OP when I tried Matrix a few years ago. No hate on it but it was not easy and I gave up because I already had a simple IRC setup that’s working for me and my friends.

Some IRC clients are now web based and it’s been enough to keep a few of my friends there instead of Discord. We use The Lounge. It can keep a history, display images, videos, play mp3s, and show previews of most URLs. Like, we can simply copy/paste images into a channel and they are uploaded on the server and displayed in the chat. There’s also push notifications and it’s mobile friendly.

Convos also does something like this. Apparently it can also do video chat but I’ve never got it to work.

I’ve recently been thinking about giving Matrix another try but I’m pretty sure my friends are going to stay on “modern” IRC anyway.

Especially Carl. But luckily for whales, Carl is a bastard because he shot a harpoon in the captain’s face.

Email and IRC push notifications through The Lounge. The rest is disabled. Even amber alerts, because my government uses them for everything. It’s “illegal” to disable them here but with a few commands on adb its possible to disable the service and never have to hear that end of the world alarm for an elderly person missing 200 km away from me.

Oh yeah, otherwise don’t hesitate to go faster than the speed limit and male a bit of noise with your sports car, cuz it impresses everyone.

I can’t say I hate everyone, but its more of a “I don’t like people” in general kind of vibe.

When I was a teen in the late 90ies I was depressive and suicidal. I have had several episodes since then but I’m curious and so far I go on, just to see how cruel, dystopian and fucked up the world will become. So far it’s one part that is not disappointing.

But then you learn more about them and realize that the “fine specimen” are as damaged as the rest of us.

Some can be super nice to you yet very mean or cruel with other people.

I always at least try to give the benefit of the doubt but I very often end up disappointed.

EDIT: Quote from Quark

Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.

Sorry to hear about that person’s psychological state.

Odds about living nearby are low but sometimes the world can be pretty small. Let’s see. I’m in a high rise near PdA in Montreal, 7th floor, so the person I can hear yelling is probably on the 6th or 8th floor.

I have a neighbour like that, I think. I’ve been living in the same place for years but a few months ago I started hearing someone yelling through the walls/floors. At first I thought it was a couple arguing because I kept hearing "“FUCK YOOOOU FUCK YOOOU FUCK” and “HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?”

Then the same thing again a few minutes later. Maybe he was watching sports.

But he also yells the same things randomly. Sometimes at 2AM, sometimes at 2PM. Sometimes a few times in a row, sometimes just once. So I think he’s probably playing video games and just can’t help himself.

Close! But those lines are from the second one: Everyday Normal Guy 2

Anecdote about how this song is still fresh in my mind: I went to Saint Martin last winter. There are hiking trails on a private property called Loterie Farm, leading to Pic Paradis, the highest point of the island. They also have pool parties with loud music, kids playgrounds and stuff like that, but I went for the hike. Depending on your angle on the hill, you can clearly hear the music at the bottom. So there I was, hiking in a tropical forest, when all of a sudden I hear this remix of Everyday Normal Guy 2. I had forgotten this song for years and now my brain associates this specific remix with this moment.

I’m not disregarding electric cars. However they are not presented as an imperfect solution but rather like what everyone that has a car needs to do. Just swap for an electric car and don’t change anything else!

Don’t change habits. Dont talk aboout the other problems created by cars. Let’s forget about the millions of animals and humans killed by cars. Worldwide, there is one human killed every 30 seconds by a car. Electric or not.

But people just want to continue their current lifestyle. They will buy anything they are told will do that. Anything as long as they can all continue just as they are doing right now, but green!

IF you have to have a car, of course, the electric one will be better for the environment. But they are hyped and presented as a simple easy solution for everyone. They’re like Stanley cups. Everyone wants one, or two. They are objects of consumption.

Buying a car is not good for the environment in any way, shape or form, yet people are eager to do so.

Humanity is not running to ruins. It’s taking a car.

🎶Yo, what can I say? It’s just a day in my life.

I’m up early in the morning, in bed early at night.

To be productive at work, I gotta be well rested.

Yeah, motherfucker, you heard what I just said.🎶

Don’t worry if you can’t get in the electric car (EV) club right away. The important thing for the economy environment is that you are planning to buy another car, but electric!

Or just ditch the working car for an electric one. Nobody gives a fuck if it’s ecological or not. They just want to continue using a car and ignore all the other problems like microplastics from tire shedding, heat islands, or using a two tons metal box to move 1.5 person everywhere.

Electric cars only exist so the car industry can continue to sell cars. So don’t worry and consume. Greenwash your conscience.

Raccoons.

The tourists visiting Mount Royal park in Montréal are often charmed by the raccoons. Enough so that they feed them and some even let the raccoons climb on them. The city tries to warn people but they obviously ignore the signs. So now we have gangs of raccoons begging for food near the two most popular view points.

I go camping in provincial parks and the same seems to happen there. It’s obviously also locals doing this but, people feed the raccoons, they come back, they harass you for food, they can carry rabies, and it’s annoying as hell. I watch people hiking and camping in other countries, like the UK, and I’m constantly jealous that they can keep their food and cook near their tents. Doing this here will result in frequent annoying visits from raccoons (if not bigger animals).

And yet you are saying this in a thread about the US restricting access to some vaccines. It was all nonsense a few months ago.

Why not? I’m not willing to provide links for everything I’ll list, so do what you want with it.

Democracy has failed in the US. They have a king with a dictatorship. They ignore their own laws. They kidnap law abiding citizens, on the streets, at work, in the schools, and send them into concentration camps. They kidnap people from other countries at the border. They invade their own cities with the military. They are sending a flotilla to Venezuela. They are renaming the Department of Defence to the Department of War. They have openly discussed invading Mexico. They have mentioned in the past that Canada should be part of the US. Maine’s Senator sent an open letter to Western Canada and invited them to join the US, like, a week ago.

All this shit is normalized in the US. They just do it little by little and so far people don’t react. They always say “Trump is joking” and “this will not happen” but it ends up happening every time.