I tried to switch to Linux several days ago, but there were clear issues regarding games that weren’t tied to Steam. Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, Bottles, and so forth all had shortcomings regarding compatibility, handling of DLC, or lack of user-friendliness. Then I tried to use a VM, which was a frustrating rabbit hole. Virt-Manager supports GPU passthru, but you have to jump through hoops to identify PCI addresses and to configure correctly. Boxes initially seemed promising, but had no apparent way of storing the VM on my gaming drive. (Linux terminal commands are beyond my understanding.) Considering how big games are getting, and the size of my collection, that is a bad combo. Virtualbox doesn’t have GPU passthru, so the performance sucked.

As a gamer, I currently find Linux to be insufficient. I was wanting to switch due to security concerns regarding Microsoft, especially in light of the Trump Regime’s willingness to ignore law and norms. My concern is that they could use Windows as a spy, or to seal up my computer to punish those who go against Dogey America. As it is, I will have to use some scripts from Github to break Windows Update if I hear of Richmond being infiltrated by the Xitler Youth.

Here’s hoping that Gabe decides to invest much more heavily in Linux to make it casual friendly - I want my mods, cheats, Japanese locale games, emulators, and so forth to all work seamlessly and without compromise. I would seriously pay $400 smackers to have an OS that is capable, flexible, compatible, friendly, and most importantly, MINE.

The days of just buying Windows 7 Ultimate and not thinking about Microsoft was glorious.

Canadian Moose Cavalry, anyone?

Having term limits on politicians (including judges) would be key. At some point, an old person simply can’t relate to the world that younger people grew up in. More importantly, they either become angry codgers (Republicans) or domesticated sheep (Geronocrats), which is innately an imbalance in political influence. An assertive person, in most situations, gets a bigger piece of the pie, be it political, fiscal, sexual, or some other thing.

I think if there is a new Constitution, it would need to incorporate economic rights. People can’t abandon work to strike or protest, which negates the voice of the poor and working man alike. The wealthy can afford to voice their politics, which is likely the biggest reason why Yarvin’s Cabal succeeded. Ordinary people simply can’t dedicate the time to research nor influence politics.

I would say so. The only question is whether the good guys win a civil war. My money is on ‘yes’, since Yarvin’s Cabal is hellbent on exiling all of the competent people from their society, along with being jackasses who have alienated many peoples. It will be a bloody struggle, but I think that Dogey America will ultimately receive the Old Yeller treatment. I only hope that every member of Yarvin’s Cabal are executed - Elon, Thiel, ect.

Let’s not make the mistakes of the 1st Civil War, 1st Business Plot, and 2nd World War, where many high ranking members were permitted to escape justice.

I would like them to be imprisoned on a island. It would be a Battle Royal that I can get behind.

Looking up the Vilvaladirt, I am guessing it is a group of Let’s Players who do a Mystery Science Theater 3,000 take on their gameplay? If so, that would be neat.

It is good to hear what a full DeepSeek can do. I am really looking forward to having a better, localized version in 2030. Thank you for relating your experience, it is helpful. :)

Can the full-size DeepSeek handle dice and numbers? I have been using the distilled 70b of DeepSeek, and it definitely doesn’t understand how dice work, nor the ranges I set out in my ruleset. For example, a 1d100 being used to determine character class, with the classes falling into certain parts of the distribution. I did it this way, since some classes are intended to be rarer than others.

I guess Trump could add a new canal to the Red Sea, as per an old proposal involving nukes to dig it. Considering this administration, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

Up til now, I only had gaming desktops for the last 30+ years. Still, I might be able to borrow a laptop from another resident of the building. Hopefully with a power cable and all of that.

…Wait, up until now I was using GPedit to try and force Windows Enterprise to update with my permission and timeline, but it always seemed to be a bit ignored. But I can use ‘services.msc’ to disable Windows Update from starting up. I can probably use the WSUS tool if I want specific updates from that point on…

In theory, anyways. I will have to try it out. I don’t want to migrate if I can avoid it.

Aside from political leanings of services like Protonmail and Kagi, I look at one key thing: where they are headquartered. Kagi is in California, while Protonmail is in Switzerland. IMO, this means that if a civil war breaks out, they are less likely to poison or remove their service.

It is all about whether the workers and leadership are within reach of the law, be it official or the jungle.

You can also use Kagi’s video search AI to vet the political alignment of a video before watching. I don’t want to waste my time on facist-leaning content, be it political or economic.

I am hoping that Google bites the dust from this. Having stuff like Peertube becoming common, would go a long way towards mitigating media moguls from controlling narratives. As we have seen, the media organs of the right are staying silent or downlplaying what has been happening.

Also, it would be nice if the folk didn’t have to deal with baseless copyright takedowns. A lot of culture has been lost to feckless corpotacracy.

Most of the key people behind the Civil War and 1st Business Plot also were excused from justice, for the sake of soothing political tension. IMO, executing them would have been better for curtailing the corrosion of our society.

I used Thunderbird to simultaneously access and download my gmail and protonmail, gradually migrating my ecosystem to the latter. The way I figure, Protonmail would be good, on account of being based in Switzerland. That means assorted EU protections - and now with Vichy America likely to become a thing, having the servers in a safe spot seems really helpful.

The odds of us having military action in our neighborhoods has shot up by a disturbing degree.

Something adjacent to degoogling: I am concerned that Microsoft would collaborate with the Trump Regime. I never used Linux before, but I am now downloading Ubuntu. It feels like that I should do a dual-boot setup and get ready to abandon Windows if I hear about MS HQ in Washington having a DOGE presence.

Here’s hoping that Europe and the Blue States are watching Microsoft for anything weird.

Primus - The Devil Went Down To Georgia

I play all kinds of old games, Japanese games that require patching, and use mods. That technical stuff is why I haven’t tried Linux yet, because things are already irksome with a well-known OS. I don’t want to imagine what edge cases on Linux could be.

Unfortunately, I might be forced to make the switch if Microsoft decides to ally with the Trump Regime. 😱

I suspect the rise of mental illness has much to do with economy. The more uncertain you are about the future, the easier it becomes to be steeped in resentment.

It is the other end of the wealth horseshoe: The wealthy are free of consequence, and consequence no longer holds meaning among the poor. After all, you don’t have friends, a job, or a future. The only way anyone will remember you is if you leave a mark upon them. You may die, but the living are left with the suffering you have left behind.

…that is my guess about the mindset. :(