“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

I silently recite this to myself.

But now I just end up blurting out, “FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER.”

Here’s my comments on it being a mostly normal user of Windows.

1. Creating a local account was a pain - 100% true. I’ve done it. It’s annoying and it’s pain to remote into as well. There’s a very small set of people who care about though.
2. Google Passkeys will not work - I have it working. I don’t remember it being too difficult and put the difficulty on my inability to execute it well. Saving passkeys are easy now.
3. An email client that really frustrated me - what in the actual fuck. This doesn’t belong here.
4. Natural scrolling is so unnatural - I don’t know what this is. It’s either that I use it and it’s natural, I don’t use it because it wasn’t turned on automatically, I used it and have change my norm to fit it
5. Ads? Are you kidding me? - I’ve never noticed an ad. I don’t use the start menu often, but it’s not never. I also use Pro so they may not be there.
6. Save As defaults to OneDrive? Why? - This is stupid that MS does this. I get why it works for them and I can even see the reasoning for having on by default for the average user, but ask first.
7. Windows 11 uses so many resources - Yes.
8. Virus and threat protection - another fail for MS. This should be a no brainer.
9. Power and battery options - It does suck that it doesn’t detect that it isn’t a laptop. Pretty easy fix, but it would be better if it detected it

Three big problems if ads is becoming a thing. Three medium problems. One small, one you, and one what the fuck.

I think the problem is worse. People tell me I should hate Microsoft and should be complaining. I’m no fan, but its just part of my life. Its got issues, but rarely does it interupt the busyness of my life. I’m ambivalent about Microsoft. They are not very different from the vast majority of global corporations.

I’m going to say this clearly, this comment is not an invitation to tell me how I should hate Microsoft.

I had a lovely conversation with another unmedicated parent. It’s the first time in a while that the mask came off a bit in that circle. It was nice.

I was planning on going back and reading it later.

Literally every ten year old boy.

So checks out.

I’m all for the multiple paths to solutions, but they aren’t even doing times tables these days. We drill it a little at home, but he struggled with just getting it memorized. I don’t know why they don’t drill a little. Honestly, they seem to have the kids sitting on the computer doing adaptive math most of the time.

The answer is 69
420% of the time.

I know very little about the effects of the treatment on me in particular. From what I’ve gathered, it’s mainly working with a doctor to figure out better coping strategies and then pharmaceutical interventions if needed. If that is decided then you try to find the medication that makes your symptoms better with a manageable amount of side effects.

When I did seek out diagnosis, I went through several rounds of surveys and had a family member interviewed by the practitioner. On the day of the diagnosis, she was running really behind, apologized and tried to give me the time I needed. But her diagnosis was “I’m really on the border, but I do have mild depression”. She offered something for that and asked if I wanted that. In the midst of emotionally coping with my confusion, I’m not tasked with a major decision about if I want a pharmaceutical I know literally nothing about, generally hesitant to taking pharmaceuticals, and in need of guidance from someone who doesn’t have the time to give it.

I left with no Rx and a note in my chart that I don’t have ADHD. So I don’t know where you got the idea that anyone who sees out the diagnosis gets it come from, but I didn’t.

Relatedly, an old friend who has since been diagnosed with adhd and hanging with her has been medicine.

Did they put that information in their filings? Because that was the analysis. I don’t know if they did or didn’t. If they did, then your assertion would be correct. If they didn’t though, it would not be correct.

No. What I’m asking is if this is the line you were referring to. I wasn’t sure. If it is, these companies have a vested interest in “extolling AI’s benefits”. But if you’re not talking about this line, I don’t want to jump to conclusions. That’s why I asked.

Are you talking about this line?

Big Tech giants such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta have regularly extolled AI’s benefits, pledging to invest $300bn this year alone to develop the infrastructure around large language models.

Current front page

I get the reason for alterity. While the term is new to me, the need for it has been clear for a while now. But I don’t get why you need to jettison difference.

Slop seems superficially different but structurally the same. But structurally different is the goal. We invite people into a new structure, such as solar punk, by living it’s principles. But is the argument for not being superficially different so you can be relatable to the average person? So you escape detection from the state apparatus? So it projects a deep root confidence that some might find alluring?

I feel like one of the biggest concerns I have with solar punk is it’s very beautiful aesthetic. It can get in the way of some digging deeper. And yet Id be lying if part of the initial appeal wasn’t the aesthetics. The author might consider the solar punk aesthetic as Manechian. I would never want to jettison that aspect. I would want it to inspire me to dig deeper. And maybe, through community, inspire changes in that aesthetic through a shared lived experience.

any case, thanks for sharing. Got me thinking.

As the parent of a ten year old, make sure you check in with the parent. I’d want to make sure there’s some web guardrails and some time limits.

RTFM is an obnoxious retort for people, arguably in community, not to engage with a member of the community. I don’t mind reading the manual, but perhaps you can point me to where in the manual I could get further insight.

Reading a manual is also a skill. Being able to compartmentalize manual info into buckets of “obvious and I don’t need to read on”, “could be helpful”, “interesting, but it gets there I ain’t touching it” takes either training or just getting lucky after a certain number of reps.

It looks like you can self host Navidrome.

I’d like to try Linux with minimal commitment and no setup. Give it real test drive with some of my most important tools.

If and when I decide to make the switch, I want to have access to my normal windows machine. I’d keep it around if I need it. But prefer if it went away slowly. I want to work with and communicate with windows users with neither of us having to jump through weird hoops.

I want my printer to work.

Problems will come up, but I don’t want it to dominate my time.

I’m sure most of you will say not to worry, but until I’ve logged some real hours, I will.