Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus

–Alex Blechman

Except in this case it’s a political party instead of a tech company.

Yep. A lot of these tech companies that have run in the red for years are now being called on to produce a profit and pay the big backers.

Why shouldn’t they be allowed cell phones, at least as a privilege? They shouldn’t be allowed to harass anyone, but they’re people. JPay and other predatory companies put an undue burden on families just trying to talk to their loved ones (who, let’s face it, may not be guilty) in the pen. There are even worse companies that pretend to be places where you can send money or put money on a phone card for a loved one but once you get to the fine print it’s just a scam. That dries up if you just allow folks the opportunity to talk to their family during their downtime.

But fuck them, I guess. People are in jail to be punished and if they don’t have the maximum amount of punishment 24x7 along with their families then we’re not really getting our money’s worth.

Or maybe he’s talking on a butt phone.

Depending on your age there was Roxy, Maid Marion, Gadget, and probably another dozen anthropomorphic cartoon animal women who were friendly, approachable, and generally built as the kind of woman that a shy nerdy kid would like. It’s not that surprising that some portion of folks who like computers more than they like people also like anthropomorphized animals better than they like people.

I have an anecdote with some long-ish accompanying rambling nonsense that boils down to agreeing with you.

I’ve had Linux systems on and off for years. I think I started on Slackware (it’s been too long to remember). I just installed EndeavourOS on a laptop with good compatibility the other day.

First, systemd-boot problems. Fine. Live USB, command line. Fixed. Then Bluetooth problems. Edit config file. Fixed. Wouldn’t connect my third monitor. Another config file, apparently. Fixed. Wouldn’t switch to my dGPU. Still not fixed, but at this point I have lost interest in fixing. So no gaming on Linux on that system because I can’t be bothered.

I also loaded Windows because I prefer a fresh install to removing bloatware. Installed. That’s it. It worked. Bluetooth, third monitor, GPU switching, the works.

Once it’s running, assuming I don’t run into the same problem you’re running into, Linux is fairly bulletproof. But your average person has no interest in editing config files and playing around in the terminal. They want to buy a computer, maybe install a browser they’re comfortable with, and get on the Internet to do whatever internety things they do. They don’t need to spend time getting things just right because they live in a web browser and possibly Office (although that number is pretty small for home users).

People don’t care. You’re right, life is too short. I want to go to a concert, go sing karaoke, ride a motorcycle, build a cabinet, play a game, or go have a drink. Others may want to go watch sports, go hiking, go rock climbing, go to a wine tasting, or go out with coworkers. Grandpa wants to whittle on the back porch and maybe cook some ribs. College kids have school, parties, social clubs, and activities.

When Linux is someone’s hobby, that’s great! It means they like something and I’m all for people enjoying themselves. But I think a lot of those folks forget that most people just can’t care about how they get to the Internet as long as they can get there. Because all a laptop is to most people is an Internet machine.

It would be like someone who is into woodworking as a hobby wondering why these Linux guys aren’t building their own desks from scratch. They’re sturdier and could last a lifetime if properly done. It’s super easy to build too! Way easier than those wobbly things from Amazon and made of real wood.

EDIT: Found a new issue today. Proton games don’t run from an NTFS partition without a bunch of configs. Install package, gather info, change fstab, reboot, find typos, fix fstab, reboot, still not working. So I can’t even share low requirement games between OSes. So I’m no longer dual booting. I’ll just pull out the Linux laptop when I need Linux. It’s more work than I want to put in to have a dual boot gaming laptop.

It’s my fault. I signed up for it before I realized it was a pro China instance and the other day I said I’m not a Communist.

I’m not part of this conversation, I am not a mod, I am not an admin, and I’m not necessarily informed enough to make any determination on who is right and wrong. However,

You’ve seen Hackers one too many times.

There’s no such thing.

It is truly made in my image.