EldritchFemininity

Sounds more like a computer education deficiency problem.

One hundred and ten percent right. But it’s not something that’s going to go away any time soon, and the older generations will never get over as a whole, so it’s something that we just have to account for when talking about the average user. The average American reads at, what, a 7th grade reading level? And 50% of people are below average.

I brought up PC building because it gave me a better understanding of how a PC works and I know how to troubleshoot in large part thanks to it, which puts me in the 50% of users who could be considered “above average.”

I think for the average to below average user, learning console commands is much more intimidating than learning a GUI. Hell, I’d even bump that up to a majority of users who are scared off by the concept. Programming is often seen as a form of magic by those who don’t know how to program. I agree that Windows isn’t better because of its GUI (especially with how it’s gotten more obtuse with each new version) and that most people are just used to it, but I think a GUI is also inherently easier for more people to learn. Learning commands is more akin to learning a new language (new words with different meanings that probably require a certain mindset in order to comprehend as a whole - learning a new skill) while a GUI should (keyword there, one Microsoft has forgotten) be fairly intuitive to navigate with a consistent design language and interface. I use Blender, and while the vast majority of useful tools are accessible via shortcut keys as well as the UI, people need to keep an image of a keyboard with all the shortcuts mapped out because, my God, it’s a lot to remember.

Basically, I agree that a GUI isn’t fundamentally better than a console, but the original post was from the perspective of the average user, and I think that a GUI is more accessible for the average user than a console. I think a well designed GUI is why Windows took off in the way that it did and why Apple has the staying power that it does. It’s important to remember that 50% of users are considered above average, but that means that the other 50% are below average.

Personally, I’m prepping a fairly major upgrade for my computer that includes a new SSD that I’m going to dual boot Bazzite on instead of switching to Windows 11 (at least until I can migrate everything to Bazzite, then I intend to kick Microsoft to the wayside), and apart from the increasing compatibility of games with Linux and Valve’s work in that area, I attribute even considering Linux to things like the immutable distros and flatpak. I know how to tinker, but I don’t want to have to do that with my daily driver. I get enough of that from my 3d printer!

Counterpoint: As an above average Windows user (I know enough to have built computers, so at least a little more than the normal Windows/Mac user), after reading your comment I raised both my arms over my head to make sure I wasn’t having a stroke.

Obviously, I’ve never used Linux and so don’t know the basics of the internals (and I was never one to mess with the CMD line), but I’d be willing to bet money that 75% of Windows users would look at you like you’re possessed if you said that to them, and that’s why a GUI is so important for the average user. Easily 50% of users don’t even know that “run as administrator” exists or what it does.

Probably a lack of data in the training set. It reminds me of the early versions of facial recognition software which had trouble telling not just black people apart, but also women of all ages and white men below a certain age. It was because these early versions had only been trained on photos of employees at the company, and they were mostly older white men.

I don’t think that it’s just the gifted kid programs that are causing these issues, I think it’s more foundational than that.

So much of school is focused on rote memorization, test scores, and grades that kids who do well end up having their entire sense of self-worth tied to their grades. Then they get out into the real world and no longer have those academic scores to tell them that they have any value.

It’s how we get stuff like this:

There’s so much more in this discussion like how kids who never are challenged by schoolwork don’t actually learn how to learn and therefore give up on something at the first hint of difficulty or challenge because their brain is conditioned to believe that either you’re instantly good at a thing or you’re a failure forever, or how there’s a real lack of teaching collaborative work in school despite that being like 90% of work in life, but that’s all too much for my tired brain to try to piece together into a comprehensible message. So instead I’ll just end with my usual meme on the subject: Beware, the “gifted kid to burnout trans girl with a praise kink” pipeline is real.

“I know my playerbase.” -Hakita, the dev of Ultrakill

https://hyperallergic.com/1038623/us-agencies-say-they-have-no-records-of-tourist-flagged-for-jd-vance-meme/

The public records request filed by Mikkelsen and his lawyer also alleged that Mikkelsen was detained for 18 hours, during which his repeated requests to contact the Norwegian consulate were denied in violation of diplomatic conventions. Mikkelsen also claimed he was threatened with imprisonment and fines if he did not turn over passwords to his device or sign certain documents.

Mikkelsen had planned a months-long trip to the US to visit friends and tour national parks with his mother, he told Hyperallergic in an interview after he returned to Norway in June. However, while passing through passport control at Newark, he was summoned into a room where he said ICE agents asked him if he planned to commit terrorism, belonged to any extremist groups, or was smuggling narcotics.

CBP officers then inspected Mikkelsen’s phone, according to his account of the events, where they found the viral meme of a bald JD Vance and photos of a pipe he said he made in trade school. Publicly, the DHS has stated that Mikkelsen was denied entry because he admitted to using marijuana, which he acknowledges having done twice in places where the substance is legal.

However, DHS’s public narrative does not match what Mikkelsen claims officers told him in the interrogation room, nor does it match documents from CBP reviewed by Hyperallergic.

Officers handed Mikkelsen a document known as an I-877, which is an official sworn report provided by DHS in instances where an individual is denied entry into the US. Mikkelsen’s I-877 states that he was denied entry because he appeared to be seeking illegal employment, which he denies.

Mikkelsen told Hyperallergic that during his interview, however, he remembers that he was told the JD Vance meme was “illegal” and “dangerous.”

Mikkelsen requested a copy of his I-877 in his FOIA request, which the agency claimed it had no record of.

“I’m disappointed in CBP and ICE for not being able to give me the documents that I have a copy of,” Mikkelsen told Hyperallergic. “If anything, it just looks like they are trying to hide something.”

Because it takes time to get a vehicle in the air to go after them, time in which the drones might be gone and all you have to go by is their last heading when they could’ve changed direction, split up, and traveled a hundred kilometers in different directions before heading for where they actually came from. All while you can’t follow them into somebody else’s air space because drones are too small to be picked up on standard radar but a helicopter or plane certainly aren’t, which means that it could look like you’re invading their air space. This also means that the drones could potentially have traveled through multiple countries undetected before arriving at their destination, so you can’t even assume that they came from those countries even if you do manage to track them to their air space.

A lifestyle

Social media users turn Ikea’s Frakta bag into fashion items

Men may not like it, but this is the ideal IT body.

The unicorn also has forward-facing eyes like the horses in Skyrim, implying that the unicorn is a predator.

People are more likely to be interested in who you are as a person than your country’s politics.

The current political state of the US is just the icing on the shit cake. When I was a kid traveling abroad with my parents 30 years ago, Americans were considered fat, ignorant, and egotistical. That they expected the rest of the world to speak English, accept USD everywhere, and give them special treatment. That they were loud, obnoxious, ignorant, and rude.

Not blatantly, but there are signs of it even in the first book; and as the books go on, you can see almost in real time her political views shift from criticizing the system to defending it as she started becoming wealthy and benefiting from the system.

I highly recommend watching Shaun’s 2 hour video on the subject, as it goes into great detail on the subject and makes for perfect podcast material.

Some highlights include:

• Obesity as a moral failing - want to make a character seem bad? Just make them fat!
• Masculine features as a negative trait for women (sound familiar?) - want to make a teenage girl bad (and ugly) but don’t want to make her fat? Just talk over and over about her “mannish hands” and sharp jawline.
• Token minority characters that are often stereotypes or border on racism - the black kid is named Shacklebolt, the Asian girl is named two single syllable last names (might as well have called her Ching Chong), the 12 year old Irish kid is obsessed with turning drinks into whiskey and blowing stuff up, etc.
• The defense of the slavery of house elves using the exact same arguments that slave owners used before the Civil War in the US mentioned by somebody else, with a bonus criticism of Hermione as a girl with blue hair and pronouns for questioning and trying to change the system.
• There are no good or bad actions, only good or bad people. It’s okay for the right people to use the torture spell, because they’re the “good guys.”
• And a resolution that basically resolves nothing. Harry doesn’t kill Voldemort, he kills himself due to a magic technicality, and Harry goes on to become a magic cop to ensure the flawed system that the early books criticized doesn’t change.