Me loading up A Link to the Past and still having a full memory of every palace, which areas are secrets, which walls make the satisfying clink clink clink, and how to get the Golden Master Sword without having to check GameFAQs:

“Hell yeah. Zelda, go put on your green tunic and let’s go save Link.

Apple: “It’s the best LLM we’ve ever shipped. We think you’re gonna love it.”

Happy cake day @ruud@lemmy.world ! Appreciate you hosting all us Reddit Refugees when the Reddit Third-Party API Exodus happened one year ago! And big shout out to you and the other volunteer mods and admins, across multiple instances, that put in their free time to stabilize Lemmy World during the massive uptick in user registration, handling the codebase, the upgrade challenges, the creepy CSAM bad actors last year, and saw us through all the intermittent downtimes we had periodically. Lemmy World has been super stable and reliable since then.

Reminder to all reading this: if you can, chip in and help with server costs for this valuable service. Decentralization FTW

Trump waddles into the chat.

Best tasting bleach there is, and no one knows more about this stuff than me. It’s a good way to stop the virus. We can bring this into the body, you know, almost like a cleaning. Or hit the body with a very powerful light. Sounds interesting. We’ve got guys looking into that, too.

Years ago we learned useful Microsoft keyboard shortcuts to save time, and passed those around the school yard.

Now we’re learningMicrosoft advertisement/predatory privacy-invasive bypass shortcuts and passing it around the school yard.

If you pirate from a company worth billions, it’s stealing and you should be ashamed of yourself you greedy thief degenerate leech.

If a company steals from you, well… uh, I guess you deserved it. Why are you so entitled, that thing you bought you should be grateful for what little time you had with it. Even though you paid for it, it’s not yours it’s theirs. What’s wrong with you?

“Oh?”

The world was at peace for those few months.

Load Balancers everywhere named Samwise: “You mean we don’t have to share the load?”

Owner Class: “Hey everybody. We’ve had an excellent season this year, so we wanted to pay our success forward. Hold out your hands, we’re gonna share our harvest!”

Mushroom and White Trees hold out their “hands”.

Owner Class trickles a pittance of nutrients on Mushroom only.

White Trees: “… Wait, what?! How come Mushroom got this?”

Mushroom: “Yeah that’s weird. Let’s go ask Owner Class what happened!”

Owner Class: “WTF? That’s so weird! Hey, Mushroom! What happened here? Why did you get some nutrients and White Trees didn’t get any?!”

Mushroom: “Hey, I deserve this! I worked so hard this season, I have to eat, too!”

White Trees: “Give us some!”

Mushroom: “Make me!”

Scuffle Intensifies

Emperor Palpatine Owner Class: Laughs in Reaganomics

Sticks more straws into the nutrients and starts sucking.

Owner Class: “LOL screw that! Hey, Mushroom!”

Mushroom: “Yeah? What’s up?”

Owner Class: “Watch out! That White Tree is trying to steal your nutrients.”

Mushroom: “…”

Mushroom: (•ˋ _ ˊ•)

White Tree: “Whoa hang on there, fun guy. I’m not trying to steal your nutrients. I worked hard for these, I deserve my share.”

Mushroom: “Let’s fight, bitch!”

White Tree: “Them’s fighting words! You’re on!”

Scuffle Intensifies

Emperor Palpatine Owner Class: “Good. Good! Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.” Sticks a straw in the nutrients and starts sucking all of it.

I used to think a slightly different way when I was younger. That these bad drivers needed to be taught a lesson. I would always catch up to them at a red light and shake my head no in disapproval and do a thumbs down.

Then one day a driver I did that to stuck his hand out the window and waved a handgun in my direction. Looks like he had something to prove and wanted to teach me a lesson, too.

Lesson learned: no matter what, you never, ever try to shame, scold, escalate, or “teach a lesson” to another driver. Ever. You have no idea what that person may do, and how quickly they can end your life. Would be a shame for you to wind up on the news as a dead person and your family to learn you were killed due to road rage.

Over a decade since that incident, I’m married and would never do such a thing. If I had children, especially when in my car, I’d hate for them to see negative/retaliation behavior come from me - or worse, for them to see me exhibit any kind of road rage. I’m now older, wiser, and a much safer driver and better human being all around.

Granted if someone tried a hit and run, I’d be on the phones with the cops and would follow them from a distance enough to get a good description and tag numbers.

Edit: Yes, I’m American. How did you know?

Make sure you highlight this in your one on one discussions with your manager and get compensated. You’re doing two jobs- your employer should not be taking advantage of you. Get paid my friend.

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

What’s Taters, precious?

Such a masterpiece comedy. My favorite part of that O.J. Simpson scene is while getting shot multiple times and injured, he gets paint on his jacket and says “Oh no”. So silly, but I love it.

To add this for posterity, there is an additional component to the U.S. autoworkers union striking. In 2008 during the global financial crisis (with things like robosigning foreclosures, predatory loans with ballooning interest rates, etc.), some U.S. automakers were asking for government bailouts, which eventually were granted. These bailouts were entirely taxpayer funded. Now the automakers are refusing to meet union contract negotiations. Automakers not paying employees cost-of-living, or frankly, just salary increases is upsetting, but the additional hypocrisy of U.S. tax-paying citizens bailing out these companies with their own money in 2008, and then not having the companies return some of the wealth in 2023 is enraging.

Edit:

Forgot to add that when the automakers were begging for government bailouts, the automakers had to take away worker pensions and some benefits to “protect the system”. In 2023, the U.S. autoworkers union is fighting to get those benefits back for the workers.

Wealthy Class: Oh heck yeah I’m about to trickle down some wealth to you all! Everybody hold out their hands.

Proceeds to trickle a small handout only to the Butchers

Butchers: Thank you!! This is so generous!

Farmers + Hunters: WTF?! How come you Butchers got the money? Let’s go complain to the Wealthy Class and figure out what happened!

Wealthy Class: WTF? How can this be? Butchers - explain yourself!

Butchers: We worked hard for this and we need this money.

Farmers + Hunters: Hey, screw you! How can you be so greedy when we need the money, too? Let’s fight!

Butchers: Them’s fighting words. You guys suck, why can’t you work harder?

Farmers, Hunters, and Butchers proceed to rassle

Wealthy Class:

Capitalism enters the chat

Capitalism: Nah bro. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work. Are you lazy and don’t want to work anymore? Be loyal to your company and work for them for 60 years. Your hard work will reap you many rewards so that your CEO can buy a new yacht.

Reaganism enters the chat

Reaganism: Oh hell yeah we’re about to trickle down some wealth, everyone! My newfound wealth and yacht will trickle down to you all, somehow potentially. So that’s your benefit. Trust us! Check out the next comment to this post and get ready for that economic stimulus that you paid for! It’s coming!

Inexorable machinery of capitalism whirs into the chat

Machinery of Capitalism: Hey, working class! Give us more blood so our gears can continue to whir.

Working Class feebly crawls into the chat

Working Class: We’re too tired from work. We’re too tired fighting with each other because the Wealthy Class pits us against each other. We’re too tired and distracted to unite because we think the others in the working class are against us rather than focusing on the real problem. We are too manipulated by you and believe we’re in a culture war, when the real problem is the inexorable class war where you transfer all the wealth from us to you. We just want to have freedom, pay our bills without worry, not destroy our planet, and retire while being happy. We just want to be able to afford to eat. If you keep this up and break us to the point of no return, we just may have to eat the rich.

Capitalism: Gulp! Let’s think of something new we can distract you with or some other corporation/wealthy controversial person we can exploit to manipulate you all into being divided again. We summon Ron DeSantis! I choose you, Vladimir Putin! Use “War on Ukraine” - it’s super effective! Ron DeSantis, use “scummy villain civil rights” Special Move! It’s Super Effective! Now stand still while we take away your rights, your money, your choice, and your autonomy.

Working Class: … Okay, you win again. You’re right - as a farmer, I definitely see that the hunters are trying to take away my pitchforks. The butchers are trying to steal my chickens. Farmers - unite! Let’s kill those hunters and butchers.

Machinery of Capitalism, smiling and satisfied, continues to do parasite things while the Rich riches their riches harder

• Repeat this cycle for all of time and humanity’s history *

Physical books are amazing and I’ll always buy physical copies of the ones I love. Looking at it from cover to cover and taking in the cover art, the smell of the pages, the sound of it as you rustle through pages, the thunk when you close the book shut after finishing it. Not to mention just staring at all your books in a bookshelf and reminiscing about them. It’s a lovely thing. You can’t get that experience with eReaders and smart devices.

But I do purchase eBooks because I love the convenience. I prefer to buy DRM-free versions but they are difficult to obtain due to modern publishers. When I’m forced to buy one with DRM, I always break the DRM so that I can archive them and use them on any device I wish. Knowledge should be free, always.