I wrote RPG II code in the 80s and helped the company I was working part-time for transition to another one of these S/36 emulation environments on the PC in the 90s. The software we used was made by the very generically named California Software Products.
It worked well enough and allowed the company to run until the founder retired and folded the business.
Yeah I am not sure where I read the article recently, but there was a nice write-up about how all politics everywhere is turning into tribalism with little or no actual consideration for policy beyond ideology.
Not that it’s necessarily as bad everywhere, but time and time again I talk to people from various countries who say the current leader never could have been elected back when they were living there.
A lot of this, as in the case of Trump, seems like legitimate dissatisfaction that voters have which is funneled into finding alternatives to the people that are currently representing them, without deep thought about the outcomes of the policies the replacement is pushing for. In the case of Trump voters in particular people seem to very frequently be willing to overlook statements they would otherwise disagree with just because there are other statements that align with their thinking, or that seem like “change” that they are willing to support to see where it leads.
I don’t know how ubiquitous it is in my circles, but I have noticed a lot of folks in their 20s and 30s tell me they only buy paper books, never Kindle. I started buying only the latter years ago because of the convenience and lack of a need for storage, but have recently switched to getting everything I can (digitally) through the library and the Libby app.
I've stopped with Kindle books (or e-books in general). It's been a while. But my kindle got destroyed by my then 3 yr old going all crazy on it. The screen just froze and nothing made it unfreeze. I was moving towards paper books anyway. So I just did not buy another Kindle.
From new reports it seems Denmark is rolling back a lot of e-learning/screen usage. I hope the same comes to pass in the US. My daughter gets an iPad for her high school and while its locked down it is incredibly distracting. It is also restrictive. You can't read your notes and make summaries and write your own interpretation of what you've read without switching context between apps. As a whole I think its a bad option for learning.
> It is also restrictive. You can't read your notes and make summaries and write your own interpretation of what you've read without switching context between apps.
A lot of folks really underrate how inferior digital technology is to paper, in many ways. Digital has some advantages (e.g. copying, transmission, physical size), but is grossly inferior in other ways (flexibility, engaging spatial awareness, etc.).
We have also seen the Boomer's cannibalize themselves, even my 7 year old can see that her grandma's screen addiction is a very scary thing and something to be avoided; very cautionary. The Boomer's inability to defend themselves against the algorithms is a wild case study in screen addiction.
I think AI is just a tipping point and an easy target.
To this point, there have been at least a few stories of elderly people being beaten on San Francisco public transit for politely asking people to turn their music down.
OK, I read about someone being murdered by their spouse. That doesn't mean it is going to happen to me. The media reports on sensational stories. That doesn't make them normal.
You tend to know your spouse, you don't know the mental state of people on the train. Especially people who have already demonstrated they don't care about social norms or preserving tranquility in public spaces.
Someone blaring their choice of music in a public space at 90 dB is a “cultural touchstone”?
I don’t drive, I take public transit daily, and am old enough to remember when you would never experience anything like this (even in the heyday of boom boxes in the 80s). So yeah I’m not convinced it’s a “me” problem.
And returning to the point, if you asked someone 30 years ago to turn their music down they would either comply or say something nasty - not physically assault you.
