Silly goose, you don’t own Windows — you license it.

It is kinda brilliant though, the way they set it up.

If you don’t like the joke, you can always fall back to the meta level: this is a 40-something dad recalling how dumb and cringe-worthy he and his friends were in their 20s.

I think part of the problem is that when you read about the horrors of the Holocaust as a kid, you can’t help but think of Nazi Germany as a cartoonishly, outlandishly evil place full of people who spend every waking second thinking about how much they hate impure bloodlines.

You come away with an impression that it should be obvious when genocide is happening.

Then you go home after school and you see something about genocide in the Middle East, and you ask your parents about it and they say “Well… it’s complicated.” And if it’s complicated – if it’s not cartoonishly, outlandishly evil – then it must not be genocide.

So, literally the story of the actual Luddites. Or what they attempted to do before capitalists poured a few hundred bullets into them.

I tried to be accurate instead of specific.

If I didn’t have to work anymore, I’d have more time to explore potential things to work on, so whatever project I’d pick right now would probably not be my main focus after 3 months of settling into my new life.

From where I am right now, I think it would be something to do with language-level features for distributed computing (but not that web3 nonsense). There’s a lot of potential to weaken the monopoly power of cloud providers by working on something like that, which is why it’s an under-explored area.

But I’d need more people to work with, and some specific use cases to go after. So I would expect the effort to change a lot by the time I actually found the right group of people to work with.

Work on projects that I think are important instead of just profitable.

Shipbreaking

Current Setting: Breed Groot

The venerable master Qc Na was walking with his student, Anton. Hoping to prompt the master into a discussion, Anton said “Master, I have heard that objects are a very good thing - is this true?” Qc Na looked pityingly at his student and replied, “Foolish pupil - objects are merely a poor man’s closures.”

Chastised, Anton took his leave from his master and returned to his cell, intent on studying closures. He carefully read the entire “Lambda: The Ultimate…” series of papers and its cousins, and implemented a small Scheme interpreter with a closure-based object system. He learned much, and looked forward to informing his master of his progress.

On his next walk with Qc Na, Anton attempted to impress his master by saying “Master, I have diligently studied the matter, and now understand that objects are truly a poor man’s closures.” Qc Na responded by hitting Anton with his stick, saying “When will you learn? Closures are a poor man’s object.” At that moment, Anton became enlightened.

We do what we can, because we must.

I think it’s kind of strange.

Between quantification and consciousness, we tend to dismiss consciousness because it can’t be quantified.

Why don’t we dismiss quantification because it can’t explain consciousness?

“Insufficient detail. Please ask a specific question.”

“Read the wiki”

“Nobody here is interested in holding your hand.”

Technically, everything AI does is actually done by low-paid workers.

How do they measure despair?

Cuz it itches the part of our brain that looks for status-seeking behavior and labels people as inauthentic.

Being vegetarian places a degree of exclusivity onto your consumer habits, and in the Western capitalist lens, conspicuous consumption has a lot to do with how we communicate our status.

Being vegan stands in direct relationship to vegetarianism as being even more exclusive. This does two things:

1. It raises the stakes, because now the identity is even more exclusive because it’s more restrictive.
2. It creates a pattern, where it looks as if you’re saying “Oh yeah? Well, I’m even vegetarianer! Take that! Look how cool I am!”

Just that in and of itself puts vegans on the receiving end of a whole bunch of cognitive biases.

But wait, there’s more!

Because mass production never lets a social identity go to waste, major brands got on board with explicitly labeling things as vegan, which starts to make it seem like you’re trying to be cool but really just deepthroating the corporate cock to “buy your way to cool”.

And then came the trends of organic/non-GMO, local-first, artisanal, farm-to-table, etc. etc.

At the point where Wal-Mart has their own artisanal farm-to-table cheese brand, it starts to look (to our dumb pattern-matching brains) like vegans are just rubes falling for the most basic version of an obviously fake status-seeking game propped up by cynical brands preying on how desperate you are to look cool.

But wait, there’s even more!

Because, surprise – our brains never actually stop caring about status, even if we think we’re just trying to make rational, objective, moral choices. Picturing yourself as a rebel for being vegan, taking the sneers and the insults in stride because you know it’s the right choice for the planet… is appealing.

And that self-aggrandizing image is inseparable from actually doing the thing, because that’s just how our brains work. Even for the most pure-hearted among us, thinking we’re morally superior – especially in tangible ways that we get to physically play out on a daily basis – is intoxicating.

So the people who are chuckling about the inauthenticity are… kind of right. But this same dynamic exists for literally everything. So when you chuckle at the vegan, but then take a moment to consider which kind of bacon really speaks to who you are as a consumer, you’re playing the same game. It’s just one that far more people are invested into. So if anyone calls it silly, nobody takes that criticism seriously. Not like your organic local-first artisanal acai kale kombutcha.

–

Basically my recollection of this episode of You Are Not So Smart: https://soundcloud.com/youarenotsosmart/selling-out-andrew-potter

…which I listened to, for the first time, as an attempt at bonding with my then-girlfriend/now-wife’s roommate. We had not gotten along up until then, because she was aggressively vegan and I ate a lot of fast food. But I found out she liked podcasts and I was really enjoying this one and there was a new episode I hadn’t heard yet! She really enjoyed it, until the guest talked about veganism as a form of status-seeking. That didn’t go well. I didn’t mind taking over her half of the lease though.

Fun fact: The Luddites weren’t opposed to technology. In many cases, they built the machines they would later destroy.

What they opposed was the ownership structure. The fact that they could be 30x more productive, yet be paid less than before because the required skill level was lower, and the working conditions were now dangerous and demeaning.

Yet when someone says “luddite” now, what do you think? A dummy who’s afraid of having cool stuff?

You don’t give money to the bums
On a corner with a sign bleeding from their gums
Talking about you don’t support a crackhead?
What you think happens to the money from your taxes?

Shit, the Government’s an addict
With a billion dollar a week kill brown people habit

Try it with:

• No state-issued ID (and depending on the state, missing pre-reqs for getting one)
• No bank account
• Outstanding debt
• Bad credit
• Blemished background check
• No recent rental history (or recent evictions)

We have plenty of ways to mark people as undesirable, which are harder to fix than having zero cash on hand.

tl;dr: Miyoo Mini Plus

Performance-wise, pretty much anything is gonna have you covered when it comes to GBA, so it really depends what else you want out of the experience.

You mentioned the slot, so if physical carts are important to you, then…

• If you want an authentic feel with modern features, then an OG GBA mod is probably the “platonic ideal” if you have the stomach for it. WULFF has a good video about his experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhW6TkzmxuM
• Analogue Pocket is also an option, but honestly I think they’re ugly and overpriced.

Worth noting for the platform-specific perks:

• A hacked 3DS is a great option. It’s super easy to do, and it’s really the only hardware that comfortably plays 3DS titles to this day.
• Hacked OLED PS Vita is also a great option. Beautiful screen, great controls, and again it’s the best hardware for its own first-party titles.

More modern stuff:

• If you also want Moonlight streaming and/or Android apps, Retroids are great. I have a 3+, but I wish I’d waited for the 2S (the numbering in this hobby is ridiculous) because I would’ve preferred the 4:3 screen ratio and retro aesthetic.
• Anbernic is hit or miss – but when they hit, they hit. The RG35XX H is reportedly a very good horizontal option, and I’ve had my eye on a 405 M as well because of the thumbstick positioning.

But here’s the thing: At the end of the day, the best handheld is the one you have on you.

If you’re not going to bring it with you when you go out, then what’s the point?

Portability is the key feature of this kind of device, and we all tend to have at least 2 if not 3 pockets already spoken-for. And you might think “Ah, I always have my backpack on me.” But do you bring your backpack to the bathroom with you at work? Do you wear it around the house? So pocketability is the #1 factor, IMO.

And with that in mind, here are my pocket-friendly picks:

• Anbernic RG280V is the epitome of the “just enough” device. Just enough screen, finger space, and performance to play just enough systems to keep you happy.
• Anbernic RG Nano is an extreme take on pocketability, being small enough to put a keychain. I include it here just because that may be a relevant category for some people.

But my number one pick, specifically because it nails the form factor while being supremely pocketable…

The Miyoo Mini Plus!

It’s just a stellar device. It’s just big enough to be comfy, but small enough that I don’t hesitate to put it in my pocket even for trivial outings.

Onion OS is a great custom firmware (oh yeah, for a lot of these you should look into custom firmware options), but the stock firmware isn’t bad either. It’s easy to use, everything “just works”, and it’s plenty powerful for everything that I care about playing on the go. The screen is beautiful, the gray version looks cool as hell (be aware that there is light bleed around the power LED with the translucent cases), and the stock buttons are delightful.

And it’s a good price, to boot.

I bought one for my sister-in-law because she was drooling over mine. She’s not a super nerd, has zero interest in tinkering, but hasn’t gone a day without playing it since Christmas.

–

Some good channels for in-depth reviews:

• https://www.youtube.com/@RetroGameCorps
• https://www.youtube.com/@TechDweeb
• https://www.youtube.com/@WulffDen
• https://www.youtube.com/@ETAPRIME

• Programming
• Retro handhelds
• Leftist politics
• Cognitive science
• Philosophy