... now they are ultra-expensive pets. This is the prime driver behind birthrate decline. On top of that comes hormonal birth control that _significantly_ alters women's perception of men. Add to that social media that amps said perception of options, self-worth and alternate reality 10x and you've got the perfect storm of an aloof late-stage decadent society on the brink of dying out.

Curiously enough there are historic records of exactly this happening throughout human history, with astonishingly similar effects in society, like rising property prices, disenfranchising of mid and low-status mem, whore becoming a desired choice career for women and dissolution of sex/gender definitions. Rome, Maya culture, Weimar Republic and some vanished societies in far east Asia are examples from recorded history that show similar trajectories.

The "West" will collapse and some other society will take its place. If we don't all die out completely from some global Ecological Tilt brought about by climate change and pollution that is.

> you now have to upgrade$$ your membership to 'gold star' or 'executive'

you're historically backwards.

the business membership is the base membership. they added the less expensive membership, but held back some hours for the business folks to partially placate them.

the business members' purchases are what keep the place going; the cheap membership is just a bit of gravy.

>if you ignore that number of animals they have that want to kill you.

so you're saying that the solution is to import hostile wildlife from Australia? :_)

hawks

That doesn't stop me for Pining for them, though.

We've long been accustomed to France surrendering to Germans, spear throwing tribesmen, and the occasional Boy Scout troupe.

But, really, come on now. Surrendering to jellyfish is a new low . . .

hawk

>But what if I want to drive from New York to Las Vegas all in one
>go on a Coke fueled journey of self-discovery and action?

If you're going straight to the tables from that, we'll happily comp the room for when you crash, along with more drinks and meal! :)

>It's been on my desktop since 1997.

which is the year I took it *off* my primary desktop, iirc!

At that point, FreeBSD supported my hardware.

Linux still ended up on some laptops when I was in a hurry.

I couldn't tell you whether either FreeBSD or Linux can play nicely with the other's filesystem, though--back then they both did enough intermittent damages to the other's filesystem that I had do uses a DOS partition to share between them.

This led to my having to ask for a replacement windows CD from the university. It's not like I used it more than a time or two ago. year, being on FreeBSD, but sometimes it was needed for some screwball stuff.

I'd looked high and low before giving up and asking. It isn't a big deal, as the university had a master licensee, but still.

And then, a few months later, I found it.

My fire had put it into coaster duty!

Err, why?

"well you said . . ."

[eyeroll]

the tech guy and I got a good laugh out of it, though.

>It's really not the same, for a number of reasons.

OK, make it a dam with a huge stopcock, or half a nuclear plant that defies the laws of physics by switching suddenly on and off, and to partial power.

" things where the display elevated or the keyboard would remove so you could use them like a workstation,"

There's a name for that design: Osborne!

Always a safe bet, even when bought refurbished. I rely on ThinkPads to this very day.

... allowing sideloading and installing a completely open source boot process and OS. I don't know if that still is the case but a few years back Xperia phones where the last ones that allowed for this sort of thing. A good thing IMHO and worth supporting.

You really need to drive here.

Like most of the US, the population density simply isn't enough for mass transit to be practical.

Buses run every 15-30 minutes on the main grid streets, nominally a mile apart. Most aren't particularly full, and there aren't enough transit police to enforce basic civility, such as the blaring music from multiple speakerphones.

A planned light rail has been replaced with an expansion of the bus line on Maryland parkway.

There are more bike lanes with spacing than there used to be, but there is *no* way I am going back on to the roads with the drivers around here.

Underground tunnels with regular small automated cars would seem to be a possibility, but only if monitored well enough. I have no idea whether it would be financially viable, though.

oh, no.

It doesn't even *compare* to the uselessness of the Las Vegas monorail and its multiple bankruptcy.

It goes to something like five resorts and the convention center.

Due to the juice that the taxi companies used to have, it was blocked from going anywhere useful, such as the airport.

And the fair for those short hops is something like $9, although only a dollar for locals.

I haven't heard of any extensions of the boring loop in at least a couple of years, though. It will *supposedly* reach the airport and downtown, but I'll believe it when I see it.

And I'm not sure that there's any point in the current form in which it needs drivers in passenger cars. But next to the monorail, it's downright brilliant! [insert eyeball here]

>When the power goes out, I can start a gas generator and use my local library.

when power goes out, my local library closes, and its servers go down . . .