Cereal grains were the suspects I had in mind - I didn't know until you mentioned it that legumes are now part of cat food.

Thanks for the insight. It makes me wonder - totally aside from diet-induced dementia - if some of us are doomed to have it just because of age. Maybe it's something which happens in certain species, regardless of diet or whatever equivalent of the APOE4 gene they might have.

From TFA:
The discovery has been hailed as a "perfect natural model for Alzheimer's"
and
"Because cats naturally develop these brain changes, they may also offer a more accurate model of the disease..."

It may be a "natural model", in that cats develop the same disease in a manner similar to that of humans. But I question the "naturally develop these brain changes" assertion.

Given the well-known association of diet and lifestyle with the development of human dementia - and given that most domestic cat food is processed crap which probably mimics the processed crap that humans eat - I'm wondering if feral cats who eat birds, rodents, and the like are significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease.

It's great that we have cats in whom we can study Alzheimer's, with the aim of developing treatments for both felines and humans. But I think we should be looking more closely at possible causes. After all, preventing disease is better than treating it.

Then again, maybe feral cats simply don't live long enough to develop the disease...

Because this is an OS - and one which, in the vast majority of cases, came as part of the computer purchase - I don't think the "commercial software" argument applies. In the first place, lack of a single software package means the loss of a limited amount of functionality, whereas lack of an OS turns the computer into a brick. In the second place, from what I've read there seems to be copious evidence that Microsoft purposely and frivolously made Windows 11 incompatible with older hardware in order to boost its hardware partners' sales.

At some point, a lot of the software which is defended as the perpetual and exclusive property of the companies which created it really becomes a de facto part of the commons. It's effectively societal infrastructure, and Windows is a great example of this. For that reason, legislative intervention isn't merely desirable; it's a moral, philosophical, and practical necessity.

For most average computer users - and average small businesses - switching to Linux is simply unworkable. That's especially true given all the critical software which will run only on Windows, and - more relevant to my argument - Microsoft's legendary efforts to entrench Office by making it as hard as possible to write software which works with its proprietary file formats.

Historically, Microsoft has been a bad actor starting a looong way back. A good spanking is well past due here. Their clear intention to spuriously obsolete older computers, and to move everything to SaaS in the cloud where they can charge rent and hold customers' data hostage, needs to be stopped dead in its tracks. And let's not forget all the spying, which has come to a head recently with their attempts to shove Recall down everybody's throats.

Microsoft has built a huge empire on "altering the deal", and I sincerely hope the plaintiff manages to put the screws to them bigtime. They deserve that, and so much more. And computer users deserve not to be held hostage by what is effectively a monopoly held by Microsoft.

Thanks for that.

It seems that they don't know whether nightmares are causal or merely associated:

"Future studies are needed to determine whether treating distressing dreams could slow biological ageing and reduce mortality risk in the general population".

I tale your point. However, I've often wanted "moral support" in the context of doing something that I really don't want to do, but that I also know I should or must do. In that case, "moral" is indeed an appropriate word.

After I typed the above, I did a search and found this:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgrammarphobia.com%2Fblog%2F2010%2F11%2Fmoral-morale.html

That entry was prompted by someone who posed the question that you just asked. The two words share a common root, and the meanings are clearly related; so any ambiguity around them is understandable.

TFA is subscription-walled so I didn't read it. But TFS prompts me to ask if whatever predisposes people to nightmares also leads to premature death, or if the stress of the nightmares themselves is responsible. I guess it could be both.

Good points - thanks for the insight. That said, I think Mozilla drank its own Kool-Aid, which was spiked with Google juice. But even at that, they made a good product for a long time, they made some decent forks possible, and they managed to not jump the shark until quite late in their history.

Fair question, and no, I don't think I have - I can't be sure because I have next to zero experience with Mac. The last time I had hands on, the video was monochrome and the mouse had one button. For me, even Windows 3.0 seemed miles more intuitive. Plus it had DOS underneath it, and I was quite comfortable with that.

Thanks for the chuckle!

That's simultaneously a bug and a feature. Yes, Linux is in many ways fragmented and inconsistent when it comes to UI, configuration, etc. But therein lie the variety and the choices that a more cohesive OS simply has to forego in order to get shit done and to enable widespread support for users who are, largely, technically illiterate.

The "coming together" you mentioned, can only happen to the extent you want to see if developers are being paid and being told what to do. When that happens, the work is a job rather than a passion; then salaries have to be paid, HR departments funded, etc, etc. Then what was Open Source becomes closed and proprietary. At that point you have just another Microsoft, or Apple, or Google.

As a 15-plus-year user of Linux almost exclusively, I share your frustration. But what you and I want from Linux would be its death knell, so I swear and curse while simultaneously thanking all those hard-working devs who gave me a choice and allowed me to throw off the yoke of Windows, MacOS, and stock Android.

If that's the case, then I've never used an OS that doesn't have "something fundamentally wrong" with it. Even trying to do stuff on my wife's Windows 10 computer has me scratching my head, and Windows 11 is worse. Also, I'm in the process of converting a Pixel phone to LineageOS; getting around the native Android OS on it is like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey - and I've been using Android of one flavour or another for 12 or more years. So I'd say that mainstream OSs aren't what they used to be, and in fact they never were.

Wrong verb tense there dude. That ship hasn't just sailed, it's already far over the horizon.

I think it's important here to not conflate "Liberals" with "Democrats in elected office". The way so many high-profile Dems-in-office have been bending over and greasing up for Trump tells me that most of them are a spineless lot of opportunists who would sell out their own mothers for a PAC cheque.

In short, most high-ranking Dems don't give a crap about the viability of unions - they just take the easiest and laziest path toward holding down their jobs and keeping the money rolling in.

From where I stand, most highly placed Democrats aren't Liberals - they're just diet Conservatives.

It's kinda cute how y'all blithely assume that there will even be midterms and another presidential election, never mind any future elections being at all fair and representative of the will of the people.

Go ahead - take an honest look at recent events involving the courts, the military, the national guard, masked ICE agents, etc. Then tell me with a straight face that America's electoral process will continue to be a business-as-usual process.

Or even a handful of trained avocados...