Whether you learn to type in one of the approved ways, or any other way that allows you to type without looking at the keyboard, being able to do so is a critical skill for any kind of typing. The less time you spend thinking about how to type, and the less time you spend correcting edits, the more you can allow your thoughts to turn into text. I can do a certain amount of punctuation without looking (All the usuals... and of course including parentheses and brackets) and that's handy even while just scripting — or trying to quit vi.

While I agree that touch-typing isn't the primary skill of a competent, fast programmer -- it is still an amazing skill to have.

Although I've been touch-typing for almost half a century, it still fascinates me that the words appear on my screen simply as I think them. I don't even have to speak those thoughts -- my fingers automatically race around the keys and the words appear. It's almost like a direct interface between my mind and the computer.

Yes, I'm pretty fast -- about 140wpm which makes the whole experience even more fascinating since the words appear almost as fast as I think them.

Would I recommend that people learn touch-typing. Hell yes... I think people should learn *everything* they can, while they can. When you're young it's so much easier to learn than when you get old (like me). There are so many things I wish I'd learned when it would have been easier to do so -- foreign languages, playing a musical instrument, etc,etc.

However, here I am, a relic of the past. I can program in assembler for lots of 8-bit micros from the Signetics 2650 through the 8080, Z80, 6502, 6800 etc; BASIC, Pascal, C, Modula2, Java but now I'm faced with learning the intricacies of Python, Kotlin, Rust and crafting AI queries. It's getting harder every day because my brain seems to have simultaneously run out of RAM, CPU cycles and backup storage all at the same time :-)

Climate change, of course.

Ha ha, only serious: Ukraine has a number of resources which are important to Russia, including cropland. Russia invaded Ukraine historically for the same reason. Ukraine also used to be an important manufacturing center for Russia. Notably, they produced cast tank turrets. You may have noticed that Putin is experiencing an armor shortage.

It's certainly true that some people will do this. But you also don't necessarily need to set the UBI benefit at levels that will allow people to do it everywhere, or to take up much space doing it. And people who want more or better drugs will still go pick up cans. Basic income trials generally show that people usually still work so long as the payments don't affect anything like eligibility for other benefits, which for large families can be critical. Many of those programs are not even paying very much.

The people you see mostly have jobs. You have to have a job to be worth ferrying around on a spaceship, or taking up space on a station. (Or you have to be the annoying child of someone who fits that description.) You have to have a job to have a lot of stuff, or big expensive things like a spaceship. But it doesn't seem like most humans in the Trek universe have to have a job unless they live on a colony.

We might also have to prevent profiteering on some items, like housing and groceries, or provide alternatives to the commercial options. There's no reason why people should be able to make more than a reasonable profit providing necessities. Businesses need to serve communities in a mutually beneficial relationship. They depend on the apparatus of the state to exist. Of no communism! But we already have many laws on how much you can charge for many things.

The alternatives to UBI are far larger changes than it is, especially since a lot of people are already receiving a BI in the form of Social Security. Nearly 74 million Americans are receiving some amount of Social Security benefits, with a pretty wide spread of benefit amounts which average around $1900. Even some people with an acknowledged disability are only getting a few hundred dollars, because they are doing some work. And if they do very much, they lose the rest of the benefits.

It takes a bunch of administration to do all that screwing people over.

UBI is already a good idea, along with national health. Expand Social Security and Medicaid to cover everyone over time. Exactly how much/what it should entitle you to is a matter for debate, but if this capitalism thing is going to not eat itself when it's based on there being consumers then it will need them to continue to exist and have money.

Obviously the plan is to make sure some number of us die, which is why they're doing all this malicious bullshit to the public health apparatus. They clearly don't think they need as many of us. They are no doubt correct about that, although I don't think the system will work well if they get it down as far as I suspect they would like.

I considered uploading to X but discovered that unless you pay them a monthly stipend, you can only upload very short vids (90 seconds I think).

So, if you do start paying them and upload longer vids, what happens if you stop your payment either voluntarily or perhaps because you die? Will your longer vids suddenly disappear?

None of the alternative platforms offer any kind of guarantee of continued service... hence people are far better off to self-host and federate if they are in a position to do so.

It's not good for them either. It's not good for us sooner, but it's not sustainable. The technology is nowhere near ready to replace enough of the plebes to keep them from danger.

I agree. I spend about 12 hours a day working behind a computer keyboard/screen so when I'm not working I simply have no desire to carry a smartphone. I have an old-fashioned phone that only does SMS and voice -- I don't want to be connected to the internet 24/7.

What about *my* freedoms and rights?

Sadly, it's possible to make killbots much more cheaply and quickly than humans. The "waves and waves" approach will not work against palm-sized drones which can fire say twenty ~22lr shots or so, which is extremely feasible and "bounce around death round" bullshit aside, still plenty deadly. It will not work because there will be waves and waves and waves and waves of them. You can try the jamming devices, that hasn't got much spam in it.

It's also to make everyone work for everything unless they can prove that they shouldn't have to, and then they make determinations about who can or cannot prove it without medical qualifications.

There is a broad spectrum of opinion on what SNAP should be for, and who should get what kind of food aid, and how much. The intent of the program from a federal perspective is to provide supplementary food, it's right in the name, which implies that they think that everyone should be dependent upon either labor or literal charity for at least some of their food. Some state do their utmost to avoid handing out food aid, while others do their best to provide it. Recalcitrance in relation to feeding people is unexplainable from an economic standpoint because the money benefits everyone in the state, and it seems like it should be difficult to justify for people who commonly like to cite Jesus as their reason for voting one way or another, but it does exist.

Some people feel, as you invoke, that one should not be able to purchase luxury food items or even unhealthy ones with food aid. Indeed, there is a program for pregnant and nursing mothers called WIC which operates on that premise, and you have to request approval for a substitute product when the items on the approved list are out of stock. But some people are of the opinion that you should be able to buy yourself a steak, or yes a lobster tail, or buy a child a birthday cake because have a fucking heart. (I'm not accusing you of anything, only finishing my sentence for effect. Pax.)

You are of course correct. I would still work. I might work less. I might work doing something else. If you have a truly functional UBI that's actually tied to the cost of living somehow reasonable - more on that in a moment - then you can reduce or even eliminate the minimum wage, if you can show that it really works. You can remove or scale back a number of other programs because the UBI is covering needs. Those programs themselves employ a number of people, but since they would have UBI, a number of them wouldn't need much more income to be making more than they're making now. Government jobs famously do not usually pay much, unless you are a licensed professional. Even then they are only generally barely competitive, and that only because otherwise there would be no takers.

If people's needs are genuinely met, then they will have time and opportunity to create new jobs, new things, etc. A lot of energy and expenditure will be saved, as well. We need to either get a lot more efficient, or do a lot less, in order to reduce our impact. There's absolutely no good reason so many of us should have to work so much and get to keep so little of what we produce.

You shouldn't even have to ask them. But really their opinion isn't what matters most, it's the intent of the body that passed the law.

Coincidentally I started listening to them only a few days before they went encrypted, and then obviously I stopped.

There are multiple public safety interests served by allowing access, and only some of them are related to police malfeasance.

Mod me down with a sock puppet because your argument is crap, good times