historicaldocuments

Probably used some crappy house paint

This was comedy yesterday: https://youtu.be/Wz_JVFW83iY?t=554

It's not nearly the first time an absurb, stupid take on something gets played to extremes for laughs only for that the be the actual path taken despite all the warnings/math/science/reality that have to be ignored. It won't be the last, either.

Yes, the same one.

audited regularly

You won't overturn hundreds of thousands of years of human nature and ungodly profits this way. People already have the ability to vote with their wallets and they don't for the most part. We do have at least one example of someone who tries, but I wonder how much of that page is still true today: https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

I was surprised to find the old Edward Bernays books online. I guess they're just that old now. From the first book Propaganda:

In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or commodity or idea.

• https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78634/pg78634-images.html
• https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61364/pg61364-images.html

Stallman's notions probably aren't going to manifest themselves in the middle of nowhere without internet. Bernays' probably will.

Just ban the algorithms on social media and you solve a good portion of the issues they cause.

There's no way to enforce that, and you have to have seen some bs before to recognize it again. Plus, if you're the only kid that never sees stuff the algorithm provides then you're right back to being surrounded by people with different knowledge sets.

“autistic kids are retarded, and you aren’t so you can’t be autistic”.

Growing in a small rural town comes with a lot of good things but also a lot of prejudices that can make your life tough if you aren’t “like the rest of the kids”.

This is why I waffle about banning "social media" for kids under a certain age. If the parents and the communities they allow say that it's not possible for a kid to be a certain way then there's no way for a kid to independently check. I don't have any idea on how to balance that against the algorithm.

Lots of rose colored glasses being worn here.

I will take modern rust prevention tech every day all day. The control modules and circuit boards are a hole in repairablity, and there'll be a wall where nobody makes them anymore and the specs are not published (considered proprietary/trade secret/whatever), and that whole vehicle will just have to be scrapped. The world won't ever see the end of old body-on-frame vehicles with crate engines. Speaking for myself the "rose colored glasses" is a wish for the best of both worlds. I wouldn't doubt it's out there being done somewhere, but I'm sure it's cost prohibitive to do it, or people are doing it for themselves.

Maybe I'm just complaining because I don't personally have the time/knowledge/workspace to do what I want in that area. C’est la vie.

What kind of car?

They used to be. Go back far enough in time and you could climb up under the hood into the engine bay to work on it. All that went by the wayside to get smaller packaging, lighter weight, and better fuel efficiency.

Now you need special tools or special code readers to solve/diagnose all vehicle problems. The large scale farmers are dealing with this now with the large combines and harvesters needing a tech with special equipment to read all the codes where the older tractors from the 70s and 80s can be repaired.

Well, nothing to do but start at the first one and work our way down...

A jeep renegade I rented did ok

You must've gotten a good one.

Try the c++23 standard. There's been a lot of cross pollination. Contrived example follows:

#include <format>
#include <numbers>
#include <print>
#include <string>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    double pi = std::numbers::pi;
    std::string fstr = std::format("{}, {:>.2}, {:>.5}, {:>.10}", pi, pi, pi, pi);
    std::string h = "Hello";
    std::string w  = "World";
    std::println("{}, {}!", h, w);
    std::print("This won't have a {},", "newline");
    std::println(" but this will add it."); // Add a newline.

    // Can't put a non-constant string as the first argument to
    // print or println so they can be checked at compile time.
    std::println("{}", fstr);
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}