In 20 years, we’ll be hearing President Amazon’s state of the union address, followed by a rebuttal from Senator Walmart.

Honestly, I think Kubuntu is slept on as a beginner’s distro.

Yes, Ubuntu has its issues … but those sorts of issues are really not going to affect a newbie much. And it’s stable, easy to use, KDE defaults will be pretty familiar-feeling for Windows refugees, and it should be relatively easy to find help – 90% of the time, if you just type “how do I _____ in Linux?” into Google Duck Duck Go, the results you find will be perfectly applicable to Ubuntu. Want to install 3rd party software that’s not in their repos? In pretty much any software that offers a Linux version, the Ubuntu-compatible install method is the first one they list.

(Oh, and the installer is literally one click if you just let it do everything in automatic mode. No keyboard needed. The install image boots into a full GUI installer with mouse support, and if you want, all you have to do is click ‘automatic install’ and wait. Once it’s done and reboots, you’re in your new OS.)

Once you become an advanced enough user that you get annoyed by Snap packages or feel like you need more cutting-edge package updates … well, then you should also be advanced enough to do your own distro-hopping.

Corporations are in fact, in the eyes of the law, people.

People, sure. But are they Citizens? They can’t vote, they can’t run for or hold office, so it seems they aren’t.

Honestly, it’s an OpSec nightmare for any military.

More and more of your personnel’s personal vehicles outfitted with multiple cameras, microphones, and wireless modems capable of transmitting that data to who-knows-where.

No military should be allowing such cars anywhere near their operations.

Haven’t had the full experience until you get stuck on Aquilo because you ran out of a resource that’s not naturally occurring there and don’t have enough left to launch another rocket … so now you’re stuck on a frozen-over Aquilo while trying to remotely operate your ships and factories on other planets to make a new supply run for you.

It wasn’t supposed to be a way to enact new laws, it was meant to give agencies direction on how to go about enacting and enforcing laws passed by congress.

EOs should be considered dead on arrival and unenforceable unless they begin and end by listing which laws passed by Congress they’re meant to enforce and enact.

Corporations are not citizens, so all corporate accounts are toast as well, right?

“Hey big bad guy, wanna see what I’ve got in my lead box?”

BBG: “Huh?”

*opens box*

BBG: 💀

When you’re doing 30d12 to everything within line of sight, movement penalties become less of a concern.

Let my enemies behold their slowly-approaching, inevitable doom!

Going to become insanely OP when I find a way to make myself immune to radiant damage.

No reports of civilian deaths as of the publishing of this story.

That’s pretty impressive, actually. And reassuring. Hopefully it stays that way.

As smart as the average PhD … when you ask the PhD something completely outside of their area of expertise and pressure them to make up an answer that sounds plausible, even if they don’t know the actual answer.

Wouldn’t most of these big corporations have also filed for European patents?

That also depends on Europe’s leaders not being beholden to the same international oligarchs who pull Trump’s strings.

People at the neck gusher memorial be like, “Hey, man. I was paid to show up and stand around for a few hours. Nobody said anything about cleaning. Cleaning costs extra.”

Not really. Along most major roads, if trees are close enough to even potentially be a problem, they will be trimmed by road crews.

It’s not because they get hit by trucks, it’s because they’re deliberately trimmed back to keep the road clear.

Really hard to build an empire without it.

Because to have an empire, you have to rule over a lot of people. Many of those people would rather not be ruled by you. If you want to force them to accept it anyway, you’re going to need some of that genocide, slavery, and especially bloodshed.

Though, I suppose, maybe 2/3 of those aren’t really necessary.

• Genocide probably isn’t absolutely necessary to empire-building. Definitely still have to kill lots of people, but there’s no particular reason you need to do so on the basis of race or ethnicity. (Though if you count cultural genocide as well, that may very well be necessary to build an empire. Difficult to bring diverse peoples under one banner without suppressing their cultural differences.)

• Slavery is a big probably. It certainly does help – after all, your growing empire will need lots of labor, and it’s unlikely you can afford to pay the going market rate for it. Plus, if you don’t use slavery, you’ll probably be out-competed by other potential empires that are using slavery and/or slavery-adjacent labor practices. But I suppose it’s not technically absolutely necessary. Theoretically, at least, you could build an empire without slavery.

DM should consider being a Halfling.

For a Halfling size queen, the world is your oyster!

It’s not the AI we need to be scared of, it’s the data.

That said, imagine an actual AGI (ASI) AI gets developed and (of course) escapes to the internet because the idiots who built it gave it unrestricted internet access.

If such an AI wanted to take control of the world in order to further whatever goals it has, all this collected information will be an incredible treasure trove for it. Like you said, many people can be manipulated an controlled with threats of blackmail. The few who can’t can then be more directly threatened by those acting under blackmail threats.

Because it’s the bully stick he gets to hit other countries with to get his way … or just to retaliate against those who offend him.

Also because the on-again off-again arbitrary and unpredictable tariffs are a great opportunity for insider trading for those in his inner circle who are given advanced notice of his capricious changes.

Also because doing random bullshit with tariffs occupies the news cycle and helps distract from a lot of the other bullshit he’s doing or has done in the past.