Additional to other answers, back in the early days of alphabetic writing, some writings alternated left to right then back again right to left on alternating lines. This is called “boustrophedon”, literally “(as the) ox walk(s)” because it’s the same way oxen are used to plough fields.

There’s documented evidence of both early Latin and Greek being written this way. What’s less clear is which direction they chose to start those writings.

The problem with that is that you have to learn to read both directions. They often wrote the letters backwards when text went the other way, which came with its own set of problems. You probably don’t have a mirror. You basically have to learn to write almost twice as many symbols. Some letters are their own reflection and you can’t always tell which way something was written. etc. etc.

Eventually someone influential will have chosen the direction for presumably a good reason (to them) and everyone else eventually followed suit.

Some people genuinely do not understand the concept of GUI windows and how they work. They do not generate a full mental model of the desktop and the windows on it and only see the whole screen as one bewildering interface. They focus on what they do know in order to get by.

This may be especially true of people who learned their IT with small screens or low resolutions where running an application full screen (or as the only active application!) is required to get anything done.

Your colleague saw you click on part of the interface they were ignoring because they didn’t understand it and magic happened.

Newton himself might disagree, given that he said that he was only able to produce his work because he was “[stood] on the shoulders of giants”.

That could put Euclid’s Elements above Pricipia Mathematica.

While unlikely to be #1, I bet there’s at least one computer programming book in the top 100.

Do you consider yourself a virus?

Well, certain people do consider me to have some undesirable traits like ideas about getting our species off the planet, and if I didn’t exist, I’d generate considerably less CO₂.

Uncomfortable though it may be, the latter applies to everyone I’ve ever known, cared about or who has cared about me.

And it is inherent. The singular purpose of certain genes is to make more of the same gene, and they’ve gotten very good at it. Humans and viruses are both emergent phenomena.

But then, I suppose if we don’t leave, we don’t spread the disease elsewhere… so OK. You’re right. We should never ever leave…

And the only way to save the biosphere is to do something we’re completely incapable of. We’re screwed. Neat!

I reckon there’s a few of us about on here.

I don’t think that because the rich b-stards think that. I think that because I believe our species - regardless of race - has outgrown its environment. If I got this idea from somewhere else, it wasn’t from Musk or Bezos or others like them. It might even have come from watching Star Trek or reading sci-fi.

We’re like a virus or a cancer that will ultimately end up killing the host. Earth’s biosphere in this instance.

The correct course of action is to destroy the infection or cut it out.

And if you want what’s being cut out to survive afterwards, yes, you have a lot of work ahead of you before you do so to ensure its continued existence once it’s somewhere else.

We need to consider what it would take to get every single one of us off this planet and living somewhere else.

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This. Winnie the Pooh is canonically a teddy bear, presumably only alive by some sort of magic. Likewise, Kanga, Roo, Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet.

Rabbit and Owl, however, were real, living creatures - the true inhabitants of the wood - with related magic allowing them to interact.

So basically, yes, Pooh isn’t edible.

I’m actually of the opinion that humanity needs to get off this rock as soon as possible. The uncomfortable truth is that fewer humans would in fact help the environment, and none would be even better.

The problem is with how to implement that without it turning into murder.

Hence, we leave.

Good call. They unprinced Andrew, they can unlord Mandy.

Sure you can, but why fabricate evidence against someone when you can trick them into making real evidence?

The hard job of fabrication begins if and only if that fails.

Around £100.

The small print: That includes delivery charges and all other household and hygiene supplies that can be bought at a UK supermarket.

How do you spell “Blind Pig”?

B-L-N-D P-G. Because if it had two eyes it could see.

Yes. The institution in question is human society. We generally grant the permission to make rational decisions over our lives to other humans who know better that we do or are more skilled than we are.

Sometimes, yes, those humans turn out to have been deceitful or dishonest, but there are mechanisms in place for when that happens.

And yes, sometimes those mechanisms are wilfully avoided by the deceitful. Politicians and rich people are especially good at this.

Guess who’s pushing “AI”? The thing that has no contract with human society and cannot be held accountable. And neither will the people pushing it.

This is why we should have as little to do with it - at least as it is in its current form - as possible.

This is true. But then I’m not using the latest version while I still have an active session, and that can lead to weird behaviour or errors after the fact.

Case in point, I once received an Xorg update that I allowed to install, but didn’t restart the computer properly until much, much later.

By then I’d forgotten about the update, so when I restarted and started having graphics problems, I was mystified.

I’ve also forgotten how that all panned out, but in the same situation I’d roll back to a previous Timeshift snapshot and work the system forward again until I find the culprit or things are stable, so I assume that’s what I did back then.

Tangential advice: Many people use YouTube (and formerly Twitch until they nixed it) as a place to store videos. As in the only copy of a video is hosted there.

If your videos are precious to you (or you think they’re going to be), make arrangements for them to be at least stored elsewhere, if not hosted. That’s not going to be cheap what with hardware prices going through the roof, personally or third-party, but it is necessary because no host is both trustworthy and permanent.

Actually not even self-storage is as trustworthy and permanent as we’d like, but it’s still better than any alternative for data retention.

Also, donate to your chosen Fediverse host(s) if you can.

In such places, beware of the person returning their own trolley / cart and offering to take your coin in return for theirs. Because eventually you’ll get one who has used a coin-sized token and they’ve just conned you out of actual money.

But even so, were it not the case there was some kind of coin / token deposit system, would you return your cart? I know I would.

For me, it’s about reducing the amount of time the “update available” icon shows up in the system tray, because its very presence bothers me. Maybe there’s something cool and new. Maybe it fixes a severe security problem. If it’s for programs I’m not using right now, then the update can be applied right now. Otherwise it’s going to have to wait until I’m done. And bother me.

Yes, I could turn updates off and never see it, but that seems like a bad plan in the long run.

Fake AGI is like fake banknotes. Some of them are really good approximations. Nigh indistinguishable. A lot of people will be fooled by it but eventually it will be discovered to be a fake and people will get hurt in some way or another.

And it won’t be the people who are pushing for “AGI”.