Finally made the switch to Linux. Technically I ran linux fulltime sometime in 2016-2017 so I'm by no means a novice but I've never felt linux on desktop was good enough. Alas, Microsoft has turned Windows into such a struggle that even Linux GUI is tolerable by comparison.
I'm actually very surprised at how tolerable Debian 12 + i3 has been. I only need to figure out my raw photo developing workflow and I'm basically set on everything. The very few games I care about work fine and all the software I needed has alternatives I can deal with.
Starting off my week with a crown on a molar that decided that chewing wasn’t really an activity it wanted to participate in. Heartened by how my team performed on last Friday when I took a day off, and there were some escalations/failures.
One of the downsides of staying (mostly) on top of my university work, including the group project, is when it comes to a soft deadline and other people aren't done yet even though I am... that just means more work for me. I narrowly avoided getting assigned a difficult task (moving the project forward into the next stage) by proactively volunteering to take over an easy task that two of my fellow students hadn't finished. Thus, I spent the morning generating trees instead of importing dozens of 3D models at variously disorganised scales into a single scene. Which was honestly a relief because I am so drained and burned out and exhausted.
Couldn't work half the day today, because my internet wasn't working. Took me all morning to (not) find the problem and fix it. I had to reset my network drivers and restart my pc to fix it.
My personal laptop is connected to an ethernet cable. My plex server is connected to that same network via a switch in my office. Both were connected, but had no internet. The weird thing was that my work laptop was all fine, even when I turned off the wifi and connected the ethernet cable.
I even crawled up into the attic to see if no mouse had chewed on the wires or something.
Way busier than we expected. Lunch for 16 (bachelor party...not the right fit since we are a local family joint) & Catering pickup for 22 before service on Saturday made it a good day before we even got started. Sunday we were wiped and unexpectedly filled it up for lunch.
Today is our Thursday so only 1 more day until our weekend.
It’s up to you to curate your experience. If you opt for the firehose, you’re gonna get everything, sludge included. At a minimum block what you don’t like, or even better subscribe to what you do like. But it’s on you.
Given your edit I feel compelled to point out that two things are true simultaneously:
Direct action is effective and necessary
but also
Direct action is not mutually exclusive with voting in any way.
Voting takes a couple of hours per year (at most) and is a tremendously effective way of keeping fascists out of power and reducing overall harm while we concurrently pursue direct action and systemic change.
I believe it is our moral obligation each day to do what we (reasonably) can, within the circumstances and powers we're given, to ease suffering in our community and our world. On most days that's direct action. On election days it's spending an hour voting for harm reduction. Participating in our shitty electoral system is not an endorsement of it any more than paying taxes is an endorsement of military funding or having a credit score is an endorsement of Equifax. It's simply the reality of having to live within a system we did not create and have limited control over. Refusing to engage with the realities we live under doesn't make them go away - it just means more people get hurt.
I've ruminated and ruminated and ruminated on all of this and I can't find any compelling philosophical or moral argument for allowing the greater evil to take hold, unless there is an imminent, likely possibility of a more just outcome following soon behind. If there was a groundswell of support in the US for a left revolution then perhaps a fascist victory could be the spark to push us towards structural change. But as it stands a plurality of Americans want (or are fine with) fascism, and they're armed to the teeth. The most likely outcome of fascists winning the election is that fascists take over and keep power, and that will cause unfathomable harm far beyond the disgusting shortfalls of our current administration.
It's a trolley problem, essentially. The trolley is coming down the tracks and all we can do is pull the lever to have less people die. I find that a lot of modern discourse around this in left-leaning spaces essentially comes down to "well I don't like either option" or "there shouldn't be a trolley!" or things like that. You know what? I agree. I don't like either option, and there shouldn't be a trolley. I hope we can take more direct action so there are less trolleys and less people tied to the tracks in the future. But here we are, right now, and the trolley is heading down the tracks, and we cannot stop it. It doesn't matter that there shouldn't be a trolley. It's here. Not pulling the lever doesn't make it go away, it just means that more people get hurt.
So please, by all means, prioritize direct action. Get those trolleys off those tracks. But once we're barrelling down the hill it is our moral obligation to spend an hour pulling the lever in whatever direction necessary to minimize harm.
My friend had my favorite take I've heard on this: organizing to signal to the Democratic Party that Biden is in political danger because of his support of genocide (as Michigan did this week) is arguably more important than not voting for him in November, in terms of tangible impact on American policy. My personal goal is to put as much pressure on him as possible right now, and then I'll decide if I'm voting for him later this year based on how he responds.
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