Wikipedia page on useful arts. Not sure how that got stripped out.

That is not what copyright is for. It is something that modern copyright holders (sometimes) do, but copyright was created to give creators an incentive to create by giving them a temporary monopoly over the distribution of their work. It means that only the creators of Star Wars, for example, are allowed to make copies of Star Wars. Other people have to get the permission of the Star Wars creators to make a copy, and usually that involves purchasing a license to make the copy. This also covers "derivative works" -- new creations that are based on the original work.

Frankly, modern copyright lasts way too long. It is hard to argue that Star Wars, or Batman to relate this to the story, are not part of our culture. In that sense, they really should be public domain, allowing new creators, like these film makers, to create. Of course, that is not how the law currently stands, so they will probably lose any court cases brought against them (obviously IANAL)

Interestingly (to me at least), the US constitution grants congress the power to enact laws "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." We have clearly IMO gone well beyond "limited times" with our 100+ year copyright lengths. But I also wonder about the "useful arts" part. Are entertainment properties (movies, TV, even fiction books) really "useful"? ISTM that the authors of the constitution were more going towards scientific work, like what patents usually cover. OTOH, fiction entertainment is a huge industry, so from an economic perspective, it must have some use, or people wouldn't pay for it. The Wikipedia page on useful arts indicates that the phrase did have a more practical meaning and was the opposite of performing and fine art. So maybe the US copyright act is in fact unconstitutional. I doubt it would ever be ruled so, however.

My rent went up 115% in the last 10 years. That's 11.5% annual inflation.

That sucks. However, if your rent went up 115% in 10 years, that is 2.15^(1/10) = 1.0796, or about 8% annual inflation. Which is pretty bad considering that for 9 of those years inflation was very low, sometimes non-existent.

None of these laptops appear to have any mouse buttons. I try to turn off tap to click on laptops I use that have trackpads because I don't like how I can accidentally click when moving the mouse (or even if my thumb gets too close to the trackpad). Plus, I like to do silly things like right click and middle click, as I am using Linux after all. With two mouse buttons, a middle click can be done by pushing both at the same time. Other than pasting in X, middle clicking is good for opening links in new tabs and for closing tabs.

So a question for those who have one of these zero button laptops that everyone is selling now -- how do you actually use it? I've heard you can two finger right click, but that seems awkward and unreliable. Do you just not middle click and suffer through alternatives? Do you have to keep an external mouse all the time?

It seems silly, but the user input and one of the most important aspects of a laptop for me, and every laptop I look at is substandard in this regard.

LOL, I was just thinking I was going to have to get whatever version I'm currently using and install it in /opt, but then I went and looked and it turns out I did that several dozen versions ago! Probably because later versions of Thunderbird broke my preferred theme. Fortunately, email protocols don't really change over time, at least not as much as web standards. And I love it when past coder has already prevented future coder's problems!

btw, if you're interested, https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/ has all the past versions available for download. Get 'em while they're cold!

Maybe part of your problem understanding the other side is that you probably look at the world as Republican vs. Democrat instead of conservative vs. liberal. I have noticed that both parties seem to pick some strange and often conflicting platforms. For example, Republicans are pro-life for unborn babies, but also support the death penalty. Democrats are against the death penalty, but have no problem with an expecting mother killing her unborn child. These are both conflicting views. Republicans would say that the death penalty is for people who have committed heinous crimes, so it is OK, conveniently omitting the fact that our justice system is far from perfect. Democrats argue that unborn babies, er, fetuses, are not fully independent life forms because of their dependence on their mother's womb, conveniently omitting the fact that a baby that is born is just as dependent on others.

I'm not sure exactly where I want to go with the rest of this post, as the topic could be discussed ad nausium. Since you probably have no trouble seeing Republican hypocrisy, I won't point out much more of it. Other than to say that Trump is the embodiment of of most of it. But you asked for examples of Democrat hypocrisy, so here goes.

The most recent hypocrisy is "my body, my choice" when it comes to abortion but not vaccination. Not that I agree with the anti-vax crowd, but it is a striking juxtaposition.

Democrats say "believe the science" when it comes to climate change, but don't want to admit that the life growing in a women's womb is a human life. Or want to use science (observations) to determine a child's gender. Instead, the sex is "assigned at birth", like it was the whim of the doctor or something. Democrats cannot even define what a women is anymore. These are scientific facts that Democrats now deny.

Democrats say they believe in free speech, but the entire "cancel culture" of bullying people for what they say or believe comes from that party. Things like calling people racist or worse for their political beliefs or even just not liking a movie. Things like protesting the "wrong" people giving talks at college campuses.

Democrats say they believe in civil rights and liberties, but absolutely hate guns. Most (if not all) Republicans think that shooting or killing someone should be a crime, so there's plenty of common ground there. But Democrats want to go further, and remove American's 2nd amendment rights. I understand the motivation, but that is right there in the Constitution, and I think it's dangerous for only the government to have guns (did the events leading up to the BLM movement teach nothing?)

Democrats seem to think that every time someone commits a crime, especially a heinous one, we need more laws to make the thing that was done somehow more illegal or something (see hate crime laws, more gun laws). But at the same time, they do not like "tough on crime" and want shorter prison terms. Apparently in some places, shoplifting is rampant because there is no enforcement on minor thefts.

Specific to your point about inclusion and equality, Democrats no longer actively preach that, at least not the "equality" part. You might not have noticed, but it is now "diversity, equity, and inclusion". AIUI, "equity" means equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. This is what leads to Asian Americans having a harder time getting into colleges to make room for worse performing members of other groups. It is inherently racist to make decisions based on someone's skin, but apparently it is OK when it benefits certain skin colors. Similarly, "white lives matter" is racist but "black lives matter" is good.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg for more examples.

I also was baffled by how much the Democrats mocked Trump for having a bad tan (?), effectively mocking his skin color. I thought that was a bad thing. Of course, it is so hard to know what will run afoul of the hate mob these days.

Democrats criticized Trump for referring to some Third World countries (I don't recall which), as "shitholes", but claim that asylum seekers from Central American countries are unsafe if they are forced to stay in Mexico. I would have thought Mexicans would be offended by that.

Democrats think that cultural appropriation is bad, but refer to people of Spanish descent as "Latinx", a term generally hated by that community. Maybe not egregious, but it seems really culturally insensitive.

Democrats think that corporations are the cause of all the world's problems (that's an exaggeration, but the sentiment is there), but have no problems taking their money, and really don't do anything to try to break up the biggest of them, especially when the leadership of those companies say the right things.

[ Personally, I think that companies should pay a progressive tax on their revenue, not profit, with the progressive rate being based on the total income of all the organizations (and sub-orgs) that share any board members or executives. I.E., person A sits is an executive at company X and sits on the boards of companies Y and Z, all 3 companies revenue would be combined to determine the tax rate for each. This sort of thing would discourage mergers just to get larger, as well as keeping companies from playing tricks to not pay taxes. But I digress... ]

Like I said before, Republicans are no saints, and have just as many, if not more, problems. At this point, I do not like either party. I used to be more Republican, but especially Trumpism makes me unhappy there.

Final note: this is a long post that I've gone back and forth on. I probably have logical inconsistencies and fallacies throughout it. And it probably makes no coherent overall point. I just wanted to point out some problems I see on the Democrat side, things that make it hard for me to personally support that party.

On some systems at $WORK, I use a Firefox installed by the IT group, and often is it out of date. I don't have permission to upgrade Firefox. Firefox itself knows this because at least once a day it shows a popup saying that there is a new version but I don't have permission to install it. But maybe I should download it anyway, just for fun?

Fortunately, I spend most of my time on a Linux client where that message has been suppressed by a more knowledgeable admin, but on the Windows systems it is annoying.

So it would be nice if Firefox didn't pop up a message at least when I cannot do anything but dismiss it.

If IT was the decider and also liable for any security breaches, then the systems being administered would become essentially unusable. Unreasonable security precautions would make it so difficult to use the systems that hardly anyone would actually be able to get anything done. This isn't because IT people are evil or lazy, but simply because the system of rewards and punishments is shifted so that CYA would become most important.

So, yeah, that's not really a world I want to live in.

I don't dispute anything you've written. Sadly, I also see a lot of what you have pointed out in the modern Democrat party. I don't mean this to be a "whataboutism" post, it's just depressing that there does not appear to be an alternative in US politics to the craziness of the modern Republican party.

Item #1: I don't think the Democrats want to "destroy" democracy any more than the Republicans do (at least on the surface), or even the ruling Chinese party. But like the Chinese, they would like everyone to have to vote for them. From "you ain't black" if you don't vote Democrat, to cries of disenfranchisement if a "black" district is changed so that it is no longer majority black, there are lots of examples of wanting to restrict who people vote for.

Item #2: Probably at least as many lies on the left, though probably not to the level of lies on the right. I see things more in language used to obfuscate facts. It is "abortion" not "baby killing", and those who are against it are "extremists". Repealing Rowe v. Wade is an "attack on women". It's not a "sex change operation", but "gender affirming" "healthcare" to address the sex "assigned at birth" (like the doctor rolled a D6 or something for the character sheet). Sorry if any of those scare quotes upset you, but if they do, you are probably using emotion and not the rational part of your brain to look at the situation.

Item #3: BLM, Antifa, and other riots. I do find it interesting that nothing changes after those, though. I doubt it's all the evil Republican's faults, though.

Item #4: In recent years, the far left have abandoned equality completely in favor of "equity". And when science interferes with facts, facts go out the window. Things like defining a women, or nuclear power being a part of the mix for solving climate change, or even that thing growing in a women's uterus is actually a human life form.

Item #5: Cancel culture, need I say more? Lots of people have noticed that you are either 100% on board with the current positions, or you are the enemy and must be destroyed. Fortunately, there is also a fair amount of push back on this, but when left wing comedians like Bill Maher comment on it, you know it's a real problem.

The thing that hurts me most about the modern Democratic party is the assault on free speed and the first amendment. They have long hated the second amendment, but coming for the first really crosses the line, IMHO. I tend to be conservative, but would vote for Democrats when needed. And as you rightly point out the Republican party is bad these days and needs a correction.

Of course, come November, the economy will determine who wins, as it always does.

Not necessarily. Could be something that happens 8 times during the boot process with a 5 minute timeout. Long-ish timeouts for things that should work immediately but in rare cases always fail (such as a misconfiguration) can add really add up.

Of course, people who use Windows, especially recent versions of Windows, in situations where things have to work or you lose money deserve what they get.

As the saying goes, life is sacred from the moment of conception until the moment of birth - after that no one gives a damn.

That must be why every time someone is killed, society collectively shrugs its shoulders and says "these things happen"? How there's no police investigation, no trials, no jail time for the guilty? You really should take a moment to consider how ridiculous your statement is.

Is (United States) society perfect? Far from it. Some people do die with very little damns given. There are lots of things we could be doing better. Like taking better care to conserve the environment, to bring this back on topic. But it's not the "life has no value" nihilistic hellscape you seem to be painting either.

I am still chaffing at not being able to to have the browser tabs arranged vertically on the side.

Have you tried the Tree Style Tab extension? I don't think I could live without it. I'm always amazed when I see other people's browsers with 40 tabs across the top so small all you can see is the favicon for the website. TST is so much better.

If you really think that is a good idea, imagine that Trump is the one deciding what is "fake news" or "enemy propaganda." Then you might realize how dangerous that is, and why actual free speech is a good idea.

I grew up in Indiana at a time when the state did not observe DST. I've since moved to the east coast of Florida. For a few years, I did the DST thing, but I didn't like it. The time always felt wrong. Where I live, solar noon is at 12:30 pm standard (the entire peninsula of Florida is in the western half of the Eastern time zone). After I head about a guy at $WORK who kept his clocks on DST permanently, I realized that there's no real reason why I have to change my clocks. So I became a conscientious objector to DST. The clocks in my house do not leave standard time. My computers' /etc/localtime is set to EST. My phone's timezone is set to (interestingly enough) the Cayman Islands (because plain "EST" is not an option).

This time of year, it means I have to get up earlier to get to work and other events on time. That's fine with me. I recognize that everyone else just shifted to their summer schedule. So I start work between 6 and 7 instead of between 7 and 8, but that's OK because I finish between 4 and 5 instead of between 5 and 6. The hardest part is remembering to "lie" (well, translate) to other people about the time, and that they are giving you times that need to be translated. And every so often I slip up and get the wrong time. Interestingly, modern TZ aware calendars help a lot with this. Even (recent) versions of MS Outlook manage to get this right, though historically that program (really all of Windows) has been horrible about timezones. But I digress...

I've also realized that DST is basically a way to trick people to wake up earlier. Lots of people talk about how early daylight is being "wasted", presumably because they are sleeping through it. So we invented DST to trick them into thinking it was later so they would get up.

Ever since I stopped observing DST, my feelings toward it have become more ambiguous. I used to hate the concept as weird and unnatural. But by being able to observe it more or less from the outside, I can see how it is useful. Especially if you assume that most people are irrational, at least where their sleeping habits are concerned. DST is a crazy idea, and it would never get implemented today if it hadn't been something we had been doing "forever." But I'm not as sure as I once was that it should be disbanded.

I'm also not sure what I'd do if permanent DST became a thing. The clock changes didn't really get me as badly as the sun being in the "wrong" place seemed to. When the sun says it's close to noon but the clock says it's nearly 2, that really throws me off. So if permanent DST became a thing, I'd probably still keep my clocks on standard, at least for a while. Maybe I'd capitulate eventually. Or it would be unpopular like previous permanent DST attempts and be repealed.

Oh, and yes I do know that this makes me a "weirdo". Though I prefer the term "eccentric" :)

It doesn't even necessarily mean that. Over here in New Jersey, EVERYONE complains about how much they hate Daylight Savings Time, and they wish we'd get rid of it. But if you ask them why, it's because they hate how early it gets dark in the winter.

In Trenton, NJ there's about 9 1/4 hours of daylight on the shortest days, with the daylight hours stretching between 7:17am and 4:36pm. You could get more light later in the day, but that would just make it darker earlier. There's only about 4.5 hours on either side of noon to play with (and interestingly, Trenton must be very near the center of the eastern time zone, as solar noon is very close to 12pm).

On the longest days of the year, you have 15 hours of daylight, stretching from 5:30am to 8:30pm (times based on DST). That is 7.5 hours on either side of 1pm (because of DST). The DST change makes the difference in sun setting times much larger (about 4 hours) while keeping the sun rising times less noticeable (2 hours). Which is probably why people think that the sun is setting so much earlier in the winter. Interestingly, without the DST switch, people would likely be less attuned to that effect, as differences in rise and setting would be equal. Being in DST permanently wouldn't solve their complaints, it would just give them new ones :)