Without knowing precisely how Explorer is structured, it's conceivable that there may be different dynamically-linked libraries and/or execution points for running the desktop and for the file explorer, in which case just having explorer.exe running in and of itself doesn't mean that new modules have to be loaded if explorer.exe process fires up. The solution could very well be to load the libraries involved in file browsing when the desktop opens.

Just guessing here. There was a time when there was a lot more horsepower required for GUI elements than folder browsing, but this is 2025, and explorer.exe probably uses orders of a magnitude more resources now than it did in 1995, because... well, who knows really. Probably to sell more ads and load up more data to their AI.

That, on modern hardware, they have to preload a fucking file browser so that it pops up faster is just an indication of what a steaming pile of garbage MS is. They had sweet spots with Win2k-WinXP and with Win7, but their incoherent need to be a whole bunch of contradictory things --- with AI! has led what was a rather iffy OS and UI experience to begin with to become a cluster fuck of incoherence.

I do most of my day to day work on MacOS and Gnome, and fortunately the Terminal services version I have to RDP into is Server 2016, but every time I have to work with Windows 11 I'm just stunned by just how awful it looks and how badly it behaves.

The capacity of the government of a large jurisdiction like California, or more particularly the US, could bankrupt someone like Musk, so I say, bring it on. Within a decade Musk would have abandoned all efforts, or, even better, be stone cold broke (frankly billionaires shouldn't exist at all, and we should tax the living fuck out of them down to their last $200 million).

We're too afraid of these modern day Bond villains when we should be aiming every financial, and probably every real, cannon straight at them and putting them in a sense of mortal danger every minute of their waking lives, so that they literally piss themselves in terror at the though that "we the people" might decide to wipe them out for good.

1) Produce an excess of energy using methods that do not release CO2

2) Use the excess energy to sequester atmospheric CO2

3) Repeat until atmospheric CO2 levels are at pre-industrial levels

There are no shortcuts. If you skip step one and attempt step two, you have a net increase in CO2 release. If you avoid this whole plan by adjusting insolation, you get a break on the temperature while we inevitably ignore the continually increasing CO2 and all the other issues it brings, and you make us dependent on maintaining the new artificial insolation management system - and when it one day fails, there will be that much more CO2 to deal with.

You may also want to consider that with rising CO2 levels comes cognitive impairment. It won't be much of an issue outside with the numbers we're talking about, but indoor air (which we spend an awful lot of time breathing) only reduces CO2 levels by mixing with outdoor air. The indoor CO2 levels are always higher, and that will get worse as outdoor levels rise.

.... And today I learned that daily passes to "cable tv" are a thing. Bye bye, YouTubeTV. Don't mistake my cancellation as evidence I ever wanted your service in the first place.

There was a paper about rust use in open source projects, looking at vulnerabilities introduced by developers with different contribution histories. They suggest that you need to spend working several years in a C++ codebase to get down to the same defect rate as a new contributor in a rust project.

https://cypherpunks.ca/~iang/p...

If that is true, then there is probably little reason to worry.

The interesting thing is more productivity while reducing the number of bugs. Normally reducing bugs requires stricter processes, which typically reduces productivity.

I haven't yet looked into why our beef and chicken prices have gone up anyway. At least during COVID they had issues with workers and transport... what's the excuse now? Hell, milk in my area has gone up maybe 20% in the last year or two. That's ridiculous. It's not like all the dairy cows are gone, and we've always had a slight excess of supply.

Doctors who prescribe antibiotics to complaining patients who don't have symptoms consistent with a bacterial infection should be investigated, and if it's a consistent behaviour they should lose their licenses.

Vets and wholesalers who supply farmers should be shut right down.

It really ought to be a criminal offense. Overuse of antibiotics is an unnecessary risk to all our lives.

That, however is a temporary issue. Obviously a far longer term issue than the government cares to consider, but it is one that can be overcome.

The economic issue cannot.

The reason parts aren't made in the US is cost. Maybe you think "OK, tariffs and outright bans will mean they have to be made in the US".

The problem is, those foreign parts cost fewer American dollars to produce. The cost of the parts goes up and cost of living goes up, or American wages go down, and the relative cost of living goes up.

There is no solution to this where your cost of living relative to your wages remains similar. Standard of living goes down. No political slogan can overcome this.

Or if it's even still readable. Intel when retrieving the 486 tape-in for the Edison project had to bake the tapes in an oven to remove moisture, and then had ONE CHANCE at imaging the tape as it crumbled to dust going through the reader.

What is this obsession with pedophilia? I'm really getting rather suspicious of MAGA. I suspect your average Catholic priest or Southern Baptist youth pastor thinks about nude children less than most MAGA individuals.

We never shut down anti-vax talk, that's why it failed. We should have. So many people have died who didn't need to because we're afraid of offending bros and Karens.

As long as the government isn't in full control of the degrees in question... it's a bad solution to a worse problem.

We're living in a world where old diseases are coming back because we couldn't shut down anti-vax talk as quickly as the asshole who started it all to discredit vaccines in production so he could sell his own and get rich. He took a big hit because he had something to take away... the greedy fools who followed did not.

You shouldn't be able to give medical advice - even if you slap "for entertainment purposes only" on your message - unless you have a medical degree that is relevant to the kind of advice you're giving. Because the alternative is, apparently, the return of polio.