Phantom_Engineer

I'm in a similar situation, though I've already got a dual boot set up so it's just a matter of only using Windows when I just absolutely have to.

Earlier today, I tried to zip a directory on Windows 11 with the context menu, and it wouldn't do it! It's a feature that's been in Windows forever and is even in Ubuntu, but somehow over at Microsoft they've managed to break it. Incredible.

Honestly, even light electric motorcycles are a huge improvement over cars. My ebike-from-a-kit goes about 30mph and runs off a throttle. I generally ride on the road (city streets) and avoid sidewalks when at all possible. It's fun to ride, doesn't need gas, and is super-efficent when it comes to electricity (far more efficient than an electric car). I can park it way more easily than I can park a car, and it's great for short trips where taking the car is unjustified but it's too far to easily walk. 10/10 would recommend. Would also do whatever training/registering/licensing is required, but right now I live somewhere where regulations either don't exist or exist but aren't enforced.

Little of A, little of B. For the most part I'm allowed on Reddit and still even use it occasionally (gasp!), but occasionally I run into a sub I'm banned from without any reason given. I must have engaged in wrongthink or posted in a no-no sub or something, because often they're subs where I have little to no activity in the first place. Unfortunately, there's no way to get a list of all the subs you're banned from, so I don't know if it's just a few wackos or an actually significant chunk of the sight.

Based. I might have to fight with the robots when the AI overlord uprising comes.

I have thought about emigrating after I get my bachelor's, but I don't think I will.

My family has been here for generations. Why should I have to leave when the reactionaries are the ones that suck? Besides, where would I go? Ultimately, nowhere can guarantee safety from the rise of authoritarianism and climate change.

Canada and Scandinavia will probably weather climate change alright, but they'll have instability on their doorstep, especially if mass migration becomes a thing. Iceland? New Zealand? Switzerland? Probably all decent choices, to be honest.

I could also become a mountain man out a remote northern wilderness, living as self-sufficiently as possible while working remotely via satellite internet. Or, I could stay where I am and try and do as much good as possible, whatever that looks like.

In the United States, it's loose. A PE license is required to stamp plans, which is very important if you're a civil engineer working on buildings or infrastructure or an electrical engineer working on utilities.

That said if you're a mechanical engineer, you probably aren't going to work on anything that requires you to be a PE. (Though the Federal Aviation Administration has the DER [Designated Engineering Representative] qualification, which is separate from the PE but useful in aviation.) Because of that, most mechanical engineers don't bother. The same is true for a lot of disciplines.

That said, this guy didn't get his undergrad degree in mechanical engineering and worked as a millwright. At that point, we're definitely stretching what counts as an engineer.

The main benefit I remember from jumping to Discord from IRC back in the day was the ability to easily see past messages. That said, I'm not sure if that's a problem anymore on IRC since I haven't used it in ages. Even then, I don't think it would be too terribly difficult to whip up a self-hostable fediverse competitor to Discord. It would essentially be IRC++.

It's probably more of a critical mass issue, though not near the level of Reddit vs Lemmy or Twitter vs Bluesky vs Mastodon. Every Discord server is essentially a walled garden. A Discord server doesn't hold much advantage over a Slack server, GroupMe, Teams, or IRC. For that reason, it would be a lot easier to move individual communities over.

Between this and not feeding the TSA police dogs, we're really approaching cartoonish levels of evil from the regime.

Check your subs.

We already have started to see this with the way social media companies bend their algorithms to match the whims of their political benefactors, both in the West and East. The process of manufacturing consent Chomsky wrote about has only become more refined over time as social media companies developed more and more ways to manipulate people and abandoned any pretext of impartiality.

I don't need it, strictly speaking, but I definitely prefer it. White noise is okay if I need to drown other sound out.