A certain person commented news of another senior being scammed: "How stupid you have to be to fall to *this*." I thought "probably the same stupid as you".

Yes, elderly people fall victim to scams. So do middle-aged people and young people. The only real difference is that they lived in different times, and they fall victim to *different* scams.

People think they're smart because they don't fall for "elderly" scams but they give their PII freely to all kinds of surveillance capitalism corporations when baited with a few cents (or not even baited properly, just "some companies give you discount, so maybe this one will give one too"). Or fall victim to "great" offers.

Then, some people buy NFTs…

#scam

Continuing the topic of content warnings about lewd stuff in movies, I really think there should be one for "washing dishes under running tap water".

That said, #dishwasher commercials that claim that by buying a new dishwasher people are going to "save the planet" trigger me. I mean, sure, if you wash dishes under running tap water, with the faucet fully open, then I suppose dishwasher will save water.

However, a much better solution is to pour the water into a closed sink or a bowl first, and wash there.

Dishwashers are not ecological at all. Dishwashers usually mean that:

1. You usually have to pre-rinse the dishes first (→ extra water use).

2. You usually have to run the full cycle with electric heat drying to avoid streaks.

3. They sometimes fail to wash the dishes properly, especially if you didn't pre-rinse them first. You may end up with the plates being dirtier than they were before the washing.

4. They scale to different number of dishes worse than hand washing.

5. Once you get one, you're going to be forced to run it regularly to avoid the leftover waste water going bad.

#ecology

The progress in #proprietary #software:

Stage I: "Thank you for purchasing our software. For this license, we guarantee you'll get free updates for life!"

Stage II: "We've noticed that you're running an outdated version of our software. Please purchase an upgrade in order to ensure that it continues working seamlessly."

Stage III: "We've moved our software to the #cloud now. For a small monthly fee, you will be able to use an up-to-date version of our software on any device! Furthermore, your files will be secure in the cloud and available from any place in the world!"

Stage IV: "We're sorry but due to increasing cloud hosting costs we have to increase our monthly fees. But don't worry, you can resign anytime and lose all your data!"

Stage V: "With regret we have to announce that the market has forced us to discontinue our services. However, don't worry — you can move your data to our new cloud service for free!"

In the meantime, #OpenSource software: "Sure, have it for free. No, no need to pay me. I may starve to death but don't worry, it's #FLOSS, so somebody else will take it over."

Back when I joined #Gentoo I was one of the "young'uns". I was full of energy, ideas and motivation, and I was the one to complain about "grampas" wanting to keep things as they were.

Now, almost 13 years later I feel that the roles have shifted. I became much more conservative, and well, more critical of changes. Today's "young'uns" are trying to burn the world, and I'm trying to save it.

That said, I'm trying my best not to be the bad guy and find compromises. While I don't think it's right for us "old folks" to prevent youngsters from taking over, I think that Gentoo has a lot of valuable "old school" vibes that make it stand out in today's IT world. It would be a shame to lose them.

I think how we handled #RustLang is an example of a reasonable solution here. We accept it but we also try to maintain "best effort" support for older hardware that Rust can't work on.