Anything you still need a 486 for outside of hardware edge cases is handled far better and faster by a Pi Zero W, at a fraction of the power envelope. Thing is, they won’t be running Linux in that case, given vendor lock-in.

'Twas the Bard that gave it away.

I mean, at least I’m talking with my ex-wife again, so that’s less irritating than it had been.

(These are separate people.)

What are you running on a 486 these days that needs to be online? A pihole? Like, even if this is a CNC controller or vinyl cutter (if you need a dongle to run your output, this is a valid concern; not a lot of parallel ports hanging out on mobos these days), the internet is not required.

(You can say “fucking” here.)

I mean, I figured a long press and a context menu would solve the issue, but no. When my dad died last year, I had to completely remove him from my contacts (not wholly unreasonable, given that’s a bit of a useless number). I don’t want to remove this guy from my contacts because, well, life changes, we bonded over a lot of shared interests, and maybe I’ll be in NYC at some point.

You want that guy in your phone. You don’t want him to be Option 1.

I somehow fancied you a tea drinker.

I loved being a beta tester back in the days of Chicago. But I was also a teenager who hadn’t gotten into calcified workflows at the time. I don’t mind learning new things, but don’t force that on me!

Even if it is connected, you can keep running an old kernel.

Separate issues. Neutrality is about not providing an express lane to, say, Netflix, for pay.

It really feels like OS makers fail to accept “this is working just fine for me” and endlessly attempt to shoehorn more in. Every time I get an Android update, my first reaction is “what workflows that had been working am I going to need to relearn?” I can’t even figure out how to get someone I’ve not talked with in four years out of the primary position in Frequently Used on my contacts list.

I blame Scott Manley.

Is it really incredible?

I get that, but how many people are still running a 486 without a bespoke use case in 2026? The older kernels still work, and no software targeting the 486 architecture is relying on the latest Linux kernel.

He doesn’t know how to design what can charitably be called a “vehicle” without it chopping buyers’ fingers off. ICs take a bit more effort than that.

This feels like a repeat of gutting copy desks. “Sure, the quality will suffer, and we’ve opened ourselves up to lawsuits, but if legal expenses are even a fraction less than salary savings, it’s a net win.”

I write mostly because it helps me organize my own thoughts. Granted, professional writing shouldn’t be that, but … well, what’s a column if not that?

The direct answer is “no.” However, it is nonetheless going to stick with us. I find it hard to think that writers get satisfaction out of delegation instead of, you know, writing.

Cheers, and best of luck!

FreeCodeCamp.org has a lot of guided resources. Khan Academy as well. If you can only really learn in person (which, I’ll admit, is a problem for me as well), look up local makerspaces. They don’t always have tech courses, but they always have someone who knows tech.