They don’t know how to use the phone? They don’t know how to use regular postal mail?

They most definitely did not get it right.

Having said that, there is some value to being thoughtful about the adoption of new technology. Especially when it comes to kids, some parents are too quick to allow their kids to use smartphones, tablets, chatGPT, etc. without much supervision.

But, the prospect of having to forego virtually all modern technology or become exiled from the only family and community you’ve ever known is crazy. It’s really only cults that require that you shun people who have left the “faith”.

Also, the modern Amish are the effect of multiple decades worth of Group Polarization. People in the community will hold different views. If someone has a view that the rules are too strict and that the group should be more lenient, they may eventually give up and just join the modern world. On the other hand, if someone thinks the group isn’t extreme enough, there is no other even more extreme group for them to join. So, they’ll stay and fight for their view. Over time, that means that the less extreme people tend to drift away, and the more extreme ones stay, leading to the group becoming more extreme.

Hmm.

Hmm, I don’t have any experience with USB speakers. I wonder if it’s using a standard driver or a custom one.

Snaps, and things like it, are really the only one I can blame on “Linux” (or at least Linux distributions).

I’ve had annoying headaches with drivers for 20+ years, but I expect that because Linux just doesn’t have enough users for most companies to bother making sure they have working drivers for Linux. I’ve been annoyed when some software or some tool or process isn’t as polished as the Windows version. But, mostly that’s something I got for free thanks to someone donating their time and effort, so I don’t want to complain about that.

But, I hate it when a major Linux distribution decides they’re going to ignore the standard way of doing things and only do things in their unique way. It often seems like one vendor / distributor is trying to build a walled garden and lock people in. It’s similarly annoying when vendors try to funnel people towards their “enterprise” version by making it harder to install certain apps that are “enterprisey”.

I get that it’s hard to make money selling Linux distributions. But, that’s what you signed up for. You don’t get to start behaving like Microsoft because it turns out to be hard to sell open source / free software.

Is it a bluetooth issue itself, or an issue with the drivers for that particular bluetooth hardware. Imperfect drivers has always been an issue under Linux, and will remain an issue as long as Windows has over 90% market share.

Is it your display driver that’s freezing? I’ve never had issues with one thing freezing the PC. The only time I’ve had it seem like that was the case was when it was the nVidia drivers that were having issues. But, that situation is much better than on Windows because I was able to SSH into the machine and everything seemed normal over an SSH connection. It meant I could shut things down gracefully and then eventually do a clean reboot. Meanwhile, the screen still looked as if the computer was locked up.

That’s weird. What kind of speakers do you have? Ye Olde Fashioned analog speakers tend to be hardwired for left and right. Of course, you can flip that in software, but unless you’ve touched that setting it should just work.

Ok, what about other countries?

That’s basically why I carry a wallet – as backup. I got used to leaving my wallet at home unless I was driving and I needed my license. But, then one time I spent 45 minutes shopping tried to pay, and for some unknown reason I couldn’t pay with my phone. Now, if the phone doesn’t work I have the NFC card in the wallet. If the NFC doesn’t work on the card, it also has a chip so I can insert it. If, for some reason, that fails too, I have enough cash for at least the main things I want to buy.

If I’m going out and not planning on doing a major shop, and don’t need to drive, the wallet stays home. If something comes up the phone will probably work, but it’s not worth the extra space to carry the wallet just in case.

It’s not illegal to not have ID.

In which countries?

Then you’re well aware that it doesn’t work while the card is in a typical wallet.

Not being able to play as a team has always been a weakness for Brazil. The country also expects them to attack and play other teams off the park. It’s a team that always has superstars, and those superstars want to have their moments, and a coach that doesn’t allow that doesn’t last long. Meanwhile teams like Japan put the team first and aren’t too proud to focus on defending.

But, the bigger issue this time is that Brazil is a really aging squad lacking decent players in some key positions. Their main GK plays for Liverpool. Their CBs play for Arsenal and PSG. Their central midfielders play for or just left big European clubs. But, their fullbacks were major weaknesses. One is about to turn 35 and left Juventus a year and a half ago after barely playing in his final year, and he’s mostly a CB not a fullback. The other is a 32 year old who has been playing in Russia for the last 7 years. Brazil used to have world class fullbacks. Marcelo, Dani Alves, Roberto Carlos, Cafu, etc.

Age was also an issue. Despite having 2 teenagers in the squad, the third youngest player was 25, and they had almost as many over-30 players as they do under-30s. They were the 6th oldest team at the World Cup, and 3 of those 6 didn’t make it out of the group stage. Only 2 of the 6 were reasonable contenders, Brazil and Colombia, the other one that made it out of the group was the surprise story of the tournament Cabo Verde.

So, I don’t think it was really that Brazil played too many tricks. They always do that, and they frequently win. The problem this time was that their aging squad lacked good fullbacks which put them under pressure when opponents could get down the wings.

The kinds of people I’m talking about are ones who have a local MLS team whose matches they attend, but they also have a favourite European team… and yet, somehow they don’t realize the vast gulf in quality between a player for Real Salt Lake and Real Madrid.

Timothy Tillman? He wasn’t good enough for any club in the Bundesliga, but he plays for LAFC. He should do fine in a midfield battle against Kevin de Bruyne and Youri Tielemans!

I think the US is going to get better, but I don’t think they’ll be challenging any of the global powerhouses. Soccer / futbol is getting more and more popular over time. And, typically, when a country hosts the world cup, 10-15 years later there’s a new group of players who were inspired by the tournament and who have spent the time since then focusing on it.

I wonder if there’s any country above 84%. Some small countries like Bosnia seem even more obsessed than Brazil, but they have such a small population that they don’t have the reputation of Brazil.

It’s not uncommon for Trump to ask FIFA to reconsider a red card.

For just about any other politician in the world it would be deeply strange. It’s a sporting competition, and politicians should stay out of it. If they get what they want, they only taint a potential victory. If they don’t get what they want they look weak, and embarrass their country.

What’s funny about this to me is that some of the US fans were talking like they thought they had a real shot this year. They always think that the American team is better than it really is. But, they were knocked out in the Round of 16, which is normally the first knockout round of the World Cup.

Even a Belgian team with almost no members of the “golden generation” was much better than them.

“pa-per”?

Relevant