Viruses do adapt and mutate though. Look at all the various strains of H1N1 and SARS-COV-2.
Just because they don’t reproduce without a host cell doesn’t mean evolution doesn’t happen. If a trait emerges that is beneficial to future generations, viruses carrying that trait can infect more cells and spread further.
Usually it’s evolution itself that people give too much agency to. Mutations are a crapshoot. They can be beneficial or they can cause birth defects, sterility, prevent reaching sexual maturity, or make finding a mate excessively difficult. Or all of the above.
Use credit cards for everything for an automatic minimum 2% discount on all purchases (in the form of cashback or rewards depending on how you value them, and more if you optimize category spending…I.e. you have a certain card you use for gas or groceries or eating out because that card has the best rewards for that category). Enjoy sign up bonuses if you can responsibly make the spend requirement. Always pay off statement balance and never close accounts (downgrade/product-change to free cards if the benefits aren’t more valuable than the annual fee).
And enjoy 0% offers but never slip on payment because that’s how they get you. If it’s not paid in full in time or a payment is late they will charge you backdated interest. 0% financing is free money if you can afford it (and can use it) at this inflation rate. I’d been on the fence about replacing my aging appliances but 0% for 24 mos made that a no-brainer. I could afford to have bought those appliances with cash (it’d sting but it’d be doable), but I’d much rather keep that few grand in a CD or bond or mutual fund and pay a 23rd of the balance every month, making me money instead of the bank.
The 3B was like peak RPi though. Nowadays unless you need the GPIO or the low power or form factor, it’s not worth it at all. You can get low-spec 3-5 year old off-lease office desktops for roughly the same price point as a top end RPi now, and they are commonplace and easily found in the secondary market.
Hell I just bought a really clean Ryzen 5 3500 laptop for $200. Only had 8GB mem and a paltry NVMe but these are cheap upgrades if needed.
There’s tons of talent out there and that’s exactly why Mozarts are a thing of the past.
Music is so attainable to people [in the west], and that’s a great thing (not that it shouldn’t be more…I.e greater financing for the arts, especially in public K12). It’s so easy to access, learn, and record.
That, and the media market is so fragmented. We still have pop and chart-toppers in the major genres, sure…but man, there is so much stuff out there.
I don’t think there will be another Mozart. I don’t even think there will be another person we can compare to Michael Jackson, or Freddie Mercury, or Trent Reznor, or Whitney Houston, or any of the other modern legends. Simply because there are so many talented people and media, and the means to produce it, are so attainable.
One of my favorite things to do now is to find the bands “similar to” a band that I listen to or enjoy that have fewer than 1k subscriptions/followers. Even below 500. There’s so, so many hidden gems out there, and some of it may even redefine your own tastes in music.
IME the more focussed/narrow/niche the subject is, the longer the channel will remain quality.
More importantly I think is if the channel owner is someone who truly enjoys their content, or someone who’s just enjoying celebrity and found a way to do it.
This is like Green brothers vs Fein Brothers.
8 bit guy, Nostalgia Nerd, Modern Vintage Gamers…great channels by people who are passionate about their content, still giving out great videos year after year.
AVGN? Ass. Shit. Ass covered in diarrhea shit. He made his fame off being an edgelord and that only works so long. Still check in every now and then but when he had guest appearances by Gilbert Gottfried and Macaulay Cullen he really jumped the shark.
Having recently replaced my laptop (with a used Lenovo T495) and set it up to dual boot Win11 and Endeavor…Windows 11 was by far the most difficult and time consuming to get from “boot off installation media” to “open functional web browser”. Would have been even easier had I asked Endeavor to just use up all of the partition I left free from installing Windows.
So when I got the T495, I went through the Win 11 OOBE to check it out. Turned it off until I got the Ram upgrade for it in the mail. That was my first problem, because “turn off” doesn’t mean what you think it does in Windows. If you want to get to the Lenovo system settings/boot order/diagnostics, turns out you have to “restart”. Go figure.
Then I did the switcheroo with NVMes in my old T470s and the 495. Took my 1TB out of the 470 into the 495, and took the 256 that came with the 495 and put it in the 470.
Then go to start the 470 and it boots fine to Win 11 but I can’t login with my PIN because my PIN is now expired. I’d enter a password but it never even let me do that. I tried to connect to my wifi and it wouldn’t connect.
Obviously this is because the host system changed and the TPM isn’t there anymore, but still frustrating to not be able to use the laptop offline just the same. I ended up just formatting and installing Endeavor on that, too. This was just where I finally realized that “reboot” means “give me the option to change boot order this time”, because I couldn’t get back into BIOS after it booted to windows.
It’s not that simple. The user has to hold the key. And with cloud you want it to all be accessible from all of a users devices. And with a public service you can’t count on the user to be savvy enough to use their certificates.
Of course the fix to that is that the key is stored in the account.
But then Google has the key and can decrypt it.
So then the key itself has to be encrypted. And with what? The users weak ass-password?
All encryption has to begin with something that’s known, and the weaker that initial secret, the weaker the entire system below it.
Just let me pay for PBS kids without going through Amazon please. I’m a goddamn sustainer ffs. I want my kids binge watching Reading Rainbow. For my kids. Just them. Not because Levar Burton is dreamy. No. Just for the kids. Trust me. If I needed a Levar Burton fix I’d just listen to Levar Burton Reads podcast. His voice is enough for me.