“The country”. U.S.A.? The respondent’s country (whichever that might happen to be)?

Also, presidents mostly don’t have complete dictatorial power… the current president of the U.S. notwithstanding, but do you mean for respondents to give answers that a president could realistically make happen, or is the spirit of your question more about what respondents would like to see changed by someone with dictatorial power?

Don’t forget Bro-senpai.

Doubtful, unfortunately. FUTO seems like the sort of narcissistic assholes who won’t be swayed in any way, shape, or form

There’s no third option between FOSS and proprietary (unless there are licenses that match the Free Software definition but not the Open Source definition or vice versa, I suppose, but I’m not aware of any). All software that is not FOSS is proprietary by definition, whether the source is available or not. It’s not “disingenuous” to call FUTO software proprietary. It’s simply factual.

They’re openly disdainful of all things Open Source and OSI, and their software is not Open Source.

They’re a fully for-profit company using consumer rights kind of rhetoric to manipulate people in service to FUTO’s own pocketbook. Don’t fall for their use of the .org tld or promises to “never abuse customers”.

I’ve written many times about what assholes FUTO is. I’m fully convinced they’re way more part of the problem than part of the solution and they’re not to be trusted.

They’ve soured me on Rossman. Back when he was doing coverage of things like the court cases around right to repair and tractors and stuff, I watched a few videos of his and thought he was awesome. And then he got involved with FUTO and started billing Grayjay as “Open Source” and I’ve gotten sufficiently disillusioned with FUTO that I haven’t followed Rossman at all. I’ve got coworkers changing their avatars to Clippy and shit, and I believe their hearts are in the right place, but I can’t in good conscience really get behind anything or anyone associated with FUTO.

Edit: Oh. I honesty didn’t even see this OP was a link to an article. Lol. Now I’m very interested to go read that article.

Edit 2: Shite. I’ve now read the article. I knew FUTO was assholes in a lot of different ways, but now I know how deeply, completely irredeemable they really are.

billionaires would suffer extreme depression and paranoia until they downgrade to millionaire status

I think that’s kindof already a thing. Like, do billionaires as a demographic come across as not depressed and paranoid to you?

Trump famously eats McDonalds so much largely due to paranoia about being poisoned. (Hitler had similar anxiety delusions about being poisoned.) Musk is so insecure about himself that he pays people to play video games good so he can trick everyone into thinking he’s a good gamer.

Windows 1.0: Just four sticks tied together with rough twine, not attached to any building or anything. Just held in the frame of the photograph in mid air by a pair of really hairy hands.

Windows 12: Same as Windows 11, except missing a window on the door all together.

Windows ME: The driver’s side window of a clown car.

Windows 95: Identical to Windows 98.

(There are a lot more like CE, NT, 2000, Server, FLP, RT, Mobile, etc, but I’ll end my list there.)

Also, the photo gives way too much credit to Vista. Also, everything from XP and after should at least have bars on the windows. Having to phone home to activate was always unreasonable. The fact that things are way worse now doesn’t mean earlier versions were unrestrictive by a long shot. (And believe me. People in XP’s era were also horrified at how restrictive and enshittified XP was compared to previous versions.)

Anyone who mentions, acknowledges, or even doesn’t sufficiently attempt to ignore/deny my existence or influence in the world, anything they eat tastes and feels like eating raw, unseasoned egg whites for a month. And I’ll put knowledge of that fact in everyone’s minds.

Then I can do whatever I want to annoy the fuck out of people and they have to ignore me. Wet Willie Elon Musk in public while looking him right in the eye. Replace the audio at a Kid Rock concert with Baby Shark for the whole show and everyone has to pretend it was a typical Kid Rock concert. Draw dicks all over Trump’s face with a sharpie during a presidential address on live, national TV. Find every HOA president and kill grass in their front yard in the shape of Bevis and Butthead.

I wouldn’t be unreasonable. A wry, approving smile here. Stopping and reading an obscene message I planted before realizing it was me. Stuff like that gets a pass. I might even turn a blind eye to an involuntary case of the giggles brought on by my hijinks, particularly if it helps the vibe. Also, anyone under 15 is exempt from the whole egg whites thing and can laugh their asses off and point with impunity.

1. Is living a curse?
2. MUH.
3. I heard someone on NPR say that liberals misunderstand conservatives more than conservatives misunderstand liberals. Not sure who said it. Someone on a program I started in the middle of.

Also, “3 of the following (1 each)” is a weird way to say “one of each of the following.”

Silly OP. Humans don’t use em dashes.

At most, their word processor magically turns regular dashes into em dashes and they don’t care enough to change it back.

That’s not really less likely to happen if I choose 25 years old than if I choose 10¹⁰⁷ years old, right? the genie said “forever”, which I assumed meant immortality. And there was nothing in OP’s post that made it sound optional to become immortal.

The heat death of the universe is expected in at most, say, 10¹⁰⁶ years.

So, 10¹⁰⁷ years. I’ll be an ancient, godlike entity far beyond the understanding of any living thing. Like an aboleth.

Right? Who gets death threats?

Diaspora?

The differences are all the parts you don’t want anyway.

Not so theoretical, actually

Just my guess here, but…

The desktop/laptop sort of form factor is associated in people’s minds with unlocked bootloaders. People expect to be able to install Linux on them if they want to. Tablets, game systems, and other sorts of consumer electronics, not so much. I’m thinking Microsoft will do what it can to push hardware manufacturers and the software industry as a whole more in the direction of the kinds of devices that consumers already expect to be locked down like tablets or game systems that are “streaming” game systems. And that way, the bootloader will prevent folks from switching to Linux.

I’ll let you know.

Yeah, I think it’s smart to be making an MVP that’s just the engine with plugin support. I think you’ll need a minimal reference mod at least to show how you’d go about making a proper mod that’s actually a “game”. It’s totally valid for that minimal reference mod to be really minimal. Like, more of a testing tool than a “game” per se. Use stick figures. Or even worms or something.

Once you’ve got something that can support mods that other folks could make, folks can jump on board and help if they want to. If not, you can start focusing on a mod that’s an actual “game” later, if you’re still able and willing to continue working on the project.

Importing from Sims games is pretty cool. I’d definitely be interested in that as a feature. But if that was never supported, that’d honestly be fine as well.

If someone wanted something that was “true” to the Sims games, they could make a mod. There was a mod for Luanti called “Mineclone2” (that I think has renamed since, but I don’t recall what to) that was a relatively faithful reproduction of Minecraft in Luanti. Someone could do that if they wanted to. Especially if what you’re building (“SimGine”) get a pretty active modding community like Luanti has.

…can’t seem to differentiate between real vs what’s on the screen…

Speak for yourself.