On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 04:56:29AM -0400, gnufan42 via 9fans wrote: > Has anybody here heard about the new Parents Decide Act? Unlike AB 1043 which > only requires the OS to provide an age signal, this new law actually requires > the OS to verify user's age (with ID, for example). I also found a website > that catalogs this kind of law worldwide: https://tboteproject.com/ > > Honestly I'm pretty pessimistic about the future of computing...
In many ways this is just one more step in the general direction that has been pushing me away from mainstream computing for decades. It's why I became a Windows-free zone, I'm working on becoming an x86-free zone, and I rarely even use Linux. As most people know, I've already got my private language so I can ignore all the people out there who think they know how to program and want to tell me. I've also begun thinking about returning to some of my old work and building my own hardware designs with a bunch of parallel Pi pico chips. It all started going downhill when we let people use computers that didn't come as a bag of chips that had to be soldered. "Clowns to the left of me and jokers to the right." It's enough to make me wish I had gone into Math or Physics. Call it gate-keeping if you want, but computing was a hell of a lot more fun in the '70s and '80s when people had to have a few working brain cells before they got near a computer. Instead we've ended up with a world where all the snot-nosed kids are scared of assembly language instead of recognizing that it's the most fun way way to program and everything else is a compromise driven by suits' desires to make things as boring as possible. If I seem crankier than usual, it's because I've crossed the threshold and am now 1000000 years old (in binary, of course). And I'm sick and tired of seeing an intellectual discipline that I've devoted my life to reduced to a trade and commodity controlled by moronic wastes of oxygen that inhabit governments, c-suites, and standards committees. And in case you're wondering, this IS holding back. BLS ------------------------------------------ 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T75f981946d8422d1-Md05160fe098b11f7968db624 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
