The only time I've seen a super conservative person change their beliefs was when two of their fundamental beliefs came in conflict with each other and the conservative side became a problem: An empathy-free asshole I'm acquainted with had a grandchild with that was immunocompromised (no idea if it was permanent or what caused it) when COVID hit.

He wore masks everywhere except his house. He told me that that the people at his church "insulted him" and "practically kicked him out" for refusing to remove his mask. He basically made the decision at that point in his life that maybe these people weren't the best people after all and he stopped going to church.

I don't think Google cares if the Fediverse succeeds or not. All they care about is that it can be indexed and people will be able to show Google ads on their instances.

Google doesn't have a Reddit equivalent or even any other social network competitor (anymore; they killed them all). They explicitly chose to exit that entire concept of products.

The only reason XMPP mattered to Google at the time was they were trying to compete with Apple for messaging on mobile devices. XMPP meant that Android devices using Google Hangouts/Chat/Gmail could chat with users on other platforms/services while Apple's chat app could only do SMS.

I guess what I'm saying is that Google is mostly irrelevant from the perspective of the Fediverse other than the fact that it can index and maybe give priority to discussions of certain products/topics like it does with Reddit currently.

You can't change someone's mind with facts and logic if facts and logic weren't used to make up their mind in the first place.

You also can't change someone's mind about any given topic if their stance on that topic is part of their identity. To a conservative, their very core identity/belief is that everyone is made "by God" exactly the way they're supposed to be. Before you could get them to believe that something like gender dysphoria is real you'd first have to make them believe that their religion is wrong.

You're thinking of WinFS which was abandoned by Microsoft in 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS

Microsoft has a newer filesystem, ReFS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReFS but it's not really made for end user devices (it's more of an enterprise/server thing). For example, it doesn't support encryption, sparse files, or hard links (which IMHO is just plain stupid). It's not even more performant than NTFS except in special circumstances (e.g. backing up files). Real world testing shows NTFS outperforms ReFS on regular day-to-day filesystem operations:

https://www.joshodgers.com/2016/07/10/storage-performance-refs-vs-ntfs/

ReFS still doesn't fix the biggest filesystem mistakes Microsoft made when they designed Windows. Specifically, that all files are executable by default and that you can't open a file that's currently open by another process--even if just to read it. This is why logging on Windows is so complicated and why updating any stupid little thing requires a reboot (because you can't overwrite a file that's in use).

...but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Windows filesystem performance and features are just so far behind literally everything else at this point it's like using a dumb phone in the world of smartphones. Actually, it's even worse than that because computer-like smartphones were introduced in 2003 (Windows Mobile). So I guess it'd be like using a land line telephone with an integrated mini-cassette tape answering machine from the 1980s.

If you're planning on doing GPU-accelerated AI stuff make sure to use a Linux distribution that your AI tools of choice support. So go look at the installation/HOWTO page for whatever AI tools you're planning on using and take a look at the installation instructions. If it has instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (the most common one I've seen) make sure to use that.

Anecdote: The AMD GPU "Pro" drivers don't really work quite right on the latest version of Ubuntu at the moment (well, I couldn't get them to work) and they're required for certain types of AI acceleration.

STOP WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU'RE DOING and fill out the form:

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/16136257875348-Data-Caps-Experience-Form

Tell the FCC how much data caps suck and how--if anything--it should be illegal for companies like Comcast to exempt their own services from the data caps. If their IPTV-based "cable" service is streaming 4k video 24/7 that should be included in a customer's data usage otherwise it's an abuse of a monopoly over the user's connection!

Even if they didn't ban caps outright the caps would disappear overnight if companies were forced to include their own services in customers total data usage figures (because 4k streaming TV services would eat up 99% of the average user's cap in like three days LOL).

Yes, install your 25-year-old software on your 30-year-old NTFS filesystem (it's that old).

EDIT: I just looked it up and NTFS turns 30 on July 27th, 2023 LOL