There’s a new California law making the rounds that’s got me equal parts bewildered and frustrated. Apparently, all operating systems—yes, including Linux—need to implement some form of age verification at account setup. When I first read about this, I had to put down my latte and re-read it three times because surely, surely, this couldn’t be real.

But it is. And the more I think about it, the more my blood pressure rises.

I’ve been scrolling through some tech discussions lately, and there’s one that’s been sitting with me for a while. It’s about a developer who’s been running game servers without downtime since 2016 - that’s over eight years of continuous uptime. The post sparked quite the debate, and honestly, it’s got me thinking about our relationship with uptime and what it says about our industry culture.

The original poster was clearly proud of their achievement, using the flexing muscle emoji and everything. But the responses were… well, let’s just say they were mixed. Some folks were impressed, others were horrified, and a few were just plain confused about how someone managed to pull this off without regular reboots.