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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • And there is the problem laid bare - there are too many people associated with the campaign who have a vested interest in it continuing, and are unable or unwilling to step back and listen.

    Its been blindingly obvious for the last 18 months that Biden is a very bad choice for the democratic nomination. But the entire discourse has been dominated by an attitude that if you don’t support biden, you’re basically support trump.

    It is the Biden supporters who are going to hand the presidency on a silver platter to Trump.

    They need to step back and look at the bigger picture. This is not just some Republican talking point to reflexively ignore and fight against. Biden IS too old, and he DOES come across as confused. And he is making trump look better by comparison - he is lowering the bar of expectation and scrutiny of trump because the focus is on Bidens age and mental capacity.

    The democrats have to ditch biden right now and begin the urgebt search for a better, younger candidate to unite behind. Its already very late in the day but every day they continue with Biden is another wasted.


  • In this situation I’d save a copy of the sheet to my phone in a standard format and use a non google app. The file itself can be backed up to on line storage and remain accessible from multiple devices but you remove it from googles walled garden.

    On android if you want open source then Collabra is a full office suite based on LibreOffice. Alternatively LibreOffice Viewer is the official libre app - ok for viewing files but with an experimental mode for editing (not really ready for editing yet).

    WPS Office is a free office suite with add or paid version which has a good reputation.

    Microsoft Office is also an option.

    If you want to stay with google sheets and just view the file offline then try saving a copy to your phone in a different format and view that with the Google spreadsheet app (if it can still do that). But I’d take the pop up as a sign that its time to move on from googles shitty products.






  • AI is and always has been a bullshit technology. Its no where near as capable as its proponents in tech industry have been claiming. Its all driven by greed to feed into a stock price frenzy but its the emperor’s new clothes. In the future it may be something useful but at present even the tools that exist are unreliable and broken.

    Self Drive Cars is different, very much a Tesla issue rather than generalised. Tesla has a first move advantage but then Elon Musk blew it by forcing his engineers to cut back on sensors and tech to save money because he knows best. Other self drive manufacturers are doing well and even have licenses to test their fully featured systems in multiple locations.

    AI is a generally crap technology (maybe in the future it will be something useful). Self Drive is a generally myself up technology, except at Tesla where they went for the crap unworkable version.




  • Unless you’re specifically wanting to play with a different OS then Debian again. Makes much more sense to be using the same version of Linux and all the software ypu use rather than potentially different versions.

    Also it will be simpler to maintain as everything is the same.

    If you do want to play / test another distro then Mint has a low learning curve. FreeBSD is more different but you could easily try it and switch to something else if you don’t like it. Its different but not so much that linux users would feel totally lost.

    Probably the most confusing thing for linux user trying FreeBSD is that Bash is not installed, and BSD uses sh instead by default. Bash can be easily installed and set as the default shell which will give a lot more familiarity. But otherwise it’ll feel like a familiar modern complete system, and you can use the same desktop environments you’re familiar with already in linux.

    EDIT: You did say “backup” in your title. If that’s the main use case then definitely Debian again. If your laptop breaks or is stolen it makes sense to have a familiar system to pick up. Also important to sync and backup your data so it can be picked up on the other laptop. If backup machine is your focus then I’d say same OS and look more into data retention and retrieval between the two laptops, and ensure your important data is continuously backed up.


  • Well all we have in the article are claims from the perpetrators family and vague innuendo about what was on the victims phone.

    The only facts outlined in the article were that the victim was shot 7 times in his own home, and managed to call from help from the street before dying. The purpetrator was on the run for 2 weeks, and allegedly on drugs during that time.

    Its trash journalism and a shit article. The allegations may be substantiated or they may not, but at the moment the story as written is the family’s opinion spliced into a few details about the crime.


  • Yeah its just not a good show.

    I just watched a scene where Michael and Mol were working together, then suddenly Michael decides to attack Mol, then they have a kung fu fight and finally Michael asks Mol stop and says she needs to trust her, as if Michael hadn’t just violently assaulted her. The writing is nonsensical.

    Unfortunately that is symptomatic of the show as a whole and just one of many problems.

    Also the constant deus ex machina, with the characters having a conversations where everyone finishes each others sentences. Its tiresome to watch. I really wanted to like the show but never could.




  • Batteries can be replaced. An EV that could run 1 million miles would still need maintenance - I think the point is that they could be designed to last.

    Planned obsolescence is so wide spread we don’t even notice it, but lots of products are designed to fail either through cheaper components or deliberately flawed design. That means we have to go and buy a replacement. It is also generally cheaper.

    So we either have cheap products that will break or seemingly expensive products but they last for a very long time. But in the long run the cheap products generally cost you more to buy than one expensive product.




  • It kind of makes sense except the vast majority of software in all distros is not being packaged by the developers, its being packaged by volunteers in the relevant project. Most software is being used on trust that it is built off the original code and not interfered with.

    Its very difficult for any distros to actually audit all the code of the software they are distributing. I imagine most time is spent making sure the packages work and don’t conflict with each other.

    The verified tick is good in flatpaks but the “hide anything not verified” seems a little over the top to me. A warning is good but most software is used under trust in Linux - if you’re not building it yourself you don’t know you’re getting unadulterated software. And does this apply to all the shared libraries on flathub? Will thebwarn you if your software is using shared libraries that ate not verified?

    And while Flatpak is a potential vector to a lot of machines if abused, it is also a sandboxed environment unlike the vast majority of software that comes from distros own repos.

    Also given the nature of Flatpaks, any distros could host its own flatpaks but everyone seems to use flathub. If they’re not going to take on the responsibility of maintaining flathub and its software then their probably needs to be some way of “verifying” packages not coming directly from the developers. Otherwise users may lose put on the benefits of a shared distros agnostic library of software.

    I get why mint are doing this but i think its a bit of a false reassurance. Although from mints point of view they would be able to take direct responsibility for the software they distribute in their own repos (as much as you can in a warrentyless “use as your own risk” system)



  • It depends on use case. If you’re driving in a city or living in a small country or state, electric makes a lot of sense.

    Range anxiety only really kicks in if driving long distances. But 300 miles on a full charge is already common among electric cars. I’m in the UK - that’d easily covet the 200 mile journey from Manchester to London.

    I think the real anxiety around range is a lack of chargers either on the journey or at the destination. Without that infrastructure then it will put people off electric cars. But the infrastructure is getting better every day -at least in Europe anyway.