Whether one dislikes systemd or not isn't necessarily because of what it does or doesn't do. The issue for many people (myself included) is simply that it's a monolith that keeps trying to grow larger in an "open" world that was meant to stand for a certain amount of platform agnosticism and component independence.

I realise that systemd can make life easier for some more novice users but to be true to the spirit of the open source community I would expect it to be optional where it can be so. When it starts to intrude into critical areas and make itself mandatory in some releases, that bothers me. It makes me think that the whole business is a sneaky attempt to subvert the Linux kernel and eventually take control of Linux as a whole.

Totally agree. He sees what Linus has and wants it for himself. The problem with that is, as you point out, Linus did what he did because he wanted to run UNIX (well, Minix?) on a POS old PC. Poettering really just wants the fame.

I'm constantly complaining that I have to order from actual people. Places like Chipotle have the online app so I can simply place my order and then pick it up. If there wasn't a 30 minute minimum, I would just do it in line instead of waiting to tell a person. A few kiosks have to be more convenient, in the way that they can be like the self checkout at a supermarket. They'll still have a human attendant, just for multiple machines.

I live here, it's awesome =)

Seriously though, South Australia, while having a reputation for being a "backward" state, is actually one of (if not the) most liberal, progressive states in Australia. Adelaide has a cool startup culture too!

...or the standards of computer science education in Western countries could improve? We could start with insisting all CS students learn a close-to-the-metal language like C, and not graduating JavaScript specialists.

It's a pretty niche app, but the Slashdot crowd has a pretty large percentage of retro-computer collectors, so I thought it might be worth a mention...

tapDancer is an Android app that encodes .TAP / .TZX and many more and plays the audio out through the headphone jack. You can either direct-connect your device or use a 'cassette CD adapter'.

https://play.google.com/store/...

...have been around for years. I know they don't generally share the road (except with hapless interlopers who have to get out of the way) but there's still been much knowledge gleaned there. So the 'science' is already eay more advanced than with autonomous cars, for example.

...think that was ever going to last? C'mon now... really?

Firefox better watch itself. Trying to "nudge" people into creating apps that only work properly with their browser / OS may not end well for it.

While I agree most digital pianos do not have the greatest sound, VST plugins (particularly Kontakt) can emulate a piano quite closely using libraries that are gigabytes in size. It's not uncommon to see a MacBook chained to a digital piano during a performance.

there are virtually no stop signs, only round-abouts and "give way"s (yields). Never mind cycling, DRIVING is much quicker!