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Comment How is it best inspected and repaired? (Score 1) 13

The most versatile, repairable, recyclable materials for bridges if one can afford them are steels which can be cut, welded, and easily inspected using proven methods then scrapped and recycled efficiently with many of the standard steel sections easy to cut and resell for less critical reuse.

Cheaper concrete destroys reinforcement bars and mats by corrosion which is a major reason why the US infrastructure repair bills are so expensive. (Small and medium bridges can be replaced by portable metal bridging which can even be rented for use on short-term projects. Some WWII Bailey bridges remain in daily use because there's no reason to install a downgrade that's difficult to remove vs. swapping parts, weld repair or disassembly and replacement with similar.) Portable bridging in military usereliably withstand thousands of heavy wheeled and tracked military vehicles

"Shotcrete" is a handy coating and good for the developers trying this out, but the TCO and averting traffic delays due to repair time also matter.

Automated NDI inspection robots designed for these would be a very good idea to save labor. Bridge inspection robots are not new. Check out these inspection and maintenance robots:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Comment Root cause: just part of current lowgrade WWIII (Score 1) 11

Hackernews Aug 12 2025 on the Salesforce hack: Cybercrime Groups ShinyHunters, Scattered Spider Join Forces in Extortion Attacks on Businesses

I bet anything China, Russia, and Iran are those so-called cybercrime groups. Check this BlackHat talk about catching the (at the time) biggest ever card fraud guy. Russian oligarch son. Guess what, he was one of those returned to Russia in an exchange with the Trump admin as part of "peace negotiations".

Cyberattacks are part of the low level war they are also waging via dragging anchors to cut Internet cables, throwing drones and jets into NATO airspace, and ofc disinformation campaigns.

So yeah they are leveraging the cybercrime aspect to further weaken USA / NATO / The West / Tolerant Inclusive Democracy.

Comment I'd gleefully volunteer. Why not? (Score 1) 53

I'd gleefully volunteer because that would at least make my dying experience useful to others if not myself. I consider that no different than donating my organs and other leftovers to whoever can use them. If we can donate a corpse we can consent to donating ourselves during the normally protracted, miserable decline we call old age and should have the option while we're still compos mentis.

For me an ideal departure path would be a clinical trial followed by body donation to science. Volunteering is an honorable exercise of agency useful to humanity.

I've cared for a demented, bedridden, crippled family member whose mistery I was forbidden to end. My father (WWII combat infantry vet who'd seen plenty of death at Aachen etc) was on board with me assisting his departure but others were too weak to get out of the way so he suffered a couple extra years for nothing. Of course I'd volunteer so others might one day be spared.

Humans treat each other with less respect than they give a beloved hunting dog. Many hunters, farmers and other good stewards understand merciful death is a kindness while clinging to a helpessly suffering animal out of emotional weakness is self-centered sadism.

We're all fucking doomed to feed the worms. Get over it and do something useful or at least don't be a human obstacle to others peaceful departure. Testing therapies on the damned won't make them more damned and if it helps they'll be pleased.

Comment Re: Daz Studio etc & adding vs.switching OS. (Score 1) 148

"Waiting" rather than running more than one OS just postpones the learning curve. Absent unusual constraints you don't need a "next machine" to run Linux which there are many convenient ways to do without disturbing your Windows host. The "I will switch when things get a little bit worse" meme is self-defeating vs exploring Linux (or any OS) in any of many very convenient, educational ways while sacrificing nothing.

Rather than following the "switching" meme I simply add any OS I fancy using the most convenient method.
The idea of "switching" intimidates many prospective users who'd benefit from choice. Use is not contribution, only money and code, so what an individual uses is of nil outside consequence. It's not raging against anyone's machine though that might be one motivator for the Terry Davis crowd.

Your current PC runs 11 so should be quite capable of running a Linux virtual machine you can learn from without disrupting your workflow.

If storage is an issue drive space is cheap and Linux boot drives are normally near effortless to swap between PCs. More RAM is always good so I max out all my PCs old or new that they may serve me better for longer. If money is tight used RAM from reputable Ebay sellers has never failed me (I run memtest after install to be sure). If your drive is soldered in place you can offload storage to external drives (NTFS can be accessed by Linux) with both OS on your boot drive as host or guest.

VMs are a convenient way to sample any or many distros without installing to bare metal. You can download free prebuilts from osboxes and other helpful sites or roll your own (recommended for install training). After running Linux in VMs you can replace your Windows host with Linux. You can make a VM of your current Windows install so you lose nothing and have a readily bootable Windows install to use. You can copy VM as very convenient backups or to run on other computers. If a Windows update breaks something you can revert to a clean snapshot.

I'm a basic VM user still on VirtualBox which is simple and works well for my use but defer to VM aficionados re: the latest optimal choices.

You could run Daz Studio in a light Windows VM with few other programs and if you don't need to connect that VM to the internet you can skip Windows updates to save space. Save work to a shared folder and should anything hose your Windows install reboot into the snapshot you took of whatever Windows state you preferred to save. No need for activation unless the minor inconveniences trigger you, but I've used offline activators since the XP days with clean .iso images. If not sure how that works best the My Digital Life forums are highly educational.

VM aren't just for professionals and in general are a drastic improvement over dual booting and shared boot records. I did that twice in back in 1999ish and found separate hard drives in cheap swap rack trays were the path of least hassle as VM were not an option.

I use Linux because Windows irks me and I greatly prefer my many, many more software options but OS are merely tools so I don't see reason to limit my toolkit. Software doesn't cost a dime unless you feel like paying for it.

You can so I did load Windows To Go drives using leftover small SSD, cheap USB adapters and 3D printed cases. I can boot W10 anywhere or W11 if I cared to use for chores needing bare metal installs like reflashing GM LS V8 firmware. I can swap cheap USB hard drive adapters to use any connector I need. I do similarly with Linux drives which are far more "portable" than Windows. Any sufficiently spacious drive can hold any host and VM and if loaded with Ventoy can boot multiple OS including a wide variety of live .iso images and VM.

Iff you're unhappy with MSFT their OS are easily contained offline on Linux hosts which let you use your most performant hardware rather than older gear (on which Linux typically runs well, especially on Thinkpads). Installing FOSS firmware like Libreboot on older Thinkpads for secure comms use is an established hobby with strong community support. If you don't feel like flashing it yourself (though the more you do the more capable you become) some Thinkpad enthusiasts will sell you a flashed Thinkpad or flash one you send them. I suggest learning to do that for yourself lest an adversary intercept and backdoor the firmware. You can also boot live security-focused distros like TAILS and remaster their images as desired. Linux offers so many free tools it's hard to beat. https://libreboot.org/

If you prefer control to helplessness why not jump in and enjoy some free (or nearly so) mind-expanding fun?

When seeking tech info I suggest NOT vomiting your emotions all over the internet because:

Nobody else cares. Paranoia is a delusion of personal importance and agency. Everyone sane who reads such
things doesn't pity you, they sneer as you would at your left-wing mirror images.

Cultivating emotional fragility is self-sabotage thus degenerate.

Emotional vomit is a distracting barrier to efficient communication. It's noise, not signal
no matter how much the vomiter fantasizes otherwise. It has the opposite effect of advocacy.

Emotional vomit convinces no one and makes vomiters instant laughingstocks and ridicule targets.
It's the equivalent of the woke airheads you despise puking their lives onto social media
and impresses no one. Nothing you could ever do, be or say can change that.

Go do fun stuff instead. For the rest, I suggest 4chan where /pol/ will suit you just fine.

Comment Re:get over yourself its called android no google (Score 1) 67

They're talking about LineageOS. Think Graphene but it doesn't just run on Google hardware. Over a hundred devices and they just added mainline kernel and qemu support so it potentially runs on thousands of devices.

Sadly with less hardening. I wish Lineage would take some Graphene patches. The crazy thing is Lineage descended from Cyanogenmod which had many of these patches!

Submission + - NordVPN embraces open source by releasing its Linux GUI on GitHub (nerds.xyz)

BrianFagioli writes: NordVPN has open sourced its Linux GUI on GitHub, giving the community full access to the code behind its graphical client. The move follows a 70 percent surge in daily active Linux users since the GUIâ(TM)s debut earlier this year, showing clear demand for a user friendly VPN experience on the platform. Alongside the previously open sourced command line tool, the GUI codebase is now available for anyone to audit, modify, and contribute to.

While NordVPNâ(TM)s core backend infrastructure remains proprietary, the company says the open source release reflects its commitment to transparency and collaboration with the Linux community. The GUI can also now be installed with a single command using Snap, simplifying setup and ensuring automatic updates across distributions.

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