So I'm to understand that what happens to students in college is "indoctrination" but a 4-month primer on the superiority of western civilization is not.

>"Do I understand you see Arch and Gentoo as crazy? Presumably then also NixOS?"

Maybe what I wrote is a bit too extreme/sloppy. I wouldn't call Arch, at least, crazy. I meant corporate-controlled Linux distros but neglected to include that qualifier. Wish I could edit...

>"Congress needs to do away with DST"

I think you mean, make DST full-time/always/permanent.

>"but they can't do their job now !!"

They haven't been able to do their job in decades.

Not sure, but curious, myself. Debian seems to be the only "pure in spirit" and "non-crazy" distro left out there. It is just kinda unpolished... which is what Mint LMDE brings to it. I haven't tried it yet, since I am fine with "regular" Mint. But at some point I think that will change, when Ubuntu does something bad enough under the hood on Mint. That is, of course, why LMDE exists.

>"Debian is light years closer to freedom than Ubuntu or Mint. "

Mint is much better in many ways than Ubuntu, yet retains compatibility. But you also have the option of Mint LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition), which is much of the same Mint goodness (installer, tools, desktop options), but based directly on Debian instead of Ubuntu:

https://www.linuxmint.com/down...

>"Moving into the modern era it is becoming more and more clear that sports fans have been subsidizing other television fans for decades. As the needs and wants of these two groups grow further and further apart expect interesting things to happen."

I have absolutely ZERO interest in sports and have always resented how much I am paying to have those expensive channels that I NEVER use. Now there is such a tiny amount of content left that I like, and the prices are so high, it seems like nothing has much value. At this point, I would probably rather pay a small amount per program/time that I like and watch. Maybe $0.50 an hour or something. But they blew that model, too... like Amazon Video wanting $3 per episode of something.... insane.

The best value and satisfaction I ever had for content was Netflix Disc. Although it was slow and clunky, it was reasonably priced and had almost every movie or documentary ever made available, plus many of the better series as well. And the site worked really well. So of course that was all taken away.

>"It's 2025. Sane people watch pre-recorded stuff when they have time. The industry calls that Video on Demand. They stream these shows from someone that let's them watch when they want to watch, and that keeps track of where they are when the stop. They don't tune in every day at 3:30 PM and watch reruns of their favorite show. If you are old enough, like me, you probably remember sitting down with all of your friends every week to watch the newest episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, or whatever. Remember how terrible that was. You had to make an appointment to watch television or you missed an episode and you couldn't watch it until it was in re-runs. Well, those days are so dead no one even mourns them any more. "

You completely skipped the entire DVR revolution. I haven't watched commercials, or been forced to watch something "live", or missed any episodes of anything for 25 years. TiVo is (and about to be "was") very adept at tracking everything you want and everything you MIGHT want and keeping the drives crammed with stuff to watch however and whenever you want.

Even before that, like with your Next Generation example, I had a VCR recording everything I was going to watch. Far, far more primitive, but workable.

I still don't see streaming as a replacement for CATV + TiVo for me. It is a good augment, and probably OK for many. But it has tons of its own problems- like programs disappearing, lots of different "apps" and controls, lack of proper tracking, dismal interfaces, occasional quality issues, many not even offering AC3 sound, CATV "exclusives" that they won't bring to streaming, irritating overlays on pause that can't be dismissed so you can SEE on the screen what you paused it for, lack of fine-grained shuttle, etc.

Programming sucks a LOT more now than ever, regardless. It is harder and harder to find good stuff on any platform. I tend to watch more YouTube long-form videos now than anything else, and with CATV prices going crazy high and TiVo about to throw in the towel, I will be forced to make some radical change.

We MUST be able to inspect and age verify every AI slop porn image to protect the fictional children!

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>"Is installing Windows 11 with a local account or on unsupported hardware harmful or dangerous?"

Installing MS-Windows is dangerous.

Having a local user for it is not.
Using it with so-called "unsupported hardware" is also not.

>"So YT does it, I've had news sites do it too."

Well, I have two or three Youtube tabs up in the mix, and very often with one playing for very long periods, and haven't seen that behavior. I don't use news sites very often, though (and never leave those up).

Most of my persistent tabs/windows are Slashdot, Hotmail, three different forum sites, a game, Yahoo mail, a few Youtube, sometimes a Rumble, often a Wikipedia, and then some misc ones that change a lot.

>"so my guess is a memory leak is triggered after FF runs for a few days."

I am sure that is possible. But I keep at least two windows and 12 tabs open with Linux Firefox running for several weeks at a time without encountering any problems. Once in a blue moon I will have some type of site that causes high CPU/memory. When that happens, I don't actually know if it is Firefox or UBO.

>"So, a standard Firefox session in other words. /rimshot"

To be funny, there has to be some underlying truth or irony involved. But in this case, there isn't either. Firefox memory usage is pretty consistently lower than Chrom*.

>"A critical security flaw in Chromium's Blink rendering engine can crash billions of browsers within seconds."

Yes, all multiplatform browsers, except Firefox. Browser non-diversity is a serious security, stability, and freedom threat.

So they're giving pregnant monkeys Tylenol?

>"4K or 8K TVs Offer No Distinguishable Benefit Over Similarly Sized 2K Screen in Average Living Room, Scientists Say "

No duh. I have been saying that to people for many years. Most people can't even tell the difference between high-quality 720P and 1080P moving images on a 60" screen from 15 feet away.