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Comment Comparing libraries to libraries (Score 1) 108

*facepalm* SDL is not C.

Nor is Pillow Python. However, Pillow routinely has significant changes from one major version to the next. Installing a newer version of Pillow than some system package expects could easily break that package. (This is why PEP 668 happened.) Likewise, installing from source a newer major version of a library than some C program expects could break that library.

Comment If-Modified-Since and If-None-Match (Score 1) 36

HTTP has the "If-Modified-Since" request header, which instructs a server to process a request only if the requested document has changed since the provided date. It also has the "If-None-Match" request header, which does the same thing for "ETag" values.

(I did not use the <code> element in this post where the HTML spec states that I should have because Slashdot issued a diagnostic "Filter error: Invalid HTML tag usage".)

Comment Re:Never enough houses (Score 3, Insightful) 139

Italy and Japan have shrinking populations. We would too, if it weren't for immigration. However our population growth rate is still low, and if it were any lower we'd be facing serious economic and social challenges. Sure, a shrinking population would drop housing prices, but we are far from having so many people there isn't space to fit them. Our real problem is seventy years of public policy aimed at the elimination of "slums" and the prevention of their reemergence.

If you think about it, "slum" is just a derogatory word for a neighborhood with a high concentration of very affordable housing. Basically policy has by design eliminated the most affordable tier of housing, which eliminates downward price pressure on higher tiers of housing. Today in my city a median studio apartment cost $2800; by the old 1/5 of income rule that means you'd need an income of $168k. Of course the rule now is 30% of income, so to afford a studio apartment you need "only" 112k of income. So essentially there is no affordable housing at all in the city, even for young middle class workers. There is, however a glut of *luxury* housing.

In a way, this is what we set out to accomplish: a city where the only concentrations of people allowed are wealthy people. We didn't really think it through; we acted as if poor to middle income people would just disappear. In reality two things happened. First they got pushed further and further into the suburbs, sparking backlash by residents concerned with property values. And a lot of people, even middle-class young people, end up in illegal off-the-book apartments in spaces like old warehouses and industrial spaces.

Comment Only if a particular game is already on consoles (Score 1) 155

People who want to play games can buy a console

Until they use their tablet to browse the website of the game they want to buy and see "Linux and Windows: Buy Now / Consoles: We are seeking a publisher." A newly established indie studio's games aren't on consoles until the console maker approves a studio's request for a devkit. That in turn doesn't happen until the studio brings two or three games to market on a competing platform, which usually ends up being Windows.

browse websites on a tablet

And write long-form articles for a website on what? Learn concepts of computer science on what?

Comment You're seeing PEP 668 (Score 2) 108

Try to pip install --user pkg. If it exists as a deb the pip commend will fail.

This is true of all system Python in GNU/Linux distributions since PEP 668. Ostensibly, it's to protect the user from installing a new major version of a package whose breaking changes cause other packages installed on the system to stop working. Creating a venv solves the problem.

Comment iTunes in Wine doesn't detect iPhone (Score 1) 155

What is there that only runs in Windows 11 and not under Wine that you need so badly that you're willing to buy an extra computer just for that?

iTunes, for adding music to my roommate's iPhone's music library after October 2025, when Windows 10 security updates end. Last time I tried iTunes, Wine couldn't run the part of iTunes that syncs to a mobile device. "How to Install iTunes in Ubuntu 22.04 | 24.04 (Step by Step)" states: "NOTE that, iTunes running with wine does NOT detect iPhone, at least not for me."

As for what to use instead of iTunes: I looked into libimobiledevice on Linux but its FAQ states "Sorry, music synchronization with newer devices is currently not supported." Using a Spotify or Apple Music subscription doesn't work if someone bought an MP3 album from the website of a band that isn't yet represented by one of the labels on Spotify or Apple Music. Using VLC instead of the Music app doesn't let the user mix and match songs manually added to the library with songs from the user's Apple Music subscription.

Comment Swap to SODIMM (Score 1) 218

I dont see a sane path to getting pluggable ram back without backtracking on the main selling point of the 'apple silicon' range, which is to gain performance by putting it all on the same die.

Mount the SODIMM as a RAM disk and have the operating system swap to it instead of swapping to the SLC intake buffer of the SSD. Main RAM stays on package; SSD sees less wear.

Comment Re:Free Market (Score 1) 185

Trump is winning because of votes from people living in trailer parks, not because of donations from Wall Street. DeSantis wants to be the next Trump.

There's a lot of mythology around who Trump voters are. Part of it is that statistics can be confusing, especially if you're prone to jump to conclusions. Yes Trump wins the voters without a college degree, and people without college degrees tend to make less money, but we can't leap to the conculsion that Trump voters are poor. In fact, data shows Trump lost the $50k and under income group solidly in both 2016 and 2020. In 2016 he won every income group greater than $50k, although only *strongly* in the $50k -$99k group. In 2020 he solidly lost every income group betlow $100k, but but won the over $100k group by an enormous 12 point margin.

Putting it all together, Trump's core voter group are people with limited educational attainment who are economically comfortable of (good for them) well off without having a college degree. However he doesn't own any particular socioeconomic group; really elections are determined by changes in turnout in key swing states. There was strong turnout among Trump's *share* of $50-$99 ke voters in 2016; I don't think many of those voters changed their mind, but their compatriots who sat 2016 out came out to vote in 2020.

Comment Re:Who knows.. (Score 1) 185

Just because the cigarette industry pictured doctors recommending smoking in its advertising didn't mean that *all* doctors, or even most thought smoking was healthy for you. This was largely in the 30s and 40s when they took advantage of a positive attitude toward science and particular medical science. They began to pull back from this after 1950 when evidence was mounting for the link between smoking and cancer, for fear of pushback from the medical community.

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