Just used up my mod points, can someone throw swillden a few Interesting and Insightfuls, please?

It can backfire though - they sent me a bottle of Omega 3 oil packed only in one of the bubble-wrap bags. It obviously smashed en route. Refund issued, I'll buy it elsewhere where the packaging is appropriate. So they paid to ship it, then for a customer service rep to talk to me (website said it was ineligible for return) then for some system to refund the money to my account. Kerching, or not

Which form of energy supply is easy to defend against aggressors?

So much bitterness. Get out the other side of the bed tomorrow.

Cool, I'll wait for it to arrive in BC, Canada (solidly west coast). No snark, I'll wait and see.

Okay, that helps with my decision-making. It's from the same school of consumer-hatred as old mobile phones or OEM Windows installs stuffed with crapware. Or OEM Windows. No sale.

But... I own a Tesla, which also doesn't support CarPlay, so take my comment with a big old pinch of salt. If GM make a charging network to compete with Tesla I'll put them back on the list for my next car. Otherwise Kia/Hyundai/Audi/Porsche will all be considered before GM (and after another Tesla).

Many of the same criticisms could be levelled at other UK papers (obviously flipped depending on politics), so let's TL;DR this and say "the same paper whose politics probably don't align with Budenny's" and move on, after reading what the paper itself said about the slavery issue: https://www.theguardian.com/ne.... I look forward to a similar explanation of the business dealings of the Barclay brother(s, RIP) in the Telegraph, or Murdoch's tentacles in the Times/Sun, or any meaningful apology for the lies that led to Brexit and the daily dripfeed of lies that foster racism from the Mail and Express.

I'm a British citizen (Canadian resident) whose politics do more closely align with the Guardian's and I feel just as strongly that most of the "serious" UK press (the Daily Nazi, the other Daily Nazi and the broadsheets that either employed Johnson or wished that they did) are guilty of just as many crimes and sins of omission as the Guardian/Observer. But I will always allow investigative journalism from any of them - who else would do the investigating if not the flawed press?

Guardian, please. Or Grauniad if you're a Private Eye reader. To a UK reader (or a citizen of the newspaper world), the irony of making a typo in the name of The Guardian is delicious.

... so I had no idea about this controversy. I found this two-year old page has some useful background on why flatpak is dumb: Flatpak is not the future

If even half of what the linked article says is true then I don't see how these package installers ever got any traction, even inside the companies that spawned them.

Don't be surprised: there are many datacentres in Frankfurt. Many of them have diverse resilient fibre connections. I used to do a bit of work at one of the financially focused ones and they had their ducks in a row.

Banking (as in fiat) uses more resources than Bitcoin. Ditto Gold in particular. Then we could move on to all the companies whose shares are traded on the stock exchanges of the world (you know, the ones actually digging holes in the ground, sending filthy chemicals into the air, enslaving people to make gadgets for nerds like us, and consuming a whole heap of energy and limited resources whilst they do it).

Criminals use crypto, sure. But they also use briefcases full of cash. Also melted-down gold jewelry and other convertible assets. Down with necklaces is what I say. Stop selling briefcases. Remember the arguments we have had over the years about the freedom of the Internet and how the previous generation are always saying "but won't somebody think of the children"? Crypto is a useful tool. Some people will misuse it, but that is not a reason to get rid of it. See knives, hammers, Ford F150s etc.

Actually the truck could die and go away for good, I'd like nothing better. Speeding truck drivers that kill innocent people drive polluting trucks so all trucks should be banned. Never mind that fire crews use them to rescue people, or your mate use his to tow his boat down to the lake and you get to enjoy a few bears floating around on a Sunday afternoon. I've heard that generally trucks are used for criminal purposes, so ban them now.

Regulation, yes. But a desire by government to crush the whole of crypto surely triggers some of you good ol' boys' libertarian streaks?

The "right to have guns" is a peculiarly American thing (plus Mexico and Guatemala). Non-catholics had the right in the UK from 1689 (and a lot of your 2nd amendment issues date back to that bit of flawed legislation), but that "right" has gradually been curtailed.

UK got privacy laws in 1998 in the Human Rights Act. Laws banning guns of one sort or another started hitting the statute books in 1903. We (I'm now Canadian-resident but came from the UK) can still own licensed and properly stored firearms of certain kinds.

IOW, no, taking some guns out of non-Catholic Englishmen's hands did not get rid of our rights to privacy. But don't let that stop you introducing bizarre pro-gun (possibly anti-government) irrelevancies.

No story more nerdy this week, I'm sure, but OMG.

Agreed. EV owner here and timed cabin heat is used every day in winter. No problem with a couple of milliwatts trickling away (esp. here in hydro-dominant BC, Canada, if you're powered by coal then I'm not so keen). It's the needless burning of fuel coupled with local noise and gaseous pollution that grinds my gears. But given that many of the truck owners drive around with sled(s) on the bed in part to make their vehicles safe in snowy conditions I realise I'm not going to sway their opinions.

Remote start should die a quick death. As a Canadian resident, in a cold area, I understand why people use it, but the problem is that most (possible confirmation bias, I know) people abuse it, leaving their V8 trucks (see earlier bias statement) rumbling for minutes on end outside their own properties (ie 3 metres from the door-to-door). Charge $1,005 for it for all I care.