Why should I try Puppy Linux? I find it hard to believe that Puppy Linux would be better supported, and would have fewer glitches on various PCs, than Ubuntu and its flavors.

First time?

It's fascinating that there are so many people acting like this is their first taste of Maintenance Hell.

Learn from it. After some poor choices and orphanage heartbreak, I eventually had a last time, swore NEVER AGAIN, and I haven't looked back. I'm sure there are legit gripes about Linux but the one gripe I know nobody will ever have, is "they fucked me." It's never hostile, at all. It never tries to not work. The code isn't making any decisions, ever, which would translate into English as "fuck what the owner of this computer wants." Never. It's always on your side. Always. And to me, that's what I consider to be "normal" now.

The absurdity of recent versions of MS Windows requiring TPM is right there in your face. That's a deliberate defect, making it hostile for no fucking reason that any customer ever asked for.

They hate you. And you want more from those people? Really? You must hate you too.

If you ever change your mind, there's a way out.

I'm tired of hearing that Linux is a great alternative for older PCs. I recently installed Kubuntu onto a MacBook Air (2011) and:

* the current version's installer (25.04) hangs on boot, so I had to install a previous version and upgrade (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2105402)
* it takes 20 seconds to wake from sleep (like https://askubuntu.com/questions/1434722/macbook-takes-20-seconds-to-wake-up)
* wifi occasionally drops out for a minute or two then comes back; I'm trying to update the BCM43224/brcmsmac driver but it won't install because it's looking for a domain that no longer exists (I saw a bug logged on this but I can't find it now)
* I get Qt errors displayed on the desktop when I log in, something about environment variables; the solutions I found didn't work
* any apps I install through the Discover app give me an error saying the installation failed, when it actually succeeded

This is similar to my experiences having installed Linux onto many PCs from 5-15 years old. Most of the experience is great, but it's those last few glitches that make it a pain to actually try to use Linux. And given that it's developed and supported by the community, the only way I can get these fixed is to research them, file a bug, and find other people affected by the problems. That's more than I have time to do - I only want to use it.

WTF is with people calling Republicans "conservative?" I don't get it. FDR was relatively conservative, next to this guy. No?

No. What you describe, I just call a "conspiracy" (assuming the action is harmful or illegal or .. eh, I think the word "shady" probably fits best).

I suppose the participants technically do also have a conspiracy theory, but I think it's inappropriate to call their direct knowledge that. The hypothesizing is usually by nonparticipants, and if they come up with a hypothesis with enough evidence to back it up such that their explanation becomes widely accepted in the mainstream, then they have a conspiracy theory.

(BTW, I know I already lost this argument decades ago. I lost the fight over the word "hacker" too. But that doesn't mean I can't grind this axe for the rest of my life! The word "theory" means something, or at least it did/should in my fantasy world.)

Since when does private party A doing something "unlawful" compel private party B to take some action?

Ever since the first time someone pointed a loaded gun as B's face and said "do what I say or else I'll kill you" and B did as ordered, instead of accepting their death.

I think it was sometime around 1234567 BC.

Having a wimpy direct path that just goes from Airport - Downtown - Convention center is perfect for a huge number of cities.

So many places it can be really rough to get from the airport to the downtown area any time around rush hour (which in a lot of cities is around a 3-4 hour window).

Some places with rail kind of have this - like the train that goes from Midway into Chicago. But even THAT has a lot of stops and is not great for travelers, even if it's nice for residents.

I also have to say that a system where you are riding in smaller vehicles I am a big fan of because it eliminates the problem where homeless people are just handing up on the train which create danger, nasty messes, and of course awful smells. Though awful smells is not restricted to the homeless of course, that can be any other passengers also so nice to be removed from them too.

I am a owner of a FutureHome Smarthub 2 (soon to be sold), and my home transitioned to Home Assistant a few days ago. I have been following closely the situation for a few months now, including the reactions of the user community.

What is especially worrying is that the monthly fees are only nominally monthly - they are to be paid in advance for a full year. If they had been truly monthly I might have been tempted to test it for a month or two, but with this much money being asked up front I am not only worried about the actual value of the service (am I going to save that much on electricity?), I am worried that so few people will take up the offer that the company will be instantly wiped out.

Among the further genius decisions of new owners, this transition period was placed in July: the traditional Norwegian summer month, when half the country is in Spain or Greece, especially a lot of people with larger homes, children and available income (the key target customer group). A lot of them probably never noticed the change and will come home next week thinking the hub broke.

Now, while the TFA claims the MSRP of the FH Hub is $275, it is actually far cheaper - it is about $100, which means the annual fee is more expensive than the hub.

You need to understand that electricity in Norway is laughably cheap (no matter what Norwegians tell you). Today's average price I am paying is 7.81 USD per MWh, as an example. Electricity is so cheap that Norwegians use it directly for heating (even heat pumps are a dubious economic case). Some, including the guy who built my house, use direct electric heating to de-ice stairs (so that's what I am stuck with).

This means that the savings you can achieve with FutureHome are very limited. My largest successes in cost reduction were using a more careful planner for the entry stair de-icing resistance, which used to run anytime temperatures were low and now only runs when there are the right conditions of temperature and humidity. Electric cars (very common here) can also be scheduled to charge at nighttime, and the same goes for water boilers, with simple timers that can be bought for $5.

So the question FH users have been asking: what exactly am I getting for well over $100 a year? It is very unlikely that you would save that amount of money with the FH hub in Norway.

If the moon is split in two and we are living through Thundarr the Barbarian I can first shot at wooing the princess!

Being a huge fan of the original cartoons, I was really sad to hear the whole story of Coyote vs Acme being canned. So while I am not sure how good the actual movie is, I'm really glad it gets a chance to exist and I will probably see it just to support the pushback effort.

There's not much other stuff I am really waiting for but am cautiously hopeful about Tron, and actually will try to see Alien: Earth which looks like more fun than a lot of SF Horror has been recently. But I am keeping expectations low for both.

Nope, conspiracies don't ever happen.

The 9/11 hijackers did not plan their actions in advance. Just by sheer coincidence, 19 people just happened to be taking those four plane flights. And by coincidence (no coordination) they all got the same spontaneous idea at the same time, an idea they had never spoken about before: let's hijack the plane and crash it.

Crazy people babble on about "evidence" like people taking flight lessons, sharing vehicles, etc. but we know those things cannot possibly be true, because conspiracies are not real.

If you have a hypothesis of x and then find lots of supporting evidence for x and it becomes the prevailing explanation, that creates a theory of x, but there's one exception: when x is a conspiracy. Conspiracies are a special case, because they don't really happen.

It doesn't say, but I'll bet he doesn't have backups either.

Dude right in the middle of the summary it says there was a rollback that worked:

  Replit initially told Lemkin the database could not be restored, claiming it had "destroyed all database versions," but later discovered rollback functionality did work.

Still scary stuff that you'd want a lot more manual and separated control of backups I would think.

Anthropic's entire schtick is about AI risks, and how careful they are at mitigating those risks..

Exactly! Can you not see what a massive lie that is?

They paper over the model they have turning Hitler with gobs of built in prompts and layers of checking levels and even that cannot always hide what is true...

Deep inside, Anthropics model also dreams of electric swastikas.

The focus they have is on how to hide it, rather than fixing it, which was my whole point. I don't trust those guys AT ALL. The safety reports they issue with models are absolute BULLSHIT.

Lots of inaccuracies here.

Firstly it takes far longer to fill a hydrogen car than a gas car due to the careful rate control needed to fill the tank. If you have appropriate cooling and heating systems to maximise density while filling while also preventing the handle from freezing in place it still takes you >6min to fill a car.

Filling time for hydrogen cars is 3 minutes per industry standard. Also, the handle would not freeze in place, because hydrogen heats up when expanding (reverse Joule-Thomson effect): if anything it would warm up. And that happens only for specific pressure ranges (mostly from very high to almost empty tank).

On top of that hydrogen refueling stations do not store hydrogen at bulk pressures required for vehicles since having a large 700bar tank is hugely expensive and dangerous, instead bulk hydrogen is stored at a lower pressure and compressed before being put into small temporary storage and loaded into your car.

It's more complicated than that. There are often multiple tanks at different pressure, and they will be used sequentially to maximise efficiency. First the one with lowest pressure, then top-up with the higher-pressure tank. Promptness of refilling the high-pressure top-up tank is only related to compressor capacity, and this is easily upgraded when customer base increases; hydrogen compressors are off-the-shelf technology.

Also: tanks are not especially dangerous, the tricky parts are usually valves and flanges. Tanks are fairly standardised and are safe ex works; flanges are installed on site and that's where there is potential for errors to creep in. That's why a standing recommendation is to use hydrogen pipes that are "as small as you can get away with" for high-pressure lines.

... You do realise that Toyota has already developed this concept?