I think a lot of it comes from schools, and in particular physical education and competitive sports. There is nothing wrong with competitive sports but the attitudes around it in schools can be so toxic, and in particular it can be used to create hierarchies. The idea of being good at sports and that being masculine was something I certainly experienced a lot at school. Also people who weren't as academic but thrived in sports were lauded.

My school had various sports teams and clubs, and fuck all academic activities. Sports aren't toxic but the attitudes around them can be, and particularly adults who feed in toxic attitudes and values around it.

All browser companies monetise you to some extent. Even Firefox does this a bit (Paid deals make Google is the default search, and Amazon search is also paid to be included as a link for example).

However the big difference is the private companies like Vivaldi, Brave etc monetise your data more and less transparently, plus the entire Chromium ecosystem is basically under Google's control. Manifest 3 will not be restricted to Chrome, it is being built into the Chromium project and will end up in Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Brave etc. Chromium is a trojan horse project, used to push Google's priorities and objectives across the web, not end users.

The only viable alternative is Firefox based browsers. I use Firefox itself (aware of it's compromises and using a whole host of extensions), but there are also forks and projects that strip even Firefox's compromises back - LibreWolf in particular. For all the flaws of the Mozilla foundation, it is transparent on what it does to keep the project going, and the independence of the project compared to chromium is hugely important. Note Firefox is also going to support Manifest V3 (so that extensions can continue to be cross-browser) BUT it is also keeping support for the key APIs that Google is removing (i.e. the ability for extensions to use the block webRequest API which is foundational to current Ad and privacy protection extensions).

Vivaldi is no different to other Chromium based broswers; it uses the exact same Google controlled code base, plus it is doing everything it can to monetise you. You are the product; all these companies are stealing and financially exploiting your data and we're all just handing it to them on a platter for free and thanking them for fucking us over.

The BBC article that this article is a bizarre summary of is far better (the Gizmodo article even links directly to the BBC article). It give a far better overview of the issues; the main crux is they cost most than anticipated through both theft and cost of the machines themselves. The consumer's disliking it is a less point and more naunced essentially "customer's want the technology to work but it isn't" which is also what you've said.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240111-it-hasnt-delivered-the-spectacular-failure-of-self-checkout-technology

Personally I preferred the self checkouts because I don't want to interact with someone, but th they fail so much (because of the weighing which is to stop me being a supposed thieving scumbag, not to benefit me) and you end up standing around waving at a random stranger to come and fix the machine awkwardly while a massive queue waits impatiently for a machine. I've recently switched back to the manned checkouts for bigger shopping trips.

Actually a good example:

• If you have AIDs (A) then you have HIV (B). True
• You have HIV (B) if, and only if, you have AIDS (A). Not true
• If you don't have HIV (B), then you don't have AIDs (A). True, and the actual inverse of "If A then B"; which is "If not B, then not A"

I like Mate-Terminal; it's nicely customizable for my tastes and does the basics well. I also quite like LXTerminal for similar reasons.

But generally I use Konsole as I'm using KDE a lot now, and it's the default terminal.

Yeah not sure I agree with all of this.

When it comes to KDE this feels out of date. The GTK issues are not what they once were; KDE Plasma has good GTK themes that match the KDE ones. Nowadays I find the main issues are with Flatpak software not matching DE themes because they're in a sandbox. I've had that issue on both KDE and gnome 2 derived environments (I've never really gotten into Gnome 3). KDE also used to have a reputation for being slow and a resource hog; that's inverted now - KDE has a good reputation including for scaling down to lower powered machines, while Gnome 3 seems to have a reputation as a resource hog?

I have a KDE desktop environment and it's very attractive, and I haven't had any glitches beyond issues with Flatpak (VLC being a recent one that I managed to fix). I would say the mainstream themes for DE work in the same way as a windows theme works. The problems are when you go to super niche attempts to pretty up the desktop - but you'd get similar issues if you tried that in windows.

I agree regarding the professional apps. If you are tied into specific proprietary Windows software then Linux is difficult. The exception is Office 365 which is now both Windows and Web App based, and the web apps are close to feature parity with the desktop clients. The open source alternatives to windows proprietary software can be very good, but there are often compromises (particularly collaboration as that is generally within specific softwares walled gardens). Like Libre Office; it's very good and handles Office documents near seamlessly, but if your work uses Office then it you lose the integration with One Drive and Teams.

In terms of Linux not supporting old software, I would caveat that that is supporting old linux software. It is very good at supporting other systems software through the various open source emulators etc. Also Flatpak has changed things somewhat; software can come with it's own set of libraries although it does mean bloat in terms of space taken (and security issues & bugs albeit it limited to the app's sandbox). And while Wine can be painful for some desktop apps it is also very robust with a lot of software; it can either be a doddle or a nightmare. Meanwhile Proton has rapidly become very powerful when it comes to gaming.

I disagree that it takes a lot of time to make basic things work. Generally Linux supports modern hardware well and I've had no issues myself with fresh installs across multiple different pieces of hardware (my custom desktop, raspberry Pi, and a living room PC). Printing/Scanning remains probably the biggest issue but I've not had to deal with that in a long time. But problem solving bigger issues can be hard.

To answer your questions:

When it comes to other distros; I currently use Linux Mint with KDE Plasma desktop. The debian/ubuntu ecosystem is pretty easy to use and there are lots of guides out there for fixing/tinkering with Linux Mint (or Ubuntu which largely also works) because of their popularity. Lots of software is available as ".deb" packages which can be installed easily on Linux Mint and other Debian based systems including Ubuntu.

I've also been trying Nobara on a living room PC; that is Fedora based. I like that too, although it has a very different package manager set up.

Whatever distro you choose, Flatpak is an increasingly popular way of installing software outside the traditional package managers. A flatpak should just work on any distro. I would not personally recommend Snap which is a similar method from Cannonical (the people behind Ubuntu) but not as good in my opinion.

In terms of desktop environments, I like Linux Mint's Cinnamon desktop, but have moved over to KDE having decided I prefer it after getting used to it with the Steam Deck. KDE has a windows feel to it (although it's very customisable and can be made to look like any interface). I've also used some of the lightweight environments like LXDE, XFCE etc - they're nice and also customisable but not as slick. You can get a nice look on a desktop with a good graphics card with KDE. The only desktop environment I personally don't like is Gnome 3 (and the Unity shell from Ubuntu); that may just be personal preference but if you're coming from Windows I wouldn't start with that desktop environment - it's too much of a paradigm shift in my opinion. However it is a popular desktop environment.

I've been dual booting between Linux and Windows for maybe 10 years or so (and tinkered with linux growing up before that). I think maybe similar to you, I'm technically apt when it comes to computers but not a programmer; I'm good at problem solving issues with my computer and am not afraid to "break" it.

A few key things:

• Make sure your important personal data, files etc are kept secure and always backed up. This is probably obvious, but it does lower the threshold for tinkering and messing with the computer. I've reinstalled Windows and Linux multiple times; whether that's getting round broken Windows updates, or Linux issues or just switching up which Linux distro I use. If you are confident you have your data backed up, then reinstalling an OS is not a big deal
• Use multiple drives; don't just partition one drive. Ideally each OS gets it's own SSD; this will make dual booting much easier and also allows complete separation of issues. I have 4 hard drives in my PC currently - A 1TB C Drive SSD for Windows, a 500 GB Linux SSD drive, and two 4TB data drives (one is SSD one is just a standard HD). SSD is faster but you can of course use a mechnical drive if you want.
• When it comes to dual booting, if you have a separate linux hard drive, then linux will only mess around with it's own boot sectors. It will just point at the Windows boot sector on the windows hard drive and not touch it but add it as an option to it's boot menu. Then all you have to do is go into your Bios and tell it to boot the Linux drive first, which will get you a boot menu to chose between Linux and Windows. Tinker with that boot menu (Grub2 usually) - I set mine to always boot the last OS selected, so I only have to think about the boot menu when I'm wanting to switch. Separate drives saves you having to mess around with Windows recovery disks if things go wrong with the boot sector. One drive with a shared or multiple boot sectors can be messy.
• Try a few Distros using their live images. Most Linux distros you flash onto a USB stick, boot onto that (OR use VirtualBox in Windows to try Linux in an emulated environment) and it takes you into the full desktop environment running from the stick. You can then install from that. But you can also use linux that way. You can even run linux entirely from those USB sticks (or an external drive) and get a feel for it, including installing more apps, upgrading etc all using the USB stick as storage.
• Also try a few different different desktop environments and get a feel for which one you like. Most distros default to a desktop environment (Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, etc). You only really need to test the desktop environments with one distro as they'll feel mostly the same in each distro.

If you know you want to use Pop_OS, then follow their guide on how to install. It's generally very similar for all linux OSs (there are other methods but this is the simplest and most common):

1. Download a disk image (ISO)
2. Flash the disk image onto a spare USB stick. Balena Etcher is a very commonly used tool for this.
3. Restart your computer and go into your bios (usually the Del key just after reboot, sometimes Escape or F2) and change the boot order to that USB is 1st, above your hard drives
4. Insert the USB stick and restart the computer
5. You should load into the Linux live environment set up by that distro. Pop_OS loads you directly into the installer; you can go to the desktop by clicking "Try Demo Mode" after setting up langauge and keyboard. You can just continue installing.
6. Select the hard drive you want to install onto. BE CAREFUL at this step; most installers are good at making clear which drives are which. The last thing you want to do is wipe a data drive or your main OS. Know your computer's drives well, and if in doubt the safest thing is to unplug all the hard drives except the one you're going to install Linux onto.
7. Follow the installer set up (to create the main user account, etc) and install.
8. After installing reboot the system and go back into the bios. This time put your linux drive at the top of the boot order (or below USB if you still want to boot other live images - remember to take out the stick! But generally more secure to boot to a hard drive and password protect your bios so people can only boot to USB when you decide). That's it! Reboot, and select linux from the new boot menu.

Linux has come a very long when it comes to installing and setting up; installers are generally easy to use, work well and generally hardware is recognised and set up for you. The exception will be the Nvidia graphics card - you will need to set up the Nvidia drivers. Pop_OS's install guide shows how to do it.

Hope that helps! Run out of characters!

Self Driving Cars - were getting used to the idea because of the half baked stuff that's already here but it's realistic this will make it mainstream in the coming years

"Cure" for cancer - the rapid progress in immunotherapy drugs is making more and more cancers realistically treatable. Cancers.are still terrible conditions but it does feel realistic that we are moving towards a "cure". After that it'll be a focus on preventing and reducing the horrible side effects of treating cancers.

Regrowing organs - this also seems increasingly realistic. We're already routinely regrowing people's immune systems for some conditions (autologus ransplants - where the donor is also the recipient). We're also increasingly growing different types of tissues and organs in lab experoments. It's looking plausible although hard to say when it'll become mainstream.

AI - I'm not convinced this one is on its way. What I mean is true General AI. What is labelled AI now is nowhere near General AI; it's sophisticated and impressive but also limited and deeply flawed. We're in an era of hype to drive up share prices but the actual technology is error strewn and is essentially a remix engine for human generated creativity. I'm not convinced true General AI is on its way because at the moment they don't understand how the current AI systems work. It's unlikely you can proceed from what we have to full general AI stumbling around in the dark or by shear luck. Not impossible, but unlikely. I think the current methods will more likely hit a brick wall in prpgress - they are useful tools but may be an illusion when it comes to full AI.

I deleted my account.

You may have the GPU drivers installed but are they active? Look in "Software & Updates" on the Additional Drivers tab and see which drivers are active.

Installing the drivers is not enough, you have to select them to use them too.

If the latest drivers are active then you may need to think about switching to a legacy version (you have a pretty old CPU and GPU by current standards; newest drivers are not always best). You may also want to look at using older versions of Proton than the latest for similar reasons - there may be features and changes in newer versions that are just not going to work with your set up or your set up just isn't tested to work with.

That's a Linux (and similar) issue. When Linux updates via it's package managers it will update Firefox in the background even though it's open. Firefox then forces you to close it rather than open other tabs to prevent problems.

But you don't have to install Firefox via the package managers or flathub. You can build it yourself or install a binary manually and I believe it well self update as it does on other platforms. I haven't done it for a while though.

Otherwise manually control Linux updates so it doesn't mess with Firefox when you're in the middle of something important.

Edit: the exception on Windows would be if some other software is handling firefox's updates or there is a group policy / system management of Firefox. I've never had this issue on windows on my own PCs

Edit: btw I have had worse happen on windows with chrome on a work pc. An update was forced on my and chrome close itself without warning and reopened with the update. Pissed me off no end.

You can use PowerPoint in a web browser with office 365. Really don't need windows to run it anymore.

Yeah, "stupid" is not defined around average intelligence. This whole panel is an example of a straw man fallacy to undermine someone saying "people are stupid".

I've started seeing US pick up trucks here in the UK in a city and they really are rediculous. Really large (comically so) and the truck bit is open to the elements although I have never ever seen anyone using the truck bit for anything whatsoever. Rediculous waste of space and I'm surprised they're ever legal here.

In fairness to Apple that is good design. Computers including phones should be intuitive and easy to use, but also accessible to more experienced users.

The keeping up with Jones stuff with apple though is really bad. Like kids going off the university getting premium Mac books when they could save money and get a generic windows lap top. Or the seemingly ubiquitous purchase of earpods - an expensive way to purchase earphones when there are so many cheaper alternatives, not least the dirt cheap 3.5mm wired earphones that phone manufacturers are trying to obliterate.

This all makes sense from Microsofts point of view, but maybe less so from consumers point of view. But thats what you get with a commercial OS.

Maybe your work computer has propriety security software on it to lock this stuff down?

This is an interesting concept but doesn't seem like it has long term legs.

It depends on what you mean by open source and also even eBook reader (I'm assuming eInk), but if people want open source e-readers I would say flashing existing reader hardware with open source operating systems would be the way to go. However I'm not sure if there is much motivation to do that.

There are Android based eink ereaders available with more freedom than Kindle devices (Boox is an example) and you can side load free or open source reader software onto Kobo (maybe not Android Kindles though?), and you can load free books onto e-readers via software like Calibre. So you can read books in privacy outside the vendors ecosystem - it kinda reduces the imputus to build an open source ereader (hardware or OS).

I'd love to see a truly open source Eink device - particularly software wise. But I doubt the demand is enough. And this Open Source hardware solution seems a bit too cut back to fit the bill.

And the commanding officer only tried to stop them when they heard the last victim asking for help and realised it was in hebrew.

Seems the IDF shoots first and asks questions later. This is what's happened to unarmed jewish hostages, who were shirtless, holding a white shirt on a stick which is the universal sign of surrender. What about the million people living in gaza coming up against this? Holy fuck.

Yes. Hugely important topic in itself. M-Disc is the current best we have, with claims they will last 1000 years if properly stored (limited by the plastic degredation). But ceramics should be more stable, and the speed claims look good. This is not the only tech solution vying to be a long term contender but looks like a potential good one.

That valve uses Arch is irrelevant in all honesty. Proton is not a Valve product, Valve is merely one of its users and contributors, and it is not wedded to one distro..Similarly Valves own Steam packages are not distro specifi, and there are other gaming platforms to consider which also benefit from Proton (for example you can get Gog windows games working in Linux too quite easily), as well as all the Retro gaming options.

Pick a distro you personally like. I use Mint as I like the cinnamon desktop interface and the distro is pretty much good to go from fresh install. I use Mint both as a dual install with Windows on my PC and also within VMs in Windows. I still spend a lot of time using Windows because of specific games compatibility and work related apps.

EndeavourOS seems a good choice if you do want to go the Arch route but it's only something I've played with in a VM.

If you want something gaming specific then Draugar seems like a good choice - it apparently uses Ubuntu LTS but with the mainline Kernel updates optimised for gaming. But I have no personal experience with the distro.

I also see a lot of people seem to like Pop!_OS, but again no personal experience.

I've had no issues with Mint on my setup.

Is Anbox no longer a thing? It runs Android apps in a container.

Or is it more the issue with the apps not running "natively"?

Well first off have Taco Bell stopped providing napkins? One person couldn't find napkins in one store and suddenly it's greed driven corporate policy according to OP?

It seems unlikely that a food chain would completely abolish napkins. It is possible they're no longer freely available because people were taking them "for their car" whatever that even means!?

I prefer cheers post-long than pre. Kirstie Alley was great and the show became more ensemble.

The headline is also dumb. Any election can be won by 1 vote. Doesn't matter that 43000 people voted.

Not strictly correct. Spotify pays out from its net revenues (revenues when billing costs and tax are removed) and it pays to the various industry rights holders who then distribute the money. There are lots of complex deals in place and big rights holders are likely to have better deals than ad hoc users, plus it's different in different countries.

The 70% figure is a PR thing Spotify pushes about as part of its constant battles with rights holders on exactly how much it will pay them. It's trying to claim most of the money goes to artists but it's opaque how much goes where.

Yeah the GUI is horrible with Gimp but it is very powerful software. I'm used to it's idiosyncrasities but it really needs a GUI refresh. It's powerful software held back from it's full potential.

The safety angle may be overplayed but it is not the only element of this kind of change. Better and safer infrastructure for walking and cycling encourages walking and cycling.

So there are a whole host of benefits: reduced pollution, better citizen health and wellbeing, encouraging use of local walkable businesses, etc.

Also a reduction in deaths and injuries on a background of increased pedestrian and cycling is also noteworthy. I.e. not just reduced the existing injuries but also less injuries despite more people.at risk.

I don't understand? You can download Dosbox and Dosbox-X in desktop mode and add them to Steam like other apps. Why do you need a website?

Are there bigger versions of the same communities elsewhere? One of the problems at the moment is duplicates, and finding the one where people have coalesced can be be hard, sometimes just dumb luck.

Yeah it's a nonsense. Argentina and Turkey have atrocious economies, with inflation at crazy levels. Turkey's is at 60% and Argentinas is at 143% currently, on a background of years of terrible economic decisions. Their local currencies are effectively trash so it makes absolute sense for Steam to move to dollars if they're going to continue bothering trading in those countries.

This may also be about trying to take control of OpenAI. Despite owning 49% of OpenAI, the company is seemingly set up so the 5 board members have control and they're seemingly not under the control of investors.

Could this actually be about Altman and his allies trying to take the company fully for-profit so they could benefit? It also seems Altman is very close to Microsoft, so rather than product roadmap this might actually about trying to take control of the company.

Microsoft hiring the staff and forming an AI unit is a boon to them if it happens, but OpenAI still own and controls everything they've worked on up to date, and it seems the Investors don't control that judging by the boards independance.

Meanwhile Altman is tweeting very concillatory OpenAI but pro Microsoft position. This may be a battle for the whole company, not just a personality thing.

Alternative take: Google have deliberately run the platform at a loss using their vast wealth and market postion to destroy all competition and capture the market. Youtube is now the only viable mass-market facing video hosting platform left and has been for a while. Now they have a de-facto monopoly for the type of content they host, they're trying to monetise the audience. Enshittification has begun.

Perhaps worse they have prevented competition as the business model is basically broken - people now don't want or expect to pay for that kind of video on the internet, nor do they want to watch ads. But maybe Google forcing people to watch ads will rebuild the expectation of paying for what you consume on the internet rather than it all being "free" because you are the product.

Yeah reptuational is part of the issue but there is also a big financial issue too. Delaying a game is financially difficult as it affects financial projects for each year with shareholders (who only care about share price growth). If you release a game in a poor state you get to hit some of the financial targets which benefits the publisher particularly, but for the developer it means longer terms sales are much lower as reviews and feedback come in that the game is crap. You then have to patch and repair the game.

Patching has allowed publishers and developers to get away with this releasing of games in bad states, but it doesn't change that fundamental issue which disproportionately affects the developer. Dev studios often only have 1 game being worked on at a time. An unready early release which is poorly recieved can be an existential crisis. For publishers, a poorly recieved game is a disappointment but generally have other many other games also on release so they can move on and not care as much.

No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk are high profile exceptions. The gaming world is littered with abandoned flops, often due to not being ready for release.

It's also disingenuous lies. This money is being spent over 11 years so is more in the realm of £750m a year.

This is also a classic trick of the Conservative government and is why the NHS is also in a mess: they steal money from capital investment budgets and use it to spend on day-to-day operational stuff.

In the NHS they took money from the capital budget and diverted it to day to day spending, claiming it as "new money". It was an increase in day-to-day spending but it was not new money. Instead NHS trusts now have big backlogs of equipment and buildings needing replacement and being used beyond intended life cycle because the money was stolen.

Pot hole repair is day-to-day road maintenance, not infrastructure or capital investment. HS2 was a new capital project. This is just more bullshit lies by the government and a huge issue here is how shit journalism is now. The BBC hasn't questioned this spending pledge at all, instead it's posted a bullshit superficial article on potholes.

The sequel Yoot Tower is worth a look too. Sim Tower was a rebadge of a Japanese game called The Tower.

It's not immovable, it's just locked so you don't accidentally move it by clicking and dragging. Try right locking on the bar in a blank area lower down - the right click menu should have an option for moving it.

Yeah I was surprised they took it down. I think it's a foolish knee jerk reaction and is patronising towards readers.

Ironically there is know nothing to put the current spike of interest in context as you can't read the letter on the guardian website.

I'm actually really unimpressed with the guardians action - they don't respect their readers and clearly no longer believe in freedom of speech. They could have modified the article to put the letter in context themselves rather than link to a 20 year old article criticising it. It also makes it hard for those who want to push back against the letter and answer those who are pushing it.

Ironic for a company that published indie hits like Terraria and fresh mainstream games like A Tale of 2 Sons.

This does not reflect the whole gaming market but rather the failure of publishers to innovate well and make new things people like. Big publishers are risk averse and it's a common path them as they get bigger, and care more about shareholder value or venture capital. They won't take risks, and can't accept failures so they retrench. It's not a recipe for success as that end of the games market is already dominated by big publishers churning out annual versions of their mass market games.

A publisher like 505 r ally only has two possible futures on this road - go bankrupt as they can't compete or get bought out by a big fish who want their IP.

It doesn't say much abou the games market as it's actually very large, vibrant and varied. A publisher like 505 is not on the vanguard of the games market and like most people I had to look them up to even see which games they had published. This is just yet another company being mismanaged into oblivion and well beyond its hey day.