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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Xavier@lemmy.catoFediverse@lemmy.worldBluesky opens to public registration
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    6 months ago

    I’ll skip. Just like how I skipped AOL, MySpace, LiveJournal, 4Chan, Friendster, Hi5, Orkut, Bebo, Tumblr, Facebook, Pinterest, Blogger, Google+, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Quora, Twitch, YouTube, Vine, Netflix, OkCupid, Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, Discord, TikTok… oh all of the Apple ecosystem, and many other I missed by being oblivious or simply never heard of…

    I liked the Slashdot, Digg, Reddit and now the Lemmy format/style. Will continue to move on to whatever I find stupid simple and publicly accessible I guess. I am naturally lazy, advertisement averse and hate having to provide personal info just to use something non-governmental or non-essential.

    Now, with the increasing prevalence of LLM based bots, I will probably ineluctably reduce my time spent posting anything (I certainly hope it doesn’t get that bad, only time will tell) on any kind of “social media” and focus on current and new family, friends, coworkers, colleagues and acquaintances.





  • I regularly “deep freeze” or make read-only systems from Raspberry Pi, Ubuntu, Linux Mint LMDE and others Linux Distros whereas I disable automatic updates everywhere (except for some obvious config/network/hardware/subsystem changes I control separately).

    I have had systems running 24/7 (no internet, WiFi) for 2-3 years before I got around to update/upgrade them. Almost never had an issue. I always expected some serious issues but the Linux package management and upgrade system is surprisingly robust. Obviously, I don’t install new software on a old system before updating/upgrading (learned that early on empirically).

    Automatic updates are generally beneficial and helps avoid future compatibility/dependency issues on active systems with frequent user interaction.

    However, on embedded/single purpose/long distance/dedicated or ephemeral application, (unsupervised) automatic updates may break how the custom/main software may interact with the platform. Causing irreversible issues with the purpose it was built for or negatively impact other parts of closed circuit systems (for example: longitudinal environmental monitoring, fauna and flora observation studies, climate monitoring stations, etc.)

    Generally, any kind of update imply some level of supervision and testing, otherwise things could break silently without anyone noticing. Until a critical situation arises and everything break loose and it is too late/too demanding/too costly to try to fix or recover within a impossibly short window of time.


  • I attempted to try Garuda Linux (cinnamon) on a mini PC (Ryzen 5800H based APU), but graphic artefacting was a constant issue as soon as the install started.

    After several tries I had to abandon ship and wait till a new release to maybe try again, if I remember. Not exactly “Nope, this one’s not for me” as I had yet to properly try it.

    Otherwise, I tried Crunchbangplusplus and just gave up for being a bit too minimalist or not yet ready for prime time as I kept geting issues after issues and did not have the patience to wrangle the whole OS for everything from getting network working to audio and screen issues on my system.

    Anyways, it is always fun to try new systems/apps/protocols and see where thing are headed towards.


  • With all the interest in 3D printer and large communities building their own printers, where are the amateur 2D printers? Did we just jump to 3D printing because it was cooler (which I also admit is amaizing)?

    I just want a basic 2D inkjet or laser printer that doesn’t stop printing because magenta is low or doesn’t waste ink to “clean” the print head, nor make up weird errors because it doesn’t have access to the internet.

    What about printers without ink? Would it be too hard/complicated to use a lower power laser (instead of a laser cutter) to burn/scorch a thin micrometric, if not nanometric, layer of normal everyday printing/copy white paper?

    As a child, I remember scorching magazine/journal paper and all sorts of wood materials with my grandmother’s handheld magnifying lens under the summer sun in the yard. I was able to draw stuff without burning some of the material completely.



  • Every ~3 to ~5 years I change my free email addresses (gmail, hotmail/outlook, yahoo, etc.). Although, I don’t use yahoo anymore.

    I have turned a few of my old gmail accounts into spam mail trawlers as I “Gotta catch ’em all! ” and every time I have to make a temporary or single use account for a service I want to check out/try or I just foresee making only a single purchase I always use a gmail account+alias if they don’t have a guest checkout option. The old gmail accounts are checked quarterly on a if-I-remember basis but at least once a year.

    On first contact with any business, services or people I have never met in person I usually give a newer gmail address I check biweekly in case my forwarding filter missed something important.

    Moreover, I use gmail incoming mail rules to forward copies of important keywords and specific email address to my 2 professional (redundant) emails for which I enabled notification on my phone, main desktop and workplace.

    Gmail is so ubiquitous and well trusted that I can pretty much use it in any input forms for registration or verification. Their spam filter is also pretty good (not always) to skip/pre-filter obvious phishing and scam emails.

    Even though I have already moved away or avoided Google, Microsoft, Meta/Facebook, LinkedIn, Apple, TikTok, Wechat, Temu, PayPal, Sony, etc. I occasionally still have to indirectly deals with them on a limited case-by-case but specific situations.

    By excluding so many excellent email services they are inadvertently making sure that Gmail, Outlook and other allegedly “reputable” free emails services slowly become a junk/spam/marketing email dump that few would want to enable constant notification for and fewer would want to delve into and sift through daily.

    Sorry, this became a long rambling rant about all the layer of protections I have to use nowadays to just avoid wasting energy and attention on the profusion of spam/useless emails.



  • Xavier@lemmy.catoLinux@lemmy.mlBut Windows 11 is so good!!11!1!
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    9 months ago

    I have a single windows 11 system while everything else is on some form of Linux distro.

    That windows system has never been connected to the internet, and it has been great without ever causing any of the typical update issues (although I update applications/components manually over an isolated NAS link).

    It’s sad to see that everyday users have gotten habituated to these constant workflow braking updates. No wonder many people I know are jumping to the Apple ecosystem after getting a taste with a M2.


  • That reminds me, some time ago I tried installing Garuda on a Ryzen 5800H based mini PC but there where so many issues (namely worrisome graphical artefacting, which has never occurred with other distros on the same mini PC) I had to abort and abandon trying it until maybe the next or a future release.

    I simply wanted to check out Garuda (arch based, if I recall well). I used the Cinnamon iso with Ventoy (not sure where the issue arose from).


  • Man, is this seriously going turn into into the Iraq has WMD boondoggle/fiasco:

    “Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation to the UN on February 5, 2003, in which he detailed false intelligence gatherings provided by the Israeli government regarding Iraqi WMD.”

    Source 1: Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence

    Source 2: Israel knew Iraq had no WMD, says MP

    I forgot it was Israeli Intelligence source back then 🤔. I only remember Bush insisting there are WMDs and Colin Powell’s declaration at the UN. All of it was proven fake of course, and 20 years later it has become the biggest and most expensive Intelligence blunder.

    Hopefully, I am wrong and we were smarter to verify everything before repeating the same reckless mistake.

    I try to not comment on controversial issues particularly when I don’t have any qualification or first hand knowledge/experience, however this is looking more and more like an unmitigated overreaction.


  • All these first-past-the-post voting systems (here in Canada too it’s a problem) need to be relegated to a bygone era, it’s so bad that even placings names on a board and throwing darts blindfolded for every MP positions would probably give a better and more representative outcome.

    Welp… it will probably be after something akin to world war 3 that we (the ones luckily still alive) would all sit down and set out to fix the many obvious and perhaps not so obvious issues with governance, lack of immediate consequence to lying, independently peer reviewed education system absent of political/religious/vested/private interest or influence, broken taxation system enabling billionaires, the lack of thorough independent study of environmental or health concerns before even granting any permit (problems tend to always be discovered long after it was commercialised/contructed/).

    Sad to see the state of affairs in every country 😰😱, nevertheless just as we can see/imagine/iterate/improve our ideas of what each one of us would consider better systems, we should implement, test, cross pollinate, evaluate (scientifically, quantitatively and qualitatively) and keep what works better than before and reject/shun/disqualify what obviously causes issues or collateral damages.


  • Yup… and just after they are done setting up their manufacturing plant or tech hub, they will act all surprised (surprised-pikachu.jpg) when some made up excuse are fabricated to shake down their newly minted “investment” just like Several foreign businesses have been raided by the authorities. and cry how could this possibly have happened, all offended, while demanding for a bailout or a loss carryover of their future taxes.

    Then there is the multitude of spying and theft: Allegations of intellectual property theft by China or through their Thousand Talents Program by offering high salaries, privileges and rewards to the chinese diaspora in various countries to bring back sensitive documents, blueprints, diagrams, formulas, and manufacturing-related proprietary data before leaving their previous workplace.

    Unfortunately, China is at the crossroad of multiple extraordinary challenges it had been delaying, exacerbating or skipping for the last few decades :

    • demographic collapse, whereas population over 65 will increase from 200 million today to 400 million by 2049, while the overall population will decline slightly caused by the one-child policy since 1979 but also the high cost of raising a child in China to be successful
    • hundreds of entire cities of unproductive tofu dreg construction and litany of unfinished projects (roads, bridges and train lines to factories, airports and houses) causing huge insolvent debt among Chinese property developers, all amounting to a beleaguered US$55 trillion property sector, which accounts for between 22% and 29% of the Chinese economy
    • numerous environmental challenges that have only accelerated, including air and water pollution, deforestation, and dealing with increasing local natural disasters (flashfloods, heatwaves, heat domes, droughts, soil erosion, desertification, typhoons, etc…) due to Climate Change
    • feeding 22% of the world population with 7% (and decreasing) of their global arable land
    • youth-unemployment crisis whereas millions of well-educated graduates (21,3% of jobseekers between the ages of 16 and 25) are struggling to find decent white-collar jobs in urban areas
    • prevalence of corruption, nepotism, grift and extortion by every level of governance and institutions (local, city, regional, medical, education, police, etc…)

    All of the above while an ongoing China-U.S. trade war.

    Hence, my doubt on foreign investor’s (voluntary, well informed and rational) return into a unfriendly and drastically changed Chinese economy.

    I hope I am wrong and I absolutely wish for the best for China and the everyday peoples of China currently struggling to eke out a living due a series of unfortunate natural and/or preventable human caused disasters, all amplified by a leadership prioritising ideology over effective governance, or control over pragmatism.