d-RLY?

I think that your example of the App Store and the Microsoft Store is helpful! I work on both systems at my job fixing computers for consumers. The only thing I dislike about the App Store is that it doesn’t let you install things without first signing in with an Apple ID (the spam levels of pop-up messages trying so freaking hard to make you sign in is infuriating). But the MS Store feels like all the worst parts of the Play Store and really fucks things up if it breaks. I will likely remember your reply the next time I think about Flatpaks and Snaps though. lol

I wasn’t aware of Snaps being used in-place of regular installs with apt. Are they shown to be Snaps in the name of the program when using apt search? And if there is a Snap and a regular deb, do they both show up (again if using apt search)?

I am currently only on Linux on my Steam Deck and I do have two RPi’s (though I don’t actively use them) so I don’t have personal current knowledge of differences between Snap, Flatpak, and App Image beyond that A: Snap always brings up lots and lots of hate in comments and B: is from Canonical.

But is it possible that they might choose to use Snap for having more program options due to Ubuntu being such a “mainstream” distro? I know lots and lots of programs do release Flatpaks, but are there more of them or does Snap have more? Real question since I am aware of how heated some threads get with folks being really “fuck Snap” or “it is fine.” Mostly just curious since I am more and more likely to move my main PC to Linux as my main OS after Windows 10 is dead.

If the other main Chromium based browsers can figure out (or keep in the instance of having their own extension stores) how to support for V2 extensions. Then it would be easier to recommend replacing Chrome to normies and other folks with those options. As one of the main issues comes down to lots of sites (especially stuff like school or work) doing the modern version of IE and are coded to really only work with Chrome.

I was advising customers to just use Edge if they needed Chrome for those reasons. And a lot of them did since it meant not installing extra programs. Though it is currently hard to recommend Edge due to MS seeming to find more and more “features” to add that make shit really annoying and scummy. It is like they are trying so hard to make it not worth using at all. So Brave and Vivaldi are the new options I tell people about.

Brave’s main downside (IMO) is the crypto stuff maybe confusing/pointless for folks. Vivaldi’s main downside (and upside for users that love it) is how overwhelming levels of customization settings. But they both don’t have their own extension stores. Opera could also work since they have their own extension store. I hate how it and the GX version love to automatically set themselves to launch on Windows startup (fuck all of them that try to do this as well).

Good to see those Cuda Cores finally getting used.

I imagine that most nations would have started doing that extra stuff. Still good to be aware of it since it isn’t something I think about often. And since my friends over there have a different process and might not know off-hand to mention.

That does sound like a pretty big difference, but I guess it makes sense given it has been so long since I went. The only other nation I have visited was Canada, and that was back when you just needed a valid US driver’s license/state ID. I believe they now need a passport. Interesting to see how things like that change over time. Kind of like how we could go all the way into airport terminals to greet people you were waiting to arrive back in the 90s. The “war on terror” really pushed a lot of extra shit into travel.

What are they doing these days that is invasive (I have been wanting to go back to visit friends)?

The only time I have visited Japan was back in 2012 and all I remember was just waiting in a line and handing over my passport to a customs/foreign visitors person. I also might have had a paper slip with my dates of arrival and departure, that I wasn’t bringing in more than $9999.99 in cash, and the address I was officially planning to be staying for the bulk of the time there (and name of my friend that was already living there on work visa). I don’t remember ever being stopped to check my bags or answer addition questions. Though I might have just been lucky to have not been picked for additional checks.

I have been interested in trying out LoRA and just need to get some devices built. Though I am not as concerned about the super privacy part (thought that is nice). I am thinking that it would be good for emergency situations like shit that has happened with the south-east. Even if the communications would be limited to text, shit is good as long as I can use simple solar panels and battery banks.

Kind of limited due to there not being an iOS version, but Briar is pretty decent. It was made to be usable in repressive areas by press and other groups, as well as in areas where bad weather has taken out cell and regular wifi. Can be used with phone data, but also offline via ad-hoc wifi and bluetooth. But stuff like Signal and SimpleX are more overall useful to more people (and I think SimpleX also supports offline local immediate area of each other like wifi and bluetooth but I don’t remember atm).

With regards to right on red. It (legally at least) requires that you must first stop at the light. So if you are turning right the idea is that you are supposed to first check for active traffic and treat it as if it is a stop sign. If someone ahead of you is waiting to turn right and then goes. Then you are supposed to pull up and then stop again before turning. Though in practice a lot of people will at best treat it more like a yield sign and just roll through without stopping. In super low traffic times or places where traffic is a non-issue (like a rural road where as you pull up to the light you can clearly see open roads without anyone) then this isn’t really an issue aside from learning bad habits. Though heavy traffic places are much more of an issue.

Everyone does know. I can’t speak for all states/counties/cities/etc, but the brown bag thing is mostly a legal grey area for allowing folks to drink in public. Most of the time drinking isn’t legal to just do while walking around and can be given fines by cops. However this can be problematic for additional resources being redirected from more important crimes. So as long as the cops don’t see a label or the whole bottle/can, then they can ignore it as “it could be anything.”

For example, in the summer people in my state like to go tubing down sections of rivers. While tubing you can have coolers and stuff, however open drinking of beer or other such drinks isn’t legal. So if cops were to be watching the river and clearly see the labels it can mean that they order you to get out and hand them over and/or be fined. But everyone makes sure to put their cans/bottles in foam cozies, and therefore it is a low-key unofficial understanding that as long as you aren’t smashed and/or causing lots of problems everything is good. The same also applies to other places like lakes and the beach (at least in my state). But if you are super drunk and/or being an asshole, then the cops will use that as probable cause to actually search the bag/cozies and all that.

I mostly like Valve, and agree that going too far with Stan-ing over a company is dumb. However I think the majority of people that tend to greatly support Valve comes down to both pushing tech and games forward into better consumer directions, and that they are currently not joining in on the mass enshittification as other companies (but of course all big companies can and will do some level of that given enough time).

With regards to pushing tech, they have done more (in at least the last 10 years) to force Linux to be seen as worth supporting. Their efforts to actually add to projects that were already around has been game changing. And that they kept actually putting time, money, and resources into it even after their initial efforts with Steam Machines and the original SteamOS didn’t gain traction on a mainstream level. The Steam Deck keeps outshining the other options even while being technically less powerful specs and they are putting work in to make sure things like drivers are released to help people that choose to install Windows.

But all the positive stuff will only keep happening so long as people don’t start feeling locked out or cheated. I forget a lot of the time how bad many users hated them back when the original versions of Steam were released. Many of the issues people had and were concerned about were valid and could have tanked Valve if they didn’t do everything they could to address them. If they start pulling shit like EA or really any of the console companies have done. Then it will be their time to see massive losses and get all the hate that is deserved.

I work on peoples’ PCs at work (regular people and not business IT), and one thing that I do for every PC I work on is add uBlock Origin Lite to Chrome and uBlock Origin on other browsers no matter what. As 8 or 9 times out of 10 the shit that caused someone to bring in their PC for cleaning are actually full-screen scam messages and scummy ads on sites or from emails. The only times I ever randomly get someone that is upset about the blockers being installed are from either the pickup person not showing them how to use them. Or I get a random person that actually uses those “news” start pages like MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc. not understanding that the blank slides in the main slideshow are not actual articles and are ads.

“Everyone lies” - House, MD

I too feel like there is like one or more reasons some people say to not use them (I haven’t used one myself). Though I think that one thing is that if you don’t clean the pot very thoroughly, it might cause some bad infections. But that would be true of anything like that since bacteria can thrive on warm moist devices that come into contact with our bodies (and from the buildup that you would be trying to clear).

For sure. It might be that my city has a regional hospital in addition to being pretty close to a much larger city with multiple hospitals. Also likely helps that the larger city nearby has an airport which UPS and Fedex (might also have others) hubs in it. Along with those shipping companies having big ground sorting/shipping facilities in the same city.

I can currently roll with the prices as long as I can still get my meds. Just hoping that the generic versions are able to catch up next year.

That would be great. My insurance was already not covering Vyvanse super well, but I at least had the extra coupon thing from Vyvanse that was getting it under $80 per month. But the start of this year Vyvanse stopped the coupon since there was a generic and my insurance was also pushing that. Which I didn’t realize was a thing until I was about a week and a half past my refill and just kept getting auto calls from Walgreens that it was delayed.

Found out it was because the generic was on back order and they literally didn’t know when they (or any location in my county or the next one over) would even get it. So I had to demand that they just fill the name brand since I can’t function at work. The pharmacist was like “It will be over $200, are you sure you don’t want to wait?”. And all I could say was “Not like I really have a choice atm if I want to have my meds.” Which while the price was (and still is) fucked. I am glad I didn’t just keep waiting. I just said to put it on my file that I request the name brand if the generic isn’t available.

It does seem that the insurance has also seen this happening to a fuck ton of people as they are back to at least covering what they were before. Which is still costing me around $125 or so a month since Vyvanse didn’t re-instate their coupon. I had thought about going back to Adderall, but it doesn’t last as long and I have heard there have been shortages for both name brand and generic before Vyvanse and its generic.

Or keep the guillotine.

Since it is FOSS, couldn’t they just take the source code and just re-compile it with different naming? Like how Debian did with Iceweasel naming and branding, though I know in their case it wasn’t due to not liking the Firefox name/branding.