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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • They’d be idiots to ally with him; they’ll just be tainted with the same brush.

    However maybe the behaviour of the Republicans and Democrats may finally open the way for a third party challenger. Who knows. Politics in Europe is rife with new populist parties; in the US the conventional wisdom has been that the Republicans are the manifestation of that but the disgust and disenchantment with the mainstream parties has helped drive 3rd parties here in Europe. That could still happen in the US even though the system is so heavily rigged by the 2 parties in their own favour.


  • A well written summary of the finales plot and its flaws. Its full of spoilers in case people haven’t see it yet.

    Personally I think Doctor Who needs a long rest and a fresh start if it returns. I’d even suggest a hard reboot.

    This current season has looked good but been a mess, and the finale is an incoherent mishmash of ideas and set pieces. There is far too much fan service and far too many ideas being crammed in that it just doesnt make sense.

    The show has been in trouble for years. Both Ncuti Gatwa and Jodie Whittaker were good actors ill served by the writing. Peter Capaldi was also a good actor served by uneven writing but the show was still good.

    Now its just a mess with convoluted plots, far too much fan service, and an inability to make an over arching season long plot work. Judging by the finale Gatwa leaving was probably unexpected and Billie Piper’s casting seems like a desperate stop gap while RTD decides what to do next (in the 2 year gap already expected because he is making a spin off series this year into next).

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the Disney deal comes to an early end and Doctor Who is shelved for years while they decide what to do next.



  • Yeah true, but if you’re choosing Debian then I can see why there is caution about “unverified” flatpaks.

    Ultimately if they’re not verified then you’re taking it on trust that they’ve been repackaged by a good actor and not a bad actor. We have no reason to believe there are malicious flatpaks are on flathub and verified only really meansnit was packaged by the originating project itself. But it is still a separate chain of packaging and security from the official one in a distro.

    And Flathub doesnt need to be the repo used. Fedora for example created its own repo so it could verify its own flatpaks in the same way as its other system repos. Other distros do not seem to be following that path.

    Personally I take the risk on flatpaks in the same way I will take risks on the opensuse OBS (or AUR in arch) - if i need/want the software and it’s not in the main repos for my distro I will generally take it off flathub rather than add an OBS source I dont know well. (If its small software I might build from source myself).







  • I use Firefox and Librewolf.

    I’ve used Firefox for a long tine, and I strongly favour it as the only true independent browser engine left. Everything else is under Google or Apples control, and many of the various chrome forks are commercial and compromised. I dont trust Brave or Vivaldi in terms of privacy. And google has severely limited privacy options in chromium based browsers with its recent changes.

    Mozilla is far from perfect and I’m disturbed by some of its actions but it remains the least bad option. Librewolf adds a layer of privacy and separation that I like although its not my main browser. I main Firefox with lots of privacy extensions.

    I do have chromiun and chromium ungoogled installed and exclusively for streaming video. Not because Firefox isn’t capable but because I have loads of extensions in Firefox so its easier just to contain all my subscribed streaming services in its own browser and not have to faff with DRM or ad block issues. I watch YouTube in Firefox, but use Chromium to watch BBC, Channel 4, and Netflix (when I had it). I use Jellyfin media player to stream my own content.


  • Except the big danger with fully self driving cars is that drivers are not paying attention at all as they have nothing to do most of the time. They’ll be on their phones regardless of what theyre supposed to do and that will cause deaths. So such a glaring safety flaw will have numerous opportunities to happen in real life - humans do not make good safety features in cars; thats what the self drive stuff was for.

    Teslas self drive technology is not fit for the roads regardless of this. Musk had sensors stripped out pf the cars design to save money because apparently he knows better than all the worlds self drive engineers. The guy is a just an investment bro woth a huge ego - he can’t let the people hes investing in get onwith it, because he sees himself as a “genius”. The guys a moron.


  • It’s a javascript app that uses the react library - which is an open source library originated by Meta. It’s supposed to be easier to maintain and port cross platform apps. However it is not as efficient as a native app and given the Start menu is so frequently used it’s probably not a very efficient way to program it (or parts of it - I think the start menu has reactive native components rather than entirely made in it).



  • Yeah, I have MiniPC running Nobara. I’m interested to see of SteamOS would work even if i have no intention of switching.

    But gaming mini PCs with steamOS preinstalled might be a future product range that comes along so its interesting to see how close steamOS is to that.

    The gaming focused distros are great and won’t be harmed by that, but steamOS might grow the linux desktop further by being a viable windows alternative for people who want a bit more power than a steamdeck and want an off the shelf low or mid range gaming PC. Steam Machines may now actually be viable thanks to how far Proton has come. The original machines were probably 10 years too early.


  • So, unfortunately a lot of YA fiction seems premised around the “chosen one” archetype. The protagonists lead boring hard lives but then discover they have special magic powers and that changes their life and the world forever.

    Stories are increasingly not about ordinary people who make their lives and the world around them better because of their own inherent skills or hard work.

    Film, TV and Books are telling kids only “special” people get to change the world and only “special” people are important. Lots of media is escapist fantasy at all ages and unfortunately they’re giving the message that “change is so hard only super powers will do”.

    Don’t let your children be raised solely by the media they consume. Show then that they are special or powerful even without super powers and that all change comes from people. Everything that is good in our world came from people - nothing at all came from gods, super heroes, or magic.


  • I work in healthcare in a specialist field, and the best are not the ones who get recognised. The ones who get recognised chase respect and fame - in healthcare that is going to conferences and speaking, and writing as many papers as possible.

    But the best people in my field are the ones who do the actual job each day at an extremely high level. They go unrecognised except by those of us who understand what it takes to be good. They’re humble and focused. Some of them for sure go and speak at conferences and publish papers etc but its not those things that make them the best, although those are the only those things that make them “visible” outside their place of work.

    The same goes for music and actors. The most famous are not necessarily the best. They are the ones who people like or are the most commercial etc. The best singers are not necessairly world famous - they may be working professionally in less popular sectors such as opera or classical music or choirs, or they may be totally amateur. Similarly the best actors may be strutting a stage somewhere and never seen in a movie or tv show by the majority of the world. And even then they may be the “star”.

    Fame and notoriety has get little to do with talent - some famous people are undoubtedly near the top of their field but it is far from required.


  • Stack Overflow, like Reddit, derives its value entirely from its users—it’s just a host. Now that users (and their knowledge) are moving elsewhere, the platform’s importance is fading.

    It’s odd when people worry about Stack Overflow’s decline. Online communities have always shifted: from BBSs and newsgroups to forums, chat, Yahoo Groups, Reddit, and Stack Overflow. Each had its time.

    The next gathering spot for tech-savvy users might be the fediverse, but who knows at this point. AI isn’t solely to blame for the shift—people moved to Stack Overflow because it was better than what came before. Now, as it declines in quality thanks to general enshittification of services as companies try to monetise uaers, they’re moving on again.


  • I’m not against AI itself—it’s the hype and misinformation that frustrate me. LLMs aren’t true AI - or not AGI as the meaning of AI has drifted - but they’ve been branded that way to fuel tech and stock market bubbles. While LLMs can be useful, they’re still early-stage software, causing harm through misinformation and widespread copyright issues. They’re being misapplied to tasks like search, leading to poor results and damaging the reputation of AI.

    Real AI lies in advanced neural networks, which are still a long way off. I wish tech companies would stop misleading the public, but the bubble will burst eventually—though not before doing considerable harm.


  • Maybe I’m cynical but I feel like this is suspicious timing to release this information a day after videos of his memory issues in 2023 surfaced. Feels like a cynical attempt by his PR team to change the narrative.

    In all honesty, an 82 year old man having prostate cancer is not very surprising. It is a personal issue and I have sympathy but it’s frankly not important to the world. A US president with memory issues concealed from voters and his own party in 2023 when it could have seriously changed decisions about the Democratic party nominations is surprising. That is an issue for everyone and very important to the world.


  • It doesn’t need any organisation; there are plenty of right wing apologists and zealots who are motivated enough to vote. People can’t really vote “against” Israel so it’d be very easy to distort the vote if even a minority of people are focused enough to vote for one country. Israel’s song wasn’t terrible but it was pretty bland ballad and the televote result was patently ludicrous. But also none of the other songs were that great this year which would make it even easier for a concerted effort to win the televote.

    Extreme example in the other direction is when Ukraine won in 2022. The song wasn’t particularly good but Europe coalesced around voting for Ukraine. Even the Jury voting that year was distorted in Ukraine’s favour. It didn’t need any organisation.



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