As a non-technical user, I think if you have a modicum of technical knowledge it’s easy to switch to Linux. But it still takes time and patience. I’m using Linux now on all of my devices (if you count Android as Linux). There is still a lot of idiosyncracy to the ecosystem but overall it’s usable. I’ve found Vanilla OS to be a great experience overall. I had some troubles with Pop_OS! On my Nvidia GPU, that was because it’s still using x11 and I use a 4k monitor with a 1080p monitor and needed fractional scaling. Haven’t had any issues on Vanilla OS because it uses Wayland. But boy, I had a hard time figuring out what was going on and why my apps were blurry and games weren’t displaying properly. Took a lot of googling and perseverance to figure it out, as I didn’t know what a display server.

I appreciate the community-focused approach he’s taking, building bridges in his community among different groups. I just am annoyed that the publication immediately highlights his old-school dirty harry style. Like, that’s exactly what we don’t want cops to be like going forward.

It seems clear to me that Sheriff Mike is doing good work. The crux of it seems to be building a coalition of local Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities against hate, and that is so key. Why not lead with that?

What I dislike about these threads is that it always devolves into shitting on blue collar workers. Of course pickups are useless city cars but have you all ever met somebody from a town of 1,000 people where every single person works in a blue collar trade? These things do work that you can’t do in a different type of vehicle.

Threads like this are echo chambers of privilege. Maybe instead of shitting on tradespeople, shit on car and oil companies who enshittify the whole system.

Also pickups in 2023 that look like this are more powerful and more fuel efficient than more modest looking pickups from 90s or 00s. You may not like the aesthetics of it, but who fucking cares, you’re not driving it, you’re just the one judging someone else for having different taste.

Not gonna lie, I’m not super stoked about the impending permanent pot smell that is bound to come in my neighborhood.

This is interesting to me, because my intuition would be that it doesn’t matter whether the calories are going into microbiota or fat, it’s still going to end up as weight in your body (gut bacteria still add mass).

Also adding to what another person said, the difference here is high fiber vs. low fiber. And I think the discussion around nutrition in general is moving away from weight being a primary determinant of health but a symptom of health. I.E. we shouldn’t be seeking to lose weight but to eat healthily, high fiber, whole foods, less processed junk, exercise frequently, and weight is a trailing measure of our success in that.

Porn addiction made me miserable for several years. I didn’t read the article but the headline is horse shit so I’m not going to.

I like all of them but the first. I am fairly sure that I understand what he’s getting at, that very often religious dogma is used to shut down curiosity. But factually speaking both philosophy and theology start with axioms, oftentimes the same axioms. The history of all philosophy, west and east, is deeply intertwined with theology and scientific inquiry. Up until the 1600s religious life, mysticism, intellectual life, and science were considered to all be essential to each other in most cultures.

This is maybe more about being an artist in general, than specifically about writing, but I think intentionally trying to live an interesting life is very important.

Dave Chappelle talks about how the most valuable thing an artist has is their memories. You gotta go out and make some. It doesn’t matter so much if they are yours or others, but what it does is it makes your work more human and grounded in human experience. Even if you write sci-fi or fantasy, it should be informed by your experience of what it means to be alive in this world.

My God! That’s quite a list. I’ll browse through it a little. Such a resource to have!

I’ve been recently getting into some older writers from the 70s. It is funny, but it feels refreshing to read voices from a different era. I’m a Gen Z guy, I wasn’t around in the 70s, so I never knew what it was like apart from movies/TV. Movies and TV from that era feel dated, its obvious from the visuals, you can’t get around film grain and visual noise.

But writing doesn’t age, it remains pristine. It makes it easy to forget that the books are old, except for the fact that the voices of the authors are so different - about 40 years out of touch or so.

I’ve been reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and absolutely loving it. I read Adventures in the Screentrade by William Goldman and absolutely loved that.

This kind of touches on a problem that’s been stewing in my mind for the last year or so. How is New York City going to deal with climate change? By the end of the century water levels are going to rise by up to six feet. That’s significant! It could put many neighborhoods literally underwater, but beyond that the infrastructure - subways, sewers, etc. - could face significant problems.

Relevant quote from the article:

“Sponge cities can maybe deal with sea level rise of one or two meters, but five meters? No,” admits Kongjian. “But if the sponge city can’t stop it, nothing can. You have to move the city away.”

It’s possible we see NYC just… move away from its current position within our lifetimes.

I can vouch for Kobo! I bought a Kobo Forma earlier this year and it has quickly become my favorite device. It is both a very competently designed ereader, and not locked into the Amazon walled garden.

Building and distributing an OS is no small feat, this is amazing! But also, I couldn’t quite get a sense from the website of why this exists. What purpose does this serve that say, Arch, OpenSUSE, Fedora or PopOS don’t already?

It’s hard for me not to start speculating about the possibilities if it is real. What could it all mean? It is both potentially exciting, and potentially devastating for humanity. Or it could also be super mundane (which for me, as someone who wishes desperately they lived in simpler times, would be the most hilarious and hopeful outcome).

Technology isn’t an end in itself, it is subordinate to the need to solve problems. I don’t see how we can have relevant technical progress if tech groups don’t consider “social issues” (in quotes because I’m abusing that label to include a lot of things in my head). Although maybe we’re thinking about this at different levels of scale.