I haven’t used windows in about 15 years on my personal machines but see 7zip referenced everywhere…why is it so popular? Can windows 10/11 or whatever we’re on now not compress/extract most things itself or do people prefer it for some reason (nice interface etc)?

I’m always amazed when I’m following a tutorial written for windows and it says “download and install 7zip, then extract the file using 7zip”. I just right click the file and extract it…

Jesus, how high were the parents when they made that decision?

I don’t like musicals but this film is amazing, truly one of a kind. Absolutely worth watching!

That’s a strong wrist. Too much self-pleasure!

Circumference, not width

What’s sobe?

A… slab? Of wine?

Is that a whole pallet or something?

It could go that way, but on the other hand they could be more like MorningLightMountain in Peter Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star, i.e. fascists who exterminate every other organism that competes with them for resources.

Great book if you haven’t read it!

The irony of the autistic person using a metaphor, and someone else taking it too literally. You have to laugh!

And people who have no time install gentoo? Pull the other one :D

I started in 2012, and it wasn’t that difficult. I’d say I do about 30mins of maintenance every other month. It took me a while to work out the config originally, but I wrote a guide afterwards which was really popular for other people doing the same thing (it’s quite out of date now but the principles are the same).

Started out using a raspberry pi (which was also hosting a website at the time) but when I moved house to somewhere with a worse internet connection I migrated to a VPS, so there is a cost but it’s not enormous, maybe £20/month.

Don’t even bother if you can’t use a static IP, because all your email will be bounced if your PTR record for the IP (reverse DNS record) doesn’t match your domain name.

It got a bit more complicated when people started adding extra layers of spam protection like SPF, DKIM and DMARC, but those are mostly set and forget.

Overall, I’d say it’s worth it but only because I find it quite interesting/fun.

Google is unavoidable but I do my best to mitigate the worst parts of their privacy intrusions.

I have a pixel phone running grapheneOS with Google Services Framework installed but without Google Play or Gboard or any of that stuff. For me that’s a balance that works.

I host my own email server so no Gmail.

I also host my own Matrix server and avoid WhatsApp where possible (not Google but just as bad if not worse).

I use YouTube but via Newpipe or using Ublock origin on Firefox (not logged in obviously).

Chrome is genuinely worse than Firefox now that Google have made adblocking more difficult with manifest v3.

You just have to decide what the best tradeoff is between privacy and convenience.

Yeah, because nobody is a captive of Linux, all the corporate and societal pressure is the other way towards Mac and Windows.

Who hurt you (before Google)?

Redreader uses the official API, they have an exception from paying (for now) because they have accessibility features that most apps including the official one lack.

This video has a great comparison of different locking nut systems and how they hold up against vibration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYWav184yic

Have you turned off Firefox’s built-in enhanced tracking protection? If not, turn it off but leave uBlock Origin on and see if that solves your issue.

I looked into these before and believe the inverters shut off if the mains shuts off. The DC side of the circuit would still be potentially dangerous though.

The inverters need there to be power in the mains circuit because they convert DC to AC and match the phase of the AC power they are generating to the mains supply.

More info on this here:

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/12782/the-troubling-past-of-forced-sterilization-of-black-women-and-girls-in-mississippi-and-the-south

I had assumed the women weren’t sterilised by the normal contraceptive meds, but it seems they used a large dose of Depo-Provera which is a legit contraceptive injection. Not the usual pills but still.

There are also stories in that article of people having forced hysterectomies.

America’s history of racism is so dark.

I don’t know about your personal situation, and it may be different for whatever you are suffering with, however the part you quoted is true for a lot of cases.

Having just looked after my wife through a period of ~3 years really severe depression I’ve seen it first hand, it completely changed her personality and outlook and she was saying all kinds of stuff she’s quite embarrassed by now. She genuinely couldn’t think straight at all or see any way out, and in that moment if offered the choice to die she might have taken it (a fact she is quite scared by now, having mostly recovered).

Similar story with my brother, who has bipolar… when he’s manic he has an absolute inability to hold a train of thoughts together for longer than 30 seconds. When he’s depressed it’s absolutely awful. He’s now stable and enjoying his life.

I’m not arguing that this shouldn’t be an option for some very extreme chronic conditions, but it’s obviously complicated.