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Cake day: July 26th, 2023

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  • The issue I have with non-Apple laptops is that comparable performance requires an active cooling system that is often distractingly loud. I am willing and able to pay extra for a platform that lets me focus, and lets me watch some Netflix without having to crank the volume to drown out the fans. Then the all-metal exterior is also quite durable, the trackpad and speakers are top-notch, the Pro comes with that XDR screen, and the battery life is hard to beat. Plus I can take it to a nearby Apple store if I’m having a problem with it, instead of having to mail it to a regional support shop and wait potentially for weeks without the device. It’s more than the sum of its parts–and that is reflected in the resale value as well. Some Windows laptops will do specific things better (chiefly game support), but I didn’t find anything that was as good overall as an M1 Macbook Pro, and I say that as someone who had never owned a Mac of any kind, despite using PCs since the early 1980s and building them for the last 25 years.

    I would have preferred a laptop that could run Windows or Linux, but I just couldn’t find anything that was a complete package like the M1 MBP.





  • That reminds me of a Microsoft-branded USB WiFi adapter that I was making heavy use of back in mid-2000s. The MN-510. You could buy it brand-new circa 2006. It had a $75 launch MSRP, about $114 adjusted for inflation. Come 2009, we find out that Windows 7 wasn’t going to support it. And given what we know about OS development cycles, they presumably made that call in '08 or even '07. Looking back on it, I think this was one of the major catalysts for me to reconsider Linux as a drop-in replacement. Because, wouldn’t you know, the adapter kept working just fine when I tried it out in Ubuntu. Support was simply there in the kernel. Plug-and-play. I suddenly had this whole other operating system providing an it-just-works network connection, for free. It was amazing. So I used that adapter for several more years until I could afford a network upgrade. And I’m still using Linux the majority of the time today.





  • Decades of pervasive propaganda across multiple mediums, coupled with a systematic assault on public education and the very concept of critical thinking. The most noteworthy propagandists masquerade smugly under banners like “conspiracy theorist” or “patriot” rather than “liar” or “fascist.” They transformed the human-shaped turd Donald Trump into a folk hero, and they’re successfully pitching ordinary center-right statesman Joe Biden as a radical leftist.

    I wonder if Donald Trump has ever washed a dish in his life. Or a piece of clothing. If he’s ever put a bag of trash in a trash can. Changed a light bulb. Boiled an egg. I don’t think he would even know how. He’s indicated at least once in interviews that grocery stores are completely unfamiliar to him. He literally doesn’t understand how they work. Food just materializes at his table, at the appointed time. Including his favorite, well-done steak slathered in ketchup.

    I think if Donald Trump had to fend for himself for one week, even with a million dollars in a bank account, he would starve to death in dirty underwear. Yet about one half of America is convinced that he’s a man of the people who can relate to our daily struggles. Because of the machine.



  • I used to think that Fedora being ultimately backed by IBM would give them stability. Then Redhat dismissed Tom Cotton, who was a key OSS liaison, and now it seems to be embarrassing itself with this bitterly hostile attitude towards everyone in the RHEL orbit. It’s been so out-of-character that most people initially assumed this was IBM leaning on RHEL. But it apparently was not. Then my Fedora installation choked on what seemed like a pretty ordinary kernel update and stopped booting.

    It felt like a signal. I settled on EndeavourOS, and it’s been an all-around improvement. Nvidia drivers are optionally baked in, the AUR (which EOS also bakes in) is ten times what Copr could ever hope to be, and pacman is ridiculously speedy (though I suppose anything is faster than DNF). I know EOS will sometimes break, as is tradition for rolling releases, but I’m confident that Arch will at least keep being Arch for many years to come.




  • More than half of Amazon’s sales come from third-party merchants who this year started paying an average of over 50% commission on every sale, up from 35.2% in 2016, the result of it raising Fulfillment by Amazon fees every year and increasing storage fees.

    While paying for Amazon’s logistics and advertising services is optional, most merchants consider these, especially advertising, a necessary part of doing business. Moreover, the FTC has reportedly amassed evidence that Amazon disadvantages merchants who don’t use the services by giving them lower placements.

    Capitalism at its finest… I still remember when Amazon was just a humble online bookstore. How times have changed.


  • I’ve had the impression for a while that Twitter upper management wanted monthly active users on the level of Facebook, Tiktok and other social media. To enrich themselves by way of ad revenue, rather than to create opportunities and experiences for the platform and its users. Then when it became apparent that such a potential opportunity had come and gone (if it was ever there in the first place), they did what was in their minds the next-best thing: They cashed out while they could still find a buyer. Elon’s idiotically freewheeling but nevertheless binding offer was basically their winning lottery ticket, so they held his feet to the fire instead of treating it like the thoughtless shitpost it was.