Ok but I already have about 700 hobbies and projects I could be working on or learning, I would just like to click the button that does the thing.

People actually installed or used 8? 😋

Lol agreed though, the entire reason I am attempting to swap to Linux is because 7 was the last good Windows.

With Windows (pre-10+) at least I can generally avoid the frustration of fruitless internet searches by just mucking around in the control panel for a bit. Or even, yes, Regedit. I like to find a menu that offers me relevant options and then click a button to do a thing. Maybe it takes more time than just typing a command shortcut to do the thing, but clicking menu buttons is something I can just kind of figure out myself by exploring rather than reading the manual or consulting the eldritch lore of the internet every time I want to learn how to do a new thing. .

I’m trying Mint too, for the most part it has been a relatively intuitive transition from Windows… up until the moment I try to customize things. Fuck me for trying to pin programs to my panel, make my own shortcuts/launchers, install things to my choice of directories or recategorize my start menu shortcuts. I’m so used to just being able to right click on something and have the thing I wanted to do be an option there, or be able to just click and drag something somewhere and it just does the thing. Looking up the directions for how to do a really basic thing after the third or fourth time gets reeeeal old.

I’ve been trying to swap over to Linux and I don’t like using the Terminal because I have zero memory retention for literally anything that isn’t Weird Al songs

Excellent by American standards for most of Boston and Greater Boston, which is to say mediocre by European standards. It’s entirely possible to be independently mobile and car free there. Most places are walkable and there are pleasant old buildings and green spaces or plazas or spots overlooking water to stumble upon. It’s a lovely city.

I guess everyone has their own way of boiling an egg!

I’ve been very happy with the steamed egg method. I put a steamer basket in a pot with just enough water that it touches the bottom of the basket, bring it to boil and then put as many eggs as I want in to the basket using a pair of tongs with silicone grippies. I set a timer for 11min, put it on medium heat, cover the pot and set up an ice bath. After 11min the eggs go in the ice bath for a minute or two and I crack them and roll them on a cutting board to loosen the shells. They come out exactly how I like them with a golden yolk with a soft orange center and the shells are super easy to peel as long as I get my thumb under the membrane.

I’ve made them this way with fresh eggs, week old eggs, month old eggs, home chicken eggs, storebought eggs, and never had issues with peeling.

Genuinely surprised it’s real https://www.truthorfiction.com/peyo-horse-hospital/

I think this post should be home that you own. I’m going to say something controversial in that, in the US, I actually think houses should be expensive. I think a single family dwelling >1500sqft on a half acre or more of land is a luxury, and most people don’t need to have that much land and space all to themselves. The problem is that that’s ALL that’s available for most regions in the US. The US is suffering from foolish post-war suburban centric zoning codes that prohibit building medium density housing (“the missing middle”). We need to change zoning codes across the country to encourage building up “gentle density” and mixed use areas, even in rural regions, because they use land and infrastructure much more effectively and efficiently. They raise more revenue for towns while bringing down home prices. If everyone had the option to buy a place of their own <1000sqft with a small land footprint, I don’t think there would be as much dissatisfaction with not being able to afford a “house”.

It’s a tactic used by people who don’t have the confidence, ability, or power in a relationship to communicate directly. It’s usually used to be spiteful, take revenge, or express displeasure, thinly veiled behind some plausible deniability. A passive aggressive action can be something like:

A person preparing food for someone they feel is unappreciative might deliberately over-salt or overcook it to spoil that person’s enjoyment of it

A person who doesn’t like things being left on the floor might purposely step on or trip over/kick something they see there, damaging or dirtying it

A person resenting being asked to do a task might make very little effort, do it wrong, or make the situation worse than it was to avoid being asked in the future

It’s essentially a way to be hostile and unpleasant to people you socialize with, but if called on their actions, the person being passive aggressive can make excuses or deflect blame. It’s not a healthy dynamic and leads to frustration and erosion of trust on all sides. It perpetuates and exacerbates problems rather than resolving them.

You don’t?

Yeah that’s the one, it didn’t recognize my TV 😖

I don’t want Chrome on my Linux system but I almost installed it last night. Why? Because apparently half the internet says that that is what is necessary if you want to screen share or mirror your monitor to a smart TV on the same network because “the linux implementation of Miracast is fucked”. Oh, don’t worry, you can try Brave or Chromium too, except they don’t work because while the TV shows up as an option you can cast to, you can’t actually cast because the option is grayed out due to some “specific media sites” error. Don’t worry, this option can be changed in the //flags and if that doesn’t work then try changing this other flag, except that other flag doesn’t exist on Brave and Chromium and it must be assumed it only exists on Chrome.

But wait, there’s a utility called MKchromecast, it mimics the ability without needing to install chrome, but doesn’t recognize the TV. Oh it has all of these dependencies that need to be downloaded. It still doesn’t work. There’s always Gnome Displays, which has the exact same pattern of missing a bunch dependencies that must be hunted down and then not seeing the TV. While searching for dependencies on my software manager I find Jubii, a nice little media caster with a tidy, intuitive UI that happily connects to my TV immediately and cheerfully shows me all of media libraries but as soon as I ask it to play a mirror of my screen it loads for 2 minutes and times out with an error.

Then I realized it was 4:30am and I had to go to bed.

I don’t have much time to respond so I’m going to just hit one bullet for now:

Are you going to try to argue that Khan and Gul Dukat weren’t given nuance and development? Some of the things that made them such compelling antagonists is that we were given insight into their motives and backgrounds and perspectives. Khan absolutely was nuanced and the persecution and illegality of genetically enhanced humans was a great stepping off point for him. Just about every antagonist that pops up in Star Trek gets some kind of explanation why they are doing the things they are doing, and the crew takes a moment to acknowledge their inherent worth as living beings and, if they’re sentient, discuss possibilities for negotiations or nonviolence. I haven’t forgotten that Klingons, Ferengi, Borg, Cardassians and many others start off as villains, but we are given many opportunities for them to be “humanized” through characters like Worf, Quark, Hugh/Seven, Garak and others. There are no “good” or “bad” aliens in Star Trek.

So keeping that in mind, how did things go with the Ba’Ul? How did they handle Control? What nuance was Lorca given? In Discovery, your first impression of a bad guy being bad is always correct.

I have an intense distaste for Discovery, and wouldn’t recommend it.

I could rant about it a la Angela Collier for 4 hours but here’s my main issues boiled down to a bulleted list:

Some things I like about Star Trek:

• Optimistic future, humans can create greatness and beauty if they continue to check and overcome their faults
• No black and white villains. All antagonists are given nuance and development and many become favored allies
• Themes of teamwork, a functional ensemble, core crew are all valid and valued, no one star of the show.
• No such thing as magic or gods, everything is in the realm of human understanding if we have sufficient knowledge

Guess what Disovery has?

• Nihilistic, apocalyptic future
• Bad guys that are just bad, they’re evil, don’t ask questions
• One principal star of the show that is the focus of nearly every episode
• No attempt to explain things with any veneer of science

Then add on some blatant examples of total ignorance for the universe it’s set in, attempts at ham handed fan service by shoe horning in clumsy references to characters from other series, you have a show that is farther from Star Trek than a 14 year old’s submission on IO9. When it actually let the supporting cast do things, they were charming and likable, but Stamets, Saru and Tilly weren’t enough to keep me from getting mad at just about every episode.

If you don’t really care about or know anything about Star Trek it can be entertaining I guess, but why watch it when there’s Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and The Orville?

First thing I would look into is how water is getting into those cracks in the first place. Check your gutters and make sure they’re cleaned out and at appropriate angles, and check the downspouts. Water should be draining away from your home, not into it. You might need to put up some sort of awning or tarp, and fix the angles of those pavers/concrete. If there’s water flowing into the foundation then it’s going to be a reoccurring problem.

This reminds me of Althea Chrome, the artist who made all of the knit accessories for Coraline.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NQCf8fjgoJQ&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD

Sounds great, Photuris for supreme dictator!

A humble farm boy’s guardians and village are burned, leading to him leaving his home and finding refuge with a wise old man who has special powers. He tells him he knew his father, that he was a knight and they fought together. He gives him his father’s sword, and teaches him to use his own special powers. They receive a message from a princess in distress, who tells them she’s being held hostage by the evil emperor. They travel to save her with the help of a roguish anti-hero and free the princess. Once freed, they learn of a crucial weakness in the emperor’s fortress, and together they lead a raid to siege it. They succeed with the help of a rag tag bunch of rebels and the princess awards them with medals in her throne room.

That doesn’t sound like a story about how technology, science or knowledge effects people or society to me.

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