The first thing to bring to the process is curiosity. Linux is not Windows and doesn’t operate in the same way.

What you think of a normal Windows behaviour, is unlikely to work in the same way under Linux.

In Linux everything is represented within the filesystem. This means that you’ll find USB ports, soundcards, hard drive devices, mouse, as well as running processes, open files, memory and even the CPU as well as everything else to run a modern computer represented inside the filesystem directory structure you’re presented with.

The Linux kernel is the heart of every system. Each flavour or distribution (distro) of Linux package up their ideas for the best way to use the kernel, offering different ways to install applications, drivers, user interface, etc. The variety is endless.

Note that within each distro are multiple versions. Each distro is distinct and unlikely to do things in the same way, so instructions found online for one might not apply to another.

The vast majority of software available is packaged from source by a distro and made available to you as a package.

You can compile anything from source, but that is a very deep rabbit hole, something you’d want to shy away from for the first year at least.

Packages have dependencies which most package managers attempt to deal with. This works fine if you use the same distro, but has a very high chance of breaking things if you start pulling packages from other distros or versions.

Much can be achieved with a GUI, but the real magic happens on the command line.

To get started, set aside an old machine, or build a virtual machine on your Windows PC and start learning.

I’ve been using Linux daily since 1999, and I’d recommend that you start with Debian. It’s stable, highly compatible, has a massive package collection and is properly documented.

Other distros like Ubuntu are (loosely) based on it.

Whatever you do, take it slow, make regular backups of your data and ask questions.

Incidents like this are a perfect excuse for the bean counters and marketing experts to chime in and recommend that the firmware be updated specifically to block third party ink or toner.

There’s no downside, the world is already trash talking your company, even if you didn’t do anything wrong, but while it’s happening, you get to sell a shitload more ink and toner.

Now you can consider yourself an “Award Winning Author”.

My go-to tool of late is duckdb, comes with binaries for most platforms, works out of the box, loads any number of database formats and is FAST.

For the lack multiple upvotes, here’s a “silver” coin.

Might have to consider some Oscar generic awards ceremony worthy credits before long, mind you, finding the name of the obstetrician who birthed me is going to be a challenge.

I also noticed a distinct lack of family genealogy in your signature, if it wasn’t for our primordial ooze ancestors, neither of us would be here today.

This is going to require “some” research.

Hmm … I wonder if embedded YouTube iframes work … purely for bandwidth testing purposes of course.

I just discovered another missing attribute from my signature:

Hi mom!

So … adding a pronoun to every single email on the planet kills one person?

Can we nominate that person … there’s a few that come to mind.

On a more serious note, the article is crapping on about pronouns and land acknowledgements as if they’re what’s killing people.

Here’s a thought, what about AI, or what about the biggest carbon emitting companies, 57 account for 80% of emissions?

Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/since-2016-80-percent-of-global-co2-emissions-come-from-just-57-companies-report-shows-180984118/

This article is nothing to do with killing people, it’s everything to do with killing pronouns and eliminating land acknowledgements.

Look for any common condition using any search engine and discover just how misinformed the global population really is.

I am an ICT professional with over 40 years experience and in my own field it’s often obvious how a technical response sounds right but is in reality absolute bollocks.

I know from lived medical experience that the same is true for medicine. However, being outside my own field it’s much harder to detect, even with quotes and citations.

Wow.

I’ve been processing a couple of billion rows of data on my machine, the fans didn’t even come on. WTF are they teaching “experts” these days, or has Elmo only hired people who claim that they can “wrangle data” and say “yes” ?

Ooh … there’s going to be a lot of fun had with this… I wonder if you can use blink tags and animated gifs … strictly for educational purposes … I’ll be right back …

If I wanted my computer to make a sound, I’d wet my finger and rub it on the screen.

You can save a post, but I’ve not seen the ability to subscribe to a post.

If you’re renting, take photos and make sure it’s in your property report. You’ll likely get charged for the “damage” if you don’t.

Also, do a walk-through with video when you move in, take it slow and cover every surface. It’s amazing what you can prove was already there.

Can we retrospectively inspect the law makers, just so they can have a lived experience before they next get together to make more crazy laws?

Strictly for research purposes … right?

Export to HTML, use pandoc (or sed/awk) to convert to markdown.

Interesting question. I suspect that it’s similar (but different) to asking, should you watch a movie made by someone who later was found to be a criminal at the time that movie was made.

I suspect that the answer depends on your personal moral compass, the norms, values and standards you shape your life by.

There’s a famous speech by Australian Lieutenant General David Lindsay Morrison AO, who said:

“The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept.”

Source: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Morrison

In other words, I think it’s up to each individual to decide how they feel about it and act accordingly.

But you asked how I feel about it.

In short, I think that we live in a civil society where the regime in that country is not representative of a world I want to be part of. As such, travelling there under the current regime is not something I’d contemplate.

I’d also point out that I feel the same way about visiting the United States of America under its current regime.

Finally, I suppose there’s an aspect of risk associated with visiting either country. I have no way to evaluate how that might compare with other extreme sports, but I suppose there’s a thrill that draws in some individuals, overriding any moral considerations.

I didn’t say that it was a valid KPI 😇

I think that this is the result of a KPI.

At some point there was a fight inside Google between engineering and marketing about how to proceed with product development. Engineers wanted a better product, marketing wanted more eyeballs.

As a result, search became about “engagement”, or “Moar clicks is betterer”.

Seen in this light, your triggering of the assistant four times increased your use and thus your engagement. An engineer would point out that this is not a valid metric, but Google is now run by the marketing and accounting departments, not by engineers.

Another aspect that I only recently became aware of is that in order to get promoted, you need to make a global impact. This is why shit is changing for no particular reason or benefit and has been for a decade or so.