Except that’s not all it is.

Go read the bill, particularly section 1798.501.b, 1798.502.a and b. Every developer of every application that can be downloaded from every package system MUST request your age bracket every time it is downloaded. And possibly every time it is launched. Basic utilities like ‘ls’ and ‘cat’, that pong example I pushed as a test two weeks ago, everything.

Why are you even accepting this something like this should exist? What is the threat model that this is protecting against? How would it offer any protection against that threat? Why should everyone who is making any program need to ask about the age of their possible users?

In addition, the law requires that every developer of every application, commercial, FOSS, student, hobbiest, professional, or whatever verify the age bracket of every person who downloads and runs their program every time. Every time it is downloaded, every time it is run. Yes an API for this would be trivial to implement, but that’s not the point. The point is why the fuck should I have to face a $2500-$7500 fine every time some kid downloads my pong demo? Why the fuck should PyPI, GitHub, or crates.io have to get the age bracket of every user? Why should every apt request include an age flag? Because that is what the bill requires.

Fek! Kial mi forgesis la plej bonan flagon?!?

If not the UFP, maybe the Klingon Empire?

Or:

• A state flag, from a different state. New Mexico has the best one. Or if you live in New Mexico, Minnesota’s new one is pretty good.
• Any of the Our Flag Means Death flags. Or all of them.
• The flag of Antarctica
• A US Pride flag
• A red flag, or maybe a beige one
• New California Republic
• Debian swirl flag
• Church of the Subgenius

I can’t get the Windows based firmware updaters for my motorcycle helmet Bluetooth headset and joystick fully running under Wine/Lutris/Whatever. They both use USB and just will not connect.

Also, once a quarter I have to use an archaic Excel sheet that is heavily dependent on some VB Script. This file absolutely will not open correctly in anything other than a locally installed version of Excel because the script needs a real local printer and Open/Libre/Whatever cannot handle the insanity of the VB Script. I have a Windows VM just for this one thing.

If I had those, here’s what I would do:

First, for both an optional but nice quality of life improvement would be to replace the HDDs with SSDs. Boot up and file access times will be much snappier.

Mac Mini

Congratulations! You have a nice foundation for a home server running linux. You could plug in a USB RAID of some sort ( example) and go full pirate running the *arr stack. You could set it up as a HTPC using the IR receiver with Kodi and whatever adapter is needed for your TV. You could set up a developers server, running git and whatever tool you find useful. You could set up https://nextcloud.com/ and self host most of the necessities of modern productivity. Or all of the above.

HP Pavilion G7

Congratulations! You have a great dedicated low-distraction writing and working machine. I have a pair of similar, though slightly lower end, laptops. I got a replacement battery for one of them from Ali, and run a minimal Debian + i3 setup on it. It’s great for taking with me to write, whether code, gaming notes, creative writing or whatever else. The modern web is pretty terrible on it, which takes away a ton of distractions, but still usable enough if I need it in a pinch. I also have it set up for music, both local mp3s and streaming from my home server. It also runs a ton of classic games through DOSBOX. My other one I use as a sandbox, testing out alternative OSs, weird setups and whatnot. I haven’t upgraded its HDD or battery yet, but my older daughter is wanting to type more when writing due to being left handed, so I’m thinking about setting it up as a dedicated machine for her.

This has been considered by the Linux community literally since the day Linus first announced his kernel on Usenet. The primary defense is the GPL and related licenses which legally protect against that kind of abuse by forcing derived works to also be opened under the same license.

This is why, as much as I support the general idea of uutils, I’m deeply suspicious the it is under a MIT license instead of the GPL.

While this feels like bait, I’m going to take it. Yes, there is a huge benefit to learning and using a terminal if you use a computer as a tool for creating and working instead of passively consuming entertainment. Organizing and searching files of any sort, building applications, writing without distraction, working with remote devices, and just generally using your computer as a tool instead of a fancy TV are all made easier, faster and more efficient if you can use a terminal. The unix philosophy gives you the ability to do things by stringing together a few commands that you might have to find a specialized program for, if it even exists in GUI land.

That’s not to say the GUI’s aren’t great for a lot of things. They are! But they also lock you into doing things in a few predetermined ways rather than letting you develop the skills and techniques for exploring new spaces.

Having recently moved into a house with these issues: doorknobs. You never, ever think about the ones that just work well, but every iffy one is irritating every time you use it.

I’ve got a smattering of things from over the years. I ported johntheripper to a new os, maintained Perl testing on it as well for a while. I’ve done some language translation for a few projects, and am starting on some more. I also have some commits to ROS from when I worked at a company that used it. I have inspired a few improvements to Python, though someone else took my initial approach and made a better version that was committed.

I see that you too are a person of culture.

Woah! A use of HTTP status code 451 in the wild!

Oh! Came up with a new one, though it’s more of a unixism than a Linux specific thing.

I really wish that the core utils and other cli tools had a standard structured output option, like yaml, json, or toml so that it would be easier to parse rather than all of the random regular expressions needed when piping output around.

Edit: And it would be great if we also picked that same format for config files instead of all the bespoke stuff in /etc.

Back in the day I had my entire phone setup with a custom Metroid 2 sound theme that I put together from MIDIs, plus custom ringtones for my dozen or so most frequent contacts. I remember using Power Puff Girls for my wife, TMNT for her boyfriend, Sailor Moon for my girlfriend, and Little Honda for my dad.

Nowadays it’s on silent all the time so I don’t bother. :(

Honestly, not much.

The first would be that the webcam in my work laptop goes in and out of working pretty regularly. It happens to the whole team so I know it’s not just mine. I end up using an external one pretty regularly. Mostly I’m annoyed at Dell for not providing proper driver support.

The second is that there are a very small number of applications that I occasionally use where I need to fire up a VM. But even that is more of I’m annoyed at the organization that forces me to use an obsolete proprietary file format once a quarter.

I’d do it the same way as the GRACE satellites do, though maybe there is a better way. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRACE_and_GRACE-FO

The most important things are that they happen on a regular basis, at least biweekly, and that it’s possible to have a conversation while doing them or that there are at least enough breaks to have them. So, here’s a list of examples:

• Table top RPGs
• Fiber arts circle
• Hiking group
• Choir/music ensemble
• Ballroom/swing dancing
• Soup kitchen volunteer
• Shibari practice
• Martial arts
• Recreational team sports
• Community theater
• Fraternal organizations e.g. Elks, Kiwanis, etc

If we could do it in a peaceful and democratic way that doesn’t lead to an immediate second civil war, yeah, I’d probably vote for it. It seems to have worked out well enough for Czechia and Slovakia.

Eh, California is mostly water independent. Most of the water that is “imported” comes from the Colorado River and is used for the least productive and least necessary agriculture in the state. Yeah, figuring out how to handle however much water would be lost if California were to secede would be an issue, but it wouldn’t be an impossible situation.

As is typical for the US, 1/3 are deeply aware, 1/3 are in full “patriotic” support, and 1/3 are too distracted by the latest TikTok dance to notice.