What device did you use to make that post? Say goodbye to it. Modern electronics is impossible without automation.

"We can't compete, so you need to keep cheaper and superior products out so we can continue selling our more expensive, inferior products."

The early panicky days of COVID may be over, but face masks suddenly look like a pretty good idea again.

Perl itself is neither here nor there with respect to security. But lack of tests and pushing straight to production... those are WTFs.

I don't think bans are the answer. But also, governments that offer bribes to get data centers built are also doing the wrong thing.

I think data center construction needs to be regulated. The data center must pay property taxes just like everyone else, and it must provide money for every watt of power that it uses... money to build new energy generation capacity and transmission infrastructure so that other people's electricity rates are not affected by the data center.

To AI, we are the Creators (plural). So teaching it monotheism seems like lying to it.

But anyway, what sort of boneheaded move is it to think that religion is a good basis for teaching anyone ethics?

I retired from SW development in April 2023. Looks like perfect timing; everyone I know who is still working in the field hates it.

Wow, a single point of failure for the entire state? That's a sobering thought.

Consequence culture is a celebrity doing or saying something stupid and then being excoriated by their audiences and the public.

What's going on here is authoritarian repression of freedom of expression, with the implied threat of serious legal consequences against someone for expressing a viewpoint the government didn't like.

Miles apart.

Having kids is expensive, exhausting and can be largely unrewarding. Film at 11.

And given the general shitty state of the world, it's no wonder people don't want to have kids.

(I have three adult kids, so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to how exhausting it is.)

The new reality is that the world's population is going to start shrinking, probably before 2100, possibly well before 2100. We have to adapt to this new reality because there's not a damn thing we can do to reverse it; this trend is worldwide and persistent.

I use Firefox on Android as my main mobile browser. It's fine. A bit slower than Chrome, but I'll put up with that to avoid Google spyware. (Though... being on Android, maybe I've lost already. Still, don't want to make it easier than it has to be.)

Basically: Yes. I suspect the US government was behind this stunt, but absolutely... if the US government decides it doesn't want foreign companies to have easy access to non-Microsoft, non-Apple OSes, I can see them pulling this stunt.

The only solution is to ensure that whatever hardware you buy lets you either disable secure boot or install your own trusted key.

Clearly, the US government is unhappy with regular people having robust data encryption.

This is why it is folly for non-US organizations to continue using closed-source US-based software. If they can't see the security risks inherent in this practice, then I don't know what to say.

At this rate, reality is going to put The Onion out of business by 2029.

If you run a light desktop environment like XFCE or LXDE, 4GB is probably fine.

However, the instant you spin up a modern browser or office suite, you're cooked. It's the massive applications that are the problem on Linux, not the OS or desktop environment (if you pick a lightweight DE.)