That's not Heinlein, that's H.L. Mencken, and I can assure you, he would not be on the side of the truckers in this case. He didn't like stupid people, and called the under-educated middle class 'the booboisie'.

Yes, the actual cable in question is a direct connection between Suva in Fiji and Nuku'alofa in Tonga, a distance of about 750km, give or take.

Linux is your sole OS and you use it daily? Pardon me if I am skeptical.

Your rant sounds like that made by a typical MS Fanboy (paid ones were called "Technical Evangelists". Remember them?) And claiming that Windows and Mac ask users to use the terminal only for the difficult problems is also ludicrous.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fduckduckgo.com%2F%3Ft%3Dffab...

I've used Linux since May 1, 1998, and I can't remember the last time I had to compile an app, a driver or the kernel. I started with RH5.0 and switched to SuSE 5.3 in Sept of 1998 because it featured KDE 1.0 beta. I used SuSE until Novell bought them and thought they could ignore the GPL. In 2009 I installed Kubuntu, because it features KDE/Plasma, and it was only in November of last year that I switched to KDE Neon User Edition because I wanted my plasma installation to be closer to the leading edge (not the bleeding edge). SuSE RPM's were available not only from SuSE but also from the website rpmbone. That's when I stopped compiling anything. Ubuntu introduced their distribution repository along with their distro in 2006. No compiling necessary. It's been that way for most distributions ever since. Those that do stray off the repository reservation usually download a tar or zip file and then expand it into a directory. Inside the main directory they issue make config, make and make install. No editors, no coding, All the compiling is automatic.

Ubuntu and its daughters have Discover and Muon as package managers, but experienced users, not because they have to but because they want to, open a terminal and issue "sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade". Why? Because it is easier and faster. My next door neighbor bought a new HP laptop three years ago and after a couple of months asked me to fix a problem he was having. I explained to him that I don't do Windows because a fix is never permanent, and he'd be calling me back in a while to fix it again. I told him I would support him if he let me put Linux on his machine. After I showed him my installation and he realized that it is just using the keyboard and mouse the same as it is in Windows he let me put on Kubuntu 18.04LTS. In three years he's called me twice. Once to fix a browser difficulty (he was misunderstanding how to use it) and once to fix a printer issue. Neither of those two issues were Linux related. I'm 80. I retired in 2008, 14 years ago. A lot of my friends my age, or there about, had similar problems that plagued my retired banker neighbor. I made the same deal with them and for about a decade I was supporting about 20 Linux users, give or take 5, until death took its toll.

Most Linux users are like my friends and neighbors. All they know is the keyboard and mouse. Running Windows or Linux most used FireFox and OpenOffice, Many WinXX users would pay cash to take their problems to a computer tech shop to be fixed, usually, WInXX was reinstalled because that is how tech people make the most money in the easiest way. They make more money if they are asked to recover the owner's data.

From the first day I replace Win95 with RH5.0 on May 1, 1998, I never had my Linux system fail to boot or to crash doing standard stuff. I do a LOT of experimentation on my laptop. In 2016, I adopted BTRFS as my root file system. If I, for example, install Python3 environments and, as it did in one instance, Anaconda messed up the local site repository of modules, it took me less than 3 minutes to roll back to an archival snapshot and reboot into a pristine system. From a cold boot I get a working desktop in 6 to 12 seconds, depending on which services I have loading at boot.

For the last 5 years about 15 of my favorite apps are AppImages. No compiling, Just drop the download into a directory of your choice and mark it executable. Click on it and it runs. To "uninstall" it, you simply delete the AppImage. Aside from a local config file an AppImage never touches your system. Nice. Clean. And no snap or flatpak service always running in the background.

That 1% figure comes from Netapplications, and using the Netapplications metric of desktop share is ridiculous. That website was shuttered by its owner, Phil Vaccarro, in October of last year. He closed all accounts receivable. It, and its predecessor, sold relabeled EXE programs. He is in bankruptcy and is also being prosecuted by the US AG for fraud. It wouldn't surprise me if he sold OS metrics to the highest bidder.

In 2004 Gartner published a report stating that Linux had 4% of the desktop market share. In 2008 their report stated it was 8% and with linear growth rate (unusual for a natural system) they predicted a 12% share in 2012, but I never saw that report.

This recent Christmas Santa (who knew he was my son? :D ) brought me a new HP laptop. It had Win11 on it. By the end of the day it had KDE Neon User Edition riding the main SSD as the only OS. The bean counters still count my laptop as a Windows install when, in fact, it is Windows -1 and Linux +1. Except for the few who purchase laptops from System76 and other OEM's that feature Linux, most Linux installations exist because they replaced WinXX. Retail channel statistics are the worse statistics of all.

A better source of OS statistics is a website that attracts users of all sorts of OS's:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdistrowatch.com%2Fawstat...

Windows is 40% and Linux is 45%.

Dr Alfred Bartlett wrote "Modern farming is nothing more than using land to convert oil into food. We burn 7 times more energy to bring a slice of bread to your table than you get from eating it."

Only fossil fuels currently have the energy density necessary to power agriculture and its processing and transportation to market. People died in Texas last year because the heating system used to prevent the icing of the natural gas lines was powered by solar and wind power.

"Amazon's compliance with the Chinese government edict, which has not been reported before, is part of a deeper, decade-long effort by the company to win favor in Beijing to protect and grow its business in one of the world's largest marketplaces. An internal 2018 Amazon briefing document that describes the company's China business lays out a number of "Core Issues" the Seattle-based giant has faced in the country. Among them: "Ideological control and propaganda is the core of the toolkit for the communist party to achieve and maintain its success," the document notes. *We are not making judgement on whether it is right or wrong.*"

Not making judgement? Yes, you are. You judged that the life of at least one individual is worth less than any potential profit you might make, and you are overlooking decades of attrocities committed by the CCP against China's citizens.

My judgement is that I canceled my prime account.

it can replace diesel and gasoline fuel on farm equipment at equal or lower costs. Otherwise the price of food will too high for most people. That, of course, affects the poorest the most.

Modern farming is nothing more than using land to convert oil into food. Take away the oil and fail to replace it will equal or better fuel (i.e. equal or better fuel density) and you have condemned millions to starvation, both in America and around the world.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Finvestorintel.com%2Fmark...

"Lithium is not an inexhaustible resource, and most of it is controlled by Brazil and China. The electronic properties of lithium require that it takes 160g of lithium, measured as metal, to have one kilowatt hour of storage. Therefore a 100-kWh lithium-ion battery needs 16 kg of lithium. This is the irreducible minimum amount of lithium required to move two tons of steel on low friction tires at 60 kph for 500 km.

Global production of lithium in 2020 was 86,000 tons, or 86,000,000 kg, measured as metal. China today processes 60% of global lithium into battery and other use grades and produces 82% of the Li-ion batteries manufactured. Therefore, the world is today totally dependent upon Chinese owned or based manufacturers for its supply of lithium chemicals used in batteries and for lithium-ion batteries of all types for all uses!

...

The nonsensical, really just ignorant, predictions of the financial analysts of skyrocketing production of lithium are not even remotely possible due to the unbearable costs of increasing production from declining grade deposits and the fantasies of large high-grade new deposits being miraculously found and developed. All of this while keeping lithium prices in line, of course."

"Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news"

That sig got my curiosity up. Now that Joe is president and represents the establishment are you against him and his establishment?

Just asking for a friend...

A couple years ago my son bought an Echo DOT for my 78th birthday. I hooked it up and began using it. Very convenient and like Siri would answer lots of requests: Alexa, what time is it, what is the weather, how much is xyz, how far is it to X?

One day my wife and I were discussing getting an emergency ladder for our 2nd floor patio, in case of a fire. We decided against it because both of us are too old to climb over a rail and down a ladder. Several days later ads for emergency ladders began appearing in my browsing.

Alexa was doing more than just answering questions directed to it, it was eaves dropping on our conversations. The supposed rule was that Alexa would ignore you unless you began a sentence with its name. Obviously Alexa had other agendas.

I pulled Alexa's plug and boxed it up and got rid of it.

My wife has Siri. My Android phone has Bixby. Even when I turn Bixby off in the settings the next update turns it back on. Even "off" Bixby occasionaly states "I didn't understand what you said", when it wasn't supposed to be listening. Ditto for my wife's Siri.

There are phones that have customer replaceable batteries, which means that you can take the battery out when you want privacy from snoopers.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.androidcentral.com...

Thank you. You saved me the time of writing a response that would have been essentially identical to yours. Maybe if programmers working in AI were required to minor in biochemistry and anatomy & physiology this kind of nonsense would fade away.

Maybe for a mobile laser weapon?

You could also learn to speak Russian or Chinese.

"Every child which gets serious sick..."

The CDC reported that over the last 21 months the total number of kids between the ages of 0-17 that have died of covid is 439. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata.cdc.gov%2FNCHS%2FProv...

Probably most of those had extenuating medical circumstances. But, how many children would you be willing to give cardiomyopathy to in order to save them from death due to covid? As of June 10, 2021 there were 789 cases "reported" of myocarditis with 285 being under 30. Nice, obtuse figures. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aappublications.or...

Don't know where they got their figures. I downloaded the VAERS database (386Mb) and did some basic examinations. That database is wickedly messed up. One line in the CSV file contained 43,000 characters in the box labeled "SYMPTOM_TEXT". It seems that those who filled in the data put the data anywhere without regard to the colum headers. All the fields are texual. Regardless of when they were entered the "RECVDATE" field in each record is the same, 1/1/2021. The DIED column is supposed to have a "Y" with the "DATEDIED" containing the date. Many have text in both fields and some statement as to death or recovery in other fields.

Here are the fields:"VAERS_ID, RECVDATE, STATE, AGE_YRS, CAGE_YR, CAGE_MO, SEX, RPT_DATE, SYMPTOM_TEXT, DIED, DATEDIED, L_THREAT, ER_VISIT, HOSPITAL, HOSPDAYS, X_STAY, DISABLE, RECOVD, VAX_DATE, ONSET_DATE, NUMDAYS, LAB_DATA, V_ADMINBY, V_FUNDBY, OTHER_MEDS, CUR_ILL, HISTORY, PRIOR_VAX, SPLTTYPE, FORM_VERS, TODAYS_DATE, BIRTH_DEFECT, OFC_VISIT, ER_ED_VISIT, ALLERGIES"

Many literally have garbage in them. The died column (Y/N) doesn't reliably indicate death. On many records it is empty but the DATEDIED has a date. One has to search other columns for 'dead', 'died', 'death', "passed on", etc. Anyone who says that they have examined all of the 512,029 records in the VAERS database, as of 9/19/21, even with search alogorithms and report specific numbers of dead and recovered are possibly giving misinformation.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcovid19criticalcare.co...

"The need for weekly dosing in the Carvallo study over a 4 month period may not have been necessary given that, in a recent RCT from Dhaka, Bangladesh, the intervention group (n=58) took 12mg only once monthly for a similar 4 month period and also reported a large and statistically significant decrease in infections compared to controls, 6.9% vs. 73.3%, p less than 0.05 (Alam et al., 2020)."

Ivermection is used in a hair lotion to fight lice and fleas. It is used as a heart worm treatment in canines and for parasites in horses. Animals are also given a large number of other medicines and antibiotics that are used for human illnesses, and those medicines are made to the same standards as those made for human use.

The CDC data for the age group 0-17 for the entire US between Jan 1, 2020 and Sept 15, 2021 totals to 439 kids.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata.cdc.gov%2FNCHS%2FProv...

That number also includes the "Delta" and other variants. Most kids who contract covid never know it and are asymptomatic. Dr Fauci stated on more than one occasion that "asymptomatic carriers are never drivers of pandemics". Considering the increased cardiomyopthy and other problems children who have received the shot are experiencing, which affected more than 439, it raises a serious question about the wisdom of innoculating kids with the vaccines. It appears to me that Johnson & Johnson wants to generate more revenue at taxpayers expense, especially since the gov granted them legal immunity against lawsuits as a result of injry and death caused by the vaccines.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Finchem.org%2Fdocuments%2Fjecfa%2Fjecmono%2Fv27je03.htm

2.3.3 Studies on tolerability in patients

Treatment of onchocerciasis with ivermectin requires a single oral dose of 0.15 - 0.2 mg/kg body weight every 12 months. The tolerability of MECTIZANTM has been closely examined in a number of clinical trails. The observed side effects in some patients were mostly mild and transient. These side effects can probably be attributed to hypersensitivity reactions resulting from death of microfilariae (the symptoms most frequently reported include pruritus, arthralgia, dizziness, myalgia, fever, edema, lymphadenitis, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, postural hypotension, tachycardia, weakness, rash, and headache) (Merck & Co., Inc., 1988b). ... Ivermectin is widely used in humans for the treatment of onchocerciasis at single doses of 0.2 mg per kg of body weight. Tolerance to the compound has been assessed in healthy volunteers and in patients; adverse effects are usually mild and transient. In particular, no effects on the central nervous system were observed in patients.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fp...

This paper presents a summary of reported cases of Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) following treatment with Mectizan® (ivermectin, Merck, Sharpe & Dohme) in onchocerciasis (River Blindness) mass treatment programs from January 1, 1989 to December 31, 2001 through a passive surveillance system. A total of 207 SAE cases were reported out of approximately 165 million reported treatments delivered during the period under review, giving rise to a cumulative incidence of 1 reported SAE per 800,000 reported treatments.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.drugs.com%2Fpro%2Fiver... https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fashpublications.org%2Fbl... ...chloride-dependent membrane hyperpolarization and cell death in leukemia cells

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nobelprize.org%2Fupl...

Deaths due to vaccines

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go...

VAERS received 2149 vaccine death reports from 1 July 1997 through 31 December 2013, a total of 16+ years.

Since the introduction of mRNA vaccines VAERS is said to have recorded over 5,000 deaths within 48 hours after recieving 1 or more doses of the vaccnines. Is that true? Here is the website where you can download the csv file, load it into a spreadsheet and do you own research. See whose lying and who is not.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvaers.hhs.gov%2FeSubDown...