I would recommend installing a fairly vanilla Gnome distro (like Fedora or something) and then a KDE version (most major distros have a KDE spin) in a virtual machine. Gnome Boxes is a really easy way to do that. And then just customize the shit out of both of them and see what you like best.

Gnome is more of a macOS-like experience so to me, it feels more trackpad driven (though keyboard shortcuts are plentiful). Install some extensions if you don’t like something. Someone else probably also didn’t like something.

KDE is more like Windows. I’m less familiar with it but it’s on my Steam Deck so I use it a decent amount. It’s more mouse and keyboard driven, as far as I can tell. So, that’s why I think it would be fine to evaluate in a VM.

They’re both high quality, though, so it’s really about what you prefer. I like Gnome, obviously, but I prefer to code on a smallish laptop (for portability/travel reasons) and a dock whereas a lot of people want an elaborate multi-monitor situation and a different interface. Everyone has their own workflow. Both work equally well so it’s just a matter of taste and preference. (Most Linux decisions are like that and people get weirdly angry about it but that’s part of the fun. Choose your own adventure.)

I suspect it’s more likely that Meta won’t exist in any recognizable way in 2035 than anyone makes a huge profit on A.I. in the next decade. There will be advancements, to be sure, and compute will (hopefully) get cheaper and more efficient but 2035 seems like an Elon-Musk-level optimistic timeline.

I’m sort of agnostic on A.I. I don’t like it for much now but certainly see its potential. But look how long it took for The Internet to be universally adopted. And that’s assuming researchers even can solve the really hard last 20% of problems.

But someone smarter than me once put it better:

https://xkcd.com/678/

It just makes it easier to backup your customizations. I copy a lot of my settings in there. I use Vim (which isn’t necessarily the best choice but I’m old) so I just put my .vimrc stuff in my folder. Then you just have to backup one folder and, if nothing else, your CLI will stay the same.

People argue over emacs and vim (as text editors) and systemd vs init but it’s your machine. That’s part of what makes Linux fun.

It’s just alphabetical so the scripts run in the right order. The numbers serve like “A” or “B” except you can add new scripts between one and ten if it comes up and your “10-whatever” file is a mess. It’s sort of a convention on Linux but not everyone does it.

Then you just add

for FILE in ~/.shellrc.d/*; do
    source $FILE
done

To your ~./bashrc (or your preferred shell). Replace shellrc.d with whatever you choose. I use shellrc.d on servers and stuff because the dot d is also kind of a convention for naming folders. People have their own opinions about that but don’t worry about it until you have strong opinions.

Personally, I put a ~/.get-going or whatever you want to call it and put all my scripts in there. Name them with numbers first like “10-first.sh” “20-second.sh” and then just put a line in .bashrc or .zshrc or whatever you like. Aliases and any critical stuff last. Then one line in your rc file can include them all.

I made some bash scripts for distro-hopping that are now [undiscloded] years old so I can basically backup a few folders — the second being ~/bin where I put AppImages and stuff and sometimes ~/Development (I don’t always need the dev one because backups of those exist as repos) folder if I need to reinstall. A lot of people backup their whole home directory. But I prefer my method and that’s why we use Linux. I don’t want my settings for every app coming with me when I go on a new journey. Choose your own adventure.

How the turntables have turned π radians. Maybe. We’ll see.

It has always been thus. Something like 20 years ago, edits from Congressperson’s DNS entries kept getting caught editing their (or more likely their boss’s) profile without knowing how to hide their identity.

Paying the Apple tax is a known part of the deal. It’s not always worth it for an individual but it is nice having an Apple Store in every major city (at least in the U.S.). I got my mom a MacBook because she lives 45 minutes away and I was sick of being her tech support for an operating system I don’t use regularly.

I got my stepdad a Chromebook last year when he asked me to fix his laptop. I said sure and then it was this giant 32 bit antique running Windows Vista. I was just like, “I would rather buy a Chromebook than connect this thing to my WiFi network.”

I use all the operating systems, by the way. I have Arch on my Steam Deck, I guess. More of a Fedora man myself but to each their own. I ain’t judging.

I forgot about Dre but I was fairly comprehensive.

In fairness, I poisoned one food item in every music executive’s house as punishment for them being thieves.

I built a really cool stool once. Both kinds, actually.

I admit I didn’t watch the video — I’ve trained YouTube’s algorithm well at this point and don’t want Tesla content — but what the fuck is a predictive odometer? The tires roll a certain distance. We’ve had odometers for like 75 years.

I’m glad I’m too old to use Slack but for video games. I’d rather eat a bowl of hair than have more notifications.

/s

They could just shut down Meta and it would take a week for everyone to adjust.

I don’t want to know who any of you people are. None of us saw anything. And if so much as a squirrel asks, I’m asking for a lawyer.

Probably but they’ve designated others to do it. Like a trusted organization (Wired or The NY Times) can verify people. Some of the developers seemed hostile.

But who gives a fuck about a blue check anyway? Even before Elon, it was a gag on Twitter when some fucking moron who interned at Reason or some shit got a big head about it and wrote as a clown to be laughed at. “Some personal news, I’m now the assistant associate dipshit at the newspaper they try to give you for free when you get on the subway.”

I’m glad we’re putting all our eggs in this alpha-ass-level software (with tons of promise! Maybe!) instead of like high speed rail or whatever.

Thank you for doing the math.

The advancements in battery tech are obviously great news but I still have no idea how you’d power a “traditional” charging station (with several terminals) for EVs.

There’s plenty of time to find a solution to that before today’s experimental battery tech becomes ubiquitous in cars but power generation and infrastructure seems like it’ll be the bottleneck. I haven’t done the math or anything but it just seems like 5m charging of more than one or two cars at once would strain the grid that exists today.