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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • This is beautifully familiar.

    Am I seeing too many similarities between how Twitter/X was taken over and singlehandedly being irreversibly ruined?

    While Windows is stubbornly becoming increasingly user-adversarial (advertising, constant intrusive updates, forced transition from your favorite browser to Microsoft Edge, etc.) and unintuitive (sometimes even counter intuitive) interface design, placement and inaccessible settings.

    Well, delighting in schadenfreude, I won’t complain. Microsoft is inadvertently helping me help transition many friends, family and colleagues to various flavors of Linux systems, namely Linux Mint (whichever desktop they prefer) and/or Pop!OS most of the time, but also occasionally Fedora or a particular flavor of Ubuntu.

    I never recommend Arch or rolling release systems or immutable systems to first time Linux user so as to preemptively avoid additional layers of complexity, learning curve, downtime and troubleshooting.










  • Man… I never complained about Winter, I actually love everything about it; the cold, the wind, the hoarfrost, the blizzards, the ice storms, the freezing rain, even the brown slush on the road. However, nowadays snowfalls have become thinner and thinner or even just raining instead and melting away whatever little snow had accumulated. It’s sad.

    On the other hand, Summer, I turn into a lazy Grinch that avoids the heat and the Sun as if I was a human snowman.

    Everytime I see that graph, beyond the constant reminder of the hyperobject that is Climate Change, I am anticipating the dread of a even more scorching summer on its way in a few more months. On top of that, I also have take forest fires in consideration and prepare air filters and/or n100/n95 masks and replacement cartridges for myself, family and older relatives.

    It is sad to see we still, all considered, have not yet even begun to lower emissions and will probably continue to argue over keeping the status quo for as long as possible until maybe, unfortunately, entire cities are regularly assailed by amplified natural and man-made disasters in back-to-back sequence and until everyone is affected directly or indirectly by those irreversible damages.

    (Reposting my same reply to an identical post as this one regarding daily sea surface temperature; you can check my post history)







  • The essential part at the end:

    “ When reached for comment, Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt directed me to Reddit’s API FAQ page and said the company couldn’t comment further because it’s in a quiet period and doesn’t “comment on confidential business conversations and/or agreements.” ”

    We can infer that it was not the fountain of money they thought it would become.

    More telling is their silence. Who doesn’t want to promote and advertise how profitable they are to potential shareholders just before an IPO.



  • Nowadays, the only thing I find myself printing occasionally are return labels for Amazon RMA on my trusty old Samsung CLP laser printer (which sometime has a mind of its own and starts adding a single grayish streak on the second page onward at random location).

    I have a second monochrome laser printer from Brother I purchased 2-3 years ago for a bargain lightning price of $70 thinking of replacing my old “dying” printer, however I exclusively use it to do occasional photocopies and I already have a bunch of TN660 toner for it.

    Just waiting for the Samsung to run its course and finally die but it lives on challenging any thoughts I may have to send it to the eco-centre (recycling center in Québec). It is at least maybe 20 years old and the darn thing is stubbornly holding on 😆. At this point I feel like it may last another 20 years. It has indeed been well worth the $300 at the time.

    Early on, I experienced so many issues with Lexmark, Epson and HP that I crossed off the companies forever.

    Fortunately, I think I lucked out on my current 2 printers that will, hopefully, last me a few more decades.

    I used to only recommend that any Brother printer would be better to friends and family, but I came accross information that newer brother printers started to have a chip in their ink/toner cartridges. I am unaware if it is for some nefarious purpose. Hopefully, they understand alienating customers will quickly dissolve all the good will they have accumulated.


  • Wow, asbestos pipes, that’s something new I learned today…

    Total genius move by whomever designed it and the organization that approved/certified it for human potable water use.

    How am I still surprised by these things, long ago we once thought lead pipes were perfect for moving/transporting potable water (apparently, one of the many things that contributed to the collapse of the Roman Empire).

    Nowadays, high density polyethylene pipes are selling like hotcakes and certified for potable water use. Will we find, in a few decades, that micro-plastics are more prevalent than expected and cause innumerable long term health issues? Hence, the new thing to avoid like the Black Plague.

    What is wrong with plain old copper pipes, outside of just being expensive due to low supply vs huge demand? (I may have missed the news on how they too affect health)