Thanks!

I’m not sure if this qualifies, but I have a friend who way back when, like decades ago, probably before the extensive surveillance we have now, would do something rather ingenious and devious to get major discounts on whatever expensive things he wanted at stores: he would print out a sheet of barcode stickers for a product that was similar but much cheaper than the one he wanted and plaster it on a bunch of the items like the one he wanted. Take it to the cashier and get a super discount.

For example, if he wanted some fancy model of an electronics gadget, he would print barcodes of a much cheaper but similar model from the same manufacturer. According to him, he had even done this for fancy cuts of meat. The reason for applying it to a bunch of them and not just the single one he planned to buy was for plausible deniability. If someone questioned him, he could say, I don’t know, I just picked one off the shelf - they could go check and see that there were many labeled as the cheaper item.

What is 4011? Like potatoes or something?

I see, you must not have heard the Kars 4 Kids commercials before. 10x more annoying than the little Living Spaces jingle. :)

Thanks, curious about this too.

Hmmm, it looks like you forgot the /s at the end of your post?

The government has become like the early internet, too dependent on general good will and honorable behavior.

Yes, I’ve seen this called the “norms fairy” before, since a lot of people seem to be believe that “norms” can actually stop people in power from doing bad things.

Thanks for your answer.

That chart shows what I would interpret as really strong Linux growth. Somewhere around 200% growth in the last 4 years, and seems to be significantly accelerating.

I’d be interested to know why Linux has such bad update in Chinese-speaking regions.

I wonder if language in particular may be a factor hindering Linux adoption there?

1. How does the documentation for Linux (including forums, how-tos, blogs, etc) available in Chinese dialects compare to what is available in English, and how well does machine translation work for translating the English sources?
2. The documentation available online for Linux very often involves the command line. How much of a pain is it for people who only speak Chinese dialects to use an English command line? If the commands are available in Chinese, how well do the machine translations of the English documentation sources work for that purpose.

I feel that there are probably significant language barriers that have an effect here, and effectively create a chicken-and-egg problem for Linux adoption, possibly limiting Linux usage to Chinese people who are relatively proficient in English.

For reference, here’s an article about what proportion of Chinese people speaks English (it seems to be around 5%?): https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/how-many-people-in-china-speak-english

duel-boot

Sounds dangerous! :)

Holy moly, all that’s left to do is to add a picture of Hegseth and of the exploded boat to illustrate this paragraph. SMH.

I would be interested to know what definition of fascism you are using that includes the USSR and North Korea. Fascism is not the same thing as authoritarianism, if that’s the definition you’re going by.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

A significant number of scholars agree that a “fascist regime” is foremost an authoritarian form of government; however, the general academic consensus also holds that not all authoritarian regimes are fascist, and more distinguishing traits are required for a regime to be characterized as such.[2][3]

Interesting, thanks. I wasn’t aware of any of that. Yes, it sounds complicated, and I hope that Linux can eventually improve these issues you mentioned.

I’ve heard that too! I also remember cartoons where a character would hit the ground with a pick axe and oil would come gushing out.

From what I’ve been hearing, AI has indeed been getting worse, not better. I think I read this in relation to ChatGPT 5 compared to previous models.

Well said. Plutocracy / oligarchy.

Exactly! 30 to 46 people apparently decided unanimously that he deserved it.

Later, I calculated that you’d experience 15g at the tip of a typical one.

Sounds like a fun ride to me! /s

I’m with you in thinking that this is not impossible. I think geology is something that can do funny things in some places.

By the way, in some places oil seems to be pretty close to the surface. If you visit the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles sometime, there’s essentially an open lake of oil (tar) that you can visit, and as you walk the grounds around it you’ll see some spots where the tar is seeping out from the ground and you have to watch out not to step on it.