Ubuntu is good, actually. It has basically the widest out of the box hardware and software support of any distribution, a decent default UI and an easy installer. Its downsides are that it has a reputation as baby’s first Linux so you don’t get any hipster cred and some people don’t like that it uses snap as a package format for some things, including Firefox.

If we could do it in a peaceful and democratic way that doesn’t lead to an immediate second civil war, yeah, I’d probably vote for it. It seems to have worked out well enough for Czechia and Slovakia.

Eh, California is mostly water independent. Most of the water that is “imported” comes from the Colorado River and is used for the least productive and least necessary agriculture in the state. Yeah, figuring out how to handle however much water would be lost if California were to secede would be an issue, but it wouldn’t be an impossible situation.

I’m pretty certain the first computer I installed Linux on was a Pentium 75 with 4MB of RAM. I know I ran it on some 486s booting off floppys at work. We were at 10,000 feet and couldn’t trust the lifespan of spinning rust.

It’s a cat and mouse game, at best. If you have a tool that can reliably detect AI slop, then that tool can be used as part of the training process to fool the detection tool.

As is typical for the US, 1/3 are deeply aware, 1/3 are in full “patriotic” support, and 1/3 are too distracted by the latest TikTok dance to notice.

I’ve had small Debian servers such as a RaspPi or a NUC that I’ve never updated after the initial setup and they were still working perfectly when I finally turned them off to move. If you don’t want to update a Linux system, don’t. Maybe setup auto security updates if it’s going to be exposed to the raw internet and running some open servers.

As a point of reference, I built a 32TB Synology last year. I took me an afternoon to get it done, plus set up Plex media server, all the arrs and friends, a backup server and a couple other things. Since then maintenance has consisted of remembering to hit the “update containers” button once a month or so. I should probably automate that part but just haven’t bothered yet.

A lot of NAS are capable of hosting containerized services. The Synology DS series, for example, can run everything you’ve mentioned and so much more. For a relatively gentle into check out https://mariushosting.com/

Exact same story here. I had lost evenings before I got mine, now I can enjoy a couple hours to myself after the kids are down.

Vapor locking is an interplay between a mechanical vacuum based fuel pump and carburetors that causes the engine to get starved of gas and stall out. It’s made worse at high altitude and particularly when ascending rapidly like driving up a high altitude pass such as Wolf Creek. If you’ve even needed to pop your ears several times while driving you’ve been in a situation where it could have happened.

Back in the day, the fix when it happened was to stop the engine and wait for air pressure to equalize through the system, which generally took about 30 minutes. Of course, this was on the side of a narrow twisty mountain road and people would sometimes get impatient or not know what was going on and flood their engine in a panic.

It’s pretty rare now due to electric fuels pumps and fuel injection.

Cars that would vapor lock when driving in the mountains.

It’s alway weird to me that even though Ubuntu has the largest Linux desktop market share, no one admits to using it.

Anyway, I use Ubuntu because I was doing a lot of ROS development when I last built a machine, and getting ROS running properly on other distros can be a pain.

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/03/03/the-forbidden-fruit#

Right?!? There was this whole “real men don’t eat quiche” thing that I remember from the 90s. What is unmanly about putting an omelette in a pie crust? It makes it easier to eat on the go and keeps better in the fridge.

Pull through parking. You know, where there are two spaces so you drive through one into the next so you can pull out of the one you park in without having to back up? I got told that was for “girls and gays”.

The two types of semiconductors. N-types have a slight excess of electrons, allowing them to move freely and P-types have a slight lack of electrons, effectively making freely moving electron “holes”. By sandwiching them next to each other, you can create diodes and bi-polar junction transistors.

And as we all know, bi-trans is an important part of queerdom.

Source: has a degree in electrical engineering. And is bi.
Edit: not cool enough to be trans though.

This seems both awesome and dangerous. The two analogies that come to mind are home canning and home brewing. They’re both generally safe and easy. But every so often someone gives their family botulism.

A compiler. I mean, yeah, I guess I could go back to writing asm, but I really don’t want to.

Exactly, the same way I handle all my credentials.