RickRussell_CA 4 days ago • 100%
Currently, PopOS although I'm not really that enthusiastic about it.
RickRussell_CA 4 days ago • 93%
It will be interesting to see if it passes Constitutional muster. The Constitution only requires that "the people" choose the legislator. Previous attempts to regulate voting like this required amendments (e.g. elimination of the poll tax).
RickRussell_CA 2 weeks ago • 52%
The relevant:
"I better win or you're gonna have problems like we've never had. We may have no country left," Trump said at his weekend swing-state rally. "This may be our last election. You want to know the truth? People have said that. This could be our last election."
Eh. The article goes on to quote pundits who claim he's threatening voters -- that if he doesn't win, he's gonna do something to end democracy.
Seems kind of overblown to me. First, Trump would have to do something (laugh) and second, this is normal posturing. If you elect the other person, it's doom and gloom, if you elect me it's 4 more years of good times. These folks would have watched LBJ's Daisy and concluded that LBJ was planning to nuke the country if he didn't win.
People trying to make sense of Trump's incomprehensible blather are always gonna come out looking silly.
RickRussell_CA 2 weeks ago • 95%
Your AI is glitching
RickRussell_CA 2 weeks ago • 100%
Supporting data from The Economist:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/09/05/what-to-do-about-americas-killer-cars
RickRussell_CA 2 weeks ago • 100%
Certainly, but Apple was comparing itself to other computer companies with international reach, not to the white box PCs coming out of the Floppy Wizard store in the strip center.
RickRussell_CA 3 weeks ago • 100%
The interaction between Jobs (Michael Fassbender) and Woz (Seth Rogen) pretty much sums up the Apple ][ era.
RickRussell_CA 3 weeks ago • 100%
So, I lived through that time, and I supported computers professionally during that time. I started working at a university help desk in 1989.
It's easy to go back and look at Apple products and white-box PCs of the era (or quasi-legit clones like Compaq, HP, Gateway, etc) and say, "oh, on specs, the Apples were MASSIVELY overpriced -- you can get a much better deal with the PC".
The problem was that PCs were nowhere near on par, functionally, with Macintosh.
-
Networking. We were running building-wide Appletalk networks -- with TCP/IP gateways -- over existing phone wires YEARS before anybody figured out how to get coax or 10base-T installed. We were playing NETWORK GAMES (Bolo, anyone) on Mac in the late 80s.
-
And when they did... what do you do with networking in DOS? Unless you ran a completely canned network OS (remember Banyan, Novell, etc. ad infinitum?) and canned apps specifically designed to work with it, you were SOL. Windows 3.0 and 3.1 were a joke compared to System 7.
I configured PCs and Macs for the freshman class in 1995. For the Mac? You plug the ethernet port in and the OS does the rest. For the PC... find a DOS-compatible packet driver that works with your network card, get it running, then run Trumpet Winsock in Windows 3.1, then... then... it was a goddamned nightmare. We had to have special clinics just to get people's PCs up and running with a web browser, and even then, there were about 10% of machines we just had to say "nope". Can't find a working driver, can't get anything working right. Your IRQs are busted? Who fuckin' knows. I ran the "Ethernet Clinic" until the late 90s, when Windows 98 finally properly integrated the TCP/IP layer in the OS.
- Useful software on the Mac had a pretty consistent look & feel. On the PC? Even in Windows 3.1, it was all over the map. You might have a Windows native program, you might have a DOS program that launches in a console window, you might have a completely different graphical interface embedded in the software (Delphi apps, anyone?). Games were using DOS into the mid 90s because getting anything working right in Windows 3.1 was a total fuckin crap shoot.
Windows 95 started to fix things, finally. And Windows XP would finally bring an OS with stability comparable to Mac (arguably WIndows 2000 as well, but it was never really offered on non-corporate PCs).
The short version is: that $3000 Mac could do a lot more than that $1800 PC, even if the specs said that the CPU was faster on the PC.
RickRussell_CA 3 weeks ago • 100%
Well, that button probably dates from the late 80s or early 90s, when Apple was comparing Macs to branded IBM PS/2s and such that were sold to schools and enterprises.
And they weren't wrong, at the time. Those PS/2s were fuckin' expensive.
RickRussell_CA 3 weeks ago • 100%
Then they would have to remove the various hooks in the Settings app that actually call and open the Control Panel.
How many are there? I can think of several (advanced mouse settings, advanced network settings, printer properties, date & time has a callout back to the old panel..)
Windows 10 came out nine years ago, so they don't seem in any particular rush.
RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago • 100%
"Main Quest". What does that even mean? That's nonsense.
RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago • 90%
The idea that anyone finishes a game of Civilization is a myth.
RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago • 100%
How hard were the sources laughing?
RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago • 100%
What, is this a Canadian assassin?
RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago • 88%
I went through two defective EVGA cards within the original card's warranty period. On the second card, EVGA tried to deny my warranty.
They eventually made it right, after I shamed them on Reddit.
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 100%
Yeah I'm not excusing the driver parking it like a jackass.
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 30%
It depends on the use case, though. If that driver's main concern is getting in and out of muddy work sites safely, maybe carrying cargo is less important than 4WD cred.
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 90%
FYI, Fortnine is based in Canada.
Increases or decreases in the frequency of pedestrian-driver fatalities is affected by lots of things, although I suggest that poor road design and traffic laws might have a positive feedback effect when combined with limited forward visibility (e.g. a truck with poor forward visibility isn't a huge liability in Canadian road designs might be a larger liability in typical US road designs).
Unfortunately I don't know if we collect the right accident statistics. Perhaps the more relevant question is: are pickup trucks over-represented in pedestrian fatalities as a result of vehicle collision compared to other vehicles, and has that representation grown as truck grill heights have grown? I found a doc on Canadian pedestrian fatalities, but it classified all passenger vehicles as a single class -- and unfortunately that doesn't tell us much since most 4-wheel pickups are classified as passenger vehicles.
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 95%
Fortnine has an excellent video about this issue.
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 56%
I don't pretend to know what professional landscape contractors need for their job.
I'm all for f*ck cars but people who have actual jobs that involve moving stuff like gravel and sod probably have different needs than I do, I assume?
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 100%
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 100%
Yeah, but ISPs are rich and VPN providers are not. The most recent numbers I can find for Cox (2020) show $12.6 billion in revenue.
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 100%
So I'm getting a bit fascinated by this question, because I can do practical tests -- I've owned CD-Rs since the format was invented w/ the original Pinnacle SCSI CD writers circa 1994.
I don't think I have any CD-Rs that old any more, but I definitely have many from that era. Just for the heck of it, I popped an azo CD-R in my drive that I wrote in 1998, and I happen to have a hard drive copy of these files that I've carried forward on hard disks since that time as well (the CD-R was a backup).
I think the files are still in perfect condition -- was able to copy w/ verify all 360MB of MP3s (and yes, before you ask, I was making MP3s in 1998 using the Fraunhofer DOS command-line encoder), and compare them to my hard drive copies which show matching SHA512 hashes.
If I'm still around 25 years from now, I'll try again :-)
RickRussell_CA 1 month ago • 50%
What is a sport? Why does it exist?
It exists because people come together to play it. And maybe because some people are willing to pay for tickets to watch it, or sometimes because powerful people want it (to sell product, to train people in national defense, etc).
If you're not engaged with any of those stakeholders, you can't change the sport. Ideas about the limited women's class of sport will only change if the players & organizers want it to change -- or in the rarer case, because the ticket buyers demand change. But many of these sports are not driven by ticket sales, so there is limited opportunity to win hearts and minds.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
You claim induced me to do a little tidying on my CD collection. I just copied the oldest data CD that I own: the Hugo & Nebula Anthology 1993. It copied & verified no problem.
Unfortunately, that's probably the oldest proper test I can do. Although I was using CD-ROMs as early as 1986, e.g. in libraries, I didn't own any music or data CDs until about 1990. I could re-rip some of those old music CDs, I suppose, but I'm not sure it would tell us much as I'm not sure how to do a bit-for-bit comparison and I certainly don't want to listen to the files.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
I have many 30 year old CDs. They’re fine. They’ve just been kept in a typical home storage environment. I just ripped a Toad the Wet Sprocket CD I bought in 93.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 70%
I not telling you to accept or be happy with anything. I am saying that if you want women's sports to work the way you think they should work, you'll need to go through their governance bodies.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
I kept the CDs for a while, much to my wife’s annoyance, before donating them to a local charity
I took them out of the jewel cases and put them into a binder, 4 CDs per page. It hasn't exactly been a burden to carry it around for the last 20 years.
I couldn't tell you how old my oldest MP3s are, except to say that a significant portion of my music library consists of MP3s I made myself with the Fraunhofer DOS command line encoder, and the Cassady & Green SoundJam software for MacOS. Of course, SoundJam is the software that Apple purchased and re-badged it "iTunes".
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
The fact that CD sales are behind vinyl is a sign that the world has gone mad.
I mean... CD sales are only behind vinyl because vinyl has become collectible, while CDs offer no practical advantage over stored files on a hard drive or high-quality streaming.
And before you say, "but what about compression?", the fact is that even lossy compression is good enough that most audiophiles can't tell the difference. Audiophile publications started doing blind comparisons back in the 90s, and it quickly became clear that somewhere around 192kbps MP3 the ability of humans to statistically discern the compressed vs. uncompressed versions started to disappear.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 68%
That really doesn’t answer my question, it just splits it up between different bodies.
Sorry, that's just reality.
I can't give you a general answer that applies to all of women's sport, and for a specific answer regarding a particular women's sport, you'll need to consult with the governing body of that sport, and recognize that body may pander to interests (commercial, or the preferences of its participants and other stakeholders, etc) that have nothing to do with how you prefer to define "woman".
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 47%
The determination of who may compete in limited-class sports must be made by rules.
It’s not a matter of who you or I think is a woman who qualifies. Only the governing body of that sport makes that determination.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
Ladies be spending too much on clothes, AM I RIGHT?
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
He is on the UK Sex Offenders' registry.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 98%
Is this controversial? You're paying for the storefront.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 33%
angryupvote
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
By M. Night Shamaladingdong
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
One night of cough syrup makes a hard man humble.
RickRussell_CA 2 months ago • 100%
But can it run Crysis?
RickRussell_CA 3 months ago • 100%
Compared to Defense, State, Homeland Security, Attorney General...
"Alas, it is Extra Sharp!"
The Hu (stylized as The HU) is a Mongolian folk metal band formed in 2016. Incorporating traditional Mongolian instrumentation, including the morin khuur, the tovshuur, and throat singing, the band calls their style of music "hunnu rock", a term inspired by the Xiongnu, an ancient tribal confederation of uncertain origins, known as Hünnü in Mongolia. Some of the band's lyrics include old Mongolian war cries and poetry in the Mongolian language.
David Sosa was mistakenly arrested twice in the same county, by the same cops, on the same warrant issued decades earlier for a completely different David Sosa in another state, with different age, height, weight, and distinguishing tattoos.
Hey folks. A question for you. I'm RickRussell_CA on lemmy.world, kbin.social, lemmy.ml, and beehaw.org. When I saw that lemm.ee was coming up in the rankings, I decided that perhaps I should stake my claim here. But, as you may guess, [there is already a RickRussell_CA on lemm.ee](https://lemm.ee/u/RickRussell_CA). It's even using the profile picture that I had originally used on lemmy.world. It's made 1 comment (on a since deleted post) and no submissions. I've used the "Forgot password" link and it's definitely not my account, as it doesn't recognize my email. I understand that this is a risk under the Fediverse model, but I'm a bit worried that somebody staked this out as a way of impersonating me. Is there any way to address this? EDIT: lemm.ee admins saw this post, and banned the account. Thanks to them!
Fascinating story of a Danish traveler who visited every country on Earth, only by land and boat.
He's arguably the nation's most decorated journalist on law enforcement and criminal justice issues. He was released from The Washington Post last October and moved his new original content to Substack.
I already own all of these titles on multiple platforms, but if you're missing any of these classics, now's a good time to build out your Steam library for just a couple bucks per game.
``` 10 LET A$ = "LEMMY" 20 PRINT "I AM SO HAPPY TO BE HERE AT " 30 PRINT A$ ```