Spiracle

I’ve had issues since kernel 6.4. Since early December, one pair of Bluetooth headphones works again (mostly, with occasional connection issues), but the AirPods still fail to pair at all.

Perhaps this ASRM-ish reading of java class exceptions might calm you down? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCCTCVBFt6E

Copied from miku-chan03?

Here’s a dramatic reading of some of miku’s posts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDqik-Y27Uc
The same text as from the OP is the first one in the video.

you feel dirty

One might argue that this is the issue. Men watching porn feel dirty/wrong. Women masturbating and consuming their porn of choice is normalized.

Male sex toys exist, they are just not advertised. (Aside from hole shaped after specific, often fictional, women. Again, the focus is on the woman, not male pleasure.)

I’m pretty sure Valve Software surveys say that only a very small minority “easily spend over $2k on hardware”. Especially considering that VR would be in addition to whatever they spent on hardware already, and that these $2k would be on a single device instead of slowly upgrading hardware over time.

In any case, I see two possibilities:

1. VR gets so good it replaces traditional PCs, freeing up the funds used for that. (Apple might be going in that direction?)
2. VR gets so cheap (while still good enough) that everyone wants one in addition to whatever they have. (Facebook tried that. Partial success, since the experience was very limited.)

Personally, I’m hoping for the first, and I’m expecting it to come by 2025.

VR has been in this perpetual state of having awesome promises but never managing to actually deliver. It requires so many interconnected parts, which in turn need to miniaturized so extremely, that every iteration seemed like a let-down in many ways, or straight up unaffordable for the masses.

I’m speaking as someone who only tested VR devices ones, but has been keeping an eye on reviews and releases since the first oculus was announced. Frequently, I was excited about the possibilities, then disappointed at the product. Even that is just a tiny part of VR history.

Issues of low resolution, low or inconsistent refresh rates, or even any movement in VR at all, causing increasing amounts of nausea for many, will keep it a niche product for a while yet. Even with everything from trackers to powerful computers becoming cheaper by the month, a satisfying experience requires too big an investment in time and money for people to just try it out, imho.

Personally, I think the VR-future will be here once it becomes a normal work and gaming device. Apple’s Vision might finally deliver, but with a starting price of $3500, it will remain niche. Immersed’s announced headset will probably deliver for working in VR, replacing monitors and even acting like a low-end work machine. Wouldn’t be surprised if it costs up to $1500, though, which also stymies large-scale adoption.

Really depends on distro/use case/luck. I’ve had quite a few years without any issues, more with minimal and very rare irritations. The day-to-day experience continues is pleasant.

The few months have been somewhat more frustrating for me, and once I have a bit more leisure time I’ll switch distro to something that hopefully works better for me.

I’ve used KDE (including Plasma) on 8 GB RAM for years. Never had an issue, though I did only play old/indie games. On old hardware like this, I’d probably try it and maybe switch later if I notice that RAM is the bottleneck.

KDE Plasma (love the looks of it, though is my hardware enough?)

With 8 GB RAM and SSD, it should be plenty. Otherwise, I’d go with something else. XFCE is quite a solid experience, as I recall. No strong recommendations there, though. I’ve mostly used Cinnamon and KDE over the years.

Linux Mint is a classic choice. Positive: It has been recommended to newbies so much over so many years that there are tons of entry-level how-tos. Downside: Many of them are old and might be outdated by now. Be sure to always check whether the guide you are following is from 2010 or something…

Same really for all the Ubuntu distros. Kubuntu (=KDE+Ubuntu) worked fine for me.

I’ve read many people being very satisfied with Pop!_OS as well. Apparently, it’s a good distribution if you want everything to already be set up for gaming for you. Haven’t used it myself, though.

EndeavourOS is the one I’m personally planning to use whenever I next install an OS. The distro and the surrounding community have a great reputation for being user-friendly and reliable.

Yes and no. I’d prefer user choice/curating your own list of instance you interact with.

However, each community also adds further burden on moderation. The communities you allow affect the culture, and some are very clearly more trouble than others.

My current solution would be to have multiple accounts for different sections of the fediverse. Currently I only have a generic Kbin and a Lemmy account, but if you find a Lemmy instance that’s federated with the broader free-speech spectrum without just veering into insane territory itself, I’d be interested.

Kbin user here. It does not federate downvotes from lemmy. So far, I have a total of two (2) downvotes and every single interaction, including the one I got downvoted for, was quite positive.

No toxicity in normal interactions so far. The only (slightly) toxic comment sections were regarding meta topics of users complaining about toxicity elsewhere and/or wanting to defederate more communities. Even those discussions were nearly entirely polite and productive.

The only somwhat toxic topic I participated in was when one car-enthusiast complained about the fuckcars community and got called out throughout the comment section. Piling on like that was probably not the best way and they deleted their post some time after.

It did. I must have mixed them up. Not sure about the desktop/gaming divide, I mostly get my info from random articles.

Based on a brief search, you may be correct on both counts. I’ll fix my post. Thanks for pointing it out.

If Windows works fine for you and does not annoy you, there is no need to migrate.

Personally, I’ve been mostly happy using Linux as my sole desktop OS for ~15 years. However, I only switched because Windows kept breaking and reinstalling no longer fixed it. I couldn’t imagine going back now, but a big part is probably being used to it.

These days most major Linux distributions should be fine for desktop use.

Linux Mint Cinnamon use to be the go-to beginner distribution. Its design is apparently somewhat similar to Windows, giving you some initial familiarity. Linux Mint is also based on Ubuntu, which used to be so widespread that many support pages and simple how-to instruction still default to explaining it for Ubuntu.
(This can still lead to confusion if you search for “install [Windows program] Linux” and the instructions work for Ubuntu based distribution only, not for any other distros.)

The last few years, I’ve seen a switch to Arch-based distributions around. Valve itself switched away from Ubuntu to Arch in some ways. (On Steam, the system requirements still use Ubuntu as default.) SteamOS used to be based on Debian, which Ubuntu is related to, until the Steam Deck. Now it is based on Arch. More specifically, Valve seems to default to:

Base: Arch
Desktop environment: KDE Plasma (more powerful/options than Cinnamon)
Compositor base: Wayland for gaming, old X11 for Steam Deck’s desktop. (Apparently Wayland isn’t quite ready yet for that in their opinion.)

EDIT: Fixed thanks to feedback.

Arch itself is seen as a more technical distribution. There are extremely many support pages for every issue or question you may have, similar to Ubuntu, but some may be more difficult to understand. Still, support systems improve as the user base grows and Arch is growing.

For specific distributions, EndeavourOS is the one I’ve heard about being the most friendly. Manjaro is also beginner-friendly, but the folks who maintain it have some serious issues with seriously fucking things up sometimes.

https://itsfoss.com/arch-based-linux-distros/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVlD17OjFAc (Video compiling Manjaro fuckups.)

Dang it.

At least the new vaccine is supposed to protect against the newest variant. Not looking forward to another shot, though.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/what-to-know-about-the-eg5-variant

It failed to boot for me, too. Only worked when I stopped asking it to encrypt the hard drive.

To be honest, only laziness is stopping me from switching to another OS, though. Very poor experience so far.

Super simple ELI5:

• Electronics (computers/phones/laptops etc) work by running electricity through stuff (“conductors”).

• While moving, the electricity “bumps” into stuff on the way. That’s bad, and only the reason electronics get warm. Electric energy is turned into heat instead of doing its job.

• In a _super_conductor, electricity does not bump into stuff. Everything works smoothly, no waste heat. Batteries would last longer. Heat damage would no longer be (as much) a concern. Basically, all-around better.

The warmest current conductor I’ve read about only worked at below -27 °C, I think, and needed huge pressure, like on the ocean floor. Others work at surface pressure but require even lower temps.

Benefits of safe, cheaply mass-produced, room-temperature, [EDIT: and workable] surface-pressure superconductors:

• Massively better battery life of everything.

• Much, much more efficient use of anything that needs electricity, reducing cost of everything that needs electricity.

• Extremely efficient energy transfer (power lines etc can lose a lot of energy on the way), making electricity itself cheaper.

• Some inventions are suddenly much more feasible (Maglev trains and hoverboards are examples I’ve seen mentioned, but don’t ask me about the science behind that.)

• Electronics can become smaller, yet again. It would probably make Smartwatches and “Spatial Computing” devices more feasible.

EDIT: Based on one YT video, I’ll add that the material also needs to be able to worked into various forms and solid/stable enough not to crumble over time. Apparently, there are some technically great superconductors already, but they crumble apart or lose their superconductor status if electricity flows through them the wrong way, or something, making them useless.

I remember having to figure out why audio was not working on a new installation. That was once, probably ~5 years ago and was fixed quickly once I found a solution online.

I’d vastly prefer my ears to stop working intermittently due to a FOSS driver issue over a corporate overlord installing bloat, spyware, demanding regular payment for the privilege of them not deleting my driver, just to drop support for them some years later anyway.

It was an often-recommended distro a couple of years ago. When SteamOS 3 was on the horizon, some people recommended it as probably the closest to SteamOS 3 on the market. Now, I haven’t bothered uninstalling it on my old computer yet.

Finally. I haven’t seen a single positive use of these yet due to the poor performance. Only slightly more accurate than professors or lawyers asking ChatGPT whether something was written by ChatGPT.

Direct link to the (short) report this article refers to:

https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:vb515nd6874/20230724-fediverse-csam-report.pdf

https://purl.stanford.edu/vb515nd6874

After reading it, I’m still unsure what all they consider to be CSAM and how much of each category they found. Here are what they count as CSAM categories as far as I can tell. No idea how much the categories overlap, and therefore no idea how many beyond the 112 PhotoDNA images are of actual children.

1. 112 instances of known CSAM of actual children, (identified by PhotoDNA)
2. 713 times assumed CSAM, based on hashtags.
3. 1,217 text posts talking about stuff related to grooming/trading. Includes no actual CSAM or CSAM trading/selling on Mastodon, but some links to other sites?
4. Drawn and Computer-Generated images. (No quantity given, possibly not counted? Part of the 713 posts above?)
5. Self-Generated CSAM. (Example is someone literally selling pics of their dick for Robux.) (No quantity given here either.)

Personally, I’m not sure what the take-away is supposed to be from this. It’s impossible to moderate all the user-generated content quickly. This is not a Fediverse issue. The same is true for Mastodon, Twitter, Reddit and all the other big content-generating sites. It’s a hard problem to solve. Known CSAM being deleted within hours is already pretty good, imho.

Meta-discussion especially is hard to police. Based on the report, it seems that most CP-material by mass is traded using other services (chat rooms).

For me, there’s a huge difference between actual children being directly exploited and virtual depictions of fictional children. Personally, I consider it the same as any other fetish-images which would be illegal with actual humans (guro/vore/bestiality/rape etc etc).