The short rant:

1. You don’t need to ask which distro, ask which mint version
2. The answer to #1 is MATE or xfce.

The longer rant:

I’ve been using xubuntu a bit, for guest OS in desktop VM, but I don’t really know if I like it enough to recommend it. It’s less rough than Arch, but so is 24 grit sandpaper.

Like others have said, there are many contenders for your use case, but mint stands out. I’m probably gonna go with mint once windows 10 stops getting updates. Mint or parrot. But TBH I don’t want to daily drive parrot either.

Which version of mint then? That’s really the question to ask. And if you ask me then I don’t care for all the bells and whistles, I don’t need animations or semi transparent windows. And when Ubuntu went with unity back in the day I walked. So I guess I want my GUI to stay the same. So I’d go with MATE or xfce.

Why would you take down a website for a c++ compression library?

I get it, I do. Far removed consequences, in either time or distance, are hard to get motivated by, especially if you have issues closer to yourself. All the things you list are not exactly stuff Trump’s going to provide. I mean he wanted to get rid of the ACA in his first term.

Problem is that being a superpower requires maintenance. It would seem that Trump doesn’t want to maintain that status https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-2024-reelection-pull-out-of-nato-membership/676120/

I don’t want Europe’s security policies to be dependent on the US. What my country’s governments have been doing since the 80s is nothing short of irresponsible. FFS in the Danish navy the largest vessels are our two frigates, crewed by 100 personnel each. One isn’t seaworthy and the other can’t fire its main gun, because we only have one targeting system, and it’s on the other ship. Luckily it seems that my government has been awakened. And it would seem that a lot of other countries have been too.

But in the end, if Russia can get a seize fire in Ukraine, if Trump can get the Ukrainians to stop defending themselves. Then Putin will be able to regroup, and be able to rebuild his armed forces to be able to attack NATO countries, while Trump’s still president. And if NATO falls, because the US doesn’t get involved, then what’s stopping China from sinking some American boats to secure the South China Sea? While Iran goes full force on Isreal and North Korea invades the south?

I’m not saying that it’s a given, but this scenario is far more likely with Trump at the wheel than almost anyone else.

So while world peace isn’t the sole responsibility of the US, it kind of depends on the US at the moment.

Ok, so I’ll be straight with you. I want to respond to your whole comment, but I need to stop engaging in these discussions. So know that I read all that you wrote, and I want to respond to everything. But I need to limit myself.

Do you mean rioting? […]

I don’t know. I don’t think so. But something has to be done, and it can’t wait until the next election. I’m not advocating violence. Part of me wants to say “eat the rich” and “if enough people shows up with torches and pitchforks, what is Musk going to do?”

But violence isn’t solving anything, and besides it would play right into the MAGA dream of a civil war. What has to happen is to copy what MAGA has been doing. Go after local positions. Put prodemocracy persons on school boards, town councils, election boards. Vote in prodemocracy officials like prosecutors, judges, and sheriffs (if any of them aren’t just appointed by now)

The guy even won the popular vote, possibly fair and square. Are you under the impression that there is some action we can take at this point to improve the situation?

He only won the popular vote because of the inactions of good people. Prodemocracy movements need an inspiring leader and a cause. Apparently “save the US, save the world” wasn’t inspiring enough. IDK what would be, but getting the non fascist Americans motivated and organized is imperative.

Refusing to admit the part the Dems play is part of the problem as well. We can’t keep doing the same thing we’ve always done, and if we don’t learn from this we are truly doomed.

I agree, and the part of that paragraph you didn’t quote says pretty much the same thing.

What’s so weird to me is how Americans can just be “oh bother! The not fascist prodemocracy party lost. If only I would care enough to do something, oh well better luck next time.” why aren’t you guys screaming?

Trump’s relationship with Putin is going to change the current world order. You know the world? It’s where the US is?

If that’s too abstract, then look at the remaining SCOTUS judges. With Trump in the Whitehouse then Alito and Thomas can step down and be replaced with more Gen Xers ensuring right-wing dominance for the next 30 years. Repealing Roe v Wade is going to be dwarfed by the what’s coming now.

Harris wasn’t ideal. Harris was as interesting as a corporate newsletter. But at least she wasn’t a threat to democracies worldwide. Harris would have meant less injustice, but not “no injustice”. But because people couldn’t get no injustice, they stayed home and got 20x the injustice they would have gotten otherwise. And now they’re justifying that? GTFO!

The US political system is broken. But it’s broken deliberately by one side to suit them, while the other side is too busy blaming each other for their own common failures to do anything.

Thanks for enabling Trump you ginormous ass hat. I will remember your entitled self righteous indignation when Ukraine falls. When Trump talks about eradicating the Palestinian people. And when Russia starts taking small bites of NATO countries, while Trump refuses to respond to article 5 requests.

Sending a message to the democratic party was something you could have done before the election. By getting involved. But noooo let’s send the message by handing the US to a fascist and convicted felon, that’s far easier.

Edit: I just saw the .ml now. Good one tankie, you got me all riled up. I believe you can now collect a kopek from your boss for your trouble.

Why? More than 50% of US voters just elected a convicted felon and rapist. Using the politicians’ utterances against them is not going to do anything.

This AI craze has gone too far. Please don’t actually produce random AI generated product ideas.

I can’t speak for Germany, but I guess that it won’t be much different than Denmark where my experience lies.

Almost all my recommendations has been mentioned before, but I’d like to point out:

• RS in my experience is reliable about 90% of the time. If you put in an order in can arrive in several shipments. I ordered 50 pieces of something got 46 from a UK warehouse and 4 from Germany. That’s another thing, some stuff ships from Frankfurt am Main, so no waiting for imports.
• Reichelt is good for cheap instruments. I’ve never used them for components, I prefer RS for that, but for instruments they carry some of the Chinese stuff that you can’t get other than on ebay or ali.
• Digikey stocks so much electronic components that sometimes you can’t avoid them. Where RS is really fast, their stock and prices are more suited for prototyping than production. Digikey is where you can get the specific series of cap and value you need for your repair project. Digikey will handle all the import and customs stuff as well.
• https://el-supply.com/ is new to the post. They’ve been in business since the 70s, but is primarily targeted towards Denmark. But they do have an international site. Some times they can be extremely cheap compared to RS and Digikey, especially with regards to stuff used for teaching electronics. I’ve been a customer since the late 90s privately, and I’ve placed several orders each year professionally since the early 10s as well. Never been let down.

If there is no punishment, why would you be afraid to be caught?

I think the idea is that the thing that stops you in the moment is “I likely won’t get away with it” more than “if they catch me there’ll be hell to pay … but only if”.

I mean you’re (as in the informal general usage of “you”, not as the second person pronoun) not going to pull out your phone while driving, if you’re next to a cop. But if there’s no one around that even looks like an undercover traffic cop?

Human brains are bad at thinking in long term consequences, but immediate consequences? Those we understand.

But should we even punish?

I don’t mean to troll, so let me explain. Why do we punish? I think it’s two fold, we punish to deter crimes and we punish to exact revenge. But the fear of punishment doesn’t deter crime https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence and that leaves revenge as the only both intended and actual outcome of punishment.

Is the current costs of running a complicated criminal justice system really worth it, if all we get from it is revenge? Does revenge make society better? I don’t think so.

I’m not advocating for anarchy either. There should be consequences for criminals. I’m just not sure what the consequences should be, but punishment is ineffective. I get that we have personal responsibility, and free will. And I’m not trying to excuse criminals, I’m just saying that punishment doesn’t work.

Meh, why do today what you can put off until it’s someone else’s problem?

It’s not even like you leave for future you, that guy hates you already^1 you leave it for someone entirely unknown. They won’t even know who to blame.

^1 Shayne Smith banned from karate reference.

Bummer, superscript doesn’t work in any client, does it work for anybody else? Come to think about it, how stupid am I, I’ve used ^ extensively in this fucking thread smh

How about dead SSNs between ‘36 and ‘62?

That’s why I extrapolated from the 1962-2018 numbers and came to a total number of 174.4 x 10^6 deaths.

The whole situation is ridiculous if you ask me.

Oh I agree. But it’s a classic issue with old databases. We had a similar issue awhile back with license plates in Denmark. The plates had been assigned inefficiently by incrementing parts annually. So we had unused ranges as well as disused plates. But somehow nobody had made a list of these plates.

SSN’s are also given out to immigrants as well though

Oh snap! Thanks for bringing that up. Adding another million each year, and assuming a constant green card rate since before WW2(!), adds another 88 million spent SSNs. With an additional million green cards annually, that makes the calculation (1000-510.3-88)x10^6 SSNs /4.695 x 10^6 SSNs/year = 85.6 years.

So the US has until about the end of the century to figure it out.

You can actually get a new SSN already, if you have strong cultural or religious issues with your SSN https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-02220

So no need to implement a check in software, let the people do it for you.

Oh, I didn’t realize that we were in the presence of a connoisseur in the ways of mathematics. /s

The first SSNs were issued in 1936 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number

According to the death master file entry in wiki 111x10^6 SSNs died between 1962 and 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Master_File

That’s 1.982 x 10^6 x deaths x year^-1. Assume that number to be a constant during the period 1936-2024

1.982 x 10^6 x deaths x year^-1 x (2024-1936) x year = 174.4 x 10^6 deaths

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States there’s 335.9 x 10^6 residents, but I can’t tell if they are citizens with SSNs, but I’m going to assume that for now.

So (335.9 + 174.4) x 10^6 is 510.3 x 10^6 spent SSNs.

According to the same demographics wiki article the birth rate is 11 births per 1000 population. Death rate is 10.4 deaths per 1000 population. Because I’m just doing back of the envelope estimation for fun, while trying to manage my hangover in the early afternoon, I’m not going to create an exponential function to describe population growth. Instead I’m going to only consider future the US population a constant and not consider the 200 x 10^3 annual net growth (it only affects the next year’s growth by 120 anyway)

With all of that BS out of the way, at the present birthrate the US requires 3.695 x 10^6 new SSNs annually. The total amount SSNs in the current scheme is (10^9) - 1. I’m going to be leaving out the -1. 10^9 total SSNs - 510.3x^6 spent SSNs leaves 489.7 x 10^6 SSNs available. 489.7/3.695 is 132.5.

So in conclusion, assuming a constant population, the US can go for another 132.5 years with the present scheme without having to reuse any SSN.

The LMS we use at my school can’t handle multiple students with the same name. So we have John Smith and John Smith-2. We have like 2000 new students each year, and we have recently transitioned to this LMS. Smh

I don’t know to what extent law enforcement would go to catch a pirate in Denmark. But a guy just got 30days for seeding about 800 movies, so I’m not taking any chances. If I was ever to use p2p, and this is purely theoretical, I would find a public (or open private) wifi, use an external wifi adapter and a virtual machine that doesn’t contain any personal information.

Do you trust your seed box provider to not rat you out? Or at the very least not have identifying information on you that will be seized in a raid?

How do you do this with zero trust towards any provider? I mean unless you hijack a neighbors wifi, any provider can fuck up their OPSEC and get you burned.