linuxhansl

Some weeks ago I wanted to deactivate my Twitter account. I hadn't used it for a while, and it claimed that my account was locked. Nothing was sent from it in many months, so it wasn't clear why/how it would be locked now.

For some reason you cannot deactivate your account when it is locked.

So I contacted Twitter demanding that as EU citizen (which is true) I hereby demand all data about me that Twitter or its subsidiaries might have, including account data, to be deleted under the GDPR... Or alternatively unlock my account so that I would be able to deactivate it.

They were actually pretty responsible. My account was unlocked 30 minutes later and I was able to deactivate it.

I thought that was fixed with Kernel 5.15.35

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-51...

Did you have this kernel, or an earlier one? (Perhaps there're still many problems to fix)

What do you mean with "old times"? :)

That's basically still what happens. Fedora automates this nicely with akmods, which automatically rebuilds these source only modules and installs them when you update the kernel. Has been working smoothly for a while, but it is fundamentally the same thing still.

Interesting. Didn't think about it this way.

Why is it (typically) not a problem is Europe? Unions seems negotiate reasonable contracts, raises, and safety measures there.

And why is a union leader who abuses the power not removed from that position? It's not benefiting the union members.

In the end, looking at this in black or white (including your statement) is part of the problem. Unions are neither universally good, nor are they universally bad.

> The managers were told they were being fired as part of an “organizational change,”

Nit: That language implies that they were laid off, not fired. The timing is a stupid move from Amazon, and these employees will likely be able to make a good case in court.

Being from Europe I have mixed feelings about unions here in the US...

On the one hand I think they are essential to tilt the uneven power dynamic between employer and employee towards the employee, and are thus dearly needed!

On the other hand, unions seem to often go overboard with impractical demands and are more political than in Europe, which damaged their reputation - I think - and contributed to their demise over the past few decades. Which is truly a shame! (I'm reminded of alleged cases where only a union worker is allow to plug a power plug into an outlet at exorbitant prices. But this might a rumor too.)

Any opinions here?

That. I used to use bumblebee, but with recent NVidia drivers it's automatic.

That said, if I want to start a process with using the NVidia driver and card I use this script.

  #!/bin/bash
  __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 \
  __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia \
  __VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only \
  exec "$@"

It's measured from the battery when unplugged: /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now

> However, a dark cloud remains: market data suggests that 70 percent of U.S. equity trading is now executed by high-frequency trading firms

Is it just me, or was this one of the scarier statements in the article? High frequency trading does not seem to add anything, it's not a market instrument to balance anything. It's more like gambling with the odds slightly in your favor.

Oh course, I'm a laymen when it comes to high frequency trading and might totally wrong.

Big fan of these with Linux.

Have used T42, T500, T440p, X1E gen2 throughout the years, all with versions of Fedora.

Most things just work.

The X1E gen2 needed a bit work to curb (idle) power consumption. The SD card reader would prevent the CPU package from entering C10, and the fans were always running even when the machine was not warm.

I have the version with the NVidia dedicated GPU, which works pretty well. It's off most of the time, and is only turned on when needed.

Idle power consumption is now as low of 3.9w.

Hmm... I have the model with the NVidia GPU. By default I have it turned off (using no extra power) and I have a simple script that I use to turn it on when I want to.

ThinkFan works well to control the fans too.

Lastly I found that the SD card reader prevented the CPU package from entering C10.

With all that I find that in idle mode my laptop (X1E Gen2, almost identical to P1 Gen2) consumes 3.9w, which is pretty good. The fan only turns on when I compile something large or do something with the NVidia card.

Come on. This is not helpful. I am well aware of how these patents are phrased (apparatus, etc, etc) to work around the fact that just software cannot be patented, having been involved with quite a few of them.

This! I love this!!

Either patents have a place and value, and they should be taxed (even when you are not using them to actually build anything). Or they shouldn't exist.

Software patents and patents on business processes should not be allowed. Period. An idea has no cost and society does not benefit from granting monopolies on ideas.

Note that I am referring specifically to patents, not Copyright. Copyright protects a specific _expression_ of an idea and is an important concept. This is true for both proprietary and open source software.

Also other areas where research is an enormous cost factor (for example medical research) patents are essential to protect the cost of such research (or nobody would do it).

Edit: Spelling

Hmm... I just downgraded my Internet because I did not feel like paying the cable fees/taxes (I do not watch cable or sports) and they came bundled with the higher speed. (You can now guess who my provider might be.)

My guaranteed speed is just 50Mbit/s, and despite being a software engineer and streaming movies, I did not notice a difference. My son has to wait longer for his steam downloads sometimes.

25GBit/s is impressive, though, and if I could get it here without strings attached I'd probably go for it, too.

BTW. My first experience was a dial-up model with 9600 baud, so maybe my expectations are just lower :)

I think it's important to take a hard line here. Otherwise in the future we are not going to own any of the devices we buy.

We're almost there with our phones. At least on Android one can install 3rd party apps.

So I think RMS is spot on.

I like to own my device. Write, compile, and install software of my choosing on it, without some company getting into the way of that.

Companies want to control and monetize every possible use of our devices. We can't let that happen unchecked.

The again, in reality I take a less idealistic stance:

- I accept that the BIOS, drivers for the graphics card and the wifi chip are - for the time being - proprietary.

- For everything else I see absolutely no reason why I should use any closed source software.

- My OS is open source, all applications are open source, all games I (occasionally) play are open source.

"quoates", "than", "reliefs"... Re-reading my message. My spelling foo is truly terrible.

I am reminded of various quoates throughout my life:

1. "The human mind avoids nothing as much as thinking." -- Unknown, quoted by my dad

2. "We used to agree on the facts, and than argue about what do do. Now we simple disagree on the facts" -- Friend of Mine

3. "The quickest way to release stress hormones from the brain, unfortunately, is to 'beat' up someone else." -- My therapist

(1) Leads to humans always gravitating towards an explanation that reliefs them from thinking. Simple, short, populist messages are perfect for that.

(2) Has us end discussions before we even get to talk about what to do.

(3) Has us make feel good when we can "beat" up someone else on social media.

IMHO, it is bringing these three together in social media, and more importantly doing so mostly subconsciously, that makes this so toxic.

Edit: Layout

There is one simple rule: If your bank calls you for anything, tell them you call them back, then look up their number you have (or the one on your credit credit or whatever) and call them back. Period.

Even if your bank is really calling you they will still understand if you call them back on the number you have.

I gave a talk on that almost 20 years ago...

Basically you have (1) something you know (like a password), (2) something you have (like some device or key), and (3) something you are (like a fingerprint and iris scan).

Back then the accepted trade-off was that have any two of these three is good enough for most case, and for really critical stuff you need all three.

The MFAs in question here attempt (1) and (2), but do a bad job on (2).

Finally!

First Intuit lobbies to prevent free tax returns by claiming that can provide their own (very sketchy) free service for that. Then they have the gall to opt out that very program which they used to prevent free tax returns in the first place.

I wish they would just go away.

It's simply the best there is. I had used various of the adblock** plugins until I came across uBlock Origin.

Whatever it is you want to block, Javascript, fonts, ads, etc, it's just works, with global defaults and per-page exceptions.

I like the Lenovos (not affiliated with them).

Had various of their laptops: T42, T500, T440p, X1 Extreme gen2 (dumb name, but nice laptop).

They usually run Linux without any problems, are solidly built (even after being taking over from IBM).

The possibility of stopping oil imports from Russia is putting additional pressure on the RUB - that's what I read at least.

There's nothing to believe, really. If, and as long as, it correctly explains experimental evidence we can use it to make predictions.

Funny. I found my various software patents in there.

For most of them - even though they are my patents - I cannot determine from the patent what it is that I have invented.

Sounds like waylaying to me. Hear me out...

I can see a reasonable processing fee, and even a reasonable establish-the-purchase fee. Perhaps in the order of - or a bit more than - a credit card. So maybe somewhere between 5 and 15%. (Depends on how much more likely users find an apps through the app-store as opposed to a web search.)

Anything above is abusing Apple's market dominating position. Especially because there are no (official) ways to install 3rd party apps on iPhones et al.

Just MHO.

Either you work on Open Source - which allows everyone to use it within the scope of the respective license; or you do not.

Working on Open Source a lot myself, I have absolutely no sympathy for the developer. If you do not like others to use your work, then don't do it. Whether the "other" is a large corporation or not is immaterial.

Now, this does point a problem which has bothered me before: The commoditization of every little aspect of functionality. That leads to 1000's or 10000's of dependencies that are impossible to track.

Heh. We all know that news are sensational by their very nature. Nobody reports all the good things that happen, or on the bad stuff that did not happen.

No, my car was not stolen and no it hasn't been broken into, yet. (knock knock knock)

Don't doubt it's happening, I have never seen a car with the window or trunk open.

Wasn't going to respond, but just feel compelled to...

I have lived in the Bay Area for over 20 years, 12 years in SF, and now in the East Bay. I'm in SF, Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, and Contra Costa at least once a week.

Personally I do not know anybody who has been assaulted or robbed and I have never been assaulted or robbed. I frequently am in SF downtown, and in Oakland/Emeryville. Both considered "hotspots"; nothing ever happened to me and never felt unsafe.

I do not feel exhausted. I never did anything more than my job (and, yes, I'm in "tech". And nobody ever yelled at me for it.)

The nature, landscape, the parks, hikes, culture, weather are pretty awesome and I'll likely never move away.

Is everything perfect? Of course not!

Is there a problem with homelessness? Yes there is! Maybe we should do what other cities and counties have done and just chase the homeless out to somewhere else, kick the can down the road? HELL NO! I happen to work at a company that actually does something about that.

My sampling set is obviously small (my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances), and so seems the author's sampling set.

The author undoubtedly had his experiences and that's a shame. I'm just here to convey a different view on things and not all of us feel that way.

I think the mere fact that use of log4j is so wide-spread answers your first question. It's not that simple to do it (well) yourself.

That said, I do agree that there is a problem with large dependency trees. It seems building a simple hello-world app with Maven ends up downloading about 1/2 the internet. :)