How Mint became one of the most popular Linux distros.

Regardless of what the article says, Mint is now popular for two reasons. The first is that it is one of the few OSes anywhere in current release that is concerned only with getting work done efficiently and without hassle, that does not attempt to force one to use a phone or tablet interface on a 24”+ monitor.

The second is that Canonical is now about the same as Microsoft at its worst, and people want to get away from that.

We use Linux Mint on our home file and application server, and it works very well.

Rachael Price in the lead. What a voice. I have some of their studio-recorded songs, but they are so much better live like many great artists. And Bridget Kearney on stand-up bass. Holy hell, she kills it.

Fun song. The skeleton bodysuit the female singer is wearing is gloriously hilarious.

It’s funny how people insist on telling me that I am using my computer wrong when I state how terrible Windows 8 is for doing any real work, even though I do everything they do three times as fast as they can.

If you’re not doing much, a flashy interface makes you feel more efficient while actually reducing your productivity. I’ve noticed that over and over in life, and Windows 8 just confirms it.

A New Twist in International Relations: The Corporate Keep-My-Data-Out-of-the-U.S. Clause.

The international company that I work for is already doing this. Be interesting to see what happens as business pushes back against surveillance, as it damages them directly. Not good that defense of some of our basic rights has been subrogated to corporations, with their only real concern being that it harms the bottom line.

Kevin Drum and I are on the same (high-resolution) page about how much pixel density matters if you don’t want your eyes to bleed out of your face.

I’m a bug on pixel density. As far as I’m concerned, the first real tablet in the world was the iPad 3, with its Retina display. I won’t use anything with much less resolution than that.

Right on. I’ve waited my whole fucking life for screens like that, and am still waiting for 4K monitors to be cheap enough for me to want to buy one on the desktop. I figure I’ll have one in about a year and a half since another large project stands in the middle.

I’ve noticed that I read the same material on my iPad about 50% faster than I do on other screens because the fonts due to the pixel density are so vastly, incredibly superior.

I am always amazed when people look at eye-shatteringly bad fonts on low-res screens and cannot tell the difference between that and the gorgeous iPad screen. There’s just no way I can see that much better than other people (due to the limitations of physics), so I can’t explain it at all.

The most damaging and widespread fiction in the US that both the Left, Right and Middle believe and implicitly subscribe to is that the government’s fiscal affairs in any way resemble that of a household or have any relation at all to bank accounts, loans or saving as experienced by the average person.

Anyone’s checking account or piggy bank under the bed is about as related to the monetary affairs of a sovereign fiat-currency-issuing governmental body as a roller skate is to an interstellar space probe.

I was going to say that it is vastly more complicated, but that isn’t even the case. It’s that the two are utterly unrelated.

I was reacting to the many utterly dumb and vapid comments that are found here, though those comments only hint at what set me off.

Why does this matter? Because in just one example if the government prints up a bunch of money and simply gives it to a bunch of people in a depressed area – everyone is better off. Including the people of course who will oppose the other group getting something for “free” as the receiving group will then be able to spend their money buying products and services from the group in opposition. (This is known as “welfare,” by the way, at least in the US.)

Yes, yes, inflation. Inflation does occur in a supply-constrained world. Does that look like the world we are in to you?

For instance, if the US government simply sent every single person in Mississippi $10,000 right now (the poorest state in the union), the entire country would be better off immediately.

Where did that money come from? It didn’t come from anywhere. Why won’t it spark inflation? Because the economy is and has been for a long time nearly deflationary due to depressed demand.

But one example of many possible.

What sort of dumbass at Mozilla thought it was a good idea to remove the favicon from the address bar? I know, it’s been gone a long time (since Firefox 14), but what a huge design fail.

I only noticed it because I changed my Mozilla variant to get away from idiotic Mozilla decisions and the extension I had to make that part of browser behave rationally had not yet been re-installed.

It seems like the entire user interface is now being designed by people who have neither seen nor used a browser or computer in their lives.

All-Cash Home Sales Hit Record 42% of Sales.

The rich crashed the economy, and are buying the housing stock so they can rent it back to us at inflated prices. Disaster capitalism at its finest.

(And no, I don’t think it was a formal conspiracy, just very powerful people looking out for their best interests selfishly with no attempt at regulatory restraint.)

On average, I sleep 18 hours less per week than my partner, who sleeps a normal amount.

That is a whole lot of extra time I have in my week compared to most people. Not something I am attempting to do, and I don’t think getting a too-short amount of sleep is something to be proud of – especially when it affects you negatively.

I’ve just always been an incredibly light sleeper who doesn’t sleep much or at “normal” times. Can’t help it. Doesn’t harm me and couldn’t sleep more if I tried, so I appreciate the extra time.