secretfire's recent activity
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Comment on A list of independent internet forums in ~tech
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Comment on A list of independent internet forums in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentFor some reason I've always been blocked from the site on my Linux desktop, whereas I can access it just fine on my emergency 10-year old Macbook Air. This has persisted through multiple IP...For some reason I've always been blocked from the site on my Linux desktop, whereas I can access it just fine on my emergency 10-year old Macbook Air. This has persisted through multiple IP addresses and different VPN connections (including no VPN connection at all). Given the highly tech-oriented focus of the forum, blocking Linux connections is... A choice.
But from the little I've seen of it, it seems pretty good; basically the same vibe as ~comp here on Tildes, though somewhat more opinionated (a very common vibe in tech forums).
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Comment on Is there a way to filter out everything posted by a user? in ~tildes
secretfire Link ParentFWIW I've always appreciated your perspective when you've disagreed with things I've said on here; I primarily lurk and have a tendency to only share my opinion when it's a negative one in...FWIW I've always appreciated your perspective when you've disagreed with things I've said on here; I primarily lurk and have a tendency to only share my opinion when it's a negative one in contrast to the prevailing sentiment (i.e. I'm a bit of a buzzkill lol), and your more level-headed stances on tech things are always insightful and have made me think about things differently. Coming from Reddit it's nice when discourse happens in a form other than a person who watched a Youtube video on a topic saying 'you're wrong and stupid'.
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Comment on PC upgrade vs replacement in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentCloud gaming is pretty terrible right now, I agree, but long-term it probably won't be, what with datacenters popping up everywhere and AI technology getting better and better. I think long-term...Cloud gaming is pretty terrible right now, I agree, but long-term it probably won't be, what with datacenters popping up everywhere and AI technology getting better and better. I think long-term it could end up being a viable product, and as soon as it happens I think it's likely it'll get pushed really heavily. Even ignoring the possibility of malicious intent of the technofascist variety, what with the monopolisation and control of resources being taken from the people (what's that famous Dune quote about people letting computers do all the thinking for them?), it might just make financial sense, sorta similar to how Amazon was able to prosper for so long just because it was often simply the cheapest and best option for the average consumer, being well-established in a field (global e-commerce) where the barrier for entry is really high.
Maybe I'm wrong, and it'll quietly die out. I'm not an economist, perhaps the idea isn't actually feasible in the long run. But gaming as a whole is becoming a pretty expensive hobby in a way it hasn't been for decades, in both the console and PC markets, and it's affecting the industry in major ways. Ideally the response (IMO) would be a focus on optimising games for less powerful hardware and a shift away from the billion-dollar AAA blockbusters. But it's also possible the industry will just... Not do that, because optimising at the low level can be expensive without a huge financial incentive. People don't like 500GB Call of Duty titles, but they still sell, and I doubt shrinking it to 300GB or whatever would affect the sales figures too much. But that strategy has only been popular because consumer hardware, generally, has had resources to spare - Same basic reason modern webpages tend to be dozens of megabytes in size while displaying basically nothing. I'm curious to see what will happen when those types of games hit a userbase that simply... Doesn't have those abundant resources. Maybe the answer will be smaller games, or maybe it won't be, and AI datacenters will come to fix all the problems, for a small fee. I don't know, honestly.
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Comment on PC upgrade vs replacement in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentI genuinely think the greatest financial decision I've made this decade has been buying my new computer last year rather than this year! At the time (March '25) I was even considering waiting a...I genuinely think the greatest financial decision I've made this decade has been buying my new computer last year rather than this year! At the time (March '25) I was even considering waiting a few months for Black Friday sales, but I didn't trust prices to stay down with the way things were trending even then, and I'm so glad I went with my gut. As someone who lives mostly off of freelance work, it's very possible that I straight up couldn't have gotten as much work done on my old rig that I can on the new one.
On a rather pessimistic note, I do wonder if this is maybe just how the market is going to be in the future. Maybe the prices will continue to be inaccessible for the average consumer, and people will end up with essentially low-powered terminals that get everything done through cloud services. Half of all enterprise software is browser apps at this point, and Cloud Gaming is being massively pushed, with the promise that you can play whatever intensive games you want for a simple subscription cost. Maybe consumer electronics will all just be replaced by renting a chunk of datacenter off of your neighborhood techno-oligarch. The next stage in 'you'll own nothing and be happy'.
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Comment on PC upgrade vs replacement in ~tech
secretfire LinkI'd recommend a replacement with those specs, but it does really depend on what you're using it for. Though keep in mind that it's probably the most expensive time in the last decade to build a PC...I'd recommend a replacement with those specs, but it does really depend on what you're using it for. Though keep in mind that it's probably the most expensive time in the last decade to build a PC with DRAM prices so stupidly high.
Personally I'd recommend future-proofing with DDR5 if you can afford it, but it ends up being a rabbithole of upgrades for any architecture change. I ended up Ship-of-Theseusing my rig last year when I was having CPU bottleneck issues (music production) and decided on a replacement, but I figured there was no point in getting an older spec for a build I'd hope to be using in a decade, so I got an AM5 processor. But that meant I needed a new compatible motherboard, which meant new DDR5 RAM, new fans, a new cooler, new PSU, all of which needed a larger case, and at the end I just thought 'screw it' and got a new graphics card for the whole thing. I was fortunate in my timing since I built the thing only a few months before the data centre boom hit; it would literally cost me triple the amount of money to build that machine today.
Whatever you decide to go for, 16GB of RAM is the bare minimum these days and that upgrade should be your top priority. For quick and (relatively) cheap performance boosts you could also consider a new SSD (emphasis on relatively since SSD prices are insane now) and maybe installing Linux if it fits your use case. Even just reinstalling Windows from scratch helps a ton if you've not done it since building.
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Comment on Is there a way to filter out everything posted by a user? in ~tildes
secretfire Link ParentI'm surprised by the number of people already in this thread who evidently have grievances against someone or another (and if the five votes on this comment in two minutes is any indication, very...I'm surprised by the number of people already in this thread who evidently have grievances against someone or another (and if the five votes on this comment in two minutes is any indication, very possibly towards one single user); maybe it's because I block all the politics-related tags here but I've never seen anyone in particular I'd consider that objectionable.
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Comment on How has climate change affected your life / plans? in ~enviro
secretfire LinkI've moving internationally specifically to escape the 'new normal' of my country. It isn't just the rising temperature and prices, it's the secondary effects this instability has had, and will...I've moving internationally specifically to escape the 'new normal' of my country. It isn't just the rising temperature and prices, it's the secondary effects this instability has had, and will continue to have, on every aspect of society. Every government is rushing to grab as much power as possible in order to make sure when shit hits the fan further their positions won't be under threat. So all while the world catches on fire and food and water get less and less stable each year, we also have to deal with the surveillance state, the technofascist oligarchy, the degradation of human rights, mass disinformation spread on the internet by bad actors, rewriting of history, hyper-acceleration of CO2 emissions in the name of profit, and more. But at least we'll have a million fucking datacentres that are apparently meant to create value... Somewhere, I guess, to someone.
Opted out of my pension too because I'm never going to retire in this life and I may as well spend the money now while there are still nice things to buy. The long-term plan is to keep hopping countries, trending more and more north, until the dystopia is truly inescapable.
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Comment on The Online Accent Database: Explore authentic accents with a growing video library of real-world interviews in ~humanities.languages
secretfire LinkIt's kinda neat, but I object to them calling themselves an archive when all they do is link to Youtube videos. If any of those Youtube videos goes down, they'll need to find another source for...It's kinda neat, but I object to them calling themselves an archive when all they do is link to Youtube videos. If any of those Youtube videos goes down, they'll need to find another source for the accent. That's not an archive, that's a directory.
The execution isn't great either in my opinion, but accents are always going to be one of those eternally controversial things where any attempt to delineate clear bounds will turn into an infinitely fractal disaster as literally everyone gets angry at you for trying. That being said I think there are some clear areas for improvement. I think at the very least they should provide multiple examples for each with multiple people speaking in different contexts (ideally with easily downloadable audio copies in a standard format and length), but I get that this is a one-person(?) operation making this as a volunteer thing without much profit incentive, and doing it 'properly' would require a huge amount of work. There have been numerous large-scale academic studies on regional accents over the years though, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel that much: Just go through an academically-informed list of accents from a paper, look up some people from each area, add examples to the database - Far easier said than done of course; again, this would be a TON of work for a volunteer. Honestly I'd be shocked if this hasn't been done already by a research group.
Reading through a lot of the site I would guess that much of the text and site are AI-generated, but I really don't have anything to base that on other than vibes. It all kinda reads the same, a lot of the quirks of AI writing show up, particularly with adjectives in descriptions, but that could also be someone really not knowing what to say about Miscellaneous Midwestern Accent #4 and bodging it, who knows.
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Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food
secretfire LinkYesterday (Sunday) I decided to make a big chicken pasta for a few weeknight meals. Bought a kilo of chicken thigh from the butcher (i.e. expensive), some quality cherry tomatoes, onion, cheap...Yesterday (Sunday) I decided to make a big chicken pasta for a few weeknight meals. Bought a kilo of chicken thigh from the butcher (i.e. expensive), some quality cherry tomatoes, onion, cheap white wine (you don't cook with good wine), lemons, garlic, fresh parsley.
The first alarm bell came when chopping up the chicken. It had a slightly odd smell. Not a bad smell like rotten meat would have, just something that caused my brain to feel a bit uneasy. This concerned me but I figured it was fine, I literally just bought the chicken a few hours prior, it had been in a well-temped fridge nearly that entire time, it was probably just some juices in the bag or whatever. There was a sunk-cost emotion at play here too: I only buy meat once every week or two max for reasons of environmentalism and anti-cruelty, and when I do buy it I'm happy to pay extra for a more sustainable product from a good butcher.
I cooked the chicken thoroughly, took it out, sautéed the onions for 15 minutes until they were beautifully caramelised, added the cherry tomatoes (chopped in half), garlic, a few chilli flakes, deglazed with wine, lemon, re-added the chicken, and seasoned. Let it simmer for only few minutes until it had come together a bit (everything was already cooked), then finished the pasta in it with a healthy dose of pasta water for creaminess. It looked lovely.
Served. Topped with parmesan. Took the first bite.
The chicken was bad.
I don't think I did anything wrong on my end: It was cooked thoroughly, my fridge is more than cold enough. I think the butcher just gave me some meat that was on the turn. It wasn't fully off yet, but from that first bite I could just tell that it wasn't right. In hindsight I imagine the 40-degree heatwave this week probably played a part here. I think most of the chicken was fine, but my trust was broken entirely. I ate about a quarter of a meal in denial before just chucking the whole thing out. The worst part is that I had guessed from the start that it might end up this way just with how that chicken smelled on the cutting board, but I chalked it up to a bit of health anxiety (which I have in spades) and opted to not trust my gut, forgetting that my gut has been designed over millions of years to prevent me eating the bad things.
Went and got Chinese takeout instead. Cumin lamb, it's delicious. Pro tip, cook your rice at home and buy the main meal at the restaurant. A while back I made a big jar of a Sichuan chilli oil (called xiangyou; note that there are a lot of Sichuan chilli oils) and I've been putting that on basically everything even vaguely East Asian, it's brilliant.
My stomach feels weird today. Praying to all deities that might be listening.
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Comment on Arch User Repository compromised, 1500+ packages affected in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentI strongly disagree. I have precisely one AUR package installed and it's this one for adding a weather widget on my desktop. I do nearly all of my work on my computer (mostly creative work and...I strongly disagree. I have precisely one AUR package installed and it's this one for adding a weather widget on my desktop. I do nearly all of my work on my computer (mostly creative work and audio programming) and I can do it all through regular Arch packages. If I desperately needed something that wasn't in the official repos I could easily get a flatpak. This is the case for virtually every distro out there. It's not like the official Arch repos are far more limited than other package managers and users are forced to go to the AUR where they otherwise wouldn't be on other distros; the AUR is a bonus option for package installation on top of Arch.
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Comment on Has anyone else seen a LOT of dead birds on the side of the road this year? in ~enviro
secretfire Link ParentInsulting you by... Asserting that you're American? I didn't claim that baselessly, by the way, I glanced at your account and saw that you post a ton about America-centric things. If I had looked...Insulting you by... Asserting that you're American?
I didn't claim that baselessly, by the way, I glanced at your account and saw that you post a ton about America-centric things. If I had looked closely I would have realised that you've mentioned not currently living in [North America] and that my assertion was simply wrong (well, partially wrong I suppose), but I really wasn't trying to cyber-stalk you; I just glanced at the last couple of comments that you made before this post.
Plus I don't want to share too many personal details.
This is an admirable goal and something that I think we should all do on the internet. I want to point out for your own sake, however, that you aren't doing a great job at it outside of this post. I took a glance at your comment history and you've made several comments stating you live in [a country in Europe], and that you used to live in [North America]. I find it a bit strange that you're being so cautious about what you say here in this post when you post so many data points elsewhere. You could have just said "I was in [continent] recently and noticed this" and it would have given essentially zero identifiable info and made this post much easier to answer.
I'm intentionally keeping this comment vague by the way; I'm really big on internet privacy as a whole, and if you weren't aware of the digital footprint you've left in your account history and decide to do something about it, I'd be happy to make this comment even vaguer.
Not everything has to be local and I figured I'd get more responses if I asked generally.
The world is a big place, and I don't know why you'd assume that the issue you're seeing in your area is a worldwide problem. The responses in this thread have, rather predictably, been all over the place, with some people saying they've noticed it, others saying they've not noticed anything, and others bringing up entirely different issues. When you've cast this wide a statistical net you're never going to get any kind of useful answer, except that there probably isn't a single worldwide bird-killing phenomenon taking place.
I made my comment assuming that you were in Bhutan (a country notable for its isolation and lack of internet presence) as a joking way of indicating that your question was vague enough that a useful answer couldn't really exist without covering every environmental problem happening in every part of the world. The pollution of the Amo Chu is probably causing problems for birds in Bhutan and upper India, yeah, but that presumably isn't having an effect on what you're seeing. But you essentially asked a question involving the entire world, so it's a perfectly valid answer, I think. The dead birds in your area may be caused by rising temperatures, drought, El Nino, Monsoon Season, farmers spraying pesticides, disease, a revivalist Cultural Revolutionary organisation trying to bring back the Maoist policy of killing all the sparrows (citation needed), or a million other things.
Anyway, I'm really not trying to start internet beef over this or anything, I was just having fun with my comments. Apologies if I caused offense.
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Comment on Has anyone else seen a LOT of dead birds on the side of the road this year? in ~enviro
secretfire Link ParentOne of those people was trying to find a common connection between something they noticed in their local area and what you've seen. As they had literally nothing to go off except that you live...confidently incorrect location guesses
One of those people was trying to find a common connection between something they noticed in their local area and what you've seen. As they had literally nothing to go off except that you live somewhere which 1. Had birds at some point, and 2. Has at least one road to drive on, they couldn't do anything but guess.
The other was poking fun at you for making a post entirely about a location-specific issue and then failing to provide even the most basic information as to where you are located, not even the continent or clime, meaning there's no way anyone could possibly give you an explanation for the issues in your area. It gives the impression that you're American and you made the post assuming that the USA is the default country and that everyone else here is American too.
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Comment on Has anyone else seen a LOT of dead birds on the side of the road this year? in ~enviro
secretfire LinkThe rising temperatures have caused a sharp increase in glacial melt over the past few months, which has been putting a lot of strain on the ecosystem in general, particularly in rural areas....The rising temperatures have caused a sharp increase in glacial melt over the past few months, which has been putting a lot of strain on the ecosystem in general, particularly in rural areas. There are also ongoing issues with pollution from open waste dumping in the Amo Chu, and that's poisoning a ton of ecosystems as far down as Jaigaon. Numerous environmental activist groups have raised alarm bells over it, but as always the blame is getting bounced around a dozen different parties and nothing is being done. I imagine all of that and more is contributing to the problem, and unfortunately the solutions are all just the same ones activists have been yelling about for decades.
You didn't mention where in the world you are so I'm assuming you're in Bhutan.
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Comment on Interresting Reddit/Discord alternative : surikata.app in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentThere have always been websites out there with enormous security flaws, absolutely, and I don't mean to assert that AI coding is the root cause of security holes, or even an intrinsically flawed...There have always been websites out there with enormous security flaws, absolutely, and I don't mean to assert that AI coding is the root cause of security holes, or even an intrinsically flawed system. It's an extremely powerful and useful tool in the hands of people who know what they're doing. But I do think the introduction of AI coding and the subsequent lowering of the barrier of entry for software development has exacerbated the issue. AI has made it far easier for the average person with little to no programming chops to create a good-looking website from scratch, and with the bar for entry being that much lower I reckon it's had an impact on the overall quality of code, at least in the amateur scene.
Granted I have no hard data to back this up so perhaps I'm entirely wrong; I'm sure someone out there has run the numbers on the effect AI coding has had on the rate of vulnerabilities being discovered, but truthfully it's out of my area of expertise. I think of it less as a strict "websites pre-AI are mostly secure and websites made with AI are mostly trash" and more of a practical guideline I follow. When weighing up whether to get involved with a website or to start using an application, I look at the state of the project and the people in charge: If I see that they're amateurs making heavy use of AI code, it's an indicator to me that they might lack the expertise to make a stable and secure program. It's not a guarantee of course, nor is the lack of AI code a guarantee of quality, but it's a red flag.
Like you said, we really shouldn't implicitly trust any website with our data to begin with, open-source or not, AI-generated or otherwise. But it's all a compromise on the internet; fortunately we can be choosy with the programs we trust our data with, and good digital hygiene should be used no matter where you're signing up for.
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Comment on Interresting Reddit/Discord alternative : surikata.app in ~tech
secretfire Link ParentI'm a free software enthusiast on principle more than anything, but the modern state of AI-assisted programming has created a situation where avoiding proprietary software can be as much a...I'm a free software enthusiast on principle more than anything, but the modern state of AI-assisted programming has created a situation where avoiding proprietary software can be as much a necessary practical choice as an ideological one. Simply because with small websites like this one you have absolutely no idea what the backend looks like, and have no way of knowing about any potentially catastrophic security holes brought about by a vibe coder telling Claude "make this website extra secure here are my private keys please don't leak them". This is a problem with FOSS software too of course, but at least there you can look at the code and decide whether or not you want to use it, or even submit your own fixes.
There was an incident a while back with a small streaming app for self-hosted servers where it was discovered that you could just send it a single curl command and it would respond with the credentials for your entire media stack. It was vibe-coded so poorly that an unprivileged user could literally just ask it for all its passwords and it woud give you full access to the server. The developer was made aware of this issue (and many more equally horrifying ones) multiple times and actively removed discussion of it when it was brought up on their github/subreddit, and only when a user raised alarm bells on a half dozen big subreddits and it blew up did the issue get resolved. Well, the maintainer nuked the entire project off the internet; but still, resolved.
Imagine if that app had been proprietary. Worse still, think about how many proprietary programs there are out there that are made in essentially the same way as that vibe-coded media manager, with developers that are naive enough to think they're on top of things. Now, the issues with that app were enormous enough that they absolutely would have been found with or without the source code, but without the source code (and the frankly laughable state of the app that caused the public to react so strongly) it's unlikely that they would have all been discovered, yet alone fixed and disclosed in a timely manner.
I can respect a developer wanting to hold off on showing everyone their source code before they're satisfied with its quality, but I think with a privacy-focused social media website it's a strange choice. On a more philosophical point, I think part of the joy of free software is not having to bear the burden of all the design choices, all of the labour required to build a project, because other people can contribute to the project. For a social media site, a project entirely about collaboration with others, it really seems like a no-brainer to have it be free software. Of course, some amount of ownership of one's work needs to be given up when a project is open-sourced, and that can be a tough pill to swallow. A while back I had a big long conversation here about the blogging site Bear changing from FOSS to source-available, and while with hindsight I'd probably change the way I phrased a lot of stuff there (creesch had some very good points in opposition to mine), I can see some echoes of it in this situation.
It's all about trust at the end of the day, I suppose. Ultimately I don't trust any potentially vibe-coded project (which in today's world unfortunately means basically every project), and proprietary software is inherently untrustworthy, so a proprietary project that looks AI-generated raises alarm bells for me. I'd love to see this project open-sourced at some point, it does look pretty cool and I'm always on the lookout for alternative social media websites.
As a final note (I've rambled on for too long), using LLMs for translations is one of the uses of the tech that I can sorta begrudgingly accept. My general opinion of LLMs is that I wish they weren't a thing and I stubbornly refuse to use them on principle, but I accept there are valid uses for them in various situations and I can get why people would use them sometimes. Even with programming I think they are absolutely a useful tool - I use the term "vibe code" to refer to a project made basically entirely with AI where the "developer" doesn't really know how it works to begin with. I would always prefer a "luddite" solution to a problem over an AI-generated one, but for something like translations I'm not going to be too mad that they didn't find a human to do their site text. I do wish that they had, it would have read a lot better that way, but still.
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Comment on Interresting Reddit/Discord alternative : surikata.app in ~tech
secretfire LinkThis project seems extremely vibe-coded. All the docs are written with that "it's not x, it's y" LLM style phrasing (seriously, nearly every single paragraph contains it, look at this page) and an...This project seems extremely vibe-coded. All the docs are written with that "it's not x, it's y" LLM style phrasing (seriously, nearly every single paragraph contains it, look at this page) and an ungodly amount of em-dashes. I like its emphasis on privacy and I think it's a fairly well-designed site overall, but honestly the fact that it's so obviously vibecoded (or at least created with heavy AI assistance) and isn't open-source or even source-available, is an instant no from me.
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Comment on Can we talk about rice cookers? in ~food
secretfire Link ParentMy one big gripe with Zojirushi rice cookers is that they exclusively sell teflon non-stick pots for them, with no options for stainless steel or even ceramic. There are third-party options but...My one big gripe with Zojirushi rice cookers is that they exclusively sell teflon non-stick pots for them, with no options for stainless steel or even ceramic. There are third-party options but they often aren't the exact same dimensions as the authentic pots and don't cook the rice as well as a result. Worse still, the teflon has a tendency to degrade over time, especially if you wash your rice in it (this seems to be a well-documented issue online). So you ideally want to wash your rice in one pot and then transfer it over to the rice cooker pot after, which is just silly.
That being said, I do really like my own Zojirushi cooker. I have a family-sized cooker imported from Japan (their Japanese lineup is of better quality than their western versions, even within the same models, but it's not a huge deal) and it serves us really well. It's by far my most used cooking appliance besides my wok and cast iron skillet.
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Comment on What are some of your recent "little" failures? in ~talk
secretfire LinkHad to travel internationally on really short notice. Booked a travel path that I've done before, from a big airport a few hours from my city, to a big airport a few hours from my destination. It...Had to travel internationally on really short notice. Booked a travel path that I've done before, from a big airport a few hours from my city, to a big airport a few hours from my destination. It cost a ton on account of booking a day before departure.
Booked the flight, trains, everything, only to realise after that there just happened to be a seasonal flight from my home city's airport to my desination city's airport, for half the price (less when taking into account travel to/fro the airports). I just didn't even bother checking because there are so few flights out of my city's airport and there have never been direct flights between these two places. Unfortunately it would have cost me even more to cancel and rebook everything, so I just ended up spending too much money to travel for a journey that was 6 more hours than it could have been.
And it gets worse: The flight was delayed, we landed 10 minutes before my bus was meant to depart, and I did the cardinal sin of (very politely and apologetically) pushing to the front of the plane to egress quickly and sprint. Except I forgot something on the fucking plane. Noticed immediately after going down the steps and had to do the walk of shame back on the plane. Turns out my bus got cancelled anyways so it wouldn't have mattered, but damn, absolutely embarassing display. If I were one of the other passengers I would have absolutely tutted in judgement.
All in all, not one of my best travel stories.
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Comment on EU drops 2035 combustion engine ban as global electric vehicle shift faces reset in ~transport
secretfire Link ParentWe're not going to make it to net zero and we never were going to, combustion engine ban or otherwise. Anyone who thinks there's still a chance of civilisation pulling itself out of this death...We're not going to make it to net zero and we never were going to, combustion engine ban or otherwise. Anyone who thinks there's still a chance of civilisation pulling itself out of this death spiral is deluding themselves.
I figure there's probably something with my setup that's triggering an antispam response, but I can't figure out what it is. I'm using Arch, SwayWM, Firefox with default ublockorigin. I normally use a (paid) VPN via wireguard for general browsing but not exclusively.
It's not common for me to get blocked by sites but it happens every now and then, hence the emergency Macbook Air for when I need to do something really important - The worst offender in my experience is airline booking, they basically all block Linux connections in some way (at least the airlines in my area), normally letting you get halfway through the booking process before throwing a generic error. In terms of forums and 'less important' websites though, lobste.rs is basically the only one I can't get onto at all, which is a bit bizarre. I'll occasionally get gated by Cloudflare or anti-DDOS protections on sites like xcancel but normally that's a VPN thing, and I can understand that; when the issue persists without a VPN active then I really don't know what the problem is. Probably I could contact the site admins and see what's up but it's not worth the hassle, it's just an internet forum. It's all par for the course with Linux these days, but hopefully that's changing as it gets more popular.