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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)LE
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  • The reasons I personally know are "I have to use an app for work, there is no interoperable alternative, I have no leverage to replace that entire ecosystem and it won't run with wine" and "It's a company-issued device where I have no rights to change anything anyway." Combined, they make the reason that my work Laptop runs Win11, but my private PC is Linux through and through. I'd like to be able to use said app on my private PC too, but if it doesn't, no big deal.

  • Adding on to the other comment, Nobara is maintained by Glorious Egroll, the same guy that also develops the popular Proton-GE compatibility tool which adds some extra fixes on top of Valve's Proton.

    (Proton is the compatibility tool Steam uses to make Windows games run on Linux, in case you're unfamiliar)

  • There is a difference between wanting to live comfortably, which is rational, and actively seeking ways to exploit others for your own gain beyond what you need to live. Greed isn't "I want to have enough", it's "I can never have enough".

    Society has always thrived on a measure of generosity. So many cultures have customs around giving gifts, because that's how you build a support network of people that will help you out when you need it. Greed is shortsighted and destructive.

    Or would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?

    Depends on the reason. If the waived amount goes to paying for healthcare, support someone suddenly unemployed or maintain infrastructure that I or other people need? Sure.

  • I think that's where the world of art appreciation is now quite visibly breaking along a divide that has existed for a while. Some have always just valued the product: means be damned, if the end is enjoyable enough. For others, the process matters; for some even more than the result.

    The latter group seems larger, though they may just be more passionate about their views and accordingly vocal (personally, I suspect both are the case, but I don't know of any solid evidence).

    Such is the way of new technology: it challenges traditional values. That doesn't mean those values are without merit or have to be overturned, but I think it's valuable that they're challenged at least.

    Here's to hoping they stand the test.

  • That's war. That has been the nature of war and deterrence policy ever since industrial manufacture has escalated both the scale of deployments and the cost and destructive power of weaponry. Make it too expensive for the other side to continue fighting (or, in the case of deterrence, to even attack in the first place). If the payoff for scraping no longer justifies the investment of power and processing time, maybe the smaller ones will give up and leave you in peace.

  • Some time ago, I read an analysis on why left-wing parties were allegedly more successful in Scandinavia than other parts of Europe. It claimed that, for all their pro-social domestic policy, they weren't as immigrant-friendly as many other left-wing parties. Supposedly, that approach helped undermined the narrative that "I have nothing, yet these immigrants come here to get stuff for free at my expense." By putting their own country's needs first, they won over voters that worried they were being screwed over.

    I have no way to verify how accurate that analysis was, nor do I have any sense of how dated it might be, so I'll be sceptical, but the idea stuck with me. I can't really blame people for putting their own needs first, and I wonder how much that influences the popularity of right-wing parties all around.

    Of course, health care should be a universal good anyway and the US system definitely needs fixing, but I can understand how the "freeloader immigrant" propaganda would work on people suffering from that system – misery breeds bigotry and all.

  • In that respect, I'm rather glad my employer is on the slow and steady side. Yeah, sure, they're very much behind on some topics and just recently started catching up on others, but their cautious scepticism towards new tech has spared us some headaches. I'd rather take the frustration of not getting all the tools I'd like to have than the stress of "ooh, look, this new shiny thing is gonna replace that other system you just got used to!"

  • When referencing another person's comment, it can be helpful to link to that comment or the article you mentioned.

    I'd also like to point out that many Wikipedia articles, particularly those written by experts on a given scientific subject, tend to be daunting rather than helpful for people not yet familiar with that subject.

    Explanations like the one you offered in this comment and the next reply can help make topics more approachable, so I very much appreciate that.

    To illustrate my point:

    In this case, the article first describes the principle as "pertaining to a lower theoretical limit of energy consumption of computation", which doesn't directly highlight the connection to information storage. The next sentence then mentions "irreversible change in information" and "merging two computational paths", both of which are non-trivial.

    From a brief glance at the article on reversible computing linked further on, I gather that "irreversible" here doesn't mean "you can't flip the bit again" but rather something like "you can't deterministically figure out the previous calculation from its result", so the phrase boils down to "storing a piece of information" for our context. The example of "merging computational paths" probably has no particular bearing on the energy value of information either and can be ignored as well.

    Figuring out the resulting logic that you so kindly laid out – again, thank you for that! – requires a degree of subject-specific understanding to know what parts of the explanation can be safely ignored.

    Of course, experts want to be accurate and tend to think in terms they're familiar with, so I don't fault them for that. The unfortunate result is that their writings are often rather intransparent to laypeople and linking to Wikipedia articles isn't always the best way to convey an understanding.

  • Corporate management often seems to think of changes as isolated, independent events, where the measurable impact of each change can be attributed to that change. I think it's a symptom of the pathological need for KPIs and Data-based decision-making. Making big decisions is scary, and data can help with informing them, but I get the impression some managers grow so dependent on using numbers as a crutch to spare them from having to justify their decision with their own best judgement.