Looks nice. Shame I can’t get it in the US.

I had one of them almost a decade ago, before Google bought them. The one that I had really just counted steps and tracked heart rates and that was about it. It could also tell time. It was one of the fancy ones at the time.

Assuming you're not allergic to the watch band like I was, it did fine. Battery lasted about a week. Accuracy was close enough that I didn't notice a major issue.

I remember that the Fitbit app was annoying as all get out, though that has almost certainly changed.

Overall I remember liking it, I think I wore it for about 3 months before my wrist started to get torn up by it.

As to what they are like currently, post Google buyout, no clue.

MusicBrainz is an open source database of music. ListenBrainz is an open source service that captures your listening habits, if you've configured your music player (or Spotify) to use the service. It's similar in nature to last.fm's scrobbling.

ListenBrainz has a feature where once a week it will build a pair of playlists for you. One is stuff it is pretty sure you will like (based off of what tracks you have favorited) and the other is more... experimental. Stuff it's not so sure you'll like but is similar to things you have listened to and liked in the past.

That would be a local or state law. Not a nationwide law. It would depend on where you are. Some areas don't care, while other areas are militant about it.

Where I am is somewhere in between. Don't stand out and your generally fine.

Because it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone would say something when someone simply enjoys a nice cold beer during the hot summer in a park or something.

Yea, that's not really a thing where I'm at. Your own yard, sure, Campground, maybe. But almost nobody is staying outside let alone drinking any type of alcohol in the park when it's over 90 F (+32.2 C) outside with over 90% humidity. More likely in the spring or late fall though. Just don't stand out.

For comparison: https://weatherspark.com/countries/US/AL and https://weatherspark.com/countries/DE

Something like that. Online exchanges generally take bank transfers. The peer to peer system is usually face to face (at least at first) and can be whatever currency exchange you agree to.

Professionals use Adobe software because it is what they know and because it is the standard. But there is no reason you need to use Photoshop unless you are working with a company that requires Photoshop.

Photoshop is just an advanced image editor made by Adobe. On Windows, Mac and Linux, GIMP is probably the most well known alternative to Photoshop. It can do roughly 99% of the things that Photoshop can do, and, more than likely, far more than you are ever likely to need. Even as a professional image editor or artist.

I'm sure that there are several options for iOS, but I don't know them by name.

If I remember correctly, this one of the use cases why bitcoin was created in the first place. It's not anonymous but it does solve the control problem.

The only other way I know if is cash via sneakernet. Also not completely anonymous, and it could get you labeled a drug dealer or distributor. Especially in the US.

As for how to get into bitcoin, you can mine it, but more feasibly, just start doing commerce in it. If you have a podcast or you stream, accept lightning boosts. Or you could sell off your old things for bitcoin. If you have some other business start accepting bitcoin as a form of payment.

If you need to convert a national currency to bitcoin there is a peer to peer network that accepts cash, as well as several online exchanges (ID usually required, at least in the US.

As a warning, once you step off the garden path you lose it's protections, so buyer beware. The "Big Money" have a vested interest in minimizing how badly you can get screwed in their system. Such protections don't exist it the alternative currency sphere regardless of which crypto currency you choose.

Recently, most of the music I've found has been something the Youtube algorithm has decided I need to listen to. Most recently it's been the Andrew Sisters and before that it was SailNorth.

Other than that, ListenBrainz does a pretty good job of suggesting new music to listen to.

Can’t say that happens frequently enough for me to have a set thing to do.

The list of things that need to get done never seems to get shorter. So I’m usually working though my todo list. Recreation time has to be scheduled sadly.

Where I am, the sheriffs are elected and the police chiefs are (generally) appointed. Honestly, both get up to the same level of mischief. The problem isn't how they get to the position, but rather accountability. There isn't much. It's a mismatch between the amount of power they hold and the responsibility to which they are held.

Why did such a horrible human have to write one of my favorite book series?

That's a rhetorical question for anyone unsure.

I'm no expert in the field, but under the right conditions, possibly. But that would also be incredibly unlikely. The oceans are so full of life that something would feed on the remains, and even if not it would be more likely to decompose than be preserved. Bacteria is everywhere, including in the ocean, and bacteria is a significant component in decomposition.

I believe the brine solution we use for preserving food is a much higher salt concentration than sea water.

Spite. Spite and rage.

Give the kid a break. It sounds like they haven't been running linux long, and in Windows, 7zip is a gui program, not cli as far as I know.

installing and managing programs on Linux is a NIGHTMARE

I feel you, but it's a damned sight better than it used to be. If you're ever in a headspace for some masochism, try installing something from source. It can either be smooth sailing or one of the most torturous experiences ever. Just do yourself a favor and do it in a VM or on a throw away system. Software installed that way is often HARD to remove cleanly.

I just wish there was an all in one program manager.

There is. At least for flatpaks and apt repositories, though I would imagine that it would work just fine with rpm repositories or whatever Redhat based distros are using nowadays. YUM I think? Never been big on team Redhat.

In KDE the program is called Discover. Gnome, i think, is Software Center, though that may just be for Ubuntu derivatives. Been a while. I'll be honest, I don't use them much. Early versions (20ish years ago) were dog slow, and as a result CTL + ALT + t followed by sudo apt get and flatpak install are burned into my fingers.

I don’t know what linux’s equivilant of “C/Windows/Program Filesx86/”

Exactly where things get installed depends on your distro as well as who built the actual package that was installed. Linux has a couple of standard directories that things are usually installed at. If you actually need to find the 7zip binary, try in /bin, /usr/bin, or /usr/local/bin but wherever it is, it should already be in your path. Here's a decent explanation of *nix's directory structure: https://linuxhandbook.com/linux-directory-structure/ .

It's generally applicable to Unix, Linux, WSL, and MacOS. Feel free to open a terminal and go have a poke around. If you stick to the commands cd, less and sudo less you won't be able to break anything, but will be able look at what's there. cd is the same as in Windows. less let's you read a file a page at a time, without editing it. sudo just let's you read the files that are owned by the root user, or another user.

You can usually read more about these commands using the man <program> command. If your distro hasn't included man pages, it works in every web search engine I've tried over the years as well. Usually it's the first result.

<command> --help will generally give you a brief crash course on how to use a command. Very helpful, but also usually very terse.

I want to install 7zip. I go online, find the terminal command, I install it…and terminal tells me it’s already installed on the latest version.
It’s not in my start menu.

According to its man page you would call it on the terminal using 7z. So to extract an archive, the command should be something like 7z e /path/to/archive. As a heads up, there is a warning not to use 7zip to create backups on linux.

I seem to recall that there were also applications called zip and unzip that do much the same thing but were limited to just .zip files. May already be in your distro. And found a nice refresher on them here: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/linux-unix/zip-command-in-linux-with-examples/

If you were looking to create zip files to share, there should be a gui application included in your distro that should be able to create and extract zip files. For me its Ark, but for Gnome it might be called Archive Manager or some such. If your application menu is sorted by application type, try looking in the System or Utilities sections.

Proof reading this has given me a horrid thought. "Oh God! I'm a GREY BEARD!"

Pretty much, yea. I was updating my music player and for whatever reason, I dragged the link for the x86_64 app image to the desktop and got a dialog that basically said "Yea, I can put that there. Are you sure?"

Tried uploading a short screen recording but it wouldn't go. After doing it again though, it may be a KDE thing.

I've bounced between a bunch of different ones. Each time I switched and moved the directory over the formatting and linking tended to break. In the end, I settled on just a raw hierarchical directory structure using raw markdown (using a basic text editor) for typed notes and whatever other relevant media (pictures, pdfs, whatever), and GoodNotes for handwritten notebooks with PDF backups saved to directory on my Nextcloud.

I don't know, maybe my needs are odd but I've just never found a single application that could handle all of my note-taking and documentation needs. Everything is close, but frustratingly annoying in one missing feature or another. And all of them seemed damned slow compared to just opening up a file browser or a terminaland doing what I needed.

As for file syncing, Logseq was pretty easy to handle syncing for. I just put the logseq notes directory on my Nextcloud and Bob's you're uncle. Access on my desktop, laptop and mobile devices. Don't have to use Nextcloud though, just something that would allow you to sync the directory between devices. Syncthing would probably work. Just don't bounce between devices too fast. Causes conflicts you have to correct manually.

Gee! Who could have predicted that! /s

Personally, Iranians hacking a bunch of computer systems are probably the least of our worries now. Jim Salter posted an image that makes a good analogy. https://fosstodon.org/@jimsalter/114730060651034011

I just had to have our meter replaced while we were replacing the water line to our house. The tech who installed it said that the meter cost $5K to replace. Was very glad I didn't have to pay for the new meter on top of the main water line.