I miss John Candy.

Yeah yeah, you got exactly what you voted for, Joe, no need to rub it in. Honestly, you guys are such sore winners.

It’s actually funny, I could never play Fallout & Fallout 2 as an evil character because it made me feel bad. At the same time, I’d fire up Carmageddon & Carmageddon 2 and just mow down everything that walked or drove with utter glee. I’m sure there’s a psychological explanation for this dichotomy, but I sure don’t know what it is, and I’m in no mood to make guesses.

I can’t say I’ve had those issues myself, so my recommendation may not be valid in your case. I’d say maybe give Fedora with KDE Plasma a try, and try switching between X11 and Wayland sessions if issues persist.

I personally don’t like Ubuntu, but that’s mostly because of Canonical making the occasional sketchy decision.

On the whole, distro choice doesn’t matter quite as much these days, as most distros should work fine out of the box. Whatever issues you have should technically be solvable with a bit of troubleshooting.

Sometimes Linux just doesn’t play well with your setup. Good luck, and I hope you find something that works for you!

Won? They will do it again. The only winning move is not to play their game. Choose Free Software.

I’m reading Stephen F. Cohen’s The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin. For whatever reason, I’ve been somewhat fascinated by the USSR lately, and now I’m dipping my toes in to the Gulag system. This book tries to give some context to the survivors of Gulags and their lives after imprisonment. I find it interesting, though the book mostly speaks in generalities in stead of telling more involved stories of the survivors. Funnily enough, this book mentions a book I read some time back, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, many times and gives some welcome context as to how it was released and why it was so important. I’m really liking this so far.

Reading Russian history is emotionally taxing. The more I read, the more it seems to me that Russian history is just a steady march from one national trauma to another. It’s no wonder Russian culture is the way it is; the Russian people rarely catch a break.

When I was a child, the USSR seemed imposing, impregnable and eternal. Now, with age, I realize it didn’t really even last a lifetime. Maybe this cognitive dissonance is why I’m trying, in my own way, to understand what happened to it and in it, and why it fell.

There’s this neat life hack where you drink enough and forget all about the taste - and most of the previous night, to boot!

I don’t actually drink though, tastes like shit.

Just to clarify, Bandai Namco has published some games on GOG. No RPGs though.

As a teenager, I had a nice old easy chair I used when computing, until one of our cats started pissing on it. Couldn’t get the stink out, so I had to trash the chair. Fucking cat, I liked that chair. He never did it to anyone else. Well, except he pissed in my friend’s shoe for some reason.

Back in Rome, Amanita caesarea was a delicacy, but it can be confused with Death cap, or Amanita phalloides. It’s possible Nero became Emperor because Agrippina poisoned Claudius with Death caps.

That bastard right there is why I don’t pick white mushrooms.

Holy shit, you aren’t joking. I did not expect this. Really cool!

Is SteamOS even available for desktop PCs yet? I don’t think it is.

From the SteamOS page:

We expect most SteamOS users to get SteamOS preinstalled on a Steam Deck or device that incorporates SteamOS. The only devices officially supported on SteamOS right now are Steam Deck and Legion Go S. We are working on broadening support, and with the recent updates to Steam and SteamOS, compatibility with other AMD powered PC handhelds has been improved.

Until this changes, which I think is in the works, I recommend using some other popular distro.

Cut contact with family and friends who were bad for my mental health.

Guix is a package manager you can install on most distros and works beside other package managers, similar to Snap and Flatpak. And it’s a distro.

Have you ever argued on the Internet?

Not sure I’ll finish this one, but currently I’m reading Magna Carta by David Carpenter. It’s a pretty heavy historical book on - you guessed it - the Magna Carta, an important British legal document written on 1215. I picked this one up from the library refuse bin for a nominal fee. I suppose I felt inspired to read more on the document since it established that the king is not above the law and habeas corpus. Principles that some unnamed countries should consider.

I had some once, it gouda tasted better.

As jaded as I am, I’ve always been an optimist at heart. Turns out my belief in humanity remains misplaced.

It is and it is.