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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • You’re being downvoted, but you’re not wrong. At least in the case of the Ethernet module, which most people aren’t going to leave plugged in most of the time.

    The utility in the ports being modular is more so in the initial configurability at purchase rather than swapping them out by the user on a regular basis.

    But having a laptop with 4/6 USB-C is pretty nice. Add on the fact that my dongles don’t dangle and it is even cooler.


  • I disagree on the comment about cost disparity. Spec’d equivalently, even the Framework 16 (without GPU) is no more expensive than the smaller ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The more comparative Framework 13 even less so.

    The modular ports (and GPU on the 16) are a nice bonus, but I agree that the largest attraction is for the tinkerer.

    I think the fact that it is easily upgradable makes it a clear winner on the merits alone.


  • This was me, basically.

    I had a Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 10 that, by the books, should have been a beast with good Linux support to boot. I tried for so long, but ended up replacing it with a Framework.

    The thermal management on the Thinkpad is awful, under Linux at least but by all accounts attributable to the EC itself. Running the most basic workload would cause the CPU to spike for about one second before it would throttle all cores back to 400 MHz where they would stay locked for the next few minutes despite the CPU temps remaining at 50-60°C the entire time.

    And it wasn’t just me, numerous reports from all over. This made the system nearly useless. I shared pages of diagnostic info with them and they just seemed completely uninterested in trying to do anything about it.

    Spec’d out equivalently, the Framework 16 (without GPU) is no more expensive than the X1 Carbon but with even better Linux support and unsurpassable upgradeability. I’m glad my company was onboard for me to switch.











  • I mean, yeah, I guess …

    But, that seems like bad advice in general and I’m not sure why you would say that. I am genuinely curious if you care to explain. Beyond reading most of this article, I haven’t done any research into current interest rates or house prices lately, so maybe there’s more to it than I am aware.

    Generally, buying a house is a good long-term strategy. You can give 100% of your money to somebody else with rent, or you can effectively put an increasingly bigger portion of that money into savings. Even if a mortgage payment is 50% more than rent somewhere, that difference would basically be the principal portion of the payment at the beginning and more later on, meaning it stays your money. And even if the price of houses are leveling off now, they’re nearly guaranteed to go up at some rate.

    According to the article, if you don’t think you’ll be able to keep your mortgage for 13.5 years, then it sounds like the closing cost and other fees could make it a bad investment. So maybe if you’re 60 years old or if you don’t ever expect to increase your salary then maybe this isn’t a good idea. Otherwise, I don’t think somebody should just blanket decide to resign to being a slave to housing and life in general.

    Buying a home isn’t as easy as it used to be. But it’s not impossible. And it is probably the single biggest thing you can do to change the trajectory of your life. For many people, I would think it is worth serious consideration.

    These are just my opinions, though. I’m not a financial advisor.




  • What about “INSTALL A DIFFERENT OS!!!”? Is that better? There are reasonably two others to choose from, and one of those doesn’t require the purchase of expensive equipment and arguably a path into an even more controlled ecosystem.

    And your analogy is way off. This isn’t a malfunction of Windows that a technician is going to fix, never to be seen again. This is more like a rep from the car manufacturer meeting you at your car every morning to ask if you want to install their factory upgrade. You tell them that you never want to see them again, so next week they start sending a different representative. You have no other options.

    Well, except getting a free car that doesn’t send a rep.


  • I get that the comment is almost surely circlejerk, but it is also honestly the only real answer to OP’s question, isn’t it? To switch OS?

    So it’s kind of hard to get mad at their comment when it’s the only viable option. Is your problem with Linux or is it the fact that it brings you anxiety to know MS is in control of you? What if we substitute another OS for “Linux”? Does that make you feel any better?

    I’m honestly not trying to be a jerk; these are honest questions. That’s probably saying more than for OP, though; they, of course, knew the answer before they asked.


  • For most utilities (water, electricity), there’s a relatively linear relationship between the tangible value provided (energy used, water dispensed) and the cost to provide it (coal burned, water sourced/treated). Even for wind- or hydro-powered electricity, the amount that everybody uses has a proportional amount of wear on the system and consequent required maintenance.

    But not so much for ISPs. Instead, you’re basically paying for a “fictional” amount (speed) of a non-tangible product. Granted, there is a linear relationship to the amount of electricity the ISP uses to provide each bit, but it’s negligible.

    Instead, what you’re paying for with internet is essentially to recoup the fixed costs of the provider’s equipment. They do need to upgrade every so often to accommodate more capacity and faster speeds, but this is proportional to speeds provided and not data volume used.



  • The --hold feature was introduced with snapd v2.58 which was released as recently as Dec 1, so less than 9 months ago. So I would consider this a relatively new feature.

    Furthermore, as best as I can tell from the documentation, there isn’t even a way to configurably hold updates in general or for a specific package like can be done with apt-preferences; refresh.hold only allows 90 days out.

    I think it is a perfectly valid criticism that the snap developers didn’t implement this feature at all until well into the life of the product and then, even then, done begrudgingly at best evidenced by the minimal implementation.

    Now, I feel like I did my research, but feel free to let me know if there’s something I can do better or if you have any other general life advice for me.


  • For starters, you can replace the equivalent of the battery: fuel

    Don’t get me wrong; my next car will be an EV. But it is disingenuous to hand wave the reality that EV batteries are expensive and difficult to replace, somewhat negating the economical and environmental benefits.

    I do all of my work on my own cars in my home shop, including things like dropping transmissions. This is why I’m able to keep cars for over 20 years. But there’s no way I would be able to even start to replace an EV battery pack simply due to the weight.

    But, for me anyway, that’s not a compelling excuse not to get an EV. It’s the way of the future and, by the sheer nature of getting one, I’m promoting their adoption, encouraging their innovation, and driving down the cost overall. So I look forward to it, even if there are some inconvenient truths.