Even when I am fortunate enough to be able to bike for the majority of my traveling I'm still paying for those roads.
I pay for them when I do drive. I pay for them when I order something online. (a part of that shipping pays for the fuel in the trucks that deliver the package) I pay for them when I order a pizza (see online line above) I pay for them when I pay other taxes that go to roads despite not being a road tax I pay for them when I bike to the grocery store to buy food. That's right, part of what I pay at the register goes to distribution costs that pay for the trucks that pay for the roads.
People who have the idea cyclist and pedestrians don't pay for the roads just really can't see three moves ahead.
I've had four jobs where I could do that, three of them in a small town before I actually graduated high-school.
I'm working on number five right now, I'll have to get the job then move before it becomes an option, but I've got someone with inside strings trying to help make it happen. Showers are a must in Texas if you plan on doing an office job while biking.
I honestly thing the automotive industry and the energy industry have a lot to do with our poor design. The movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit addressed it rather well, the Trolley systems really were bought up and put out of service by auto manufacturers. In my city real-estate moguls put forth bribes to keep public transit crappy. There are seven major business districts in Houston, most of the property in each district is owned by a different set of conglomerates/moguls. They actually have a motive to trap people in their individual districts, making it too easy to move around hurts their bottom line. This isn't exactly new in Houston, old timers will tell you the reason that system got removed - with prejudice - had to do with the money spent to keep it from taking off.
To the energy companies credit they're doing an about-face. They know that we know and they're pretending that they don't know that we know. They're actually contributing to some of the bike lane expansions and bayou-bicycle express ways in the city. Too little too late, but I do like the fact they're doing it.
Two miles - if possible, walk, skateboard, scooter, skates, two miles is nothing. Where I live it may be practically impossible due to the way the roads are built to get there on foot in less than two miles if at all, but the idea stands.
After all the problem this article is covering only exist due to globalism. If they weren't trying to be globalist they wouldn't have to worry about fines from outside of their "sovereign nation".
Nope, when reading articles about globalism I always think of what happens when we completely crater and allow it to come here.
It was half that. I've found any time I move close to work, work moves. Also most of the business centers of this city aren't places you want to raise kids. No, the bus system sucks. If you want to go downtown and back on a weekday during business hours you're cool. If downtown were the center of the pizza and you wanted to go to the next slice or the next one over, you have to go to the center, wait, then come back, there isn't really a slice to slice option in most cases. If you want to get anywhere other than business hours on a weekday - good luck. I've tried riding the bus in this city, there are bus stops that are supposed to have a bus every fifteen minutes, you're lucky to get one every forty five.
Free doesn't mean free. It means now every time your neighbor gets on a bus you have to pay a fractional cent. Paying it for them motivates them to use it more. Now it means all your neighbors.
That might work there, but where I live the bus sucks so bad I couldn't use it if it were free. It takes a minimum of three hours to get to where I want to be, less than one to drive.
Nope, it's further upstream than Ubuntu, it's Debian - from the SteamOS site:
SteamOS is designed to run Steam and Steam games. It also provides a desktop mode which can run regular Linux applications. SteamOS makes use of the standard APT package manager for software updates; you can add third-party sources to your subscribed repositories to gain access to more applications. SteamOS currently provides a limited set of packages, but many Debian jessie packages work fine on SteamOS. We plan to make a wider variety of packages vailable directly from the SteamOS repositories over time.
I've never actually done much with SteamOS. I know it's Ubuntu based, and by looking at the Wikipedia entry it says that you can start Gnome. Beyond a web browser most of the normal desktop stuff isn't there, such as file browsers and image viewers, but you can simply add them. Of course my main reason for pointing to SteamOS was simply to find a practical standard to rally behind, community agreed upon standards are nice, but it takes something like real hardware and a company actually doing something to get commitment, this is where LSB failed.
I'm actually on-board with your sysadmin hat frustrations. I'm really big on finding the easiest way to do things so I can encourage others along that path. For a long time network file sharing was my pet-annoyance. I'm willing to say adding and removing programs with Linux is actually easier than with Windows now, and easier than both Windows and Mac at keeping things up to date, as long as those things are in the package manager. Even adding repositories isn't too hard, but still outside of user land.
I've been searching for a Linux machine I could pass to my parents for a long time. I've yet to find it, though I have put my wife on Maui Linux and she likes it. I still have to run updates for her (to be fair she didn't update her Windows either) and I had to setup KDE Connect for her, but she absolutely loves KDE Connect and her stable Linux machines.
Linux is the wild frontier where anything goes. I hope the frontier is never closed. I would however like a nice usable distro that is seen as friendly and usable - much like Android is seen - for the desktop. One thing feeds another, getting that Steam Box to take off is not my real reason for pushing it, getting everyone onboard with making things Steam Box compatible is the real goal. Then your various distros and hardware makers will have a reason to strive for Steam Box compatibility if for no reason other than it's compatible with everything else.
YOU ARE COMPLETELY IGNORING THE VERY FOUNDATION OF WHAT I SAID
Except that it IS different. PS3 is a single platform. There is exactly one PS3, with maybe a couple variations. Ditto with the XBox. There isn't that much variation.
There are at least five PS3's, probably more, the differences are so different that gen 1 PS3's use more power while "off" than the final gen PS3's used while running. There's several versions of the XBOX 360 and XBONE as well, the differences being at least vast enough to cover different resolutions.
Linux? Distros don't even TRY to maintain any sort of compatibility between each other.
It doesn't fucking matter if you'll actually read what I wrote. I linked to the currently available Steam Machines. These Steam Machines all run Steam OS - Valve's distro. Valve is big on SteamOS / Linux which must really piss Stallman off because they don't write Gnu/SteamOS/Linux. Write it to run on SteamOS on Steam Machine hardware, consider it working somewhere else incidental. Your argument holds zero water in this case.
I've tried to use Linux as a desktop OS. Several times. Every single time I've had to abandon it cause Linux is a PITA to use for general end-user tasks unless you only work within the limited garden a distro happens to provide for you.
I'm sorry you can't make it work for you. I've been using it for 20 years. Yes, I do a lot of staying in my distro for simplicity reasons, but I don't do it exclusively. I go outside of my distro for compatibility reasons, just yesterday I installed a copy of VirtualBox from the site instead of the distro version because that version was too out of date for what I wanted to do. I always, regardless of which distro I'm using, have a copy of Calibre installed that doesn't even use my distro's packages. My distro simplifies things for me, it doesn't trap me. Steam is about the easiest software installer I've ever used, beating even Synaptics.
On the simple side of things: I would love to see the Steamlink software ported to the PS3/4. It would be awesome, but I'm sure it wouldn't be in Sony's best interest.
First of all, they support Steam Machines in the default config with Steam controllers, not Linux.
A good example of this already being done is Bit Trip Runner which works with Steam Controllers and XBOX 360 controls but completely ignores even Steam level control configuration so that it's only compatible with that setup and flat refuses to work with others. They've said fuck-all to people like me who prefer PS3 controls and they don't support anything. The game has still sold well. I think they're assholes for ignoring the Steam level control configs, but that hasn't changed a thing.
For gaming it is a tough business model to be Linux friendly. Not impossible but it takes a lot of effort and resources for a small return.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Consider the Linux version a console port, no different than you would the PS3 or XBOX. Then instead of worrying about every possible hardware setup out there make sure it works with the systems on this page and say fuck-all to the rest. Once it works on those systems on factory settings it's going to work for most of what's out there.
Doing that with the right titles will create a feed-back loop. More people will risk adopting the Linux systems, on that page as a console, and more developers will risk developing for them. There has to be a critical mass point.
Same here, my dad gave me a hard time if I didn't have a knife in my pocket starting at age 7 or so. I rarely did due to school and not remembering to put it in my pocket after. It was rough.
I've been shooting some since about the age of four.
I haven't had any kind of TV service (not counting a useless basic cable package that came with my Internet access I didn't even use) in ten years.
I'm fine with this but it seems to completely blow my visiting relatives/inlaws minds. I may set this up just to make them more comfortable while they're visiting. My Kodi system is plenty full of movies. I may have to get more TV.....
You know, I know where a really nice three bedroom, two bath two car garage brick home with a large living room from the 1980's in great condition sold for $35,000 - yes in the United States.
If you have to live in a shit-hole to get a deal, is it really a deal?
Two times an app that's supposed to download podcasts over WiFi only decided to use normal data. Another I needed to webcast an announcement for a political connection and it was better than the hotel WiFi.
In short - if the places I hung around (work) had better WiFi so that my automated downloader didn't hiccup and/or fail to download on a regular basis I would practically never exceed my bandwidth. The program itself seems to be pretty good about not doing it on mobile data, it's when I manually force it, it will use anything.
fi had been great. I'm rarely without a signal. During Hurricane Harvey Sprint and T-Mobile had great signals but zero backhaul. I was able to force it over to US Cellular (a carrier that doesn't really exist as an entity down here but still have coverage for their travelers) and even though the signal was weak I could let people know we were safe. What other carrier can you switch your carrier on when a local connection sucks?
Just getting rid of the tax-burdens and breaks put in place specifically to encourage companies to off-shore their help would do a lot to move in that direction.
Energy sector has taken a hit repeatedly while I've lived here. What really sucks is the energy sector and HP taking a hit all at the same time - that's part of why I spent two years marginally employed. I helped to deploy the system at Shell that replaced me and HP dumped half their people at the same time, not to mention not enough time had passed since Enron. When Houston dumps techs on the market they do it all at once.
This guy is dead on. HR departments like to check boxes that have things to do with race, gender, and maybe even schools and hobbies that HR people are emotionally attached to. It has little to do with who can do the job.
I worked at a place where one of the more powerful building management positions was granted to a woman who slept her way into that position - and everyone knew it due to the martial splits and unions formed from it.
Despite having done rather advanced work with automation systems, manufacturing, communications, systems administration and desktop support for years I spent two years marginally employed as rent-a-scab. I moved in with my grandparents for that time period just to make it.
I've come to the conclusion ability will keep you employed - mostly. Sucking dick will eventually land you a fat salary and a Porsche. Being the aspie that I am I'm sticking with ability, I don't think I'm capable of the level of brow-nosing required to really get ahead.
So the laptop in question is nearly four years old and has had the same SSD the whole time.
The SSD died last week, probably because the install flipped bits that hadn't been flipped in a long time.
I reinstalled the OS from scratch AGAIN on a new SSD of the same size.
Edge is working fine, I was able to download and install Brave without issue - all other hardware is the same and I used the same methodology and even the same install media to rebuild.
I played South Park the Fractured But Whole on it all day Saturday and it was great. I've played some platform games on it as well.
I'm not sure how it works for FPS games or Racing games, I'm guessing those are sort of shit (The Next Penelope was fine). On RPGs, slower platform games, Adventure games it works great. I've played Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams on it, it looked beautiful and performed well.
I'm not sure WHY but using a Steam Link works better than my Linux desktop. I've got Steam on my Linux desktop that's on the same switch as my "Wintendo" Steam server. My Steam Link has to go through that switch, the router/switch under the TV, then the switch in the bedroom to get between the systems. It's all Gigabit, but that's quite a few cascades for home equipment. The Linux desktop is pretty much double the power of the Wintendo, and when I'm playing a Steam game locally it works great, no technical problems to speak of. When I'm streaming from the Wintendo to the Linux system it has video glitches, occasionally goes to really low bit-rate video and on rare occasion just freezes. I've got a pair of olded nVida cards in SLI mode in the Wintendo and the Linux system has a Geforce 750 TI, so I they've definitely put some thought into the Steam Link side of things even the PC/Linux version is lacking. 8 cores at 3 Ghz and 16 GB of RAM should beat the Steam Link, but whatever.
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Even when I am fortunate enough to be able to bike for the majority of my traveling I'm still paying for those roads.
I pay for them when I do drive.
I pay for them when I order something online. (a part of that shipping pays for the fuel in the trucks that deliver the package)
I pay for them when I order a pizza (see online line above)
I pay for them when I pay other taxes that go to roads despite not being a road tax
I pay for them when I bike to the grocery store to buy food. That's right, part of what I pay at the register goes to distribution costs that pay for the trucks that pay for the roads.
People who have the idea cyclist and pedestrians don't pay for the roads just really can't see three moves ahead.
I reread what I wrote, then I read what you wrote, I'm trying to make sense of what you said, but I can't in context.
I personally like to ride my bike.
I've had four jobs where I could do that, three of them in a small town before I actually graduated high-school.
I'm working on number five right now, I'll have to get the job then move before it becomes an option, but I've got someone with inside strings trying to help make it happen. Showers are a must in Texas if you plan on doing an office job while biking.
I honestly thing the automotive industry and the energy industry have a lot to do with our poor design. The movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit addressed it rather well, the Trolley systems really were bought up and put out of service by auto manufacturers. In my city real-estate moguls put forth bribes to keep public transit crappy. There are seven major business districts in Houston, most of the property in each district is owned by a different set of conglomerates/moguls. They actually have a motive to trap people in their individual districts, making it too easy to move around hurts their bottom line. This isn't exactly new in Houston, old timers will tell you the reason that system got removed - with prejudice - had to do with the money spent to keep it from taking off.
To the energy companies credit they're doing an about-face. They know that we know and they're pretending that they don't know that we know. They're actually contributing to some of the bike lane expansions and bayou-bicycle express ways in the city. Too little too late, but I do like the fact they're doing it.
Two miles - if possible, walk, skateboard, scooter, skates, two miles is nothing. Where I live it may be practically impossible due to the way the roads are built to get there on foot in less than two miles if at all, but the idea stands.
Are you too big of an idiot to think globally?
After all the problem this article is covering only exist due to globalism. If they weren't trying to be globalist they wouldn't have to worry about fines from outside of their "sovereign nation".
Nope, when reading articles about globalism I always think of what happens when we completely crater and allow it to come here.
It was half that. I've found any time I move close to work, work moves. Also most of the business centers of this city aren't places you want to raise kids. No, the bus system sucks. If you want to go downtown and back on a weekday during business hours you're cool. If downtown were the center of the pizza and you wanted to go to the next slice or the next one over, you have to go to the center, wait, then come back, there isn't really a slice to slice option in most cases. If you want to get anywhere other than business hours on a weekday - good luck. I've tried riding the bus in this city, there are bus stops that are supposed to have a bus every fifteen minutes, you're lucky to get one every forty five.
Free doesn't mean free. It means now every time your neighbor gets on a bus you have to pay a fractional cent. Paying it for them motivates them to use it more. Now it means all your neighbors.
That might work there, but where I live the bus sucks so bad I couldn't use it if it were free. It takes a minimum of three hours to get to where I want to be, less than one to drive.
Because I did further research and I can't edit a previous comment. I have this thing about accuracy, I like it.
Nope, it's further upstream than Ubuntu, it's Debian - from the SteamOS site:
SteamOS is designed to run Steam and Steam games. It also provides a desktop mode which can run regular Linux applications. SteamOS makes use of the standard APT package manager for software updates; you can add third-party sources to your subscribed repositories to gain access to more applications. SteamOS currently provides a limited set of packages, but many Debian jessie packages work fine on SteamOS. We plan to make a wider variety of packages vailable directly from the SteamOS repositories over time.
I've never actually done much with SteamOS. I know it's Ubuntu based, and by looking at the Wikipedia entry it says that you can start Gnome. Beyond a web browser most of the normal desktop stuff isn't there, such as file browsers and image viewers, but you can simply add them. Of course my main reason for pointing to SteamOS was simply to find a practical standard to rally behind, community agreed upon standards are nice, but it takes something like real hardware and a company actually doing something to get commitment, this is where LSB failed.
I'm actually on-board with your sysadmin hat frustrations. I'm really big on finding the easiest way to do things so I can encourage others along that path. For a long time network file sharing was my pet-annoyance. I'm willing to say adding and removing programs with Linux is actually easier than with Windows now, and easier than both Windows and Mac at keeping things up to date, as long as those things are in the package manager. Even adding repositories isn't too hard, but still outside of user land.
I've been searching for a Linux machine I could pass to my parents for a long time. I've yet to find it, though I have put my wife on Maui Linux and she likes it. I still have to run updates for her (to be fair she didn't update her Windows either) and I had to setup KDE Connect for her, but she absolutely loves KDE Connect and her stable Linux machines.
Linux is the wild frontier where anything goes. I hope the frontier is never closed. I would however like a nice usable distro that is seen as friendly and usable - much like Android is seen - for the desktop. One thing feeds another, getting that Steam Box to take off is not my real reason for pushing it, getting everyone onboard with making things Steam Box compatible is the real goal. Then your various distros and hardware makers will have a reason to strive for Steam Box compatibility if for no reason other than it's compatible with everything else.
YOU ARE COMPLETELY IGNORING THE VERY FOUNDATION OF WHAT I SAID
Except that it IS different. PS3 is a single platform. There is exactly one PS3, with maybe a couple variations. Ditto with the XBox. There isn't that much variation.
There are at least five PS3's, probably more, the differences are so different that gen 1 PS3's use more power while "off" than the final gen PS3's used while running. There's several versions of the XBOX 360 and XBONE as well, the differences being at least vast enough to cover different resolutions.
Linux? Distros don't even TRY to maintain any sort of compatibility between each other.
It doesn't fucking matter if you'll actually read what I wrote. I linked to the currently available Steam Machines. These Steam Machines all run Steam OS - Valve's distro. Valve is big on SteamOS / Linux which must really piss Stallman off because they don't write Gnu/SteamOS/Linux. Write it to run on SteamOS on Steam Machine hardware, consider it working somewhere else incidental. Your argument holds zero water in this case.
I've tried to use Linux as a desktop OS. Several times. Every single time I've had to abandon it cause Linux is a PITA to use for general end-user tasks unless you only work within the limited garden a distro happens to provide for you.
I'm sorry you can't make it work for you. I've been using it for 20 years. Yes, I do a lot of staying in my distro for simplicity reasons, but I don't do it exclusively. I go outside of my distro for compatibility reasons, just yesterday I installed a copy of VirtualBox from the site instead of the distro version because that version was too out of date for what I wanted to do. I always, regardless of which distro I'm using, have a copy of Calibre installed that doesn't even use my distro's packages. My distro simplifies things for me, it doesn't trap me. Steam is about the easiest software installer I've ever used, beating even Synaptics.
On the simple side of things:
I would love to see the Steamlink software ported to the PS3/4. It would be awesome, but I'm sure it wouldn't be in Sony's best interest.
First of all, they support Steam Machines in the default config with Steam controllers, not Linux.
A good example of this already being done is Bit Trip Runner which works with Steam Controllers and XBOX 360 controls but completely ignores even Steam level control configuration so that it's only compatible with that setup and flat refuses to work with others. They've said fuck-all to people like me who prefer PS3 controls and they don't support anything. The game has still sold well. I think they're assholes for ignoring the Steam level control configs, but that hasn't changed a thing.
For gaming it is a tough business model to be Linux friendly. Not impossible but it takes a lot of effort and resources for a small return.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Consider the Linux version a console port, no different than you would the PS3 or XBOX. Then instead of worrying about every possible hardware setup out there make sure it works with the systems on this page and say fuck-all to the rest. Once it works on those systems on factory settings it's going to work for most of what's out there.
Doing that with the right titles will create a feed-back loop. More people will risk adopting the Linux systems, on that page as a console, and more developers will risk developing for them. There has to be a critical mass point.
Same here, my dad gave me a hard time if I didn't have a knife in my pocket starting at age 7 or so. I rarely did due to school and not remembering to put it in my pocket after. It was rough.
I've been shooting some since about the age of four.
Thanks for that info.
I haven't had any kind of TV service (not counting a useless basic cable package that came with my Internet access I didn't even use) in ten years.
I'm fine with this but it seems to completely blow my visiting relatives/inlaws minds. I may set this up just to make them more comfortable while they're visiting. My Kodi system is plenty full of movies. I may have to get more TV.....
You know, I know where a really nice three bedroom, two bath two car garage brick home with a large living room from the 1980's in great condition sold for $35,000 - yes in the United States.
If you have to live in a shit-hole to get a deal, is it really a deal?
I've passed it three time.
Two times an app that's supposed to download podcasts over WiFi only decided to use normal data. Another I needed to webcast an announcement for a political connection and it was better than the hotel WiFi.
In short - if the places I hung around (work) had better WiFi so that my automated downloader didn't hiccup and/or fail to download on a regular basis I would practically never exceed my bandwidth. The program itself seems to be pretty good about not doing it on mobile data, it's when I manually force it, it will use anything.
fi had been great. I'm rarely without a signal. During Hurricane Harvey Sprint and T-Mobile had great signals but zero backhaul. I was able to force it over to US Cellular (a carrier that doesn't really exist as an entity down here but still have coverage for their travelers) and even though the signal was weak I could let people know we were safe. What other carrier can you switch your carrier on when a local connection sucks?
Just getting rid of the tax-burdens and breaks put in place specifically to encourage companies to off-shore their help would do a lot to move in that direction.
Energy sector has taken a hit repeatedly while I've lived here. What really sucks is the energy sector and HP taking a hit all at the same time - that's part of why I spent two years marginally employed. I helped to deploy the system at Shell that replaced me and HP dumped half their people at the same time, not to mention not enough time had passed since Enron. When Houston dumps techs on the market they do it all at once.
This guy is dead on. HR departments like to check boxes that have things to do with race, gender, and maybe even schools and hobbies that HR people are emotionally attached to. It has little to do with who can do the job.
I guess that sums Houston up in general.
I worked at a place where one of the more powerful building management positions was granted to a woman who slept her way into that position - and everyone knew it due to the martial splits and unions formed from it.
Despite having done rather advanced work with automation systems, manufacturing, communications, systems administration and desktop support for years I spent two years marginally employed as rent-a-scab. I moved in with my grandparents for that time period just to make it.
I've come to the conclusion ability will keep you employed - mostly. Sucking dick will eventually land you a fat salary and a Porsche. Being the aspie that I am I'm sticking with ability, I don't think I'm capable of the level of brow-nosing required to really get ahead.
I guarantee it's not Houston.
Skilled workers with years of experience have trouble getting positions with those kinds of wages here, much less entry level stuff.
So the laptop in question is nearly four years old and has had the same SSD the whole time.
The SSD died last week, probably because the install flipped bits that hadn't been flipped in a long time.
I reinstalled the OS from scratch AGAIN on a new SSD of the same size.
Edge is working fine, I was able to download and install Brave without issue - all other hardware is the same and I used the same methodology and even the same install media to rebuild.
I played South Park the Fractured But Whole on it all day Saturday and it was great. I've played some platform games on it as well.
I'm not sure how it works for FPS games or Racing games, I'm guessing those are sort of shit (The Next Penelope was fine). On RPGs, slower platform games, Adventure games it works great. I've played Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams on it, it looked beautiful and performed well.
I'm not sure WHY but using a Steam Link works better than my Linux desktop. I've got Steam on my Linux desktop that's on the same switch as my "Wintendo" Steam server. My Steam Link has to go through that switch, the router/switch under the TV, then the switch in the bedroom to get between the systems. It's all Gigabit, but that's quite a few cascades for home equipment. The Linux desktop is pretty much double the power of the Wintendo, and when I'm playing a Steam game locally it works great, no technical problems to speak of. When I'm streaming from the Wintendo to the Linux system it has video glitches, occasionally goes to really low bit-rate video and on rare occasion just freezes. I've got a pair of olded nVida cards in SLI mode in the Wintendo and the Linux system has a Geforce 750 TI, so I they've definitely put some thought into the Steam Link side of things even the PC/Linux version is lacking. 8 cores at 3 Ghz and 16 GB of RAM should beat the Steam Link, but whatever.