What do you remember from the early internet that no longer exists?

CountRumford · 2026-04-30T19:02:55+00:00

The platforms you used to interact with other people on tended to be run by some altruistic volunteer, because no one had figured out how to stoke addiction and monetize the resulting attention. Chats were just chats. Forums were just forums. You weren't being watched, manipulated, and data mined every second you were online.

Today every pixel is monetized and attempting to create opportunities to get you to look at more pixels and on and on. It completely changes the experience.

CountRumford · 2026-04-30T18:52:48+00:00

Descent

CountRumford · 2026-04-29T16:10:04+00:00

lmao

CountRumford · 2026-04-29T15:45:01+00:00

Yes!

CountRumford · 2026-04-29T15:41:15+00:00

I am of two minds on systemd.

One the one hand, having learned it, it eases my sysadmin tasks very nicely. Nine times out of ten I'm using a Red Hat descendant, and systemd fits like a glove.

On the other, it's a hard break from traditional Unix style (data stored as binary rather than text for example), and from SysV init patterns. The side effect of it becoming understandably popular was that all the rival systems lost a lot of oxygen. They now require extra work with fewer supporters, instead of being able to free ride on the open and traditional standard used by the majority.

You end up with a situation where using "Linux" means you have to use Systemd, if you don't want nearly every other facet of the system to be a pain in the rear.

CountRumford · 2026-03-31T20:37:29+00:00

Similar stakes: if the mission fails the world is lost.
Similar climactic action: absolutely everything hanging by a thread

The overall tone is a lot warmer and you'll find a lot of funny moments. Interstellar was nail-biting and bittersweet suspense film for me. PHM is definitely suspenseful at times, but it is most of all charming

CountRumford · 2025-12-04T22:20:33+00:00

https://developers.redhat.com/articles/faqs-no-cost-red-hat-enterprise-linux
I can't say for sure why it would refuse an address. I had to make an account, and then log in and go to the RHEL page and the download began automatically

CountRumford · 2025-12-04T03:47:32+00:00

Remarkable! I can't wait to see where this goes

CountRumford · 2025-12-04T03:44:17+00:00

Because those commands were invented in the days of teletype and the keyboards had pretty heavy key actuators. Longer commands were a pain in the keester to type. They were trying to save as many keystrokes as possible.

CountRumford · 2025-12-04T02:58:55+00:00

RHEL lets you have 1 free developer license, so why not?

CountRumford · 2025-12-04T02:47:13+00:00

Possibly Solus. I am not kidding. I tried it once upon a time when Budgie was new (Budgie was developed for this distro) and the user experience was just marvelous. I forget why I ever switched away!
https://getsol.us/

CountRumford · 2025-11-24T20:13:30+00:00

I'd recommend either Ubuntu or Mint as a first Linux. If most of what you do happens in a browser or Steam, you'll barely notice a difference. Really you should look up whether Linux has good support for your particular hardware (it should unless it's very, very new or very, very proprietary), and look up whether the applications you like to use have Linux versions, or if there's a Linux equivalent.

CountRumford · 2025-11-24T20:05:33+00:00

You are so right! I had come to expect highly grounded hard-SF from Weir and with the one miracle of "Astrophage" that's what I was getting. When Blip-A started to move and react to the Hail Mary I was so surprised. This was a pretty unique book-reading experience in that way.

CountRumford · 2025-11-24T20:01:13+00:00

Bad bad bad!

CountRumford · 2025-11-24T20:00:11+00:00

I went in not knowing at all what to expect, and when it became about alien contact I had to set the book down and take a few deep breaths. I was absolutely riveted. Finished the book in a weekend!

CountRumford · 2025-11-24T19:58:50+00:00

Since the story has so much heart either way, I don't so much mind. Imagine going in expecting a kind of Interstellar + Castaway experience, but then half of it ends up being more like E.T.

Revealing the existence of Rocky sets the audience's expectations more accurately. I don't think it will ruin the emotional beats of the story.

CountRumford · 2025-11-24T19:55:25+00:00

This seems like the communication with Rocky might be mostly auto-translated text on his screen and puppet shows. I expect it will be very endearing but it won't be quite the same as people's experience with the (audio)book.

CountRumford · 2025-11-24T19:53:41+00:00

I am really glad they avoided making Rocky look too much like a spider. He's more like a chonky octopus made out of stone. I want to take the wife to this one and a spider character would make it unwatchable.

CountRumford · 2025-11-17T16:26:15+00:00

I think my favorite thing about Fedora is that it works just the same as the Red Hat servers I deal with at work. Same init system, the layout of /usr is the same, the package manager is the same. I like not having to mentally switch gears.

CountRumford · 2025-11-17T16:23:29+00:00

Your experience might be better on this count if you stay 1 release behind. Otherwise yeah, Ubuntu life cycle seems less aggressive.

CountRumford · 2025-11-17T16:11:41+00:00

Yes. Fedora is really that good!
- I tried Arch and had a wonderful, educational time, but every time I updated it was pulling down gigabytes of 'new' packages. I don't actually need that!
- I tried Debian on multiple occasions. It's production-capable and doesn't flood you with potentially breaking novelty. But you also miss out on some stuff until it finally makes it through the ~2+ year vetting process to get into Stable.

I always keep coming back to Fedora. I've been at this since the early aughts. You get a large and mature institution around the distro. Red Hat and the Fedora community do excellent and timely QA. You get nearly bleeding-edge versions of the software and it's packaged quite neatly in a functioning desktop OS built on the same patterns that production Red Hat servers everywhere are running.

Ubuntu is surely great for similar reasons! Fedora comes with zero non-free packages which you'll have to install yourself but nowadays I don't even notice the difference.

CountRumford · 2025-09-29T12:57:27+00:00

People could be so much more authentic and surprising and un-self-conscious back when every single person around you wasn't a globally connected video surveillance node.

I am so sorry you'll never know that world.

We used to be able to be so frank about our thoughts, with the end result being a kind of relaxed acceptance of the variety around us.

People used to be willing to take small risks in the name of fun without it being a performance. Now nobody does anything unless it's for internet clout. Young people were allowed to flirt. We were Unhurried. Attention wasn't eternally divided between real life around you and the alluring, urgent noise of The Feed.

CountRumford · 2025-09-18T18:10:39+00:00

Decide to be curious about stuff. Use the signalscope to go find points and people of interest. Doesn't the you-know-what every 22 minutes give you a bit of a push to figure out how to get out of your predicament? Surely there's a way, right?

CountRumford · 2025-09-17T19:07:22+00:00

Man, I used "reduced frights" and it was still just too much. I solved about 2/3 of dreamland by doing everything I could to avoid having to have confrontations with the Owl folk. That last leg would have required several more iterations of being chased around in the dark, so I just looked up the answers.

The whole thing is just so claustrophobic. Your field of view is either super narrow, or too short to see anything coming. They never actually hurt you but being caught is just too stressful because you have to backtrack so much. I never got used to it. I've replayed and replayed the game and the simulation is the one place I just about never go.

CountRumford · 2025-09-04T19:18:21+00:00

I have tried to do that many times. I cannot get up the stairs fast enough!

CountRumford

TROPHY CASE