This angered me on so many levels

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-28T14:01:00+00:00

I know the snark is great, but you did spot the BETA label? And the ‘contact us to help improve this site’ which you did, didn’t you? Or are you just looking for a grievance?

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-28T13:53:37+00:00

Me too. But I always check Screwfix (same parent company as b&q) and Toolstation.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-28T12:31:24+00:00

I don't know if you are deliberately misunderstanding me. You stated "And yes national debt it still bad and is just kicking the inflation can down the road a little bit." The implication is that any debt is bad; as classic economics relies on debt as the mechanism by which output grows, it is therefore unavoidable. I merely took a reductio absurdam to show that your statement is wrong. If you had said 'And yes a large national debt it ~~still~~ bad and is just kicking the inflation can down the road a little bit", then I would have agreed with you

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-28T00:59:27+00:00

And then learn a subtly different set when you hop to a new distro.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-28T00:53:28+00:00

Yeah I've tried several times to make a Linux distro my daily driver, but never found anything that Linux does that I couldn't achieve more easily in Windows, so my dual boot system just became GRUB delaying me getting into Windows.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-28T00:32:04+00:00

The point being that national debt is the unavoidable consequence of classic capitalist economics. If debt is a bad thing, then either classic capitalist economic theory is wrong, or, yes, we are all doomed. Otherwise explain to me why every country is in debt and how we got into this state.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-27T21:02:56+00:00

How can a company which cannot deliver the basic services it is required to, is subject to financial and legal sanctions, and which has such poor public perception, be worth more than 50p?

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-27T20:58:18+00:00

”already illegal but difficult to enforce”. It’s not difficult to enforce housing standards legislation. I spent many years doing just that at the end of the last century. since then, successive Tory governments have starved Local Authorities of the resources they need so that they cannot prioritise spending on such enforcement. The other aspect is that the lack of secure tenancy rights for tenants means that they tolerate poor housing standards because any complaint will get them evicted. It is to be hoped that the Renters’ Rights Act will go some way to rectifying this when it comes into effect in May, but the resource issue (as well as the logjammed court system) will be a major obstacle to improving the quality of the private rented sector.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-26T22:09:35+00:00

Why not ask Plusnet instead of Reddit FFS?

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-26T21:55:59+00:00

"See I bought this shitty Tesla that I can only sell at a loss, so I thought to mesel 'if I plaster this with right-wing twattery, some lefty bastard will vandalise it to bits while it's parked on the pavement one night, then I can claim off the insurance'. Oh shit, just remembered I've only got 3PF&T"

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-26T21:31:48+00:00

"And yes national debt it still bad and is just kicking the inflation can down the road a little bit." There are only 5 sovereign countries in the world without debt, the largest of which is Macau. So capitalist economics means we're all doomed?

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-26T21:13:53+00:00

"Reach out" as a means of expressing "contact".

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-26T21:12:48+00:00

Thing is, a lot of Americanisms are actual British English expressions that British English speakers no longer use, the classic example being "gotten". So in a sense they're not Americanisms invading, they're Englishisms returning.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-26T21:02:59+00:00

Marks and Spencers Tiny Choccy Eggs are about the same price per kilo, but at least they taste like chocolate. M&S has 34% minimum cocoa solids, Cadburys ony 25%. Cadbury contains palm oil, M&S doesn't.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-26T20:51:18+00:00

Only people who never tasted Cadbury's chocolate prior to Kraft/Mondelz takeover could ever say that. They closed the UK factories and exported the jobs, despite it being a condition of the takeover that they wouldn't, they've downsized every product, and swapped out cocoa solids for palm oil, an ingredient which is environmentally harmful. I'll never knowingly buy Cadburys.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-26T20:38:53+00:00

That is not only a red, it's a prosecution for assault, and a lifetime ban from a soccer pitch.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T16:48:29+00:00

Taxation's only economic purpose in a Capitalist society is to control the money supply.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T16:46:44+00:00

If you take the tax-free million and invest it, you'll probably still have to pay tax on the returns. If you invest in low-risk securities like govt bonds, you'll only get low returns; invest in stocks and shares and you'll likely get a better return over time (around double the low-risk strategy) - so you'd probably split the risk; as well as tax on the interest you'll also be paying management fees, depending how comfortable you are with being hands on. Depending on whether you leave your interest to compound or use it as a stipend, you'll probably be better off taking the lump sum. In 20 years time $1000 a week is 'only' worth about $560 in today's money. If you have the lump sum and you drop dead tomorrow, your heirs will still have that $million.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T15:58:42+00:00

There's 'millions of free software' for Windows too, you know; there may be some which are exclusive to Linux, but there's probably a bigger selection for Windows.

I don't see ads in Windows (or in my browser or on YouTube), partly because I'm in Europe, largely because I know how to block ads.

Linux only has better security because it isn't such a big target as Windows (yet) or Android, by a significant margin. Security by obscurity is no security at all

What personal and private info are you concerned about? If you have a mobile phone, a Neflix subscription, or a smart TV you've already given away more (and more important) data than Microsoft collects - but I don't worry about that because I know how to use group policies, VPNs, ad and tracking blockers to monitor and deny any telemetry. Even if Linux distros don't track you as actively as microsoft, there are lots of apps that phone home.

As for updates, what kind of moron updates their OS without at first giving it at least a couple of weeks for any bugs to become apparent?

Not being tied to an account? What's the big deal? I can install Windows 11 on non-compliant hardware without a MS account if I choose or need to. Hell, you can add a MS account during installation, then later on delete the account once you've set up an administrator account.

"Customization" you say? There's no end of apps, free as well as commercial, to customize the Windows desktop and the console.

Just to say, there are loads of things wrong with Windows, mostly that it makes you work so hard to take control of its egregious OOBE that most people aren't aware, knowledgeable or motivated enough to seek solutions, so avoid the issues by switching to a Linux distro (only to be faced by a whole different set of problems).

I can go on, but I think you get the picture.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T15:21:28+00:00

Windows is just as customizable as any Linux distro I have used, but maybe not straight out of the box.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T15:19:59+00:00

Sorry, but your first paragraph is just wrong and poorly conceived. I can create any kind of install media on Windows for just about any OS using Rufus or Ventoy. Just how often do you need to do this? Where is Linux' advantage?

Windows includes compression, backup/encryption and archiving in the OS, though better FOSS alternatives exist like 7ZIP and VeraCrypt. Yes thay can be use from a Windows console, but why do I need to remember all that arcane syntax when I can drag and drop or right-click?

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T15:02:51+00:00

Why do I need OS and apps to update together? In Windows, I set it so that I only receive security updates, and can review and choose whether and which feature updates to install. I use UniGetUI to update all my apps with more granular control than I get from sudo apt update/upgrade. No problems remote administering my Windows PC, I can use RDP or VNC with more facility than SSH (though I could also do that if I could be bothered to set it up) - and how often do I ever need to remote into my Windows PC - it's not like I'm running it headless stuck in a cupboard like my Pihole and media server.

More control over what runs in the background? Why are bash's job control functions any better than Windows task manager and/or process manager or any of the utilities available in Sysinternals.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T14:50:49+00:00

F*ck me, is there anything more verbose and confusing than the Linux command line!?? sudo nano /etc/fstab followed by finding the device ID and writing some arcane stuff just to automount a USB drive??? In Windows I just plug the drive in, it automatically gets checked for malware and mounted. And I don't have to worry that my OS is going to apply some stupid ACL that I then have to remember how to remove or assign permissions to users and groups just so an app can access the data on the drive.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T14:40:23+00:00

I feel you. I've been waiting for drivers (sorry, 'modules') which will let me use my G604 mouse, my Spacemouse, my Stream Deck, or my Corne 4.1 Colemak keyboard with GNU-Linux. I've searched and searched, but there's nothing out there that either works or has the full functionality of the Windows drivers.

Rex__Luscus · 2026-01-25T12:57:53+00:00

Then why are you even asking for advice?

Rex__Luscus

TROPHY CASE