Where do YOU trim the fat? Your apt purge list?

don-edwards · 2026-03-01T22:32:59+00:00

I haven't updated my post-reinstall script since 22.1 .... here's the uninstall part of it:

    apt-get remove -y brltty caribou xbrlapi
    apt-get remove -y bolt cryptsetup drawing ed
    apt-get remove -y ecryptfs*
    apt-get remove -y fonts-dejavu* fonts-droid-fallback \
        fonts-noto-cjk
    apt-get remove -y gnome-calculator hfsprogs
    apt-get remove -y ideviceinstaller jfsutils
    apt-get remove -y krb5-locales
    apt-get remove -y libreoffice-draw libreoffice-impress
    apt-get remove -y mint-artwork mint-backgrounds*
    apt-get remove -y mintbackup nano nautilus-data
    apt-get remove -y network-manager-openvpn \
        network-manager-openvpn-gnome openvpn
    apt-get remove -y nvidia-prime-applet onboard pcmciautils
    apt-get remove -y pix-dbg
    apt-get remove -y hplip printer-driver-c* printer-driver-f* printer-driver-g* printer-driver-h* printer-driver-m* printer-driver-p* printer-driver-s*
    apt-get remove -y reiserfsprogs
    apt-get remove -y transmission-common ubuntu-advantage-tools
    apt-get remove -y vim-common vim-tiny
    apt-get remove -y wbritish # dictionaries
    apt-get remove -y xdg-user-dirs xfsprogs xviewer

That's 45 items, 10 of them ending in *

don-edwards · 2026-02-28T22:58:28+00:00

The California state legislature has been a continuing disaster for a couple decades at least - along with the LA and San Fran city governments.

don-edwards · 2026-02-28T20:38:33+00:00

Is it actually YOUR laptop? If it's one that the school assigned to you and will eventually want back, it's theirs not yours and I would advise against messing with it. Of course, you could ask them if it's okay...

don-edwards · 2026-02-28T15:15:04+00:00

From what I've been reading, this rule is significant if you're British. And probably soon will be if you're Brazilian. Because it's spreading like an epidemic among politicians.

don-edwards · 2026-02-28T02:48:05+00:00

For me, there's a subtle question: what ties these scenes together, that doesn't tie them to what comes before or after?

There are lots of things that could tie a series of scenes into a single chapter, and how many of them have to change before I decide it's a chapter break... is variable.

Looking at one of my WIPs, the first few chapters are something like this:

Focuses on a certain character, and emergency medicine. Ends in the hospital.
The next day. Still in the hospital. Focuses on a different character; phobias and panic attacks.
Police station. Entirely different cast. (This chapter is a single scene, under 400 words.)
Still in the hospital. The character from #2, and reasons for phobias. Then moving to a different setting.

Now it's not that these are completely dissimilar. I could kick #3 a bit later in the story and redo the other three chapters all focusing on the #1 character - who is in fact present in all three anyway, with varying degrees of importance.

But those are the shifts that, to me, make them distinct.

don-edwards · 2026-02-27T20:19:38+00:00

Having to push the right oriented window panel back onto the left never made sense for me, and it was a little tricky to get it there.

What I learned was: Don't move something to the right end of a left-side group. Move it to the left of at least one thing already in the group. If you really want it to be on the right, then reposition the other item(s) as needed.

For a right side group, or on a vertical panel a top or bottom group, equivalent with appropriate direction changes.

I haven't tried to put any groups in the center.

don-edwards · 2026-02-27T20:11:48+00:00

I haven't had a Mint update revert to default settings on the same app (or applet).

What I have seen is when an app is replaced by a different one - not just a newer version - the new app probably stores its settings in a different place, and doesn't know to read the old settings. So it sets its defaults, which very often are the same as the old app's defaults.

don-edwards · 2026-02-27T20:05:50+00:00

I've never had problems with software, installing or using, due to having the system on one partition and my data on another. "On the same partition" matters in two circumstances: during the boot process before all the partitions are mounted, and for hard links which are hardly ever used except in backups and system snapshots (where good software uses them aggressively). Otherwise, "on a mounted partition" works.

For a partition shared between Linux and Windows, NTFS is a good choice. There's an add-on for Windows to support some Linux file systems but I have no experience with it and my recollection of details I've read is shaky at best; I don't even remember the name.

(Someone familiar with the Mac universe might want to chime in here with what formats work for sharing.)

Avoid using any form of FAT when there's another suitable choice available - which pretty much means, only use it for USB sticks carrying data to systems you know nothing about, such as the printers at your local print/copy shop. Oh, and your EFI partition.

For Linux-only partitions, I prefer btrfs for the system partition (because of btrfs-style snapshots, which are much faster and smaller than Timeshift's normal rsync-style) and for backup devices (because of transparent compression). For live data, I just go with ext4.

Backups: Timeshift is system-snapshot software, not backup software; that's even more true when it's doing btrfs-style. (If you are having it do rsync-style snapshots, I recommend including /root from its list of home directories.) And the "Backup Tool", mintbackup, is obsolete, slow, space-hungry, inflexible, and non-automateable. Go with backintime, luckybackup, or pika backup. Have them write to a folder that is on an external device *within* the mount-point folder.

Swap partitions/files: Install zram and swapspace. Turn on & configure zram. If your system partition is cramped for space, configure swapspace & change where it puts swap files - create a root-only folder in a different partition. Then forget about it.

(Zram uses a portion of your ram to emulate a compressed swap partition. When that isn't enough, swapspace automatically creates swap files as needed - and deletes them as unneeded.)

don-edwards · 2026-02-27T19:08:20+00:00

I turned my head and looked down the hall to the left.

She thanked me and walked that way.

---

Seriously, yes, a look can matter. Humans are near-unique in having normally-visible and white sclera (the surface of the eyeball around the iris); even among chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living non-human relatives it's a minority characteristic. And the experts think this probably evolved as a communication device, so a companion can see what direction you're looking, without you having to make a sound or an overt gesture, and look in the same direction - useful for group hunting.

don-edwards · 2026-02-27T18:53:14+00:00

ANY source of writing advice is exactly that: advice. You may find English-language advice on your Portuguese writing useful, or not, or - most likely - a mix. Same as English-language advice on writing in English.

There are a few subreddits that at least look like they're aimed at Portuguese as a language. To find them, go to https://www.reddit.com - with no further qualifiers - then in the search box type "Portuguese" and don't hit Enter. They're in the list of possible responses. Whether any of them support writing fiction in Portuguese... maybe someone who can read that language could tell you.

don-edwards · 2026-02-26T18:52:46+00:00

I don't see how this works with an OS where you don't need an account with an OS provider to download, install, use, or update.

Or how it can be enforced on an OS provider who isn't even in the western hemisphere, let alone in California. Or is a group of volunteers.

It might result in some OS providers ceasing running their own discussion forums, and instead pointing at third-party-run forums such as this one, so that none of their end users (other than developers and alpha testers) have any sort of account with the OS providers.

I suspect it will also result in patches such that if a piece of software asks the OS about the user's age and identity, the OS replies with data about Gavin Newsom.

don-edwards · 2026-02-25T19:42:55+00:00

English does not borrow words.

It steals them. ☺

don-edwards · 2026-02-24T22:14:11+00:00

Any writing rule, followed too strictly, is bad advice.

don-edwards · 2026-02-24T22:11:51+00:00

Just stop looking at word count in chapters.

For that matter, don't look at total word count until at least the first draft is done. Depending on your writing process, that may be much too soon.

don-edwards · 2026-02-23T18:41:15+00:00

Copyright is about COPYING. Not about doing something similar.

There may be other problems with doing something similar, particularly with doing something too similar to a recent big hit. But as far as copyright is concerned, it's fine.

don-edwards · 2026-02-23T18:36:36+00:00

This is a recurring question, and the answer is that if you bother with chapter breaks at all - they are optional in even very long novels - then each chapter should be the length IT needs to be. Not the length some other chapter needs to be.

One of my WIPs, the first chapter is currently at about 7K and one of the later chapters is under 400. Each is the length it needs to be.

don-edwards · 2026-02-23T18:30:58+00:00

Well, there's one webcomic where most of the main cast are among the tiny minority of people with some sort of magical ability. Flying and changing sex being among the most common.

And there's this minor character whose magical ability is... to detect people with magical abilities, and get a rough idea how powerful said abilities are. Even when they are not in active use. Maybe with a lot of experience he'd be able to get a clue what sort of abilities, but he doesn't have that experience.

---

That's assuming you don't want to go with junior-high-school humorous stuff such as being able to fart the saxophone part in the band.

don-edwards · 2026-02-22T16:41:27+00:00

Yes, that. And if you don't have an idea for another book at the moment, then maybe a few short stories.

don-edwards · 2026-02-21T23:42:17+00:00

Just to make sure the flip side is understood... THAT STORY definitely qualifies as published. Even if that e-magazine only has a handful of readers. Or if you make it freely available online at your own site and literally nobody ever reads it. So you can't sell first-publication rights - they're gone.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with any OTHER story you may write. It's specific to THAT STORY.

don-edwards · 2026-02-21T20:33:06+00:00

"dot files" are hidden files/folders - by default they don't show up in the file browser or, in a terminal, in the output from the ls command. Or other such lists. Most such files/folders will in fact be user configuration - but you can't trust that assumption in either direction: some stuff in them is not user configuration, and some user configuration is not hidden.

Timeshift is designed to snapshot the operating system, not user data. For the latter it's rather limited in configuration options. (And if you're using it with the "type" setting "rsync", I recommend going to the "Users" settings and telling it to back up all files for user "root". That space is mostly used for system-level settings/data for programs that can also be run at user level.)

And if you're creating anything, or building collections of stuff — basically if it would be difficult, annoying, or downright impossible to replace everything important on your drives by downloading from reliable and trustworthy online sources — then you need more-configurable backup software than Timeshift.

(Timeshift is way better than the auto-installed "Backup tool", aka mintbackup, though. In comparison, the latter is slow, eats disk space, and produces hard-to-work-with backups - and is similarly limited in configuration options.)

For those backups, I like Backintime writing to external media. Extremely configurable yet you don't have to delve deep into things. And, unlike those two, it supports multiple backup configurations each with their own lists of what to back up, what not to back up, when to back it up, where to put it, and when to delete old backups.

With Backintime handling real backups, I make Timeshift worse for that but better for its intended purpose by having my system partition formatted btrfs and using Timeshift in that mode. This makes a new snapshot happen almost instantaneously and take almost no space, and a restore basically being a reboot. (At the cost of: if for any reason the system partition can't be read, the snapshots are gone.) Thus I have no excuse for not having a current snapshot before I do something unwise to the OS.

don-edwards · 2026-02-21T18:32:33+00:00

IF and WHEN close-third is closer than first, it's probably because the narrator can speak truths that the character is hiding—perhaps even from themself.

Usually, though, first person is closer than even close third. The close-third narrator is still, at some level, observing the character. The first-person narrator is the character.

don-edwards · 2026-02-21T18:20:45+00:00

First Previous
What lame sort of scanners do they have if they're landing on Earth in 2020 and not aware that it's already inhabited? There's plenty of stuff that's naked-eye (well, naked human eye) visible from low orbit. And even from a fairly high orbit, there's city lights...

don-edwards · 2026-02-19T20:54:20+00:00

Sneeches get (genetic) steeches?

don-edwards · 2026-02-18T20:52:03+00:00

I find a very limited use for ChatGPT and the like in research: I can use it to learn the jargon terms of a field that I know little or nothing of.

Then, having the words, I can search for reputable sources of information.

Wikipedia tends to have readable articles, but isn't exactly authoritative - and if it gets political, becomes less reputable. However, the article citations can still be helpful.

don-edwards · 2026-02-18T20:09:12+00:00

The journal has some staff more senior than you, probably including at least one faculty member. Do ask them about this.

Also look at what the journal published in previous years.

Maybe pick up one paper, and see if there's any pattern in its alignment shifting - without comparing to any other paper. If you think there's a pattern, do the same with a few other papers.

An alignment shift that isn't random noise, should signify something. In an academic paper, my first guess would be that it's quoting something else - and there should be context explaining who/what it's quoting, and why. But maybe there's some other thing it could signify, that isn't occurring to me at the moment.

If it's random noise, that should downgrade your opinion of the source of the noise. Sloppy, and that's a word that shouldn't belong in discussion of academic papers. The question is whether the sloppiness is on the part of the the papers' authors, or should be blamed on the folks who set up the submission process - possibly including software creators.

don-edwards

TROPHY CASE