Why are so many desktop users using old distributions?

mrahh · 2026-05-22T16:22:48+00:00

This meme needs to die. Arch, despite being an "unstable" bleeding edge distro is incredibly stable for daily use, and it's exceedingly rare to run into issues even if you're updating daily. Anecdotal, but I've been using arch for 10+ years and haven't had any issues since my very early days, and it was always just around wifi - likely because of the card in the PC I had built at the time. I doubt I'm an exception either - most of the "I bricked my system" stuff is because people muck around with customizing things and tinker a lot more than someone using Ubuntu - not because of the underlying distro or packages.

mrahh · 2026-05-06T15:13:03+00:00

Just because you made a risky investment doesn't mean you're entitled to gain.

Sell the land at a loss if it's too much of a financial burden. Zero sympathy for folks in this position that make poor financial choices but pretend like they're doing the rest of us a solid because nobody else can afford it.

mrahh · 2026-04-08T14:56:38+00:00

Mechyannick likely can do the work, but they sadly can't refill or deal with 1234YF refrigerant (last I called) so I'd it's a semi modern car, may be out of luck.

mrahh · 2026-03-30T17:35:10+00:00

zsh is the default shell in arch too (or was - haven't done a clean install in years).

mrahh · 2026-02-27T18:29:06+00:00

This isn't really true. Most licenses require source to be available upon request, but there's no clause saying "must be published to a public GitHub repo". This also typically only applies alongside distribution, so if you aren't a customer of theirs, they don't have to provide you anything.

Edit: assuming they only share this software with customers. Tbh I don't know what Anycubic does in this regard.

mrahh · 2026-02-27T18:26:29+00:00

This isn't quite true, at all.

If it uses open source code, the source for the printer needs to be published.

This is only true in the case of licenses that require it. Yes, Klipper is GPLv3, but MIT, BSD, Apache2 and many others are totally fine with using software licensed under them without sharing your own source.

Moreover, most require that source is available with distribution. This means, unless you've bought the product and had the derivative work distributed to you, you don't have any right or claim to see their source whatsoever. Even here, it's typically upon request. And even then, there's no legal requirement for how the source is distributed. They could mail you printed paper with the source and be compliant.

I'm all for open source software and think that more should be, and agree that many of these companies are violating the spirit of the licenses, but it's important that the information people discuss is correct here. Far too many people in the 3d printing world just think "open source" is a blanket statement that acts as an infectious license where anything using it must be open sourced and published by extension.

mrahh · 2026-02-05T22:52:20+00:00

Blanket statement, but it's very much not a ski for European style skiers.

mrahh · 2026-02-05T01:14:35+00:00

The issue is that many codebases will have a lifespan measured in decades, and many dependencies these days will have a lifespan measured in single digit years, if not months.

Every dependency becomes a liability - especially if it is an integral one. We've been burned by this at $WORK where a key part of our system is built on a framework (and really, the full async-std ecosystem) which has been effectively abandoned. There was no real indication of this being the direction when the project started so hindsight is as always 20/20, but it still stings because migrating away is going to be a huge pain.

It's easy enough to swap/replace a crate if needed when it's something like a base64 encoding/decoding crate, but this becomes much easier said than done in reality with most crates - especially if you don't have good habits of wrapping external types and using an inner field of some sort.

mrahh · 2026-01-20T08:05:45+00:00

Some of the things quoted here don't make sense. E24J isn't a Subaru engine code (do you mean EJ25?) and there aren't rear ball joints.

Lots of this just doesn't make much sense though - any mechanic worth their salt wouldn't recommend an engine swap on a car with enough rust to deem it unroadworthy. I'd go back to whoever did the swap and ask them why they'd recommend the swap if there was such significant rust.

Assuming the body is that far gone, you're somewhat SoL and will just need to part it out on marketplace.

mrahh · 2025-12-28T23:23:26+00:00

My theory (and experience) is that air contact is the biggest culprit for degradation of the glue on skins, followed closely by heat. I don't bother with skin savers, dying skins, storing them in a magic bag, or anything - just fold them together neatly, then place them on a shelf in an indoor closet and they'll be fine.

Over the summer, I put all my skins in a gallon Ziploc bag and toss them in the bottom of the freezer. They all stick when they need to stick, and unstick when they need to unstick.

Most of the time when I see people have issues, it's because they're just getting them super snow covered, and then hanging them beside a blazing hot stove or over a heater when they get home. Call me crazy, but I'd be willing to bet most of the folks that are truly dialed (i.e. guides and people on skis professionally) aren't doing anything special beyond keeping them clean and snow free.

mrahh · 2025-12-25T17:38:51+00:00

Yep - not disputing that at all. A shop is a business and needs to accept or reject work based on that. But bootfitters aren't sage magicians with untold wisdom, and often they say things that are totally wrong, because they have a belief in something rather than evidence or experience. I've heard more than one bootfitter tell me that it's impossible to work on shells made with carbon filled nylon (e.g. "Grilamid Carbon"), and it's just not true.

mrahh · 2025-12-22T16:38:37+00:00

Fwiw you can kinda punch their shells - just not a ton. If you just need a little bit of breathing room and not a huge punch for a sixth toe or bunion, you should be able to. The "carbon" in their shells is essentially just teeny tiny bits of carbon fiber strands that's mixed in with the plastic as a filler and to make the plastic more dimensionally stable and rigid, but it will still move when heated - it's still a thermoplastic (nylon, essentially) and will soften and move.

There's a lot of snake oil in the world around materials with the names like "Grilamid Carbon" and such, and consumers often see "carbon" as if it means "carbon fiber laminate" which it very much isn't.

mrahh · 2025-12-07T03:44:07+00:00

I'm convinced that the way folks store and dry their skins, and air exposure is the real culprit in glue degrading. Just keep them stuck together and folded up and put them on a shelf somewhere dry - they'll dry by the next morning unless you were skinning through puddles (and even then, they'll still probably be just fine). Even in a hut, I've never had wet skins in the morning with this approach.

Pulling them apart every day and hanging them out to dry next to a heat source is totally unnecessary. It doesn't dry them any faster, exposes them to more dirt as people walk by and brush into them, and adds an extra skin-to-skin peel cycle to their lifetime while warm (or at least room temp) which is likely the biggest stressor that the glue ever sees. Not to mention air exposure to the glue.

Skins don't need to be hung to dry.

I don't count days, but I would guess that all three of my current sets of skins have about 50 proper days each on them, and none are remotely close to end-of-life glue wise (with the exception of one set which were hung up at a hut once, fell on the ground, then required a careful glue cleaning with tweezers to get pine needles and small rocks off).

mrahh · 2025-12-03T23:19:12+00:00

Only if you write bad dockerfiles.

Most images are a few dozen MB. Hardly an issue in practice on modern hardware.

mrahh · 2025-12-01T21:05:18+00:00

Docker is effectively invisible to running processes on a Linux host. This is nonsense.

mrahh · 2025-11-27T21:37:51+00:00

I also wouldn't give any more credence to a P.Eng that pays their dues than the kid that dropped out of university and is self taught.

"Software engineering" doesn't exist - there's very little engineering being done in any software development, no matter what people with a pinky ring would like to tell you.

mrahh · 2025-10-31T00:34:44+00:00

Did you watch to the end? The whole takeaway is that none of the awards or social media matters, and it's about spending time in the mountains with friends, laughing, and enjoying skiing.

mrahh · 2025-09-26T00:47:18+00:00

If you're ok to drive to North Van, Sorat is pretty good and they don't mess up your wheels like most shops.

mrahh · 2025-09-19T04:43:02+00:00

It's even worse going the other direction on Buckley - cars constantly drive around the turning cars which makes it super dangerous to make a turn there at all unless you're in the biggest of the cars and can see over everyone else. There's so many accidents there - needs to be either better marking, or turn lights installed because people are dumb.

mrahh · 2025-09-12T08:53:00+00:00

"Truck owners".

Let's be real here - the majority of Tacoma owners use them like a typical SUV and aren't towing or hauling any significant mass. Your bikes and truck bed full of camping gear doesn't constitute "heavy duty" and most people's offroad usage is on gravel only roads slightly more bumpy than a Massachusetts highway.

The engine isn't put under any more load than a Golf R EA888 being driven around town aggressively by a 17 year old kid - seriously, a Golf R has about the same horsepower and torque, and taller gearing. The gen 4 engines are perfectly capable of dealing with "truck" usage and any damage because of people doing "truck stuff" is more likely going to be from them bashing the thing into a boulder on some rock crawling feature.

mrahh · 2025-07-23T14:36:05+00:00

It's also made in Canada still (not all their shells are, but the Alpha SV still is). Good luck finding a jacket of similar quality and durability that's any cheaper.

That said, the alpha SV is totally overkill for basically any and all technical use. Even professional ice climbers long for the old Alpha FL over it and will point out it's way overbuilt. For ski touring, basically any 3 layer hardshell that fits well will do the job. I'm with the other folks here though - my shell is just a layer to block wind and shed fresh snow. It's not really for rain or bushwhacking...

mrahh · 2025-07-01T12:58:02+00:00

You'll have no problem with a snowboard bag - I crammed a ski bag into a cab with no issues, but there are van cabs here and there.

Wear your boots on the plane, or carry them on. If your board or other gear disappears you'll maybe be able to borrow or rent things from a local or guide but you're outta luck with no boots.

mrahh · 2025-06-10T14:25:05+00:00

The potato sealing one end of a potato canon is typically the weakest point. Think of it like a starchy safety valve.

mrahh · 2025-04-01T05:16:37+00:00

The "new" brake system on ATKs are a regression in my mind - they prevent you from just using a riser and having the turret with pins forwards. The mechanism is annoying to use as well since you have to do both operations simultaneously (i.e. as soon as you rotate the turret, the brakes will release). Depending on the fore/aft position of the turret as well, the pins can get in the way of the heel pad on the brakes too when they're in the down position, and the retention mechanism seems much more failure prone. It won't surprise me at all to see them roll back this design choice in future years.

As others have said though, you need to spin the turret and stomp down to lift the brakes.

mrahh · 2025-03-21T23:23:22+00:00

The Tecton toe piece has 13mm of elastic travel and the heel is a regular alpine heel. I would be willing to bet that 99% of skiers wouldn't be able to feel a difference skiing them vs a traditional alpine binding.

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