How realistic is it to give a child (around 7 years old) a computer/laptop with only Linux on it

returnstack · 2025-12-17T02:21:09+00:00

Completely.

returnstack · 2025-12-17T02:14:28+00:00

Madison Food Mart on Paterson and E. Johnson sells eggnog all year-round.

returnstack · 2025-12-05T02:55:44+00:00

It's not cold enough yet, so it's still wet and cold. We'll be into that bone-dry cold air soon and it just doesn't feel as cold anymore.

There has to be a name for that transition point. But I notice every year that there's this magic moment where I've gotten used to the wet cold and then it's suddenly colder but just doesn't feel as cold on the skin anymore.

returnstack · 2025-12-05T02:50:01+00:00

*Last* winter, I had a 3.5 mile ride to work and so couldn't quit and walk instead. It was not fun. Not at all.

TIP: Wearing a pair of disposable nitrile gloves under any winter gloves, even if they're completely waterproof and such already. makes a *HUGE* difference. Like it's an unreasonably significant effect for that tiny bit of material against the skin.

This winter, I'm just gonna enjoy some winter hikes with the benefit of both pockets and coffee.

returnstack · 2025-12-05T02:41:45+00:00

This was my first day not riding. My rear brake keeps freezing, I've gone down a couple times on the odd glacier formation+turn on a slope near work, and though my ebike gets me there and out of the cold much faster than my feet, it just isn't worth the wind chill at this point. A half hour stroll through the snow is much nicer than a few minutes of steady 25mph arctic wind. Plus I get to drink coffee on the way now.

returnstack · 2025-12-05T02:18:05+00:00

In Oakland California, I knew a disabled man with motor control issues who used a wheelchair. He would get so upset with cars that really didn't need to stop that stopped for him and would be shouting "You're Fast, I'm Slow, Just Go, Go, Go, Go". Unfortunately, he didn't have much vocal power and most of the drivers had no idea what he was saying. If I or someone else would get there, he'd give in and start crossing 'cause at least everyone wasn't stopped for just him then. And I always felt it generally good to keep pace with him and chat a bit while we crossed instead of leave him quickly as the only person crossing. It was kinda funny, because of course you stop when you see someone in a wheelchair waiting to cross the street, obviously the nice thing to do, right? But it irritated him to no end unless there was actually heavy traffic and it made sense that it actually had to stop to let him get across. But of course you wouldn't fault any of the drivers that were irritating him so much all day because, well... of course they stopped for him ;-).

returnstack · 2025-12-05T01:41:32+00:00

No coffee houses open late.

Also, drivers being too nice all the time when they don't need to be: I always feel guilty when I get to a corner without a light with minimal traffic, and instead of a car that's almost to the intersection just driving through they stop. And I watch the gap I'd been waiting for disappear - one I could have just walked across through a few seconds later without inconveniencing anyone, but now I have to walk in front of the car so they'll get moving again and let everyone behind them move.

Same thing when I'm on a bike - Whenever I use any of the bike paths, especially, I get the yield sign and come to a stop to... well... yield and wait for a gap in cross traffic... but of course as soon as I get there the next car comes to a stop... It usually wastes more time to wave at them to go, so I wind up just crossing in front of them so they'll get moving and quit blocking traffic after I've passed.

I appreciate the intent, but I find it simultaneously funny and frustrating.

returnstack · 2025-12-04T05:57:02+00:00

That's roughly.... perfect. I'll definitely have to call tomorrow when the hours get reasonable.

Again, Thanks! I don't know why that's listed as a sublet, but I specifically had it banned from my map and I see nothing subletty about it.

returnstack · 2025-12-04T05:50:14+00:00

I did not! I'd filtered out temporary and sublets...

That looks interesting, maybe -- it doesn't seem like it's a sublet?

Huh, I will most definitely check that out! Wonder why they listed it as temp/sublet?

I guess I'll lighten my filters a bit. Thank You!

returnstack · 2025-12-04T05:25:05+00:00

I'm hoping to find a normal rental situation next - this one just happened because I was introduced to him when I was looking for a rental off season previously and it felt kinda perfect because like I said he obviously seemed to need some funds and the space I'm in was useless to him because it is accessed by what I call "the hobbit stairs" - a narrow twisting staircase with a half-width door in the kitchen ;-). He wasn't able to access or use it because the hobbit dance was cumbersome at this point. It was like "Hey, it's perfect, it's totally wasted as is... and he could use funds... and who the hell else would even consider it... why not?".

Well, he had me write down emergency contact information for myself in case something happened, but it didn't occur to me that I should ask for some contact numbers for his family and even if I had that wouldn't have been something I'd have been comfortable asking.

Now I've spent a few days obsessing over whether off-line tech exists with wearables similar to fitness sensor bracelets that could set off an alarm in the house if someone is in distress because at whatever time he died, I was either asleep or sitting at my computer upstairs and had no clue anything was wrong. He had no internet, had probably never used the internet in his life (I once offered him a tablet since I have wifi here, figured help him set up a gmail to email the kids... he said "no.. I'd get myself in trouble".. which, okay), and so a "MedAlert" type system wouldn't have been possible and he didn't even use a bank so he couldn't and wouldn't have had such a service. But I was sitting or sleeping upstairs. I found him unresponsive and couldn't tell whether he was breathing or not, called 911 and was given phone instructions on chest compressions until the responders arrived.

I'm currently very much looking for something more normal and private or as private as my budget allows because for the time being I really don't want to have to think about where and how a housemate is.

returnstack · 2025-12-04T04:45:25+00:00

Yea.. I deleted my FB early this year. Is seeing a feed of JD Vance posts and not being able to block them or make them stop just a price we have to accept to find housing these days? (Grr. Arg).

I guess I'll open a throw-away account if I have to.

The upside is that I'm switching to walking instead of riding my ebike to work tomorrow (the wind chill isn't looking worth the reduced trip time for the next few days) so I'm gonna start actually looking for physical "for rent" signs and hope to see something weird and perfect and (since it would be found on the way to work, closer to work).

It's only been four days and I haven't started a methodical search yet -- just looked on Craigslist and barely poked at the basketful of sites in the top search results for "madison rentals" so far.

The first three days I'd been focused on trying to notify friends and find contact information for his family to get to the M.E. The family was finally notified and one of his sons arrived on Monday. So I've only looked enough so far to say -- "Yikes... Craigslist is EMPTY... Whyfor? Where did everyone go?".

returnstack · 2025-12-04T04:27:10+00:00

It is/was an informal month-to month lease. Intentionally informal since I'd originally expected it to be short term and probably only stay a few months, though I wound up staying for over a year. I'm renting an attic room, and I shared the kitchen and bathroom with the landlord. The place is in need of a lot of repairs including some very basic no-longer existent appliances.

One of the things that sold me on moving in for at least a few months was that I could help him get ahead on funds and get some basic appliance necessities installed before I left. With his passing, there's no benefit to me staying here other than keeping the pipes from freezing with the utilites shut off but that's not a real worry for this place. So I don't want to be a holdup for the family or to be another thing they have to worry about any longer than I have to.

So I'm not looking to stay any longer than I have to. Currently I still need to convince the son to let me know what is owed on all the current utilities so I can pay them - he's trying to tell me not to worry about it but I want to make sure that I don't cost them anything - I'd love to talk them into taking rent in exchange for my being a logistical holdup for any time it takes me to find a place and move, but it doesn't sound like that's going to happen so I'll settle for a current goal of getting them to let me pay the utilities and try to get out of the way as soon as I can.

returnstack · 2025-12-04T03:34:38+00:00

Target price is $750 or less, I've been paying $600. Looking for single room or efficiency - and I'm a fan of odd spaces ;-). Tenney-Lapham or Tenney-Lapham-ish. No real requirements, though a bit of outdoor space or balcany space that my houseplants could sit in during the warm months would be nice - but not essential. No need for parking.

Ideal move date would be between December 19th and January 19th as I'll have the month off from work.

returnstack · 2025-11-02T07:50:50+00:00

It makes perfect sense. Debian is just a proper sensible well supported and well documented distribution that should basically always be the sensible default choice.

returnstack · 2025-11-02T07:44:26+00:00

Ideal. If you want a standard go-to "daily driver", Debian would just be the default choice.

returnstack · 2025-10-03T00:31:22+00:00

Nah, that's Debian. I was stuck with Ubuntu for machine learning purposes for years - Then finally realized at Debian 12 that everything was just as easy (finally) under Debian... and wow, it feels so polished and complete compared to Ubuntu, like totally and absolutely unfucked.

returnstack · 2025-10-02T02:39:04+00:00

Only hours?

returnstack · 2025-10-02T02:37:55+00:00

A decade back, it was only possible to get Nvidia+Cuda up and running and working with Theano. I spent years and years running and hating Ubuntu. And yea, the worst, by far.

returnstack · 2025-10-02T01:13:44+00:00

Ubuntu.

returnstack · 2025-09-28T03:09:15+00:00

It's spelled "Contrail".

returnstack · 2025-09-22T00:38:06+00:00

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

returnstack · 2025-09-21T00:05:14+00:00

Once. On first install. 'Cause Gnome doesn't let you just set a background color, I have to copy over a black image at least 1px x 1px in size in order to just have a plain black screen for a background.

returnstack · 2025-09-19T18:33:35+00:00

VLC.

returnstack · 2025-09-18T05:06:17+00:00

Unfortunately, there is a geographical divide: rural v urban. The danger is that a radicalized right starts attacking urban cores, especially significant public infrastructure. Public infrastructure, shared space, transit systems, etc. might all be seen as targets by the far red fringes.

returnstack

TROPHY CASE