Same here. The mobile sector really continues to be a desolate wasteland in terms of actual choice (say, against corporate data collection.)

That study failed to mention that normal cigarettes contain between 10 and 100 times the amount of diacetyl found in e juice. Cigarette use could not actually be linked to popcorn lung, though.

The diacetyl problem has been known in vaping communities for a while. Some are fine with just doing "less harm" as far as anyone can tell, others make sure they only use juice / aromas which are declared diacetyl free by manufacturers (many of whom have been phasing out diacetyl containing products since about 2010).

I'm still slightly worried by all this, because we do indeed not have the data for the effects of 20 or 30 years of exposure. Vaping has replaced smoking completely for me and after about 2 years or so, the immediate effects on my respiratory system have been highly beneficial. Anyone who just discards potential long-term effects is imho just falling victim to wishful thinking, though.

If we get to a point where people can rely on being able to survive decently independent of gainful employment - no strings attached and no blaming involved - we will quickly begin to see positive changes in society. I'm quite sure about that. Right now I know plenty of people, myself included, who would do a lot more in terms of voluntary or low paying work in critically important sectors (refugee support, caring for the elderly and so on) if they could realistically afford to do so.

Hahahaha no.

How are things going kleinbl00?

Also, I'd really love to read that rippin' breakdown on reality TV.

I get what you're saying. I believe the only people who would take the crimes of a few extremists and project them on many millions of people are those who were looking for an excuse to do so anyway. You shouldn't have to apologize to anyone any more than I need to apologize for killing people with predator drones.

Agreed. Also, self-destructive ways of coping with feelings of disenfranchisement, loss of faith in the promise of a better personal future, being trapped in various kinds of loan schemes and plain old dissonance between individual perceptions/cognition and reality as manufactured medially.

Because this wasn't about Windows 10, it was a test to see how long it would take Hubski to turn a Windows thread into a full blown Linux discussion this time. I think we either passed or failed spectacularly once again.

How so, squirvel? I'm not arguing, just genuinely interested. As far as I can tell, Mint really is Ubuntu 14.04LTS under the hood. How does Mint compromise compatibility?

Well, I certainly agree that there is a legal difference. Just seems like taking minor considerations like "legal" or "constitutional" into account isn't very high on anyone's priority list as far as green-lighting surveillance programs goes.

To be fair, at this point a law plainly stating that everyone, domestically and abroad, can legally be subjected to whatever surveillance is deemed desirable by state agencies for no reason whatsoever wouldn't really change anything in practice, would it?

Ross also filmed wildlife footage, squirrels in particular, usually from his own garden. Small animals often appeared on his show, even during some of his trickier works, as he would often take in injured or abandoned squirrels and other assorted wildlife and look after them.

One example that comes to mind is that time they decided to send all (local) search requests to Amazon so they could present "relevant" results. Mint never implemented that stuft. Their attempt at creating a desktop environment that bridges the gap between the PC and mobile devices has - strictly imho - produced rather strange results as well.

Last but not least, you mentioned a lack of interest in fiddling around, and Mint certainly makes things easy with extras like the mint driver manager.

Mint. All the stability, compatibility and support of a Ubuntu LTS without any of the strangeness which canonical likes to occasionally throw at its users.

Holy shit, I don't even know where to begin.

We disagree so fundamentally that I doubt we can have a meaningful conversation about this, especially since you decided to make wild assumptions about how I live or what I do apart from posting at hubski in an effort to discredit my position. Not going to continue a discussion with someone who acts like that. Been there, done that. Have a nice life.

Right, I get it. Great success. Sure, that rise in private wealth (as always overwhelmingly favouring the elites) may have been built on the backs of millions effectively being treated as industrial slaves and the effects on the environment have been catastrophic - but hey, "raised standards of wealth".

Reducing taxes on the rich, allowing super PACS, and so on, are what we shouldn't have done in the 80's.

Yeah, that's kind of like saying that a monarchy would be a great way to run things if only it didn't rely so much on the king not abusing his position of power. Yeah, maybe, but that's kind of the point. Just like capitalism unleashed leading to plutocrats influencing legislation in their favour is not just some weird coincidence.

Except it really isn't, thanks to that globalization, nations not only fear nuclear war, but cutting themselves off from the world cripples their economies. Look at what has happened to Russia.

Who gives a fuck once the economic system begins imploding for real, anyway? War never stopped being wildly profitable, a great way to distract populations from domestic issues and generally a nice method of turning saturated markets into booming (re-)building opportunities. Sure, MAD still is a thing and I don't expect any WW2 style full scale land invasions. Don't need those for a good war, though.

I'm entirely fed up with the whole growth paradigm. It's a scam we've all bought into. Have fun with those rising standards of wealth. Meanwhile, the indicators showing that limitless growth on a finite planet, based on cheap (and toxic) energy, was a ridiculous idea to begin with keep getting harder to ignore. I'm sure those who still buy into the capitalist story at this point are going to continue to do so anyway.

Growth of production or GDP or median wealth? Screw the growth paradigm. This lunacy is threatening our survival as a species. Success isn't growth of material wealth, success is still being around to argue about this 20, 50 or 100 years from now , as a species. If that means drastically changing our definitions of economic success, maybe to be based on "not fucking up our ecological niche" instead of "racing towards the cliff faster", I'm kind of all for that. Assuming it isn't too late anyway, which it well may be, in which case... party on, I guess.

This is what happens when power becomes too centralized.

Well, if money = power, this centralization you speak of seems to be quite baked into the system, doesn't it?

I read the situation quite differently. As the economic (and especially monetary) paradigm we've been operating under for the last few hundred years once again tears itself apart, the measures undertaken to keep the whole thing together can't help but become ever more extreme - and absurd, really. Maybe unleashing capital globally in the manner we've seen since the 80s wasn't such a smart move, after all. This pattern of straw fire boom (and extreme consolidation of wealth) followed by catastrophic bust certainly isn't anything new. Usually, a partial reset has been achieved through big wars. Kind of hard to pull off without the risk of things spiraling way out of control nowadays, though - the option clearly seems to be on the table as far as I can tell from following the daily news.

Would be quite interesting to see how it plays out this time. Hell, might even lead to some positive change (New deal style) after all. Unfortunately, I've been on a bit of a climate change information binge for the last few days. Having read a lot and listened to quite competent people in the field describing their troubles dealing with the certainty of impending cataclysmic disaster, I'm not sure that the whole monetary circus really matters all that much, anymore.

Personally, I've lost all faith in change (that matters) through the democratic process. As far as I can tell, the only way anything is going to change is through instability of either the economic or the ecological system. Sanders definitely looks good, though, as far as these things go. I just wonder if the US citizenry haven't been burned too badly by Obama to vote for another democrat promising a better way.

If I read you correctly, you probably don't really care, but, just fyi: That hosts thing doesn't work anymore for the more interesting (telemetry) MS IPs. They hardcoded those.

Have a look at "system rescue cd".

Basically, it'll let you boot into your linux installation (using a rescue kernel). Once there, just install grub again - it'll detect that windows installation and allow you to choose your os at boot time.

http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

Alternatively, "Boot repair disk" may be able to do it for you automatically. Just give it a try.

Convinced me to switch over to Linux full time. 10/10, wouldn't accept anti-privacy TOS again.

(Win 10 would actually be a pretty decent OS if it wasn't for Microsoft's numerous policy ideas...)

Origin supports Firefox on Linux just fine. I've been using it for a while now along with disconnect and noscript, no problems.

Mint has so far been super stable for me. What's misbehaving for you?