I won’t deny the fact that gun violence happens here in the US, but statistics can be deceiving when you’re dealing with very small numbers. The article you linked gives a rate of 4.5 per 100,000 people in the US. That would put your country at around 0.13 per 100k.

Out of 100k, the difference between 4.5 and 0.13 is still exceptionally small. So small that your chances of being shot if you live here your entire life are negligible. If you visit for a week or two, your chances are statistically insignificant. If you look at homicides by any means, not just firearms, this becomes even closer.

So while what you say is accurate, you have to look at what it actually means. The United States is not “dangerous” by any stretch of the imagination. 35 multiplied by almost nothing is still almost nothing.

Personally, my problem was always that math concepts were never presented in a way that actually made sense in the “real world.”

I was taught that complex numbers were real numbers with imaginary parts that had something to do with the square root of -1. Yeah, I get it, but… why?

Fast forward a few decades and I’m writing code that processes a digitized waveform. Now it makes sense. Math isn’t hard when you have a frame of reference. Learning math concepts solely for the sake of learning them is very hard.

This is just anecdotal, but I have never once experienced an issue with SFP+ vendor lock. I have mix-and-matched transceivers between Mikrotik, DLink, TPLink, Dell Enterprise, and Xyxel switches as well as both Mellanox and Intel NICs. The only issue i can recall is some auto-negotiatiin issues using 1GB modules in a Mellanox switch. Manually setting the link rate fixed it. I use a combination of 10Gb fiber, 10Gb copper, and 1Gb copper modules as well as DAC depending on the situation.

I know that vendor lock does exist, but it’s not as widespread with modern hardware.

I’m also in agreement with you there. I’d rather use Windows 11 than macOS, but that’s kinda like saying I’d rather have a lobotomy with a short icepick instead of a long one.

macOS

I love it, and for anyone else who does, I have a suggestion.

Get a SodaStream (or whatever your carbonator-of-choice is) and a cheap adapter to run it from a standard CO2 tank. Not only do you save money on CO2 refills, but you save money on buying cans of seltzer, too. The concentrated flavor additives are only a few dollars at the grocery store.

I think my SodaStream was something like $100. The adapter and hoses were $50-ish. The flavor syrup costs around $5 for enough to make gallons. Every few months or more, I might pay $50 or so to refill a 20lb CO2 tank. It’s already paid for itself, and it’s incredibly convenient.

I generally buy almost everything online, but clothes are one exception to that. I generally have 1 or 2 brands of clothes I normally purchase, but even within those two brands, size can vary quite a bit, especially after they’ve been washed a few times.

I can buy two different size 36 pants from my favorite brand, and after washing, one fits comfortably, and the other only fits if I leave them unbuttoned. Being able to test them in-person at least gives me a general idea of if they’re still going to fit after they go through the dryer.

I’ll start: 39/M/US, so yeah, I fit the demographic.

I have never really considered Lemmy or Reddit to be “social media.” They’re entirely anonymous, and you’re not being exposed to posts where a apecific person is talking about themselves (at least for the most part). I think a modern equivalent to a PhpBB forum or (if you’re old) a BBS is more accurate.

Maybe I’m totally wrong, but doesn’t EGR stand for EXHAUST Gas Recirculation? Is the Volt a hybrid? I thought it was an EV and thus had no exhaust.

Edit: This was a joke, wasn’t it?

I was born in the 1980s. I remember growing up, I always had the impression that by this time in the 21st century, we’d have figured out some way to break the established laws of physics. Maybe it was because of watching so much sci-fi, but I feel like I’m not alone in this. The media seemed to reflect the same line of thinking. “Back to the Future 2” with its hoverboards and flying cars is now set several years in the past.

Be it anti-gravity, interstellar travel, teleportation, whatever, I always kind of assumed that by now, we’d at least have a working theory of how we might implement it in the next few decades. I think a lot of that has to do with the start of the “information age.” Computers and the way they could connect us were so revolutionary, it seemed like “magic” to the layperson. More “magic” would only be a few years away, right? If we could fit all this power into a box that sits on your desk, then it wasn’t beyond the scope of reason to think that anything was possible; it’d just take a few more years for us to figure it out, then we’d be planning the first NASA mission to another solar system.

What I never would have predicted is just how rapidly computer technology would advance. We now have supercomputers in our pockets, powered by CPUs that are well into the realm of nanotechnology and are now starting to run into limitations imposed by quantum physics. As a technological society, we’ve probably progressed farther than I would have ever imagined, just not in the way I expected.

Most people who have a concealed carry permit are generally law-abiding. I would certainly leave immediately if asked.

I don’t know the statutes offhand; I’m basing this on what I was taught in my CCW class years ago.

The general idea is that the state sets limited laws on where you can’t carry concealed. Government buildings, etc. These restrictions hold the force of law. For a private property owner, they can certainly say “no guns,” but it has the same legal weight as if they said “no hats.” They can set rules for their property, but those rules don’t magically become law. That’s where trespassing laws come in; if you’re asked to leave, they have the right to ask you to do so.

Some states do have laws in place stating that “no guns” signs are legally binding, but the signs must meet certain legal criteria as far as wording. Surprisingly, I think Texas is one of these states, but I could be wrong.

My state is solidly blue, so it does seem strange to me that the laws are written as they are.

Going out in public in your pajamas.

I have seen this on very few occasions, and each time, the pajama-wearing individual is very obviously only out in public so they can either stock up at the liquor store or meet their meth dealer. I don’t think this is common.

In some states, these signs don’t even mean that a person can’t carry a concealed weapon into the shopping center. In my state, for instance, assuming you are otherwise able to legally carry a gun (meaning you took a class and aren’t a felon), the list of areas where you can’t legally carry a gun is very limited: Federal buildings, courthouses, etc. If a business has a sign posted stating “no guns allowed,” you can still legally carry your weapon in that business. If an employee sees that you’re armed, they can ask you to leave, and you’re trespassing if you refuse, but nothing legally stops you from carrying a gun into the establishment in the first place.

As a disclaimer, I’m not arguing this one way or another. I have a license to carry a concealed handgun, in fact. Just sharing information.

One day, you’re going to die. Unless you are fortunate enough to die suddenly, you’re going to experience the terror and the pain the comes along with dying. Anyone who cares about you is going to be saddened by your passing.

None of that would be true if you had never been born. Your parents, every parent, has condemned their children to death and has ensured sadness for anyone who comes to care about them.

The worst thing my parents did? Not using protection or having an abortion. Conceiving a child is the most selfish act any person can do.

I really wouldn’t write off the Shield completely. It’s a few years old, but it works really well. My TVs are all disconnected from my network, and each has a Shield attached. The Shield can stream 4k HDR from Jellyfin, play ad-free YouTube with SmartTubeNext, and handles remote game streaming at 4k/60 with Sunshine/Moonlight. It’s really a versatile little box.

It really depends on how far back you want to look.

If the US was to suddenly stop projecting its interests internationally, then as others have mentioned, then likely the world work become somewhat more socialized. European countries would probably step up and try to keep China in check, but without the US contributing to these efforts, it would cause a significant strain on their military resources.

If the US was to take an isolationist policy 100 years ago, then there is a good chance that WW2 would have been won by the Axis. The Allied forces likely would have put up a good fight, but I’m not sure they would have emerged victorious against the combined Axis forces. The war in the Pacific would have raged on much longer, and without nuclear weapons, there would have been an extreme loss of life invading Japan. At the very least, WW2 would have lasted much much longer than it did. Depending on the outcome, plenty of countries might currently be speaking German and debating if they should tear down 80-year-old statues of Hitler.

I thought I spelled something wrong; I didn’t, and now I’m lost. Aren’t most non-fiber connections asymmetrical connections?

This is only true when you have a single transmission medium and a fixed band. Cable internet is a great example; you only have a few MHz of bandwidth to be used for data transmission, in any direction; the rest is used up by TV channels and whatever else. WiFi is also like this; you may have full-duplex communications, but you only have a very small portion of the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz band that your WiFi router can use.

Ethernet is not like this. You have two independent transmission lines; each operates in one direction, and each is completely isolated from any other signals outside the transmitter and receiver. If your ethernet hardware negotiates a 10Gb connection, you have 10Gb in one direction and 10Gb in the other. Because the transmission lines are separate, saturating one has absolutely no effect on the other.