They did in rural areas 20 years ago. I grew up on a rural road and it was totally a thing to send mail by putting it in the mailbox and raise the flag.

Maybe it’s just a rural thing for people with individual mailboxes, or maybe they stopped doing this, but it was possible a few decades ago.

I’ve been using MATE since Gnome 3. I really liked the simplicity of Gnome 2 and was unable to adapt to their “new” way so I switched to MATE and it just clicked. I tried Gnome 3 a few times again but I just can’t.

As for why MATE instead of XFCE or others? Because I already used and tried XFCE in the past and prefered Gnome 2’s look and feel. In fact, I have been going out of my way for years to keep every app using GTK2 and my favourite theme because I like how it looks and feel, and Gnome 3 and GTK3 broke this. So MATE it was. They switched to GTK3 too eventually but it gave my time to adjust.

My only “complaints” about it are the file manager Caja, and the way you can list windows, which both feel very basic. I would like those two to get better.

I try and use different DE from time to time, from Fluxbox to E17, but I just go back to MATE. My favorite DE of all time was E16 but it took waaay too long for E17 to be functional and I ended up keeping MATE.

This reminds me of the efforts made against tobacco and for cleaner air in certain areas, but it also reminds me how we do this for other things too.

Radium toothpaste, lead paint and asbestos curtains.

So, as someone that sees cars as a significant source of pollution, from exhausts, brake pads and tires, I find it ironic that some places are banning outdoor smoking in public areas while it’s perfectly acceptable to drive a gas guzzler around and among those places.

Like, I’m so grateful nobody can smoke around me on that restaurant’s terrace, this way I can fully enjoy breathing the pollution from the thousand of cars around.

He was right. Tipping culture is horrible and should go away.

In the past two years, Trump has called for every major American TV news network to be punished, according to a CNN review of his speeches and social media posts.

He has imprecisely but repeatedly invoked the government’s licensing of broadcast TV airwaves and has said on at least 15 occasions that certain licenses should be revoked

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/22/media/trump-strip-tv-station-licenses-punish-media/index.html

And speaking of him, thank god for our giant gas guzzlers that allows us to drive in those extreme conditions and are certainly not part of the problem. Oh and Jesus, if you could lower gas prices, that would be really great!

Mildly interesting fact, what English speakers call tarantulas are called mygales in French, while the term tarentule is reserved for a specific species from the region or Taranto in Italy.

It’s a false friend that is really easy to get wrong, and is often confusing. As a native French speaker I thought “wait, there’s no tarantulas in the Americas”, only to realize that there are, in English.

Sad to hear but… GaS pRiCeS aRe ToO HigH!

Until “their” stuff disappears. I follow 123 backup rule so I have stuff online but there is nothing like having your own collection. Thanks but I’ll stick to physical media if possible.

Floppies were the most ubiquitous storage device for a while so it’s no surprise. Nowadays it could be a few USB type A ports. We’re slowly switching to USB type C but type A has now been standard for around two decades.

Actually, Canada is a leader in high speed rail studies.

I can’t tell for BlueSky because I have not joined yet, but I did create a Mastodon account months ago and I’m not sure what to do with it or how to interact with others. I find it confusing.

On Twitter I was mostly following a bunch of like minded people, liking their stuff, and I could see what they liked too. But on Mastodon there’s uuh, boosts and favorites?! I’m not sure of how it works or what I’m doing. I can’t just “like” posts? I have to boost them?! I found the people I liked that were on Twitter, but on Mastodon I feel like there’s nothing I can do aside from seeing posts and it’s just not attractive.

I can’t stand ads. It’s even worse on TV when they yell them at you. So I actually stopped watching TV in 2009 because I couldn’t stop the ads, and I was tired to have the TV trying to convince me to buy a car every 15 minutes.

If I want to watch something that was on TV, I download it from… * the internet *.

My parents still watch TV and just let the ads blast in the background, and we need to yell over them to talk. I hate it. Then they’re like “oh it’s just like in the ad”. I don’t know how they can tolerate this. I did when I was younger but when I realized that the TV was trying to sell me twice a car in 15 minutes, or about 8 times an hour, I couldn’t help but notice and it’s just really annoying.

It’s obviously not “full self driving” because I don’t have a driving license and cannot use a Tesla to drive me where I need to go. Same for people that can’t drive, like the blind.

If they were truly autonomous cars, people wouldn’t need a driving license to use FSD.

I’m not American and will do the same. The amount of artificial and inflated drama is just unbearable. Not for another four years.

“Trump said this unacceptable thing!!!1!” followed by a few days of outrage, nothing changes, then he says another stupider shit a few days layer and the cycle continues.

In a way I’m sure the media are very happy for that Trump win. They’re gonna have some drama every fucking day.

Then you can stay on forums that needs to be refreshed, or uuuh… isn’t there a proprietary IRC like thing for young people, something like Disco? Or Discom. Or Discord? Apparently it’s much like IRC but without the freedom.

I use TheLounge which saves and display history for me.

Convos also does that.

I am still on IRC, have my own server, and use TheLounge as a client. We can paste mp3s, mp4s and images on the channels. It just works fine for us.

What? It’s hard to hear anything with all that noise.

IRC still exists. There’s nothing stopping anyone from joining a server and a few channels.

I’m so excited. I don’t have a license and I’ve been waiting nearly a decade for those robotaxis, so I can finally go in the countryside and at national parks without the need to take an ordinary taxi.

I’m sure this tech is going to be ready soon and is not at all competing with public transit in order to continue to sell cars and keep their dominance on the transportation market.

No need for a bus system when you can have on demand taxibus! It’s coming real soon. Very soon. In the meantime you can just use regular taxis… But guys, it’s coming soon and going to revolutionize the transport industry!

/s just in case

EDIT: Coming soon since at least a decade now.

2014 : https://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/14/tesla-model-sd-electric-car-driverless-autopilot/

2015: https://www.businesspost.ie/more-business/behold-teslas-self-driving-taxi/

2019 : https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/22/tech/tesla-robotaxis/index.html

2020 : https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-robotaxis-will-ready-2020-elon-musk-says/