I spent the last 6 months working on a feature. Found out 2 weeks before release that it was being postponed.

A really good way to do linux is to play around and break things, but to have a backup you can restore from.

I don’t know about other distros specifically, but Mint comes shipped with Timeshift, which is easily configurable and can be set up to include your home directory. Make a backup on an external drive every now and again so that if you break everything, you only lose a bit of work instead of all of it.

Search engines are your friend. If you want to do something, look it up first (ex/ “How do I [x] on linux”) and read some of the answers. Don’t just go with the first option you see, and if it looks decent but you don’t understand it try looking up the commands it uses to find some documentation.

Learning linux isn’t something you can do as passively as you can with Windows, so take time to really try and learn things you’re looking to do.

And a good rule of thumb is that if you think your system should be able to do something, it probably can.

I have terrible but defined habits for my ROMs. I use the same folder structure for all of them.

./[platform]/[game]/[game].zip ./[platform]/[game]/[game].iso ./[platform]/[game]/saves/…

If it’s a series, using Pokémon as an example, I also have:

./Pokemon/Backups/[game].zip ./Pokemon/[generation]/[game]/[game].iso

So it’s not that good of a backup, mainly there in case the iso corrupts, but I think it’s better than nothing.

I just had to go and check because I got my 2 year subscription for ~$0.75 a month ($1 CAD) back in April. When I check their pricing page while not logged in, it shows me that I can save 50% on my first year and pay $6 monthly.

I think at this point I am more excited for, and have higher expectations of, Skywind.

Liz is one of my favourite poorly adjusted gremlins.

As a Jr. Full Stack, I’m in this picture and I don’t like it.

This may be shit advice, but it may help.

I have a mint laptop and was also linux illiterate when I started. The way I did most of my learning was by googling (or duckduckgo-ing) “How do I [x] linux mint” and reading through stack overflow threads. If this doesn’t return results, (almost) any solution for Debian or Ubuntu will work on Mint.

In general, I just assumed that if I thought the computer could do it, there would be a way to do it.

Thank you 7th Prime Minister of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

I work with Java. And I’m definitely ‘rose tinted glasses’ because I also learned to code in Java. But I’m the opposite.

Do you use Java at home?

Fuck no, I want to stay sane.

Depending on the day, anywhere from 1 or 2 to several dozen

I’ve been using mine since 2011, and I will continue using it for many years. I have an alternate one that I use in some cases (things that need a little more professionalism attached), but for everything else, I will forever be LordPassionFruit.

I also have never tasted passion fruit.

I grew up Catholic, and (at least here, Catholicism is a really big place) it’s not so much “he has money” as it is “he will bring stability.”

The second commenter’s “cash cow” comment is a bit of an outlier in my experience, because usually the highlights of dating a nerd are more akin to the second comment. They’ll be an active father and attentive husband, and they’re less likely to cheat (in their view). I’ve also heard things like this about D&D/Warhammer players, because they use their imagination alot (making them good at entertaining children) and the hobbies take a lot of focus (meaning they’ll be willing and able to tackle problems that arise).

Older catholics are used to men whose only role in the family is “produce baby and produce money”, so a lot of modern dating advice is in the guise of “make sure he’s a good man before you marry him”

I only noticed with my partner after they already told me they were a lefty, and we were working together one day and kept bumping each other.

Now we make sure that I sit on the right and they sit on the left.

‘Subscribed - Scaled’ to catch up, then ‘Subscribed - New’ to interact.

Part of the time scale was how low risk the issue ended up being. We knew from the first few months that even if it was a tumor, so there was no “rush” to get me in to see people.

One of the ‘mindsets’ of single payer is that more severe/risky issues can get fast tracked over less severe/risky ones. Ultimately, all that was happening to me was that my vision was slightly affected (because my eyelid wouldn’t open fully). But had it been a tumour, I likely would have been on the surgeons table within a month of them finding out.

I also live under single payer healthcare, and I have experience with a much lower stakes “hail mary” type event.

A number of years ago, I developed a growth on my eyelid that no one was sure what it was.

We started with the optometrist, who thought it was a duct blocked by dirt and suggested a medicated cleaning regimen where they assumed it occurred. This didn’t help.

So I got recommended up the scale to my GP, who took one look at it and said, “Yeah, that ain’t right. Here’s a recommendation to an eye specialist at the hospital.” which took ~1 month to get an appointment.

A month later, I have my first appointment with the eye specialist, who isn’t quite sure what it is but knows that it’s an internal problem and not a blocked duct. After the third appointment (3 months after the first) she says that she’s narrowed it down to either a benign tumour or a blood clot, but isn’t confident in her eyelid surgery capabilities and recommends me to an eyelid specialist in a neighbouring province.

6 months after the first optometrist appointment, I have my first appointment with the specialist who identifies it during the appointment as an internal scab that will decompose itself, but the wound isn’t healing. He says that surgery is an option, but there’s a chance I go blind and a smaller chance that I straight up die. He tells me that I’ll come back in 3 months because it’s not life threatening, and if it starts getting much worse, we’ll discuss removing it.

After an appointment with him every 3 months for almost 2 years, it finally cleared up.

The issue itself was relatively low risk, but it wasn’t until 6 months in that it was deemed “not cancer.” At every step, the risk was evaluated, and ‘hail mary’ options were discussed. But they were always discussed as “if it gets worse, we can do this, and the decision is yours”. So (at least where I live) there are hail mary options and you can take them, but only if the risk to your health is significant enough that the rewards outweigh the risk.

Oh I’ve been trying. He’s tech adverse in general, so the concept of open source software scares him because it means trusting others with regards to tech.

It also doesn’t help that my dad still isn’t filly convinced Linux isn’t a virus/dangerous to my PC.

I haven’t bought nearly any tech in almost 3 years (aside from a new Xbox controller), but I did used to use a gaming laptop and might have some advice for future (this is likely unwelcome so feel free to ignore it, but I can see my own complaints about it in your post). This got a lot more ramble-y than I expected, so feel free to completely ignore this.

In general, I believe that gaming laptops are just a marketing scam. Yeah, they can likely play some larger games better than your average laptop, but probably not by much. They also produce much more heat than a normal laptop, and are often I’ll equipped to handle the increased temperatures (my laptop died because it was so frequently at max temperature that it melted some of the cables connecting to the battery).

You sound like you’re happy with your series X, which I’m glad to hear. And while there are ways to prevent the “needing to unplug the series x” issue, most cost money or don’t save that much time. If you were going to replace your laptop in the future, I’d recommend one of three things:

1. Get a normal laptop, not a gaming one. I’m currently using a Thinkpad with a good CPU in it, and it will play my smaller games with no problems (mainly Dwarf Fortress and Stardew Valley atm). But, because it’s not a gaming laptop, it’s battery life is excellent and it’s a lot easier to move around, allowing me to use it for general productivity too.

2. Get a decent quality desktop. This one is a little more… dedicated? Like, a laptop can be easily converted to other use cases (i.e. Your gaming laptop can go from a stationary pseudo-console to a work/school daily driver if it stops playing games) whereas a desktop has to stay in one place (meaning your “gaming desk” can become your “office”, but its not as likely to move). But, if you find yourself gaming more on the laptop but annoyed with the set up, a dedicated gaming desktop can provide a more “permanent” option.

As I mentioned, this one would require more thought to be sure it’s the right choice, because a $500 console will be roughly equivalent to a $1000 PC (if it is built by you/a friend) but on the other hand my $3000 PC that I built in 2017 is still running modern AAA games at a decent framerate. This may be a solution for you, but it just as easily could solve absolutely none of your problems.

3. Get a steamdeck [DISCLAIMER: I have never used one]. If you’re only using the laptop for games and nothing else, a steamdeck could be an alternative. It’d be more price accessible than either a new laptop or desktop, and is designed with game compatibility in mind (though there are some games that are not compatible). It appears to support Bluetooth controller connections, and a quick google search shows that it can be connected to your TV if the “large screen gaming” is a must for you.