Some centuries ago, nobles learned about the riches in their estate through their seneschal, who would walk about counting things. 10 lambs, 8 sheep, 1 exceptional sheep, 2 sickly sheep, 50 pounds of turnip, 400 pounds of cabbage,... So on and on the counting would continue, so that the lord knew how much wealth he …

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'Traditional' food has fat, and has sugar if the region could import lots of it in the 1800's. Traditional Serbian food includes fat-fried meat with meat on it. Traditional Scottish food includes an egg, wrapped in meat, fried in bread-crumbs. I'm guessing most European countries follow suit. These diets were developed …

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In recent years I've slowly changed my thinking on the concept of 'faith'. Or perhaps I've been thinking about attitudes, and just made very narrow use of a very broad word. Here's the thought: Someone with a cool mind, an impartial attitude, and some very basic arithmetic can optimize. It's fashionable to make fun of …

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Every computer I go to seems to have the same sad story. A mess of files sit on the desktop. In 'Pictures', random pictures sit (the user downloaded them before making a half-hearted attempt to organize) with a few folders, some marked 'holiday' (which one?), and others given names by the computer. Renaming the lot …

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Some American made a video on Balkan history which flipped between saying that the Balkans has many cultures, then mentioned some war or similar catastrophe, then went on repeat. The video asserted bluntly (if not explicitly) that multiple cultures coexisting created all the strife in the Balkans. I commented: It looks …

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Neomutt exemplifies everything wrong with documentation. Neomutt advertises itself as an email client for the terminal. I like email, and I like terminal stuff, because it's easy to automate, and works with all my automation stuff. That was me, and probably a great many other unsuspecting victims of neomutt. However, …

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People just can't see reason, and perhaps that's a good thing. Nobody feels happy about it when explaining a stark, obvious fact, and hearing lazy, irrelevant nonsense as a reply. Telling people that X is a genocides, and all genocides are bad should make sense. Hearing 'yea-but', and 'whatabout' can make the blood …

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I can't stand coding helpers which suggest auto-completions, and this is why. When the spelling checker came along, it helped writing a great deal. Nobody wants the job of looking up how to spell words. Then one dark day, I wrote a twisted sentence, subverting some standard English phrase in order to emphasise a point …

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Arch Linux often does what Ubuntu tries and fails at. I started with Arch due to a simple problem; every so often I'd read on some cool new program I wanted to check out, then feel disparaged as I read over the instructions. 1sudo apt update 2sudo apt install lib-xyz kitchen-sink python3-kitchen-sink In the early days …

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I cannot fathom why anyone debates this topic, because the answer sits plainly in front of you. Shops Schools Advertising Games Precedent Before you use a computer, you must buy it. You buy it from a shop. The shops have no Linux laptops. Linux laptops only come from new and obscure computer manufacturers. If people …

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