It’s not really about updates or checking for them. Any browser addon that is supposed to interact with all websites, no matter how minor, needs those permissions. It is basically a filter for when you visit a website, if an addon is allowed to “see” the page/traffic. Even for changing the locale, this is needed.

Addons that won’t need this (and typically don’t, and you should check) are for example those that change the layout of YouTube, or hide videos on there based on type (like shorts) or keywords. They only need access permission for YouTube.com (and other country variations like .fr or .de).

If that’s all you’re taking from it, you’re completely missing the real points:

The basic premise of the headline is already incredibly flawed. It suggests gambling is the “favorite passtime” becase that’s where most noney was spent. Is that true for you? It sure isn’t for me… I have more hobbies than I have time for, some are cheap/free, some cost money, some cost more money, but the money they cost isn’t correlated with how fun they are or my appreciation for them.

Secondly, even if money spent on something would represent peoples “rankings” of them somehow, go try and spend 1000$ on museums. I sure this is different from country to country, but most museums here are either free or “cheap”, no matter how long you stay, and will entertain you for hours or a day for whatever that small fee was. Even if you did have the time, how many weeks or even months would it take you to use up the 1000$? Even movies, assuming it mostly means going to a cinema is less cheap, but far from expensive per time spent there, too. Even including popcorn or snacks, breaking 50$ for a single movie is gonna be a stretch, so how long for 1000$? Music could mean concerts, which can be hundreds of dollars in some cases for a concert, but those don’t even happen daily. Could also mean digital streaming, but that’s like capped at let’s call it 20$ per month. Buying digital albums/music is not capped like that, but assuming you are buying them to actually listen to it, you’re again limited by time.

The point is the whole comparison is grotesque: Money spent on gambling is unlimited. I can spend 1000$ right now on some online poker chips, or betting on horses, or whatever else with absolutely no issues. The amount per time unit is only limited by how much you have (and/or your credit). All other mentioned examples are limited by your time or rather the money you can spend on them for per hour you enjoy them. Don’t you think that basic fact might somewhat skew the comparison?

The amount of money spent doesn’t really accurately represent how much a past time is “liked”, since money (obviously) isn’t distributed evenly. A more useful metric would be how much time people spend doing this in comparison to the other options, which is impossible to measure. Also in theory it could be literally 1 or 2 people doing the gambling if they have enough money, while everyone else goes to museums and listens to music.

It’s even more true with the other options not being exactly expensive (in particular museums, but the other options are will). Try spending 50k $ gambling: no problem. Try spending 1k $ going to museums: you’ll be busy for 2 years or something.

Basically the whole premise is just dumb.

In just over a year the only thing that ever broke was a minor thing (probably a bug in KDE that slipped through) with no practical impact and an easy workaround, which then got fixed in like 3 days or something without any intervention from me. I’ve had more (in numbers) and more severe breaks in the same time frame on a server at work that’s running debian, one of which was related to actually booting the server.

The whole “rolling releases are so unstable” mantra gets thrown around a lot, and it almost stopped me from trying CachyOS/Arch when I switched. My personal experience has been the complete opposite. I honestly can’t tell if people who never tried these distros just keep repeating what they heard or read somewhere, or if I really am just pretty lucky.

I love that I don’t have to worry about getting some semi-modern software to run, like I’m often worried when on a debian based server and have to manually install so much shit by hand that I’m losing track, which I then manually have to update in the future. On CachyOS, I just assume whatever I can install is the latest version (it usually is, only once was it not I did took a minute to figure that out as I just dind’t expect it anymore). And usually I can just install whatever I’m looking for.

Another note: I’m running CachyOS on both my desktop and my laptop. My desktop I use daily, and I usually even update daily (it’s just the way I’m wired, and I don’t mind). My laptop I use rarely and consequently I only update it every few months or at least weeks. Neither approach has caused any issues. But do not assume that your install can’t break either, things can go wrong (as they can on Windows). But support for even relatively specific problems is reasonably easy to come by, and people are generally helpful (discord, forum, …).

Yes and no. I play singleplayer and indie games, but I also play competetive online multiplayer, but that’s mostly one game: Predecessor. It uses EasyAntiCheat and also just works. The games you play you can just look up if they work, usually it’ll be a yes/no and not more complicated and that mostly depends on the dev. Like Predecessor, where they ticked the box in EAC so it’s just fine. The number of games that do not work (specifically due to anti-cheat) isn’t huge, and well-known to check. You can just look up if it’s just a game or two you occasionally play, or if all you play is on that list (for a quick glance, check ProtonDB).

You can also just try to switch, if you actually want to, and only go back to Windows for the few games that need it. Maybe you’ll switch back and forth for a long time. Maybe you’ll find it’s too much effort to switch back to Windows and you play something that “just works” on Linux. Or you’ll find the switching annoying and you’ll keep booting mostly to windows “just in case” you wanna play one of the games that need it. Trying it out is very little effort and time these days.

It is absolutely no effort at all. When there are updates, you’re told in a notification. Click on it or don’t, up to you. You can of course also disable the notification and just manually update whenever you want (or not). Updating can generally be done through that tool, or through a normal GUI application that exists (where you can also install new software), or of course in the terminal if you prefer.

There will be updates basically daily, that’s the nature of the rolling distro model. If there’s like 5-10, they install in literally 5-10 seconds. If you’ve gone a month it’ll probably take 1-2 minutes. Also just cause there are updates doesn’t mean you need to care about it. You should of course update frequently enough that security fixes get applies, but many people just update once a week or once a month or something.

Never used a windows version that wasn’t “pro”. It was even win10, not 11 as I refused to upgrade (and the reason for this post/thread). It wasn’t that constant, but annoying enough (despite numerous debloat sessions) that staying on Windows stopped beeing an option. I’m on Win11 pro at work, and it’s still a frequent enough fight to get rid of all the shit.

After switching to Linux (CachyOS) over a year ago now, I think I’ve booted my still existing windows installation twice. Both times was at the very start to get some settings from installed software to migrate and to sync some data or something, I barely even remember. That has also been over a year ago.

Ever since I’ve switched, I stopped noticing I even have an operating system. I just use my PC. Unbothered by popups, updates and bloat are (re)appearing pinned in my start menu (no I didn’t want to have candy crush installed). Literally everything just works, and I’m mostly using my PC for gaming.

I regret not switching much sooner.

I did have to swap the micro switches on my Logitech G502 after a few years as well. They aren’t immune to this (quite the opposite). Swapping them on any mouse isn’t exactly hard, but does require some tools (soldering iron, mostly) and a frankly annoying amount of time.

All of them could just use the micro switches that actually fit that application and none of that would be necessary.

I commute only 9km daily, also often with an eBike. In Europe, the motor is only allowed to support: you have to pedal, no just pressing a button or turning a handle. The support is also limited to 25 km/h. You can of course go faster, but not with help from the motor. Saying so this, the one-way takes me pretty much exactly 20 minutes. I charge the bike daily (500wh battery I think), but can probably do 2 days if I start fully charged and fine mind running it fully down to sub 10%. Wish it’s 3 years old now.

This is using a normal sized ebike. Foldability is sometimes a serious damper for comfort or range (or both), but doesn’t have to be. What in trying to say: Be sure to try it out first, if it can do that distance 2x on a charge, or if you need to bring the charger (probably). Cash you ride that comfortably enough that you can sit on it for 45+ minutes? These kinds of questions…

I personally love it, and would hate to go back to a tiny screen like a 40inch TV or whatever people have these days. Especially if you’re more than 2m away on your bed/couch. There are drawbacks, depending on how you use your TV they might be massive or completely irrelevant. For example having it on in the background is less practical. It doesn’t inclue (useful) speakers, but I have a pretty decent stereo system setup there anyway. A great positive is that you usually want a screen (not just a blank wall), which just goes away when the projector is off (rolls up, usually motorized) and you don’t have a large black frame just standing around somewhere. In my case it comes down in front of the bedroom wardrobe. The projector itself is basically a box mounted to the ceiling on the other side of the room from that, so also out of the way.

The projector is connected to a PC as a primary source in my case (many use AndroidTV sticks or FireTV boxes), which plays whatever I wanna watch (streaming, local videos, youtube/twitch, …), but I would never watch actual TV as in broadcast television. If you do, you still need some form or receiver that turns the TV signal (internet, cable, satellite, …) into HDMI. Many more modern projectors also have some of that network stuff just built in similar to a smart TV, but generally don’t have true receiver for cable/satellite.

Finally, there’s light management. Typically you don’t want real sunlight coming in through a window while actively watching something (movie), but it’s fine for background or casual/party watching (sports or maybe youtube). How much ambient light you can tolerate while watching depends highly on your preferences and how you watch “stuff”. For a real movie night we do usually lower the blinds for just a more immersive experience. But it’s incredibly subjective how much darkness is needed. Projectors these days all have sufficient light output to produce a picture even with significant ambient light, but the contrast and just quality of course improves significantly with a darker environment.

Haven’t had a TV in like 2 decades. Do have a projector though. Screen size used to be like 4m diagonal, now due to space constraints down to a little under 3m. Always in the bedroom: comfortable and the only room with enough space, honestly.

That’s also a rather massive price difference what seems to be similar devices?

That screen is absolutely tiny.

Some can be controlled through a local API, but often you still need a gateway to facilitate access (it can reach out to the cloud, but it can be disabled and used local only).

Some that were in very good standing (Hoymiles) recently had security flaws where the manufacturer refuses to acknowledge or fix them, leading to essentially anyone to control them at any time with a few dollars worth of equipment (source in German). They basically broadcast their own encryption key.

Unfortunately the nature of getting a distributed system makes them much more vulnerable to issues like that as some form of communication is needed for everyday operation. This is much simpler with a central system.

Works great as a static image. Would probably be better if it actually played…

mid game

So about 50ish hours in.

There was some sort of scandal a few years back that some smart TVs (Samsung?) were using not just open networks (let’s be honest, there usually aren’t any), but other smart TVs if the same manufacturer to be able to send their telemetry. I don’t know what game of that, or if that was ever made illegal (probably not).

Unfortunately I can’t find a link, but I remember reading about research that confirmed that poisoning is effective and not or barely related to model size.

It’s heavily CPU bound in a normal system today. Extracting (let alone compressing) a 2 GB file will take a noticeable amount of time. Reading the whole thing from an nvme will take roughly 1 second. Random access is no longer a relevant performance impact either.

It is my understanding that multithreaded extraction is hard(er) cause the used dictionary is built up incrementally. So to extract later parts you need to have extracted earlier parts.