davidjharder I see only good things for you! LOL... That trilogy is NOT the End All, Be All, (close tho) but its a great place to start. Robinson also has the Science in the Capital series, Three California series, and numerous stand-alone novels and short stories. I really like the contents of his head, and if he isnt political, then he is certainly adjacent and readable. I would be interested to know who ends up being your favorite charactor once you finish the trilogy!
Community Hangout
davidjharder Running on Mars! lol, sorry = )
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Sebastian I actually remember how I listened to the talk in amazement some 20 years ago.
I'm quite happy to give up those advantages for the ones I get with ebooks. I have about 3,600 books on each of two 10" tablets, one upstairs by my bed for reading myself to sleep, and one downstairs for continuing a story I've started elsewhere. That one's handy for doctors' waiting rooms, etc. And when I start the downstairs tablet, I get a prompt to move to the page last read in the upstairs tablet, before I put it down and went to sleep. They're connected to the same wi-fi network, you see, so they can talk to each other, and they do.
Although the bookstore is nowhere near my house, after I've made an online purchase, like yesterday, the books are almost immediately available in my library. I don't need to drive somewhere to buy them, pick them up, and cart them home, or pay extra to have them shipped here.
My granddaughter is a fan of the same sci-fi and mystries that I enjoy, and B&N makes it easy to move books I've read from my library to hers, so they can be lent. When she's done with them, they're moved back to my library, so they remain mine.
Many authors of ebooks - even bestselling ones - like to make the first ebook in a series available for free, in order to attract readers to the universe and characters of that series. I've gotten many very interesting reads for free, and many times I've gone on to purchase other books from that series, so it works well for both authors and readers. And if I can't get "into" a story, or don't appreciate a new authors writing style, that first look has cost me nothing but a bit of time. And the books that I do buy typically cost $2.99 to $4.99 each, instead of $12 to $25 as bound books. I believe I once read that B&N has 50,000+ free ebooks to choose from, but it's probably far more than that by now.
If I had to store my 3.600 volume library in physical space in my home, it would require many bookcases. And they would be mostly full of books I'd never care to read again - even the ones I'd enjoyed very much. Instead, my library fits on a thin tablet with room to spare. I can easily carry the entire library with me (those millions of 1's and 0's don't weigh much at all), and the reader software makes it easy to find and select a book that I may have acquired years ago, and am just now getting around to reading.
The tablet provides its own reading light, so when I read myself to sleep at night, I can do so without keeping my wife awake. And I adjust the brightness and backlight color to values that don't keep me awake, either. Reading for a while - usually a chapter or two, depending on the book - allows me to relax and drift off to sleep without any drugs. It's the best answer I've ever found to insomnia.
I'm sure I'll think of other advantages to ebooks as soon as I post this, but I'm pretty sure I've made my case by now. And much as I admire Richard Stallman, his opinions about ebooks may have evolved quite a bit during the last 23 years.
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No food photos in this thread. 0/10
SethStorm666 At last the weather is summer-ish in Denmark.
The weather is still wet-ish here in the US Pacific Northwest, after a rather dry-ish winter. The snowpack in the mountains is nowhere near as deep as it should be, and local governments are talking about a coming draught. Fortunately, that's mostly what comes of it - talk. But indoors, it's been very pleasant. There's been no need to turn on the air conditioner so far.
It's been said that we don't have weather here, instead we have climate. And our climate is the origin of "WetGeek." He's a software engineer from a place where it's been said to rain all the time. That's an exaggeration, of course. It just rains during fall, winter, and spring, not all the time.
Had to randomly think of this video again
I finished the mystery I was reading, so Ii finally got a chance to start on Red Mars. I'm glad to be able to say that so far, I remember nothing of the story, It's been long enough since I read it originally, that it's very much like reading it for the first time. I'd forgotten how long the chapters are.
Tomorrow I need to take my wife to get a CAT-scan, and I'll take my spare tablet to keep me company in the waiting room.
WetGeek Happy for you! Nothing better than starting a new binge knowing you have a couple thousand pages between you and your next major literary decision!
Wish I could do a tablet, as they make all the sense in the world.... but i cant comfortably hold them, and I read fast enough that turning pages distracts and annoys me. I am too attached to the rituals of the legacy book I suppose.
Phheew, I have been working hard with Inkscape the last couple of days, but it's so addictive. So I've actually been sitting infront of the screen while the spring weather screaming at me to go out. 15 degrees Celsius and lightly clouded.
Anyway we have a dinner club where I live, where people meet from the neighborhood to eat and socializing - which is every month big event for me 
4 days later
SethStorm666 How are you coping with current Inkscape deprivation? 
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I installed the flatpak version in the meantime . I can't see any difference in the speed though between the eopkg and the flat. Though the flatpak doesn't follow the theme rules - just had to cope with it until then.
I have reach the letter K in the apps of my Nordic Gold icon theme for Plasma/KDE - there's a lot of apps starting with K. The most used letter for apps on Linux is C, O and for KDE the K.
SethStorm666 I too want that model and number of graphics card. I am shopping for a new Mobo to put it on that will handle all the info being evenly distributed across the board. I have been using a AMD RX-580 card for the system for two reasons: it matches the data speeds of the board overall well, and it has many output ports on the back for multiple monitors. When using Linux and streaming with OBS, its very light on the mobo resources and I rest assured their will be no hotspots on the board
I dunno if I should get it soon or wait, because the computer I have still working.
brent Hey Brent, in Temporary blocking updates thread you write also: windows barely move, runs like poop. Are you referring here to gedit or in general?
Because I remember that after the week 17 sync you wrote some apps sluggish out of the gate. So I wonder if this is still the case. If so, maybe you are also like me affected from this new GTK renderer introduced in week 17 that might lead to some sluggishnes and graphic glitches on older hardware. You might check this by adding GSK_RENDERER=gl to file /etc/environment and reboot.
If this has no effect, you can revert changes easily.
Sebastian
thanks for checking up on me. here's the extent of my poop: runs like poop, glitchy, sometimes out of the gate but never lasts. I.E. not chronic.
My lamebrain has a hard time interpreting this behavior---
hardware? software? ram? all in my head? could barely move librewolf when updating today. but its a flatpak. so should not apply? once in a while choke points where mouse barely moves, processes probably being mega-spawned, sluggish, clock skips time....but 20 seconds? 30? not every day at all.
all that jibberish ^^ smells like hardware but it also resembles software...certainly started (I think) around the gtkrenderer--great observation.
It's not aggravating enough or occurring enough for a bug, but I know the poop sometimes is there.
I will try your:
Sebastian You might check this by adding GSK_RENDERER=gl to file /etc/environment and reboot.
and report back. thank you.
