sem

Inspired by that other thread about backing in to parking spaces.

Can someone remind me why we stopped using Firefox a while back? There was some piece of news that broke everyone's trust, but I can't remember what Mozilla did. Was it a change in their user agreement?

I am typing this post on a modern "Thinkpad" from 2020 where the hardware volume keys could never change the volume on Linux. But everything works more or less correctly in Windows 11, unfortunately.

What are my options for getting computer hardware, desktop or laptop (etc.), where the hardware is specifically supported under linux?

Let's say I am wanting to plot a graph with "Usefulness" on the Y axis and "Cost" on the X axis. Then I could plot each computer on the graph, and make a decision about how much money to save up and spend for the best value that satisfied minimum requirements.

In my initial searching, I have uncovered these vendors as supporting Linux, albeit at a (usually) premium, niche price point:

• System76
• Framework
• Dell
• IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad

However I don't yet have a good intuition for when this is true (for example my thinkpad having incompatible hardware) or where these belong on the hypothetical usefulness vs. cost plot.

Also, as I understand it, linux distros are not in the habit of "supporting" specific hardware as "works on our distro." However in the past some have attempted to keep track of what works better than other things. I am hoping for a legitimate guarantee that the hardware I buy will not have hardware problems with the distro it supports. At least for some time.

My personal "minimum" requirements would be: feels "snappy" loading the OS and webpages/videos/media. The touchpad and keyboard are fully usable. All the hardware works correctly, and DPI/screen resolution doesn't cause scaling issues (or said another way, fractional scaling doesn't cause problems. Maybe this is unrealistic if I want to use arbitrary software like hexchat which is GTK2).

Let me know if I'm thinking about this in the right way or missing something.

EDIT: thank you everyone for your suggestions!

Ok, so. Earlier today I was watching the Technology Connections video about how Power is energy over time. In the video he shows a picture of an Anker Solix powerbank to illustrate the concept of energy storage. I've never seen or heard of this product before.

An hour later I'm reading an article on Lemmy, and there is an ad for that same powerbank.

What explains this? Some explanations I can think of:

1. Random chance.
2. Google scans YouTube videos for information about what products appear in them, and knows that I watched the video, and that I'm the same person now reading the article. It then gives this information to everyone in the ad-selling marketplace, so the Anker ad company can bid high to show me an ad.
3. Google is observing what appears on my screen in order to sell this info to advertisers.

I think 2 is most likely given Occam's Razor, but I didn't think Google scanned yt videos like this.

Is there something I'm missing?

I was watching on an Android phone, on Tubular. My browser is IronFox. I'm surprised that Google can follow my activity from one app to the other... this is probably based on IP address, but I wonder what other device fingerprinting tubular and IronFox expose...

I just heard Money for Nothing for the first time in awhile and it sounded really similar; I wonder if it does to you all also

I brushed my teeth and then dissolved a zinc tablet in my mouth.

Afterwards I wondered, would the F- ion in the toothpaste combine with the Zn2+ ion in the tablet, which is not very soluble in water, and would neutralize both the teeth hardening and cold-fighting properties?

It says on the zinc bottle not to drink citrus juices but I cannot find any reliable information online that explains why.