Only 2 sleeps until #VictoriaDay!

The air is festive.

The Victorian songs are playing everywhere.

Every child in Canada is excited for Queen Victoria’s yearly visit down the chimney.

They’re leaving gin and pheasant game pies for her ghostly apparition.

Her white lifeless eyes will watch them sleep.

She’ll whisper sweet nursery rhymes in their tiny terrified ears.

Everyone loves Victoria Day!

How Broken is Google?


I’ve been writing short spoiler-free reviews of the current seasons of Doctor Who each (for me) Sunday morning, having watched the show Saturday (evening). Last week, I had a bit of blank on the title of the episode: was it the Story Engine…no…not quite. Rather than tie myself in knots I just googled it. “doctor who recent episode”.

Google came back with an answer: Castrovalva: Part One, Doctor Who Season 117, episode 1. It had a little picture of Peter Davison next to it. Observant readers will spot that Peter Davison is not Ncuti Gatwa, Castrovalva was broadcast 43 years ago and that, while long running, Doctor Who has not had 117 seasons. The best we can say about the google results is that Castrovalva was at some point in time the most recent episode of Doctor Who.

Stupidly, I typed in a similar query this morning for a similar reason. Actually, this was more stupid as I was pretty sure of the title and I should have known better after last week.

“doctor who recent episode” – yup there again right at the top Castrovalva. The next hit was to Wikipedia’s list of Doctor Who episodes (2005-present), which at least was a useful link and would get to the right answer.

“doctor who most recent episode” – The Vanquishers, Doctor Who: Season 13, Episode 6. That is an improvement: right century, right decade but four years old. You can kind of see how the mistake happened. The Vanquishers was the last episode of a proper season for the Jodie Whittaker Doctor in 2021, followed by a set of special in 2022, then the David Tennant specials (on Disney) in 2023, before Ncuti Gatwa’s arrival. Disney list Gatwa’s 2024 season as “season one” and maybe that is confusing Google – particularly if it thinks Castrovalva was season 117.

OK, let me be MORE specific Google. “doctor who most recent episode this year”

Only by adding an actual year, do we get close: “doctor who most recent episode in 2025” has a top hit for a Cosmopolitan article listing when the 2025 episodes come out. If I scroll down further on the page, there is a video link to “The Making of The Interstellar Song Contest | FULL EPISODE …”

Part of the problem appears to be the word “recent”.

“doctor who latest episode” works a lot better as a query. Three of the four “Top stories” are to this week’s episode and one to last weeks, which is a big improvement. However, featured on the right side is The Vanquishers again.

But Google is very sensitive to which word you use. For example, try “what are the new doctor who episodes” and Google proudly tells me The Power of the Daleks – which is from 1966. Now, again, this absurd result isn’t wholly random. This is one of the missing serials but an animated version was released in 2016.

“newest doctor who episode”? Vanquishers again.

“new doctor who episode”? Power of the Daleks again

“doctor who new episode today” – a result! The AI Overview pops up and says: “Yes, a new episode of Doctor Who, “The Interstellar Song Contest,” will be released today, May 18, 2025. It’s the sixth episode of season 15 and features Freddie Fox, Rylan Clark, and other guest stars.”


OK but maybe Doctor Who is inherently confusing for a search engine. It’s been running for longer than I’ve been alive and people are still talking about old episodes. There are different ways seasons and episodes have been numbered and there have been “new” releases of old episodes. It’s got to be hard for any search engine, right?

Here is Duck Duck Go with the same search term that beffudled Google:

See, it really isn’t THAT hard. “doctor who recent episode”on Duck Duck Go, tells me up front that it is The Interstellar Song Contest.

So what is going on? I assume LLM shenanigans at Google but actually only one of those searches triggered Google’s “AI Overview” and in that case it did get the right answer. Also, while LLM’s a have a huge pile of problems, parsing a natural language question and identifying the most likely appropriate response SHOULD be something that Google got better at with LLMs. This kind of stuff, in theory, should be the best use case for LLMs.

Duck Duck Go, got the right answer the first time but what about the bigger commercial contender to Google, Microsoft’s Bing?

Bing does massively better than Google with “doctor who recent episode” but not as well as Duck Duck Go. It doesn’t suggest a title but the top result is to a Den of Geek article on last week’s episode. So not right but close enough to not look absurd.

“doctor who most recent episode” for Bing gives the answer 73 Yards, which is a year out but again, not an absurd answer.

“doctor who most recent episode”for Duck Duck Go serves up an ad link to Paramount’s streaming service first and then generic Doctor Who links. So not great but at least doesn’t confidently announce a definitive wrong answer.

“doctor who latest episode” for Bing does fairly well. No direct answer up front but all the top links are to articles about last night’s episode. There is an AI overview which doesn’t say the episode title but is discussing the right episode.

“doctor who latest episode” for Duck Duck Go again gets the answer correct and up front (i.e. the correct title is the first thing you see on the page).

I’d been meaning to switch the default search on my browser from Google for awhile and just inertia had prevented me. Based on this accidental experiment, Duck Duck Go appears to be the best option.

#bbc #DoctorWho #ncutiGatwa #television #tv

How Broken is Google?

I've been writing short spoiler-free reviews of the current seasons of Doctor Who each (for me) Sunday morning, having watched the show Saturday (evening). Last week, I had a bit of blank on the title of the episode: was it the Story Engine...no...not quite. Rather than tie myself in knots I just googled it. "doctor who recent episode". Google came back with an answer: Castrovalva: Part One, Doctor Who Season 117, episode 1. It had a little…

camestrosfelapton.wordpress.co…

I'll always remember former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre standing in the briefing room and admonishing a reporter who asked about Biden's debate performance with, "He had a cold. Have you ever had a cold?" They knew. His decision to run for re-election and his team's coverup are the single biggest reason we're in this mess today. Racism is second. #Politics #Democrats #Democracy #Biden #US #USpol thenation.com/article/politics…

I've written a blog post about how Amazon S3 security demonstrates limitations of LLMs in cloud security. This mastodon post acts as an anchor for comments on the blog post.

The gist of it is this: Amazon S3 has encrypted objects at rest automatically, by default since January 2023. Not only is there nothing for you to do to make your objects encrypted, you can't stop objects from being encrypted. All you can do is choose keys. 17 years of blog posts and documentation saying you must DO something to encrypt your data at rest means that LLMs will give you incorrect instructions on S3 security. Probably forever.

It reiterates my point: You can't use an LLM to do something that you don't know how to do without the LLM.

Fulton J. Sheen: All badness is spoiled goodness. A bad apple is a good apple that became rotten. Because evil has no capital of its own, it is a parasite that feeds on goodness. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Quotes

  • Otto Kuusinen: As long as the working class wages only an economic struggle, the bourgeoisie does not see in that any great danger for itself; but when the working class organises politically, i.e., creates a political party which expresses its will as a class, the bourgeoisie begins seriously to fear for its rule. That is why reaction deals its main blows against the political party of the working class. At the same time, trying to undermine the party from within, capitalist propaganda endeavours to persuade the workers that they can do without their own party. One of the manifestations of bourgeois influence on the working class is the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist denial of the leading role of a political party.
  • Democritus: Not from fear but from a sense of duty refrain from your sins.
  • Democritus: Many who have not learned wisdom live wisely, and many who do the basest deeds can make most learned speeches.
  • Democritus: Fools learn wisdom through misfortune.
  • Democritus: Strength of body is nobility in beasts of burden, strength of character is nobility in men.
  • Democritus: Neither art nor wisdom may be attained without learning.
  • Democritus: It is better to correct your own faults than those of another.
  • Democritus: Good means not (merely) not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
  • Democritus: Fame and wealth without wisdom are unsafe possessions.
  • Muammar Gaddafi: We will not surrender. We will defeat them by any means. We are ready for the fight, whether it will be a short or a long one. We will be victorious in the end. This assault is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history.
  • Democritus: By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void.
  • Democritus: We know nothing accurately in reality, but (only) as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon (the body) and impinge upon it.
  • Democritus: Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.
  • Democritus: Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.
  • Democritus: Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity.
  • Democritus: In a shared fish, there are no bones.
  • Democritus: Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.
  • Democritus: The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.
  • Democritus: Moderation multiplies pleasures, and increases pleasure.
  • Democritus: If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.
  • Democritus: No power and no treasure can outweigh the extension of our knowledge.
  • Democritus: In fact we do not know anything infallibly, but only that which changes according to the condition of our body and of the (influences) that reach and impinge upon it.
  • Democritus: Of practical wisdom these are the three fruits: to deliberate well, to speak to the point, to do what is right.
  • Democritus: 'Tis not in strength of body nor in gold that men find happiness, but in uprightness and in fulness of understanding.
  • Democritus: He who does wrong is more unhappy than he who suffers wrong.
  • Samuel P. Huntington: The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.
  • Marjori Palmer: One of the most morale-damaging aspects of the inflation was the "sack of Germany" that occurred at the height of the (1923) inflation. Anyone who possessed dollars or sterling was king in Germany. A few American dollars would allow a man to live like a millionaire. Foreigners swarmed into the country, buying up family treasures, estates, jewelry and art works at unbelievable low prices.
  • Lionel Robbins: It was the most colossal thing of its kind in history: and next probably to the Great War itself, it must bear responsibility for many of the political and economic difficulties of our generation. It destroyed the wealth of the more solid elements of German society: and left behind a moral and economic disequilibrium, a breeding ground for the disasters which have followed. Hitler is the foster child of the inflation.
  • Lenin: There is no trace of utopianism in Marx, in the sense that he made up or invented a 'new' society. No, he studied the birth of the new society out of the old, and the forms of transition from the latter to the former, as a natural-historical process. He examined the actual experience of a proletarian mass movement and tried to draw practical lessons from it.
  • Che Guevara: Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.
  • Democritus: The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely thought to exist.
  • Bertolt Brecht: Lenin is enshrined In the large heart of the working class.


"Comment l’Occident a amené la guerre en Ukraine"
de Benjamin #Abelow, #2022 (Downloadable in English, French, Deutsch)

Comprendre comment les politiques des #États-Unis et de l’ #OTAN ont conduit à la crise, la guerre, et au risque d’une catastrophe nucléaire. Ce livre fournit de nombreux éléments nécessaires pour comprendre pourquoi cette guerre était largement évitable, mais est devenue inévitable en raison des actions politiques de l’OTAN. Bien que sa brièveté l’empêche d’entrer dans les détails ou de prendre en compte toutes les sources sur le sujet, il s’agit d’un ouvrage très accessible qui expose les arguments les plus importants concernant les nombreuses provocations occidentales à l’encontre de la #Russie.
Livre à acheter sur Amazon https://www.amazon.fr/Comment-lOccident-amené-guerre-Ukraine/dp/099107677X
ou à télécharger gratuitement (en anglais, français ou allemand) sur le site de l'auteur: benjaminabelow.com/download/

"Très bon travail... Les faits passés en revue méritent d'être mieux connus."
/Noam #Chomsky/

“Une explication brillante et remarquablement concise du danger créé par l’implication militaire des États-Unis et de l’OTAN en #Ukraine. Un livre qui devrait être lu et médité par tout citoyen capable de penser rationnellement et de manière responsable à la sécurité américaine et européenne.”
/Jack F. Matlock, Jr., ancien ambassadeur des États-Unis en Union soviétique, auteur de Superpower Illusions/

“C’est un livre tellement important. Je l’ai lu trois fois. Il est d’une extraordinaire clarté non seulement de langage mais aussi de pensée. Je ne saurais trop le recommander.”
/Robert F. #Kennedy Jr./

“Pour toute personne intéressée par la compréhension des véritables causes de la catastrophe en Ukraine, Comment l’Occident a amené la guerre en Ukraine est une lecture obligée. Abelow démontre clairement et de manière convaincante que les États-Unis et leurs alliés de l’OTAN— et non Vladimir #Poutine — sont les principaux responsables.”
/John J. #Mearsheimer, auteur de The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, est Professeur émérite de Science politique à l’Université de Chicago/

“C’est un magnifique petit livre, bien écrit, organisé logiquement, facile à lire et convaincant, mais avec les réserves qui s’imposent. Il s’agit d’une introduction inestimable aux tendances et aux événements qui ont mené à l’escalade et la guerre en Ukraine. Sans compréhension de l’histoire documentée dans ce livre, il n’y aura pas de désescalade dans la confrontation américanorusse aux frontières orientales de l’Europe.”
/ Chas #Freeman, ancien Secrétaire adjoint à la Défense pour les Affaires de sécurité internationale, auteur de Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy/

“Pour ceux qui se soucient de la sécurité nationale des États-Unis et de la paix en Europe, ce livre est une lecture essentielle.”
/ Le Colonel Douglas #Macgregor de l’Armée américaine (à la retraite), auteur de Margin of Victory, qui a été décoré pour bravoure lors de la bataille de 73 Easting en Irak et a été Directeur du Centre d’opérations interarmées de l’OTAN au SHAPE (Grand quartier général des puissances alliées en Europe)

“Un aperçu concis mais complet et accessible. Inestimable pour comprendre comment la guerre est revenue en Europe. Benjamin Abelow démontre que la crise en Ukraine était prévisible, prédite — et évitable.”
/Richard Sakwa, auteur de Frontline Ukraine et The Putin Paradox, est professeur de Science politique, spécialiste de la Russie et l’Europe, à l’Université du Kent/

U.S. Moves Closer to Withdrawing Troops from Europe: A Step Toward Sovereignty and Peace telesurenglish.net/u-s-moves-c…

dude using the terminal for installing/removing programs is AWESOME


If I want to install something, I can either do "dnf install [program name]" or "flatpak install [program name]". Same goes for when I want to remove a program. And for flatpak at least, I typed ONE WORD from a game I was uninstalling because I didn't remember to exact tag and flatpak asked me "do you want to install [full tag of game]? y/n" like HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE THAT IS SO CONVENIENT
in reply to VitoRobles

Some stuff is better, but I overall prefer chocolatey because it is closer to classic package manager experience. Winget will still open the installer windows of some applications. But you can use both, no need to decide for one, they install into the same directories and will manage the other's applications just fine (as they're all standard Windows installers).
This entry was edited (2 months ago)

EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE: Zionists Target Farmers in South Lebanon rumble.com/v6tfexj-exclusive-f…

Ryan Hall predicts there may be a possibility of tornadoes close to our area on Tuesday at the 7:40 mark. Please pray this storm system is severely weakened and this does NOT come to pass!

youtube.com/watch?v=_YMiWR1NUA…

@CONSERVATARIAN @mimimayes @johnglavine @joenarcoleptic @Greeklivesmatter1970 @Phil @Candlelight @Bakerfiend
@fuzzi @Truther @HeyLiberty @Wizski @MMA @GetsGreased @DeniseE
@RedRocker @Ashley

Trump Eyes Mass Expulsion of Gazans to Libya, Report #Palestine qudsnen.co/trump-eyes-mass-exp…

Last September, a new card was issued for Magic: The Gathering -- “Zimone, All-Questioning”

it turns out that it enables a player to deal infinite damage ...

... so long as *the twin primes conjecture is true*

I cannot express how delightful I find this

item #12 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free to read here: buttondown.com/clivethompson/a…

Fulton J. Sheen: Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right, even if nobody is right. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Quotes

  • Otto Kuusinen: As long as the working class wages only an economic struggle, the bourgeoisie does not see in that any great danger for itself; but when the working class organises politically, i.e., creates a political party which expresses its will as a class, the bourgeoisie begins seriously to fear for its rule. That is why reaction deals its main blows against the political party of the working class. At the same time, trying to undermine the party from within, capitalist propaganda endeavours to persuade the workers that they can do without their own party. One of the manifestations of bourgeois influence on the working class is the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist denial of the leading role of a political party.
  • Democritus: Not from fear but from a sense of duty refrain from your sins.
  • Democritus: Many who have not learned wisdom live wisely, and many who do the basest deeds can make most learned speeches.
  • Democritus: Fools learn wisdom through misfortune.
  • Democritus: Strength of body is nobility in beasts of burden, strength of character is nobility in men.
  • Democritus: Neither art nor wisdom may be attained without learning.
  • Democritus: It is better to correct your own faults than those of another.
  • Democritus: Good means not (merely) not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
  • Democritus: Fame and wealth without wisdom are unsafe possessions.
  • Muammar Gaddafi: We will not surrender. We will defeat them by any means. We are ready for the fight, whether it will be a short or a long one. We will be victorious in the end. This assault is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history.
  • Democritus: By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void.
  • Democritus: We know nothing accurately in reality, but (only) as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon (the body) and impinge upon it.
  • Democritus: Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.
  • Democritus: Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.
  • Democritus: Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity.
  • Democritus: In a shared fish, there are no bones.
  • Democritus: Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.
  • Democritus: The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.
  • Democritus: Moderation multiplies pleasures, and increases pleasure.
  • Democritus: If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.
  • Democritus: No power and no treasure can outweigh the extension of our knowledge.
  • Democritus: In fact we do not know anything infallibly, but only that which changes according to the condition of our body and of the (influences) that reach and impinge upon it.
  • Democritus: Of practical wisdom these are the three fruits: to deliberate well, to speak to the point, to do what is right.
  • Democritus: 'Tis not in strength of body nor in gold that men find happiness, but in uprightness and in fulness of understanding.
  • Democritus: He who does wrong is more unhappy than he who suffers wrong.
  • Samuel P. Huntington: The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.
  • Marjori Palmer: One of the most morale-damaging aspects of the inflation was the "sack of Germany" that occurred at the height of the (1923) inflation. Anyone who possessed dollars or sterling was king in Germany. A few American dollars would allow a man to live like a millionaire. Foreigners swarmed into the country, buying up family treasures, estates, jewelry and art works at unbelievable low prices.
  • Lionel Robbins: It was the most colossal thing of its kind in history: and next probably to the Great War itself, it must bear responsibility for many of the political and economic difficulties of our generation. It destroyed the wealth of the more solid elements of German society: and left behind a moral and economic disequilibrium, a breeding ground for the disasters which have followed. Hitler is the foster child of the inflation.
  • Lenin: There is no trace of utopianism in Marx, in the sense that he made up or invented a 'new' society. No, he studied the birth of the new society out of the old, and the forms of transition from the latter to the former, as a natural-historical process. He examined the actual experience of a proletarian mass movement and tried to draw practical lessons from it.
  • Che Guevara: Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.
  • Democritus: The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely thought to exist.
  • Bertolt Brecht: Lenin is enshrined In the large heart of the working class.


Jessica:

Buddy loves s’mores. This started while Lethe was in front, the joke is that Buddy wanted to make s’mores and Lethe told him he’d need a bonfire and well ok

Wikipedia article chaining led us to the s’mores entry today

A lot of ‘ohhhhhhhhh’ and happiness from Buddy and then my beloved son started losing it. Badly

“In the UK, the lack of graham crackers is easily improvised with digestive biscuits with a slab of Cadbury's chocolate.”

‘MOM WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS’

Fulton J. Sheen: There is no word more "dangerous" than liberalism, because to oppose it is the new "unforgivable sin". wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Quotes

  • Otto Kuusinen: As long as the working class wages only an economic struggle, the bourgeoisie does not see in that any great danger for itself; but when the working class organises politically, i.e., creates a political party which expresses its will as a class, the bourgeoisie begins seriously to fear for its rule. That is why reaction deals its main blows against the political party of the working class. At the same time, trying to undermine the party from within, capitalist propaganda endeavours to persuade the workers that they can do without their own party. One of the manifestations of bourgeois influence on the working class is the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist denial of the leading role of a political party.
  • Democritus: Not from fear but from a sense of duty refrain from your sins.
  • Democritus: Many who have not learned wisdom live wisely, and many who do the basest deeds can make most learned speeches.
  • Democritus: Fools learn wisdom through misfortune.
  • Democritus: Strength of body is nobility in beasts of burden, strength of character is nobility in men.
  • Democritus: Neither art nor wisdom may be attained without learning.
  • Democritus: It is better to correct your own faults than those of another.
  • Democritus: Good means not (merely) not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
  • Democritus: Fame and wealth without wisdom are unsafe possessions.
  • Muammar Gaddafi: We will not surrender. We will defeat them by any means. We are ready for the fight, whether it will be a short or a long one. We will be victorious in the end. This assault is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history.
  • Democritus: By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void.
  • Democritus: We know nothing accurately in reality, but (only) as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon (the body) and impinge upon it.
  • Democritus: Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.
  • Democritus: Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.
  • Democritus: Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity.
  • Democritus: In a shared fish, there are no bones.
  • Democritus: Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.
  • Democritus: The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.
  • Democritus: Moderation multiplies pleasures, and increases pleasure.
  • Democritus: If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.
  • Democritus: No power and no treasure can outweigh the extension of our knowledge.
  • Democritus: In fact we do not know anything infallibly, but only that which changes according to the condition of our body and of the (influences) that reach and impinge upon it.
  • Democritus: Of practical wisdom these are the three fruits: to deliberate well, to speak to the point, to do what is right.
  • Democritus: 'Tis not in strength of body nor in gold that men find happiness, but in uprightness and in fulness of understanding.
  • Democritus: He who does wrong is more unhappy than he who suffers wrong.
  • Samuel P. Huntington: The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.
  • Marjori Palmer: One of the most morale-damaging aspects of the inflation was the "sack of Germany" that occurred at the height of the (1923) inflation. Anyone who possessed dollars or sterling was king in Germany. A few American dollars would allow a man to live like a millionaire. Foreigners swarmed into the country, buying up family treasures, estates, jewelry and art works at unbelievable low prices.
  • Lionel Robbins: It was the most colossal thing of its kind in history: and next probably to the Great War itself, it must bear responsibility for many of the political and economic difficulties of our generation. It destroyed the wealth of the more solid elements of German society: and left behind a moral and economic disequilibrium, a breeding ground for the disasters which have followed. Hitler is the foster child of the inflation.
  • Lenin: There is no trace of utopianism in Marx, in the sense that he made up or invented a 'new' society. No, he studied the birth of the new society out of the old, and the forms of transition from the latter to the former, as a natural-historical process. He examined the actual experience of a proletarian mass movement and tried to draw practical lessons from it.
  • Che Guevara: Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.
  • Democritus: The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely thought to exist.
  • Bertolt Brecht: Lenin is enshrined In the large heart of the working class.


Customizing the Raspberry Pi Ubuntu image


Hello,
I would like to customize the Raspberry Pi Ubuntu image before I flash it to multiple SD cards. I tried to use Cubic: I downloaded the official image which is an img.xz file. I extracted it, and converted the img to iso since Cubic only accepts iso files. However, when I try to add this source iso in Cubic, it complains about having a wrong file format. Can you suggest a better way to try and customize it? I just need to uninstall some software that are there by default, and install others that are not there, nothing crazy really.
in reply to darko

Hmm I don't know if there's a "correct" way, but you could flash the stock version on the first SD card and fire Ubuntu up. Then configure your system and shut down.

Next I would dd the whole SD card into an .img file which then you could flash to all other SD cards.

Be aware of changing hostname and static IP for each new sd card to avoid network trouble

This entry was edited (2 months ago)

Piotr Tsenzura

«CHEZ LES CONS !»* LA MISÈRE MILITAIRE RUSSE
La magnifique publication sur papier glacé avec belles photos de tourisme & voyages « #GÉO », depuis qu’elle est financée par l’ #USAID, nous révèle la décrépitude et les pertes koloSSaleSS de l’Armée Rouge, pardon « russe ».
Sur quoi se basent ces géopolitologues en chemises hawaïennes, punch coco glacé dans une main et volant gainé de cuir de leur 4x4 climatisé dans l’autre ?
Sur un indicateur de décomposition avancée infaillible et incontestable : il y avait moins de chars sur la Place Rouge lors du défilé du 80éme anniversaire de la Kapitulation sans kondition du Reich de 1.000 ans ce 9 mai 2025 !
Et pour preuve de l’incompétence des stratèges moujiks, ces cons-là les avaient envoyés sur le front au lieu de les faire gentiment défiler devant Xi Jinping, Lula, et une trentaine de chefs d’États qui avaient dû rater leur correspondance à Roissy-Charles de Gaulle à cause des piratages et panotages truqués par le FSB et se retrouvaient là par erreur !
Second indice qui ne trompe pas, au pays des KosakSS l’industrie d’armement a multiplié par 3 ses investissements permettant aux Russes de tirer 100 obus quand l’Otan de Milwaukee, Gdansk, Birmingham, Auckland à Frankfurt et Adélaïde peinait à en fournir 1.
Résultat logique : côté russe c’est l’hécatombe avec
- 3 fois plus de pertes de systèmes d’armement : 21.600 contre seulement 8.800 otano-nazis
- et 1.167 chars contre 8.800, selon les chiffres de l’USAID 🤣, avec 100 fois plus de munitions tirées, c’est vous dire le nombre d’obus qui tombent de préférence au beau milieu des crèches, maternités et jardins d’enfants kiéviens 😱 en évitant soigneusement chars Abrams, Leopards et autre Himars Caesar .
Bref, les Russes ont perdu une guerre de plus, comme en 1945 à preuve : «un unique T-34 a paradé le 9 mai 2025» (sic) 🤡 😹 je vous jure que c'est un copié-collé de l'article !... Vous ne me croyez pas ? Moi non plus, j’ai eu du mal à y croire, pourtant c’est écrit là, bonne rigolade :


geo.fr/geopolitique/annee-apre…
Note : «CHEZ LES CONS !» = Chronique anti-psyops (au bas mots (sic)- bidono-clintonidiens) du soft power des gloubiglobalistes fanatiques va-t-en guerre américains

#France #propagande #Russie #Ukraine

in reply to arthur.pizza

What technical problem does Bittorrent solve today for a linux distribution?

There's not even an apt-transport- for bittorrent, though one does exist for tor. You would think that of all the parts of linux that could benefit the most from bittorrent it would be distributions updates. LOL.

Then again there's my favorite... IPFS. Now that should be built-in to every linux distro. 😉

"We would be less confidential than Google" Proton threatens to quit Switzerland

Link: techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-…
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…

"Former Walmart CEO Suggests Company Could Absorb Tariff Impacts, But because they hate the American People so much Will Likely Raise Prices, Blame Tariffs"

breitbart.com/politics/2025/05… Walmart CEO Suggests Company Could Absorb Tariff Impacts, But Will Likely Raise Prices, Blame Tariffs

Enver Hoxha: The more the contradictions of capitalism and imperial- ism deepen, and the closer the wave of the revolution approaches, the more the other revisionist current — Euro- communism, reveals its anti-Marxist and counter-revolu- tionary features. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Quotes

  • Otto Kuusinen: As long as the working class wages only an economic struggle, the bourgeoisie does not see in that any great danger for itself; but when the working class organises politically, i.e., creates a political party which expresses its will as a class, the bourgeoisie begins seriously to fear for its rule. That is why reaction deals its main blows against the political party of the working class. At the same time, trying to undermine the party from within, capitalist propaganda endeavours to persuade the workers that they can do without their own party. One of the manifestations of bourgeois influence on the working class is the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist denial of the leading role of a political party.
  • Democritus: Not from fear but from a sense of duty refrain from your sins.
  • Democritus: Many who have not learned wisdom live wisely, and many who do the basest deeds can make most learned speeches.
  • Democritus: Fools learn wisdom through misfortune.
  • Democritus: Strength of body is nobility in beasts of burden, strength of character is nobility in men.
  • Democritus: Neither art nor wisdom may be attained without learning.
  • Democritus: It is better to correct your own faults than those of another.
  • Democritus: Good means not (merely) not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
  • Democritus: Fame and wealth without wisdom are unsafe possessions.
  • Muammar Gaddafi: We will not surrender. We will defeat them by any means. We are ready for the fight, whether it will be a short or a long one. We will be victorious in the end. This assault is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history.
  • Democritus: By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void.
  • Democritus: We know nothing accurately in reality, but (only) as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon (the body) and impinge upon it.
  • Democritus: Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.
  • Democritus: Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.
  • Democritus: Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity.
  • Democritus: In a shared fish, there are no bones.
  • Democritus: Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.
  • Democritus: The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.
  • Democritus: Moderation multiplies pleasures, and increases pleasure.
  • Democritus: If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.
  • Democritus: No power and no treasure can outweigh the extension of our knowledge.
  • Democritus: In fact we do not know anything infallibly, but only that which changes according to the condition of our body and of the (influences) that reach and impinge upon it.
  • Democritus: Of practical wisdom these are the three fruits: to deliberate well, to speak to the point, to do what is right.
  • Democritus: 'Tis not in strength of body nor in gold that men find happiness, but in uprightness and in fulness of understanding.
  • Democritus: He who does wrong is more unhappy than he who suffers wrong.
  • Samuel P. Huntington: The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.
  • Marjori Palmer: One of the most morale-damaging aspects of the inflation was the "sack of Germany" that occurred at the height of the (1923) inflation. Anyone who possessed dollars or sterling was king in Germany. A few American dollars would allow a man to live like a millionaire. Foreigners swarmed into the country, buying up family treasures, estates, jewelry and art works at unbelievable low prices.
  • Lionel Robbins: It was the most colossal thing of its kind in history: and next probably to the Great War itself, it must bear responsibility for many of the political and economic difficulties of our generation. It destroyed the wealth of the more solid elements of German society: and left behind a moral and economic disequilibrium, a breeding ground for the disasters which have followed. Hitler is the foster child of the inflation.
  • Lenin: There is no trace of utopianism in Marx, in the sense that he made up or invented a 'new' society. No, he studied the birth of the new society out of the old, and the forms of transition from the latter to the former, as a natural-historical process. He examined the actual experience of a proletarian mass movement and tried to draw practical lessons from it.
  • Che Guevara: Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.
  • Democritus: The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely thought to exist.
  • Bertolt Brecht: Lenin is enshrined In the large heart of the working class.