I can understand why some programs only allow a single copy to be opened at once, something like email makes sense. However on Linux they got this right… if you try to open a program that is already running, it switches to the screen that program is on and restores the program window to the desktop. There’s no guessing why the program “won’t open”, it just makes the logical choice that you want to see it.

Heh that reminds me of another detail from that call… the guy also wasn’t willing to reboot his computer (which would have solved the problem as well), but berated me for not knowing what I was doing for making the suggestion. Dude, it’s Windows, things break constantly and a reboot generally resolves the issue.

Oh I have no doubt he got angry that the IT guy made him look stupid. Everyone on the support desk already knew his reputation so it wasn’t going to get any worse with us. I wish I had been around long enough to see what happened with his next demotion, because there was no possible way he was going to last even a year, I just can’t figure out how he made it to such a high initial position in the first place (unless he fudged his resume and got hired into it).

At one time I worked for IBM, supporting a nationwide company. There was a top guy who (like in the above story) thought he was hot shit. I think he was something like the CFO, but his ineptitude was recognized and he was pushed out. This company allowed people to move to a lower position, and he always thought he knew more about computers than everyone else, so he took the position of CTO.

One day I got a call from him, ranting that Outlook wouldn’t open and these computers were hopelessly broken. The normal procedure was to remote connect into the caller’s computer to directly fix any problems, but he decided he was smarter than the tech support people, and refused to allow me to access his machine. Fortunately I had direct contact with the on-site tech guy, who knew what he would be facing and went to the CTO’s office.

When he got back a couple minutes later, I asked him what the issue was. “Outlook was already open, it was just minimized to the task bar.”

What kind of crops are you going to grow at 125°? That’s still within OP’s specification of triple digits and with temps getting hotter we’re likely to see a lot more of this happening within our lifetime.

Oh I have a pretty good idea about that… But I was actually referring to the fact that Trump’s platform was the first thing attacked after he bombed the country. Yeah it would be great if we had a government that was focused on letting the various agencies do their jobs rather than dismantling everything that keeps us safe and healthy.

When they’re talking about “poorly secured US networks”, they’re referring to Truth Social, right?

Now if only Sony would get their shit together and start making a compact version of the Xperia line again.

Yes! One of my most favorite Johnny Depp roles.

That’s a good point, although flashing does help to grab attention, but it can also be annoying when the person is driving with their foot on the brake pedal.

Wow that’s got to be almost worthless. As you say, it just takes some idiot with a load obscuring the vehicle lights and suddenly nobody behind them knows what’s going on. What’s next, are we going to make tail lights optional?

Does your state not require good lights on the trailers? I just built a new trailer last year, I was required to have full working brake and turn signals along with running lights, but I went the extra step and included more brake/turn lights on the front and rear of the fenders, along with reverse lights plus four marker lights along each side. Trailers are hard enough to see, I didn’t want to make it harder for anyone by just sticking with the bare minimum.

I suspect a lot of that has to do with the entitled way people are driving these days. If you leave a car length gap, some kid will wrecklessly attempt to cram their way in because your lane momentarily moved slightly faster.

I suspect because there’s no consistency in the brightness of vehicle lights. But that’s one of the reasons why I think an incremental light bar would be better, there’s no variation between vehicles. You could even make it more informative by flashing the whole bar when you first brake, so someone behind you can more easily see how much of the bar is being lit up.

That could probably be implemented in most existing vehicles, and at least it would provide more information.

They don’t want to admit they’ve been screwing us over even though we all know it’s happening. All these companies could have rolled out suitable internet speeds a decade earlier but they would rather limit everyone to the lowest common denominator so they don’t have to admit just how terrible their equipment is in most locations.

I’ve gotta say, having city-owned fiber is great, folks here don’t have to wait weeks for Comcast to send out a tech who conveniently never shows up on the scheduled day, and customer service actually has a clue what they’re talking about. This is how a public service should operate.

I would say cable TV coax has quite a lot more capacity than what the providers let on. In my city they offered up to 50mbps at over $100/month. Then they lost their lawsuit trying to prevent the city from installing its own fiber network and suddenly the cable company decided they could offer 150mbps for around $75/month (with no equipment changes). Once the fiber network started becoming operational (offering 1gbps bidirectional for$50/month) the cable company decided they’re better also offer gigabit connection speeds, but once again they simply flipped a switch to increase your bandwidth. This capability has been in place for quite some time, they just didn’t want to offer it and their illegal “monopoly” gave them no incentive to provide competitive speeds.

*I say “monopoly” even though we technically also have DSL available in town. However when I asked one of the techs why DSL couldn’t give me more than 896kps upload speed, I was told that the cable company had an arrangement with them which prevented the DSL from providing the speeds needed by businesses. After the lawsuit that broke up the state-wide bans on other providers, this practice was exposed and also broken up, so now the telco is able to max out their DSL speeds.

I still think rear signaling could be improved dramatically by using a wide third-brake light to show the intensity of braking.

For example – I have seen some aftermarket turn signals which are bars the width of the vehicle, and show a “moving” signal starting in the center and then progressing towards the outer edge of the vehicle.

So now take that idea for brake. When you barely have your foot on the brake pedal, it would light a couple lights in the center of your brake signal. Press a little harder and now it’s lighting up 1/4 of the lights from the center towards the outside edge of the vehicle. And when you’re pressing the brake pedal to the floor, all of the lights are lit up from the center to the outside edges of the vehicle. The harder you press on the pedal, the more lights are illuminated.

Now you have an immediate indication of just how hard the person in front of you is braking. With the normal on/off brake signals, you don’t know what’s happening until moments later as you determine how fast you are approaching that car. They could be casually slowing, or they could be locking up their wheels for an accident in front of them.

And never forget about the I-D ten T error.

Yikes, that sucks… but at least Linux is still usable.

If you want stability, you probably can’t beat Debian, and you should be fairly used to the backend by now. I suspect the stylus use is just going to be figuring out what package provided your current access to it.

Before you wipe the laptop, I would recommend finding a command to list all the installed packages, then at least you’ll have a reference to what was in place before. And if possible, maybe grab a backup of the /etc folder (or whatever might still be accessible) so you can reference the current configs on various packages to recreate whatever doesn’t work by default.

There are a number of lightweight desktops you can choose from. I personally like Mate, but maybe you can play around with others on the new system and purge the ones you don’t like. And while you’re swapping drives, check the memory slots, maybe you can drop another 8GB stick in there to give the whole system a boost.