I set up Alpine to read my Gmail last summer, and while the nostalgia hit was nice, the browser version was more responsive and useful, cap I went back to that.

If you’re interested in something that doesn’t even exist, and should be more-or-less straightforward:

Music/podcast app that will accept VST plugins (there are many FOSS ones, as well as non-FOSS ones) so that we can compress/limit the sound range on podcasts while in the car. Or even a built-in compressor/limiter that’s based on FOSS compressors.

I was listening to a hysterical podcast episode between three people, but one of mics was way louder than the other two. I had to take it into Pro Tools and fix it myself before listening to it.

There are apps that allow EQ, but none that do actual compression, from what I can tell.

While I don’t have personal experience with this, I did find this from the bad website:

Install pipewire-jack and use JACK audio device in Reaper. Also, yes make sure that wireplumber is installed.

Link to post.

Gentoo. Not an Arch fork, and uses OpenRC by default. I use it and love it. Portage is the best package manager out there, imo.

You can still get binaries of the really annoying things to compile, like Firefox. Otherwise, it’s all source-based.

I’d advise installing it in a VM or on a spare computer first to get your hands around what it is.

In your case, you’ll want to specify the following flags in you makefile:

OpenRC, -systemd

You’ll add a bunch of others in there too depending on architecture and personal priorities.

Follow the handbook. https://www.gentoo.org/get-started/

There’s also Calculate Linux, which is basically Gentoo with a graphical front end, but I think it’s Intel only. CLI is more fun anyway.

Debian Stable or Testing. Runs on anything, and Stable - especially - will not let you down. Ubintu, Elementary and dozens of others are downstream of Debian. Bookworm is a great experience, so why not go to the source?

“Testing” is described as containing packages that are still in the queue to be accepted into Stable.

“Unstable” branch is all the newest stuff, whether it works or not.

If you’re in school for anything computer-related, once you’ve settled on a distro, you could also start playing with Gentoo.

Yup - vst is OS-agnostic.

I work in music and audio post, and everyone I work with would love to be able to use Reaper (or Logic, or Nuendo) instead of Pro Tools, if Pro Tools didn’t have the post industry completely captured in the US.

Reaper is a world-class product, and the team could easily charge 10x as much for the pro licenses, and get it. Stick with Reaper.

There are alternative drum triggers for Linux, I’m sure. Even SPL makes a drum exchanger. There’s got to be one out there.

VMR shouldn’t be a problem to run, I just don’t know what the install process would look like.

I’m pretty sure Airwindows plugs are Linux compatible, probably Audio Obsession too.

In any case, Reaper’s stock plugins are awesome. My only real complaint about them is the EQ cramping in the hi-end, which is typical for stock plugins.

Make the passing grade for a driving test 20% higher than it currently is, and make everyone take a driving test every five years. You get one re-test if you fail.

And once you hit 70, driving tests every year.

Anyone who fails under the new regulations would have been causing a lot of problems on the roads.

70 or older in my family. My dad’s wife just posted an excited post on Facebook about a Tesla Concorde taking off, and do had to explain to her that it’s a flight simulator. She’s 73.

I think old people are the ones less likely to understand this stuff.

Their company, their rules. A union protest is a work activity directly relating to their roles, relationships, and functions as employees, which a political protest is not.

Google can suffer the public consequences on their own, which may or may not affect their bottom line.

I still suspect that they had Klobuchar picked for VP until George Floyd happened.

Alpine is great for VM and containers… Light on resources because of musl.

EDIT: I’m saying that the US can’t be relied on to continue supporting the war effort because the GOP in particular has become increasingly opposed to funding it.

When did they kill Wallet? I continue to use it every day. Just added another membership yesterday, in fact.

I know NATO doesn’t have unlimited resources, but given that this is an explicit proxy war with Russia, doesn’t $100bn seem kind of paltry? That makes it appear that they’re planning on continuing cash infusions from the US.

Well, clearly, to be China is against the rules.

The two major national parties are rushing rightward no matter what you do. Best I’ve come up with is moving to a state where the controlling party is as left as possible.

The only way out is through. Best case scenario I believe we can expect is patchwork fascism across the country, so choose your enclave wisely. After things really collapse, and after the fighting is settled, we can do our best to set things right. But as long as we are going to be shackled to the whims of previous generations going back to the 18th century, actual progress is a dream.

The foxes have run the henhouse since the late 70s, and they’re not about to give it up.

One begins to think they’re just belligerent shitheads

That continues to be my parents’ view (I suspect the same is true for many of our parents). It’ll be a few generations before the fiction around Hiroshima gets wiped away. Hell, the '21 Tulsa massacre is only now getting some actual cultural awareness, and that’s only because it was depicted in the first scene of The Watchmen.