Yes magnets can affect HDDs. But it needs to be very strong and close to the HDD. I wouldn't worry unless you are directly attaching it to you HDD and even then it probably won't do much if anything at all.

Remember HDDs already have strong permanent magnets inside them. Probably way stronger then the one on the bottom of that support.

Instead, it's about the irretrievable, sunken costs associated with a loss of incompatible software and hardware that the person would no longer be able to use after switching to Linux.

... When windows has made its latest release incompatible with most existing hardware out there because of some arbitrary requirements. I have not seen any major hardware compatibility issues with Linux in quite a few years now. It is not common at all for some hardware to not work. In less then about a year Windows in going to make a huge amount of existing hardware unusable for supported versions of windows. That alone will help with Linuxs market share.

Most arguments in this article are overblown out very outdated. Software compatibility is a issue, but much less then it used to be. Big companies like Adobe and Microsoft which refuse to support Linux are also starting to alienate their user base making the cost of switching more and more apprising all the while the linux friendly alternatives are growing in popularity. And as I said above hardware is not a big issue these days and about to be a big issue for Windows systems.

It does touch berfily on the main point sa to why linux os not very popular ATM:

Most people don't even know what Linux is because they've never seen it pre-installed on a laptop in a store. But I digress.

That is the problem, defaults. Most people don't care or want to change their OS and most people have hardware and workloads that are easily compatible to Linux. It is really only a minority of people that require things that Windows supports better - sadly those are also the types of people more willing to break from the default OS.

The year of the Linux desktop won't come until we, the Linux community, find a way to balance the cost of switching with the future benefits of daily driving Linux from the perspective of an average user. Until then, Linux will remain more like a niche thing, made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

No it wont. The normal user will only switch when they are forced to by their current system stopping working or new hardware comes with Linux by default. The average user is your aunt how uses their computer to log into facebook or look up recipes online. A professional that requires adobe suite is not an average user and only makes up a tiny fraction of the overall userbase. It would be nice to support their workloads, but even if adobe was fully supported on Linux that would still only be a fraction more users that would be willing to move. For the average user it is the defaults that their system comes with that makes the biggest difference.

The problem is ides inlining only part of the error and generally skip all the helpful text on how to fix the error.

Also if you are looking for a replacement for find that is not a full tui then take a look at fd which works more like what the author expected from the find commad - fd <pattern>.

Your battery drains more the more you activity use the device. Shocking...

If it is your phone just uninstall those apps, then you cannot use them. If the devices main point is those apps like gaming on the switch what do you expect? I think the only real problem here is the switch's lack of customizability so you have no trade off between game quality and battery life like you can on something like the steam deck.

Additionally any application using a GUI toolkit (like kde, qt or gtk etc) only needs to to update to a version that has native Wayland support. Which means most applications already support it. At least if they don't use any X11 APIs directly (which is not that common).

“We found that adults with hearing loss who regularly used hearing aids had a 24% lower risk of mortality than those who never wore them,” said Janet Choi, MD, MPH, an otolaryngologist with Keck Medicine and lead researcher of the study. “These results are exciting because they suggest that hearing aids may play a protective role in people’s health and prevent early death.”

While the study did not examine why hearing aids may help those who need them live longer, Choi points to recent research linking hearing aid use with lowered levels of depression and dementia. She speculates that the improvements in mental health and cognition that come with improved hearing can promote better overall health, which may improve life span.

This is the classic causation vs correlation problem with these studies. I can also speculate: Did the hearing aid actually do anything at all - or do the people that go to the doctors for a hearing aid also go to the doctors for other problems they might have and so get more treatment for other conditions? That seems far more likely to have a bigger effect IMO.

That is a terrible time to throw away the error. Best to actually check for file not exists error and created the file only then. Other errors are important to see to debug why things are failing.

It is very annoying to have a tool tell you it failed to create a file when the file exists but it just cannot read it for some reason. You can spend ages jumping down the wrong rabbit whole if you don't realize what is happening.

What happened to the idea of small, non-intrusive banner ads

You answered your own question:

they bring much less revenue compared to in-your-face video interstitials per impression

And shortsighted profit driven thinking - can make a load more money now even if some users are pissed off, don't worry about long term user retention. Oh what!?! The usersbase is pissed and leaving/blocking things, better double down to keep them profits high in the mean time...

the engine costs several hundred million dollars to maintain

I just don't understand this. Godot is fairly comparable in scope and while it is behind Unity somewhat it also has a tiny fraction of the budget. Sometimes just throwing more money at a product does not make it any better any faster.

I think the entire fediverse should defed from anything under any form of commercial control

I disagree with this point. If there was say a server about github content - news, posts about projects, questions and help for github related things would it matter if the server was ran by a independent community or github itself? I think a server ran like that would be a positive thing overall.

That said, facebook/meta/threads is out for there profiteering off the community, squeezing anyone for what anything they can get out of you and have a huge history of doing the wrong thing in the goal of profit. A company like that should not be allowed in.

What? This article is all over the place and makes no sense. I really don't understand what they think the word fad means - but from what I know (within the context that can be applied to SQL) is that it is something that people are enthusiastic about for a short period of time.

Where as they seem to pull out this quote:

Every new software is either a fad, or a small improvement over some UNIX concept or tool. And then argue about everything within the context of UNIX concepts and tools. Their main argument is basically: Simply put, because UNIX already allowed for arbitrary manipulation of relational data without the need for SQL. Which is also nonsense. UNIX has a lot of (very advanced) tools for plain text manipulation. But SQL is far more than just a way to manipulate text. And it has been around since 1976 (according to the article as well) and is still widely used today. That is 47 years. If 47 years is the definition used for a short period of time then basically all technology is a fad...

UNIX did have checksums. And that’s what blockchains are. So, blockchains are technically not a fad.

This is so wrong. Blockchains are far more than just some chcecksums. And arguably far more of a fad than SQL is as they have been around for a lot less time and have fallen out of favour by a lot of people. Though I would still not argue they are a fad.

While the term AI might be over-used, machine learning is not a fad. But make no mistake: Machine learning is just statistics.

Again, a while over simplification that misses the whole point of the subject. Then goes on to mention that

one of the first machine learning applications appeared in 1262, when St Cher (not to be confused with the American singer) employed 500 friars to assist him in creating the first concordance for the Bible.

And boils that down to:

In short, it’s like grep | sort for every word in a book.

Because, yes... ML is basically just all grep | sort... /s

And, wouldn’t you know, there is a UNIX command to generate concordances: ptr (or “permuted index”). Therefore, machine learning is not a fad. But SQL is.

So as far as I understand what argument they are trying to make - is that if a tool is basically a unix command it is not a fad? Which is not what the word means at all.

It’s only a matter of time before SQL becomes a relic of the past.

Yeah, I can see that. But I question the timescale they have in mind. Will it still be around in another 50 years? Probably. 100? Who knows. I would hope we have better tools by then.

In its place, we’ll see the development of new methods and techniques for managing relational data.

We already do see this. There are many new database technologies out there, from graph databases to object databases. But none have managed to displace relational databases or SQL. They are all just different tools we have available suitable for different situations.

SQL is not a fad. And the article fails to argue otherwise, if they even understand what that word means.