What in the 1999 did I just read?

Yeah, I think the somatic and verbal components were supposed to give away casters (making the sorcerer’s Subtle Spell incredibly valuable socially), but it seems like a lot of DMs ignore or minimize it. But yeah, things like a simple persistent Detect Magic field, especially in critical areas, would make perfect sense. In a high magic setting, every vendor having a trinket that grants them Detect Magic continuously wouldn’t be out of the question.

Listen man, just be happy they didn’t bring anti-magic field grenades.

For real though, even in settings that aren’t high magic, it would be reasonable that law enforcement would have something to neutralize magic. You think you’re the first spell-slinging murder hobo to come through here?

C
A
T

As far as Arch-based distros go, CachyOS has a lot of helper tools included, and a lot of GUI programs. That’s probably why people consider it beginner-friendly.

I wouldn’t really consider CachyOS as a beginner distro. It’s probably the most accessible for anyone looking for something highly optimized, but there are plenty of others that are easier to set up and use.

Been daily driving Cachy for a couple years now, and I love it. It’s not for everyone, though.

In addition to the poor treatment of autistic and other neurodivergent folks, note that there was a huge uptick in a lot of fantasy folk tales right around the same time people started using gas lamps in their homes.

I would pronounce it “DEEmon” but that gets some religious folks all freaked out, so I usually go with “DAYman”.

Simmer down, Satan

My block list is long, and I like it!

In the context of social media, it’s safe to say most people use the word “algorithm” to refer to the latter rather than the former. Sorting/visibility is technically an algorithm, but it’s transparent and can be controlled by the user.

Technically, but the algorithm consists of which communities you’re viewing and what order you sort posts. Generally when people talk about an “algorithm” in social media, they mean an opaque self-tuning selection process based on your usage patterns (and whoever is paying them the most). And Lemmy doesn’t have any of that.

If you’re selecting sort-by-new and you’re noticing problems with getting old posts mixed in, that would be a problem. But seeing the same posts when you’re viewing the same communities and sorting the same way isn’t a problem, it’s showing you what you asked for. Why blame the “algorithm”?

Rocks are the shit, all my homies love rocks

What algorithm? You can subscribe to whichever communities you want, and posts from them show up on your feed organized by whatever you pick. If you want to constantly see fresh content, view all communities and sort by new.

I’ve been using Proton Mail for a while. It works well for me.

why not just skip the middleman

Because many people take for granted their advanced understanding of Unix systems that allows them to get into the “meat”.

If you’re the type of person that is excited by a terminal display and prepared to read a whole pile of documentation, then sure–go straight to Arch, or Alpine if you’re insane. But most people want something that’s familiar, easy to set up, and will never force you to open a terminal. That’s Mint (plus a number of other beginner-friendly distros). And most average people are perfectly happy to stay there. And that’s perfectly fine.

You’re not missing anything. Mint is perfectly good for the vast majority of users.

Linux distros are a bit like vehicles. For most people, a Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla will do everything they need. But if you go onto forums of car-enthusiasts, you can probably find thousands of voices that say those vehicles have such low horsepower, or they’re not perfectly streamlined, or arguing about the buttons on the seat belts. Things that the average user doesn’t care much about.

I started 20 years ago with Slackware, tried out FreeBSD, and a number of others. I switched to Mint as a daily driver years ago. These days I found what I like (CachyOS), but I’m fairly knowledgable and quite comfortable on the command line, which is definitely not the case for most newer folks.

Mint is a great distro. When I put it on my wife’s laptop, literally everything worked right away. Have fun!

Galdur’s Bate 3rd

I read your first bullet point. Yes, your childhood was fucked. This is nowhere near the typical experience, even for folks with bad home lives.

The phone I use has constant battery charging protection. I checked before using it for that. But yeah, definitely check for that before using it that way, or remove the battery (if the phone will still run without it).

I use one as a camera monitor for my kids’ baby monitors.

A more general idea would be setting up a weather/forecast display.