jdnewmil

Way too late for that. Every language I know makes some kind of auto conversion for numeric comparisons... and sometimes for strings as well.

I stopped buying phones from carriers 15 years ago for this very reason.

Using sudo when it isn't necessary, and the real cannon: sudo su.. Adding sudo to your command lines indiscriminately causes files you create to be owned by root even though they are in your home directory, and then you end up using sudo to make changes to the files... and then the filesystem permissions cannot prevent you from successfully running an accidental "sudo rm -rf /" command.

Seriously... sudo is not a "habit" to develop in order to avoid dealing with filesystem permissions problems.

Noob question?

You do seem confused though... Debian is both a distribution and a packaging system... the Debian Stable distribution takes a very conservative approach to updating packages, while Debian Sid (unstable) is more up-to-date while being more likely to break. While individual packages may be more stable when fully-updated, other packages that depend on them generally lag and "break" as they need updating to be able to adapt to underlying changes.

But the whole reason debian-based distros exist is because some people think they can strike a better balance between newness and stability. But it turns out that there is no optimal balance that satifies everyone.

Mint is a fine distro... but if you don't like it, that is fine for you too. The only objection I have to your objection is that you seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater... the debian packaging system is very robust and is not intrinsically unlikely to be updated.

I completely agree with this point. But using the conventions of "business hours" to drag people out of bed earlier allows them to get off work earlier and utilize the daylight they already have more fully. But it is without a doubt a psychological shell game.

After reading a couple of chapters online, I think I was lied to yet again by AI. Sorry for the wild goose chase.

Google Gemini sez:

The book you're describing is most likely "The Shadows Between Us" by Tricia Levenseller.

Here's why it matches your description:

Island Nation in the South: The story begins on the island of Iolara, a tropical island with a strict code of conduct called the "Way." Discipline and Quest to the North: The protagonist, Alessandra, is being punished for practicing magic, which is forbidden. She joins a group on a quest to the tyrannical Empire of Aethel in the north. Crown Prince with Magic and Internal Struggle: One of the main characters, Kallias, is revealed to be the crown prince of Aethel. He possesses forbidden magic that manifests as dark veins and threatens to consume him if he uses it too much. Abandoned City, Temple, and Possession: The group ventures into the ruined city of Aethel's former capital and break into a temple. There they encounter the Shadow Queen, an ancient deity who temporarily possesses one of the characters. Evil Palace and Power Struggle: The climax takes place in the Obsidian Palace, carved into a mountain, where Kallias faces betrayal and assassination attempts from his siblings vying for the throne. Although some minor details might not perfectly align with your exact memory, the core plot points you mentioned strongly suggest "The Shadows Between Us" is the book you're looking for.

RAID is not a technology designed to manage backups... it is designed to either support speed or reliability. If you overwrite a good file with a bad one, then you have a very fast or reliable copy of a bad file.

Well, the Butlerian Jihad was a big influence obviously, and later in the series they end up fighting some leftover AIs from that era. But yeah, a very different take on robots between the two

Functions don't return... equals goto. Everything must be done by side effects... all variables are global. Global state mutation is inheritance... no grok. Every call is non-blocking and spawns a new thread... atomic bomb for junior software engineers.

??? ... shorting the stock of the company that adopts this.

Profit!

Yup. Circle the wagons! If ya ain't with us then you agin' us! Don't criticize me! And don't tell me to think! If ya hit my knee, I gonna kick! Twitch

... "put it back on the same disc" ...

No, BluRay is not writeable media. It is an integral part of the DRM conspiracy.

Hell, it didn't even used to be readable in Linux until the read-encryption was cracked (which may seem unrelated if you are a Windows/Mac user but illustrates that the companies behind BluRay are absolutely opposed to any manipulations such as the one you proposed.)