Ok, going for full controversy here. zsh = "zoosh" ssh = "shoosh" sudo = sue-dough

Before you achktually me, I know it's supposed to be "sue-DO", because the acronym stands for "superuser do", but for the life of me, when I see those letters together it just seems wrong to pronounce it that way.

A few years ago I felt kinda lame whenever I had to "make a wish" blowing out birthday candles or whatnot and the only thing I could think of under pressure was "world peace".

Since then, I've kept a wish ready to blurt out if I ever see a falling star or toss a coin into a fountain etc

For me, it's sending my mind, with all my current knowledge and experience, back in time into my body at the moment I graduated high school, so I could re-live my life with more confidence, less anxiety and get straight into doing the cool bits of my life much earlier.

What would be your "back pocket wish"?

Assume that you only have the resources and money that you've acquired up to this point in your life, and you still have to pay rent, bills etc. You are basically physically capable of everyday activities but extreme feats (eg running marathons, climbing everest) are not realistic.

Hi Lemmy,

I'm organising a funeral, and one of the ideas that has come up is for people to write memories on a balloon and let them go. However, I've also heard that they often end up in trees etc and are terrible for the environment.

Is there such a thing as environmentally safe balloons? Other suggestions are also welcome.

How to update the BIOS on a Dell laptop running Linux

For models not supported by lvfs

Completed successfully on a Dell Inspiron 3595 running Manjaro

This fix does not require Manjaro, it should work on any distro.

It took me a looong time to figure out how to do this for various reasons, and there are a lot of forum posts on the net about this exact problem. So for posterity I offer up this guide for any future googlers.

TLDR for advanced users: Use Ventoy to boot the Windows 10 installer and open the command prompt in the "Repair my PC" menu to launch the Dell BIOS update executable from a second USB.

1. Grab two USBs that are at least 8 GB in capacity.
2. Download the BIOS update file from the Dell support website.
3. Copy it to the first USB. Mine was formatted as NTFS but I don't think it's critical to the process.
4. Download Ventoy. If you've never heard of this, spend a minute reading about it. It's a cool tool.
5. Flash Ventoy to your second USB.
6. Acquire an .iso of Windows 10. I chose Windows 10 because Windows 7 didn't boot on my laptop (not sure why), and Windows 11 was too heavy for the CPU. I also tried Freedos but my laptop only has UEFI boot enabled, and no legacy option, which is apparently not supported. Note - you don't actually need to install or activate Windows in any way so I didn't feel it was necessary to be too picky about how I acquired the image.
7. Copy the Windows 10 .iso file to your Ventoy USB.
8. Boot from the Ventoy USB and select Windows 10. (F12 on most Dell laptops to interrupt the boot sequence)
9. Click "Repair my PC" in the bottom left hand corner - DO NOT install.
10. Click on the "Use command prompt" option which should be in the "Troubleshoot" menu.
11. Insert your first USB with the Dell BIOS update file on it.
12. Change directory to your first USB. It automatically mounted mine as D: Simply type the name of the drive to change to it.
13. Type the name of the BIOS update file to execute. For example: Inspiron_3595_1.5.0.exe If you forget the name of the file, type dir to get a list of files in the current directory.
14. Watch the magic happen and don't freak out if it reboots more than once - just let it do its thing until it's finished.
15. (Optional) boot into the BIOS to confirm that the update has been successful (check the version number).

The entire process was fairly quick, less than 5 mintes, and it automatically rebooted twice. The only indication I had that it was finished was that on the third reboot it booted back into Linux. I went back into the BIOS later to confirm that the BIOS version number matched the version number on the Dell website (in this case, 1.5.0).

How to update the BIOS on a Dell laptop running Linux

For models not supported by lvfs

Completed successfully on a Dell Inspiron 3595 running Manjaro

This fix does not require Manjaro, it should work on any distro.

It took me a looong time to figure out how to do this for various reasons, and there are a lot of forum posts on the net about this exact problem. So for posterity I offer up this guide for any future googlers.

TLDR for advanced users: Use Ventoy to boot the Windows 10 installer and open the command prompt in the "Repair my PC" menu to launch the Dell BIOS update executable from a second USB.

1. Grab two USBs that are at least 8 GB in capacity.
2. Download the BIOS update file from the Dell support website.
3. Copy it to the first USB. Mine was formatted as NTFS but I don't think it's critical to the process.
4. Download Ventoy. If you've never heard of this, spend a minute reading about it. It's a cool tool.
5. Flash Ventoy to your second USB.
6. Acquire an .iso of Windows 10. I chose Windows 10 because Windows 7 didn't boot on my laptop (not sure why), and Windows 11 was too heavy for the CPU. I also tried Freedos but my laptop only has UEFI boot enabled, and no legacy option, which is apparently not supported. Note - you don't actually need to install or activate Windows in any way so I didn't feel it was necessary to be too picky about how I acquired the image.
7. Copy the Windows 10 .iso file to your Ventoy USB.
8. Boot from the Ventoy USB and select Windows 10. (F12 on most Dell laptops to interrupt the boot sequence)
9. Click "Repair my PC" in the bottom left hand corner - DO NOT install.
10. Click on the "Use command prompt" option which should be in the "Troubleshoot" menu.
11. Insert your first USB with the Dell BIOS update file on it.
12. Change directory to your first USB. It automatically mounted mine as D: Simply type the name of the drive to change to it.
13. Type the name of the BIOS update file to execute. For example: Inspiron_3595_1.5.0.exe If you forget the name of the file, type dir to get a list of files in the current directory.
14. Watch the magic happen and don't freak out if it reboots more than once - just let it do its thing until it's finished.
15. (Optional) boot into the BIOS to confirm that the update has been successful (check the version number).

The entire process was fairly quick, less than 5 mintes, and it automatically rebooted twice. The only indication I had that it was finished was that on the third reboot it booted back into Linux. I went back into the BIOS later to confirm that the BIOS version number matched the version number on the Dell website (in this case, 1.5.0).

Regarding the UFO sessions being held in the US currently, what would you like to see happen, and what do you think will actually happen?

Personally I'd like to see: -Any proof that conclusively shows that this isn't some kind of weird disinfo / smoke show by the US -Actual physical evidence of living or deceased aliens or their craft -Details of communication that has occurred (if any)

I think we'll actually see: -Talk -Claims -Discussion

This isn't R. R is shit. That's why you left. Stop trying to make this place like R. R still exists. If that's what you want, go back there. R sucked because of the hive mind mentality and pandering for (pointless, imaginary) upvotes.

Don't try and recreate that. R trained you to write and post in a certain way so that the owners of that private company could get maximum engagement for their advertisers and make money off of your eyeballs. Let it go. Be free. Let the weird web flourish.

I know there was some project about this but haven't heard of anything for a while. Ewaste is such a crime; all of my devices are used or older purchases that are past their "cool by" date. I have an iPad 2 and iPad mini that function perfectly but aren't supported by apple anymore. Would love to get a second life for them instead of having to get rid of them for no good reason.