konem

joined 5 months ago
[–] konem@lemmy.today 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I bought a Tuxedo Polaris (Clevo) in 2020 for work.
The display backlighting was somewhat uneven from the start. The keyboard print rubbed off quickly, the rest of the laptop kept being mostly ok for 5 years, except for a dent or two. It also encased the first SSD that I've ever had die, possibly due to excess heat. It's not high quality, but not flimsy either. Most colleagues had macs or dells, and they were in a significantly better shape after that time. I'd say that the clevo, in terms of build quality, is a bit below Lenovo, even though it actually used a metal chassis instead of plastic.

That being said, I feel the software support for buying a new mainstream laptop is better than what I've gotten from Tuxedo. Of course, the nvidia card was a problem (no suspend for half a year, after that it worked... rarely), but even the RGB keyboard did not have a driver until a couple of years after launch. TuxedoOS was Ubuntu and highly opinionated in wanting KDE, but the custom tuxedo fixes were not readily available in any other distro. Given that the selling point was the Linux support, I've felt that even essential drivers were updated way too late. Tuxedoos switched to Debian recently, so maybe it will be better, but I wouldn't hold my breath. In conclusion, I couldn't really justify paying the premium for Linux support anymore. Community support of mainstream vendors seems way better than what these small companies can offer for niche products.

I now have a Lenovo with Cachy and it's been working great from day one, only needed to reload the Bluetooth module at times. Also don't need to wait months until driver updates arrive. Even suspend works fine now with Intel and Nvidia.

[–] konem@lemmy.today 0 points 3 weeks ago

Taxes on gas seem to be particularly high in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. Nevertheless, after searching a bit, there is also a Philly gas station around Philadelphia selling it for... $3.47. To me, this outrage about Freedom Fuel feels either like effective marketing, or its other Petro companies trying to keep out a competitor to justify their profitable "market prices". Even if its something else, it seems effective enough to have Democrats defending the Petroleum industries pricing practice.

[–] konem@lemmy.today 0 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Gas in Wisconsin has been fluctuating around $3.40-3.60 the last two weeks, today its $3.49. This is not just Costco and Woodman's, but also some pure gas stations like Citgo. According to the article they must all be loosing money. Is there anything I'm missing here?

[–] konem@lemmy.today 32 points 1 month ago (7 children)

The actual cost to OpenAI is likely much less. The number in the article is calculating the API cost that a fully maxed out subscription would incur theoretically. The API token cost, however, is far above the actual computational cost.

[–] konem@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

To make a fresh install less painful: Most applications save all user data in your home folder under .config and .local. Some others make their own .folders, which you can see pressing ctrl+h (for hidden) in your file explorer. You might save these and carry them over whenever you wipe your OS. If you save a list of installed packages from your package manager as well, you can get up and running in just a few minutes on a fresh install.

[–] konem@lemmy.today 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They don't sell them on their own website anymore. You can buy them only on stacksocial. Site looks a bit shady, but it is actually legit and in partnership with koofr. VAT is excluded from their payment screen, so do take that in mind. Later on you can upgrade your account to 2.5TB for an additional 300€ directly on koofrs website.

[–] konem@lemmy.today 7 points 3 months ago (4 children)

To protect your privacy, always encrypt your sensitive uploads with rclone or something similar. The backend is almost irrelevant then. Still, there are often some unforeseen bugs or artifical limits set by the providers. The only way to find out if a service really works for you is stresstesting it with your workflow. Most services offer a few GB for free to do that. Some examples of what may go wrong: A few years ago I've run into some problems with Proton and Zotero and quickly decided against it. My KeePass app stopped syncing with a seadrive server at some point. One nextcloud provider didn't like my seedvault backups and always dropped them halfway through.

I've been mostly using Koofr because it's european and there is a lifetime 1TB purchase available on stacksocial. Some view lifetime subscriptions as a controversial business model, but I like it better than a monthly subscription. Koofr also encourages rclone usage and I haven't run into any problems yet, but, as stated above, your mileage may vary.