90s was Mandrake, early 2000s was all about Ubuntu.

Since then I’ve tried just about everything including BSDs. It’s all pretty much the same thing, as long as you like the package manager and release schedule. I don’t like snap or flatpak so avoid distros that use them a lot.

These days I mainly just use opensuse leap, although I love arch etc but it’s just too much work for me now.

I only really need a terminal, firefox and emacs and I’m happy.

This year I discovered Norm Macdonald and I think he’s now my favourite.

Theo Vonn is also hilarious, not so much his stand up but in podcasts and general conversation.

Bill Burr is great too.

Not always, I have one with an amd chipset that I can’t get Linux on (last time I checked).

You have to open them up and remove a screw then install different firmware.

The dell Chromebook 11 I got from eBay for under £20 was easy to get it working on though.

It’s just a general system setup and config tool. I’m assuming that, like me, you already know how to do all that stuff without yast but it’s good for newbies and people that aren’t super nerds. With all of the anti terminal stuff I always read about on the internet you’d think at least ubuntu would have their own version of it or something similar.

“YaST is a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server tool that provides a graphical interface for all essential installation and system configuration tasks. Whether you need to update packages, configure a printer, modify firewall settings, set up an FTP server, or partition a hard disk—you can do it using YaST.”

But yeah, I actually hardly ever use it myself.

I’m always shocked that other distros haven’t made their own version of Yast from opensuse

The dark crystal is the greatest fantasy movie of all time.

One of the reasons I think they hit different is because of the technology used to film them and the practical effects.

To me horror films from the 70s and before seem more real and scary than modern ones that are full of CGI and weird pallete swaps like when they film night scenes during the day and then darken them after. It just gives off this whole ‘this is a fake movie’ thing to me.

I’d have £120, but it would mean i can pay my water bill today.

I haven’t tried for years but vst’s are pure pain on Linux.

Have you tried bitwig studio? It has a native Linux version and is incredible. Vst will still be shit (if they are even supported) but if you master bitwig you probably won’t even need them.

OpenSuse leap

Encarta

For the tables you can do ‘M-x org-table-create’ which then asks you for dimensions and makes it for you.

I think org-capture might help you with the other stuff, you can set up templates and access them by pressing ‘C-c c’ and get it all inserted in whatever org file and under whatever heading you want.

Org mode changed my fucking life! I looked into using emacs as a simple markdown editor when I was doing a creative writing course and discovered org mode. 4 years later and I never leave emacs, everything is done through emacs and org mode. I even use it as my window manager (exwm). I bought an old chromebook to turn into an emacs machine and it’s so good. It’s an operating system and I don’t like using a computer without it.

Some things for you to look into that I now can’t live without:

Elfeed

Org-capture and capture templates

Dired

EXWM

Syncthing (not a part of emacs but means I don’t have to use closed source cloud backups)

I passionately love emacs. At first I thought all they shortcuts and keybindings were a bit insane but they are second nature to me at this point. Emacs has also saved me lots of money that I would have spent on silly writing apps and aids.

OpenSuse Leap is my favourite distro.

Occasionally I try out others, some I really like, but I always end up back on leap.

That was insane, I was in equal parts cringing and laughing my arse off.

I knew La’an would be amazing. I was also very excited when I realised Kirk would be involved.

The singing of the intro should be permanent.

Yeah, but quite often you get to see them wash it all off.

Mine was really easy (dell chromebook 11), just followed the instructions and I had no problems. I have another chromebook with an amd chipset that I can’t change the firmware on though (last time I checked), so if you’re planning to buy one to convert make sure you actually can do it first.

I turned one into an Emacs machine, it was £20 and I fucking love it. It’s built like a tank too. It’s a dell Chromebook 11.

What a nice surprise after work on a Sunday!

The episode was bloody tremendous! I knew they were going to appear in SNW but somehow I didn’t think it was going to be cartoon and live action together, I thought they would just be sucked into the past and we’d see the real actors. The intro and outro were both great. It was just brilliant all round.

I needed the laughs this week and it totally delivered for me.

Star trek always does this to me, they introduce some character or change to a character that I initially would not agree with but they always make me love them. I’m going to miss human Spock now.

When they said they were bringing the Kirk’s into strange new worlds I thought it was a terrible idea, now I keep thinking how great a series with the new Kirk would be.

When seven turned up in voyager I knew it was because of sex appeal and the FHM magazine culture of the time so I was against it, now she’s my favourite character and I cried when she was made captain.

Whe Pike and Spock turned up in discovery I thought that was a bad idea, now pike is my hero and I never want SNW to end and Ethan Peck is totally smashing it as Spock.

Human Spock? What a shit idea. But, I absolutely loved it.

I think Vic Fontaine is one of the weirdest things in Star Trek, and that’s saying something. I couldn’t believe he had such a big part in DS9. I enjoyed some of it and I always crack jokes about him so it was definitely entertaining but just so very weird.

I think I get what he was supposed to be, it’s kind of like when they send comedians and singers onto military bases to boost morale of the troops. It was just such a weird choice to have that style of music. It felt totally out of place to me, and I’m sure it was seriously uncool at the time it was on TV.

Imagine being 15 or something and trying to persuade one of your friends that DS9 is amazing and really cool (which it was and is), so they come round to watch an episode with you and it’s Vic Fontaine.