Don’t quote me on it, but I believe that the emissions tech is efficient enough that even with the increased fuel consumption there is an overall reduction in emissions across the board. That was my understanding when the tech was first being fazed in back in the mid to late ‘00’s. Whether that was true or just propaganda, don’t know. I just knew that full compliance was required to run in California and a few other states.

The EGR and DPF systems used in diesel trucks cause (or caused, it’s been a while since I last looked it up) a big reduction in fuel mileage. I think it was a 2 or 3 MPG reduction.Doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up when you are running 200,000+ miles a year per truck. With the system running I believe the average fuel mileage for the trucks in our company is around 6 to 8 MPG depending on the route.

Additionally the systems are expensive as all get out to repair and maintain. When the DPF and DEF systems on my truck went out, the truck was down for 3 months waiting on parts, and from what I heard from our mechanic, the final repair bill was around $15,000USD.

That said, the fines for bypassing the emission systems are big enough that it’s really not worth it, but some owner operators don’t realize it as many don’t run their trucks like the businesses they are. They just know this is expensive as hell and they can reduce the cost by bypassing them.

That would be cool. Unlikely, but cool. There are a lot more warehouses across the country than I thought before I joined the trucking industry. And some of them are stuck in some of the oddest places. The Tums factory turned out to be literally 1 block from the St. Louis Cardinal’s ballpark. Really wish I could have stuck around to be a tourist for an hour or two, but it took me that long just to get the trailer on their dock and they wanted me off the dock asap once they finished unloading.

Welcome to the Fediverse! Somebody has probably told you this, but I just realized that I forgot to hit “Post” before I went to dinner. Here it is anyways.

When I wanted to sign-up it required an application that you needed to fill out with one of the requirements being having to copy a sentence from the link provided which links to some article called “The Principles of Communism” which I thought was very odd for a site to do. I’ve never seen a site like this promoting some ideology that directly where it’s part of the sign-up process to almost pledge to some political or religious ideology.

The applications and copying of a particular line is a simple form of spam prevention. The fact that the line is from “The Principles of Communism" is probably because the owners of that particular instance (who are also the main developers) are communist. I believe they also run Lemmygrad, which is full on Marxist, and one of the more commonly blocked instances. Lemmy.ml is intended to be a more mainstream instance but like much of the Fedi leans hard left.

I mainly moved here because of the censorship on Reddit where they didn’t publish posts that included the slightest word not allowed by their filter and they removed/blocked lots of content. I wonder if it will be somewhat better here

Lemmy is censorship resistant, but not censorship free. There is a difference. Censorship (or moderation, depending on your view point) happens at 3 levels, user, community, and instance. You can’t do much if other users find you obnoxious and decide to block you, but if you find the moderation of a community to be over bearing and if your current instance allows, you can create your own community from your current instance and mod it how you see fit within the guidelines of your instance. If you find your instance’s moderation to be overbearing, you can create your own instance and moderate it however you see fit. However, you will still be subject to the moderation policies of the communities (and their home instances) that you subscribe to.

In the Fedi you have absolute freedom of speech, but nobody is required to give you a soapbox or megaphone and nobody is required to listen to you.

I’m tracking now.

The instability I had on Gentoo was largely a result of me setting up the system one way, deciding I didn’t like it, uninstalling a bunch of stuff poorly and then building something new on top of it. All on the same install. For a little while though, I had a G3 Mac running headless as a small NAS. Never had a issue out of it but then I also never touched it except to update it, when I remembered it existed.

I found that Ubuntu was a more stable base for my mucking about. Then I got my first real job (truck driving) and didn’t have time fix my system constantly and learned to just use it.

That Putin has threatened to end the world? It’s in the 20’s at least, but I lost count a while ago.

Part of me wishes he’d go ahead and pull the pin. Dealing with the consequences would probably distract Trump and his cronies for his entire term and would reduce the head count of his supporters, giving the sane folks in the US a chance to regroup.

@[email protected]

Could very well be American casualties only. I didn’t look it up. I was remembering a history class where we were discussing the effects of illness and disease during wars some 20 - 25 years ago. I do remember that our teacher’s statement did not include those killed in the concentration camps, but did include those lost to illness and disease.

Of course, Alabama school, it’s entirely possible that the lesson was complete nonsense.

Callously, when the survivors look back and decide to call it one. As far as I know there isn’t an agreed upon definition.

WW1 was originally called the War to End All Wars, I think, by many at the time. WW2 eclipsed it by taking place on at least 3 continents and across every ocean. Both are also known by other names that depend on the region. The US Civil War eclipsed both in the number of casualties. The Ukraine war isn’t likely to break records like that.

How so? When I switched to NixOs I was looking for system stability over time. That’s not really something I associate with Gentoo, at least not on a desktop system.

Well I don’t hear much about Gentoo, Damn Small, Puppy or Knoppix anymore. Wonder if they still exist.

I haven’t done much disto hopping since I settled on Ubuntu around ‘08 and then on NixOS last year. I like my systems working when I need them and waiting around for a new install to finish is boring to me.

I don’t think that Harris’s problem was that she was a woman. Her problem, same as Mrs. Clinton, was everything else. And that is a long list for both of them. Being women probably didn’t help, but it also wasn’t their main chute.

You’re not wrong, but the discussion is tools and equipment, not firearms.

If they are allowed to. Many families wouldn’t be allowed to. Rules put in place to “protect the children” sometimes haven’t kept up with the times. Me and my wife were told we couldn’t adopt because we both work full time and if one of us quite working we wouldn’t be able to because we wouldn’t make enough money.

I would say that most Ryobi One+ tools fall into this category. Cheap and I’ve never had one fail where I wasn’t using it far beyond it’s design parameters. Others are more comfortable to use for extended periods, but they are also usually more expensive. That said, there are apparently a few stinkers in their mix, a dust buster style vacuum comes to mind, but I’ve not run into many.

To add to this, you might check out some of the free Hugo themes here: https://themes.gohugo.io/tags/portfolio/

since I don’t want to pay for SSL certificates to setup https.

You don’t need to pay for SSL certs anymore, most of the time. You can get them for free from a bunch of different places now. I use Let’s Encrypt. The web server/reverse proxy I use, Caddy is able to automatically get a cert for you, install it, and keep it renewed. The only time you need to pay for a cert is if you are handling financial transactions.

Are there security issues I should address preemptively?

WordPress itself has a generally good reputation for security, though depending on how the current drama goes, that may change. WordPress security problems have almost always stemmed from plugins or poor password hygiene. Remove any plugins you are not actively using, keep the ones you are using updated, and use a good password that you don’t use anywhere else. A password wallet like Bit Warden can generate and store such passwords for you.

Better on the security front would be to evaluate whether you actually need something like WordPress at all. A static site would likely be far more secure. There’s less moving parts that might be vulnerable.

While you could program a static site yourself, it’s more common nowadays to use a static site generator like Hugo to build the site. You set it up once for how you want the site to look and then you write your posts in markdown or whatever your particular generator uses.

I don’t have anything to manage my dynamic IP

Most domain name providers have some sort of setup for dealing with dynamic IP addresses, a program called ddclient is pretty common and is available in most repos.

Shit, damn, f**k! Well that happened. Next.

I would suggest medical texts, survival and military field manuals. I don’t think they will be needed but it might be best to be prepared. As for culture, stash what you like.

On second thought, the medical texts would be useful either way. https://www.alreporter.com/2024/10/31/analysis-rural-hospitals-closure-crisis-alabamas-healthcare-safety-net-at-risk/ Hospitals closing have been happening for a while.

Well, crap.

TLDR: Vote anyways, and make your voice heard.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, > or to the people. - US Constitution, 10th Amendment

The way that the US is setup, actual power and authority, does not actually exist at the Federal level. Not really. Not over you as an individual. And your individual vote at the Federal level will not really move the needle.

The actual authority and power over your life exists at the State and local levels. And this is where your vote can actually make a real difference as well, because elections at these levels are often decided by mere hundreds of votes. Your local elections are often decided by mere 10’s of votes.

The most powerful of all, however, are the local school boards, which are often elected positions. However, decisions made by school boards don’t make changes to your community over night, however. It takes years for the children they teach to grow up and begin exerting their control over the system.

What if we vote and the problem continues?

That will happen. I’m sorry that’s not the answer you want. It is difficult to make large changes to society or governments in a hurry. You can think of society and governments like large boulders. The larger the society or government, the larger the boulder.

Newton’s First Law of Motion, also known as the Law of Inertia, states that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. This law, originally formulated by Galileo, is fundamental to understanding motion and forces.

A handful of people might move that boulder slowly over time, more people though, can move that boulder more quickly. And of course, a much faster or larger boulder could always strike it and move it quickly, though not necessarily predicably.

What if voting gives us the illusion of control?

Sticking with the physics frame of reference, as an individual person, you have all the control you could ever want. You just don’t have enough power or “force” to make much happen at larger scales. The physics frame of reference breaks down somewhat, though, as a single voice, well spoken and well presented, at the right time, can not only move all the smaller pebbles (people) and the boulder (society or governments), but an entire damned mountain and can move it precisely.