Recent posts

#11

General Discussion / Three words could save your li...

Last post by ssfc72 - March 03, 2026, 08:37:24 AM

A good article about a smartphone app that can help first responders locate you if you are outdoors and need help, but don t know your precise location.

https://www.kawartha411.ca/2026/03/01/three-words-could-save-your-life/

#12

Support / can't upgrade Mint 21 to 22; s...

Last post by fox - March 03, 2026, 08:21:11 AM

I have a nice installation of Mint 21.3 Cinnamon with an old stat package installed and which is customized to my liking. However, it won't upgrade from mintupgrade. It is stopped by errors related to an old 5.19.0-43 kernel. It stops on the "Remove foreign packages" component, on Skypeforlinux, claiming that package is newer than the one in the repository and offering to downgrade it. I have tried the following but none of it works:
(1) downgrade the Skypeforlinux package
(2) remove the Skypeforlinux package
(3) remove the 5.19 kernel through the mintupdate app (kernels tab)
(4) remove another older kernel (5.15)
(5) remove the most recent kernel (6.

All of these paths lead to errors related to the 5.19 kernel and the cessation of the process, even when I don't try to remove it. I know I can just install the current Mint (I have that on another partition), but I would like to keep an upgraded version of the older one. I'm thinking that maybe I can do this by removing the 5.19 kernel using another Linux partition, but I don't know how to do this. I know I can mount the older Mint partition from either the newer Mint partition on the same drive (an external SSD) or from Ubuntu on my internal SSD, but then what do I do to get rid of the offending kernel and skypeforlinux?

#13

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by ssfc72 - March 03, 2026, 08:18:11 AM

Jason
2nd paragraph in the Linked article,   "A feedback loop with no brake': how an AI doomsday report shook US markets"

Found an article that reads like sci-fi that is interesting because it caused some stock prices to fall a few days ago. Read most of the original article as well, but it's long. Some of the people who work in the coding business say the time line is too quick. The thesis is that if ai causes high unemployment, the whole economic system we have built is in danger.

Interesting ideas.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/24/feedback-loop-no-brake-how-ai-doomsday-report-rattled-markets

#14

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - March 02, 2026, 09:35:17 PM

I think the Citrini Research people probably used AI as a source for their article, so it probably is just AI hallucination

Okay, stupid question, where is Citrini Research mentioned? I couldn't find it in the article you quoted, Bill.

#15

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - March 02, 2026, 09:30:31 PM

Speak of the devil. This article is on news stations today about Block firing about 4,000 because of ai possibilities. I chose the BBC news release.

No workers = no spenders =no taxes =no gov't money = no health care and on and on.

Agreed. Rich people don't need those things covered by taxes; probably prefer to pay for them out of pocket (i.e. pay-per-use). I think it will be a long time before certain services are provided by AI/robots like healthcare, construction, something else I'm sure I can't think of right now. Rich people will expect to have healthcare, personal assistants, prostitutes, cooks, etc. They will expect the best meals, wine, treatment, women/men, services you can't easily provide with AI if only because robots aren't good (yet) and movements and companionship.

However, once enough people are unemployed, sick, starving, or dying, there will be a revolution. I just hope I'm gone before we get to that point. But I still worry about the human race after me. If I didn't, I wouldn't care about climate change because nothing we do now is going to have an impact for decades.

#16

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by ssfc72 - February 28, 2026, 08:59:57 AM

I think the Citrini Research people probably used AI as a source for their article, so it probably is just AI hallucination.

We have trouble handling the technical world as it is now and preventing meltdowns. AI should increase our vulnerability unless we can use counter-AI to keep the world safe. One of the great principles of life is KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid, but we're well beyond that. What's going on in the background is beyond most human brains, which is what I'm equipped with.

This appeared on the CBC news page today. Just one more way AI will come back to bite us:

"The centre — part of the Communications Security Establishment, Canada's cyberspy agency — warns that threat actors engaged in ransomware attacks have started using AI to spot vulnerabilities, develop malware, generate deepfake images and automate negotiations with victims.

AI helps criminals overcome technical barriers and a lack of resources, making it easier to target victims and demand payment, often in the form of cryptocurrency, the report says."

For the full report see

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ai-ransomeware-attacks-9.7065169

#17

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by buster - February 27, 2026, 01:06:46 PM

Speak of the devil. This article is on news stations today about Block firing about 4,000 because of ai possibilities. I chose the BBC news release.

No workers = no spenders =no taxes =no gov't money = no health care and on and on.

But probably something will jump into the economic system that employs people or distributes the money of the extremely wealthy.

           https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq570d12y9do

#18

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by buster - February 26, 2026, 01:48:02 PM

Found an article that reads like sci-fi that is interesting because it caused some stock prices to fall a few days ago. Read most of the original article as well, but it's long. Some of the people who work in the coding business say the time line is too quick. The thesis is that if ai causes high unemployment, the whole economic system we have built is in danger.

Interesting ideas.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/24/feedback-loop-no-brake-how-ai-doomsday-report-rattled-markets

#19

General Discussion / Re: My new home phone VOIP pro...

Last post by ssfc72 - February 12, 2026, 08:50:04 AM

The Fongo voip telephone is working well, so far.

#20

Security and Privacy / Re: Serious Problems with Snap...

Last post by Jason - February 11, 2026, 05:13:43 AM

Disturbing! I wonder how it affects distros that use Ubuntu as a base. I remember the Mint crew forcibly removing some proprietary components from their distro years ago; I believe snap was involved. I think that Zorin uses flatpak instead of snap, which isn't proprietary. But you also have the choice of deb packages where available.