Oh absolutely. People can easily see what's officially supported on Linux and try games on their Steam Deck before committing to a desktop install.

I have a Steam Deck and three of my coworkers either have one or want one, and only one of them is interested in Linux itself. Every time they complain about something on Windows, I casually ask if Steam Deck does that. :)

A speed trap is a revenue source. If the cops wanted to find drugs or something, they'd go to the poorer part of town. This was in a suburban part of town near a wealthy part of town, so they're not likely looking for drugs and whatnot, they're just trying to get some easy speeding fines.

Regardless, it's unhelpful. I've seen multiple people get pulled over there, and they are not driving recklessly at all. I know where the cops tend to hide, so fortunately I haven't gotten pulled over.

And no, I'm not assuming good faith, I'm just assuming they're trying to make some quota for the month, or maybe the officer is trying for a promotion or something. Regardless, it's stupid and I'd much rather they spend their time tracking down stolen bikes or something.

Linux gaming is still an "early adopter" thing. Many popular games don't work, so the people who are willing to give those up care more about running Linux than playing those games, which means tinkerers and stubborn people.

The more Linux is compatible day 1 for popular games, the more attractive Linux gaming will be. At a certain point, mainstream users will move to Linux and they'll probably use Ubuntu and Mint more than other distros.

But that's not where we are. Ubuntu is probably the most popular distro for regular users, and those users seem to not play games much on Linux. That means they're either dual booting Windows, or just not playing games.

they'll be looking for gaming-oriented distros like Bazzite, Pop, Chimera, and Garuda

Maybe, but none of those are showing up on top of lists.

I think most mainstream users will use Ubuntu because that's what they already associate with Linux. People are aware of it by word of mouth, so it seems "safer" than using a gaming-specific distro. They'll likely naïvely think that gaming-specific distros are "gaming only" and want something "general purpose" if they're going to bail on Windows.

But these new users aren't going to be using Arch most likely, so seeing that at the top tells me that Linux gaming is at the "early adopter" phase.

That being said, I've been a Linux gamer since before Steam came to Linux and I remember signing up for an account back in 2013 or whatever when they did come (I think I was on Arch at the time, go figure). Before that point, I mostly played Factorio, Minecraft, and a handful of games I got from Humble Bundle back when they were new and indie-focused (Humble games mostly worked on Linux back then).

Anyway, that's my 2¢. I'm on openSUSE now, so I'm not really contributing to any of the top distro stats.

Yeah, just use the one built-in to Windows, or don't use Windows.

And ends.

And CEOs should love it since they only go up.

You'll generally get less from a defined benefit plan vs a defined contribution plan. A defined benefit plan is an insurance product, so the managers are encouraged to be more conservative with investments to limit risk. A defined contribution plan is an investment product, so the managers are encouraged to maximize returns.

Would you rather have a 5% yield guarantee or a very high chance at 10% return? (as in, 10% has been consistent in the past) In almost every scenario, a defined benefit plan will have much lower usable cash and no inheritance vs a defined contribution plan.

The US actually has both. Social Security is a defined benefit plan, and a 401k is defined contribution. Social Security is intended to replace ~40% of pre-retirement income (more for lower income, less for higher income), and the 401k is intended to fill in the gaps.

It's not, bonds (i.e. TIPS) and real estate are. As inflation goes up, so do coupon rates to counter inflation. As inflation goes down, so do rates, meaning older individual bonds can be liquidated for more money to free up cash for other investments.

Gold is a hedge against stocks. People think gold has value, so they buy it if they think there will be a recession. Inflation often goes up when stocks go down because the Fed slashes rates to encourage spending, and more spending (demand) drives up prices. So gold may appear correlated to inflation, but it's really more inversely correlated to stocks.

So if you want to speculate on stocks going down, gold is a decent option. But if you think inflation will go up, bonds are the way to go.

But not all data is relevant. For some reason you're comparing gold and inflation, but gold isn't a currency (anymore) and thus isn't really related to inflation.

Gold prices largely reflect concern about the direction of the economy, they don't reflect currency valuations or costs of things. People move to gold when they think stocks are going to collapse, they don't move to gold when prices for things go up.

In the words of Warren Buffett (from memory, not a direct quote):

Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.

The way I read this is:

• gold is high (people being greedy)
• stocks are recovering (hit in 2022)
• bonds are down (rates have been going up)

So I think gold will see a correction in the next 6 months, and those people will likely flock to stocks. But that depends on economic indicators remaining strong, inflation figures dropping, and bond rates staying steady or dropping a little. Depending on the election outcome, we may see stocks correct a bit as well.

But I don't think we'll see a "housing meltdown" because inventory is still low in many areas and new construction isn't keeping up with demand. I think we'll see housing level off once builders can catch up and real wages recover from the cash injection in 2020.

So in general, I'm bearish on gold, and "wait and see" on stocks until after the election. None of this impacts my investing strategy though, which is the same as it has always been, it only impacts my speculation budget.

Why do you think gold and inflation are related in any significant way? Nobody buys anything with gold, so I don't see how it's relevant.

That's what I recommend, and I'd expect Mint to eventually be #2 or #3 once it hits mainstream.

I use something else though (openSUSE Tumbleweed), but I think Mint has way better community support without a lot of the nonsense that Ubuntu has. Mint Debian is my recommendation 9/10 times.

how does that not crash and burn

It does. A lot of people try to get into leveraged investing and end up in bankruptcy. What you're seeing from finfluencers is selection bias: either they're one of the few who didn't crash and burn (largely luck) or they're lying.

A lot of real estate leverage strategies go after other loan options after banks stop giving them mortgages. That means hard money lending, angel investing, etc, where you're taking on high loan rates and giving up equity in a business in other to try to generate enough cash flow to outrun the payments. If everything works perfectly, you can stabilize and pay off the higher interest loans. But if you have any issues (higher than expected vacancy rates, needed repairs, etc), you absolutely can crash and burn.

The best option imo is to house hack. Here's a leveraged strategy with far less risk than those finfluencers, but still quite risky and hinges on you doing a lot of work:

1. buy a multi-unit property, live in one of the units, and rent the rest - you get primary residence rates, and you can move out in a couple years
2. repeat step 1 on a new property
3. sell property 1 after 2-ish years of moving out to get the maximum tax benefits
4. buy an investment property or two with proceeds from 3
5. repeat until you're tired of living in multi-unit properties

Congratulations, you now own multiple multi-unit properties all with mortgages you can actually afford because your risk is diversified across several properties and your loan rates are relatively low.

However, you'll need decent income to do steps 1&2 to qualify for the mortgages, and you'll need to spend a lot of time dealing with tenants, so you'll basically be working two high stress jobs.

This is still incredibly leveraged, but you're reducing risk a bit by being physically present and thus can react to problems more quickly. It's not for me, since I much prefer passive investing (stocks) to real estate leveraged strategies, but some people see success with it.