YouTube Comment I'm Glad I Read

Railguns are NOT MAGNETIC GUNS.
Coilgun =/= railgun

Hey, did you know that rifles aren't the same thing as bows?

Does it use bowstrings? Well, then it's probably a bow. Does it use MAGNETIC coils? Then it's probably a coilgun.

Does it use conductive metal slugs directly in contact with electric (NOT MAGNETIC) rails? Oh, then it might actually be a railgun.

If you're not putting a piece of metal under extreme pressure, and then dragging it at extreme speeds under that extreme pressure against a long continuous metal rail, and then acting surprised when even super materials turn to liquid, you're not working with railgun tech. They do one thing. It's literally in the name. Do you know what they don't use? Magnets. Do you know what else they don't use? Coils. If it has the word magnet, or the word coil in it, then it's NOT USING RAILGUN TECH.

Super powerful magnetic coils do all kinds of fun things. Throw things (coilgun, EMALS, etc), MRIs, nuclear fusion, particle colliders, radio/microwave communication (yes, magnetrons are literally the exact same kind of coils), electric generators and motors, microwaves...... Yes, you can build a shockingly powerful coilgun out of a bunch of microwave magnetrons.

Do you know what uses railgun tech?....... Literally nothing in use, not even railguns, because it doesn't work. Magnetic confinement plasma guns are unironically more sensical, and would require less magic meta materials to make practical. Luckily no one is stupid enough to be trying to build a magnetic confinement plasma cannon right now..... I hope.

Oh, by the way, what type of tech do MCPs even use?...... MAGNETIC COILS.

Something GNU New

While I don't think OpenBSD will be my everyday driver anytime soon, it is quickly becoming my favorite OS. It's simple, clean, and well documented. Because it's one system, not a collection of many different programs like a Linux distribution, it has a very uncomplicated and intuitive feel. The man pages tell you what you need to know in a very concise way, so you don't have to go searching the internet for answers every five minutes. Connecting to WiFi from the command line, for example, is incredibly easy compared to Arch or Debian - all the information you need is in the website's FAQ. OpenBSD is also free from the odious systemd, GNU core-utils, glibc, gcc, and other bloat.

Currently, I'm using OpenBSD as a minimalist desktop, running bare-metal on an old laptop using suckless software with lynx as my browser. It's a distraction free environment that has everything I actually need for the tasks I want to do and nothing more.

But being a crusty troglodyte isn't all you can do with it. OpenBSD is frequently considered the most secure OS currently available. The guys who develop it also make a lot of other security stuff you already use like OpenSSH and LibreSSL. Its firewall, PF, is used pretty much everywhere by the sound of it. So, setting up some kind of server you want to keep the bad guys out of on OpenBSD is a cool idea. Also, the mascot rocks and is probably the number one reason I looked into it in the first place.

SouthEast LinuxFest

Don't mess with the ducks.

Lindowstosh?

I installed Linux Mint on an old 2008 hand-me-down Macbook (thanks, grandma!), then I used the Chicago 95 theme to make it look like oldschool Windows. It took me longer than I would have liked to figure out how to get this thing to recognize a bootable usb drive. If you happen to be in the same situation, here's how you do it.

As for how it runs, it's not too bad. It has 2GBs of RAM and a dual core which handles programs like Firefox and LibreOffice just fine. The disk drive doesn't work anymore, and that seems to be a common issue with these laptops, but that's really no big deal. The missing right click is bothersome and hotkey alternatives are sometimes unresponsive. But the real problem is that the battery died and the Chinese replacements are a scam and don't work at all. Pair that with the magnetic power adapter and you have frequent unexpected shutdowns. If it weren't for that, I might have used this as my main laptop.