Ryan:
[0:00] So this week, we’re going to actually, truly this time, for reals.

Michael:
[0:04] For real? For real?

Ryan:
[0:05] For real, for reals. We’re going to talk about satellites buzzing above your head. And once you’re paranoid enough, we’re going to also actually probably, most definitely, almost guaranteed, talk about an OS dedicated to shredding your data.

Jill:
[0:23] Maybe.

Ryan:
[0:24] Probably. I wrote a really short episode this time, Michael, so that we can get through everything. This is our episode of 2025 to show people we’re professionals.

Michael:
[0:35] We are finally going to get through without skipping a section of the show. Maybe. We’ll see.

Ryan:
[0:41] If we stop carrying on with this much ado opening here.

Michael:
[0:46] We always like to do adoos because this is how we express ourselves.

Ryan:
[0:54] To Destination Linux. If you’re still here, we’re discussing the latest news, hot topics, gaming, mobile, and all things open source and Linux. My name is Ryan and with me today are the cache, C-A-C-H-E, of dad jokes, Jill and Michael.

Jill:
[1:09] Nice.

Michael:
[1:11] So why did the Linux user refuse to use Windows?

Ryan:
[1:16] Because it sucks.

Michael:
[1:17] Well, yes, but also, well, I mean, that’s just fact. This is the dad joke. Because he did Didn’t want to deal with that painful drama in the paint window panes.

Jill:
[1:27] Yeah, man.

Ryan:
[1:29] That’s good.

Jill:
[1:30] So good. And why don’t penguins use Windows? Because they prefer their ice to be free and open source.

Ryan:
[1:39] Wow. That’s, that’s so bad. Uh, we’ll also be discussing Debian’s latest release. Now let’s get this show on the road toward Destination Linux

Michael:
[1:59] Were those dad jokes AI written?

Jill:
[2:02] Yes, 100%.

Michael:
[2:04] I was like, okay, the pain one, that kind of makes sense, but it’s bad. And the other one doesn’t even make sense.

Jill:
[2:09] Yeah, it didn’t really quite make sense, but I tried to make it sound funny.

Michael:
[2:13] Come on, AI.

Ryan:
[2:17] So good. All right.

Michael:
[2:20] You know, I actually do have a cache database, a database that we could just go through.

Jill:
[2:25] A database.

Michael:
[2:25] I do actually have that. But for example, Ryan hates the fact that I have all these dad jokes and impressions. And I constantly do this one impression. And he just got really mad and started yelling. He’s like, you need to stop it. And it was really just all about my impression of doing a flamingo. And then he just kept getting mad at it. And I was like, why? And he just thought he would never explain it. And so I just had to put my foot down and make sure he understood.

Jill:
[2:51] Aw, nice flamingo joke.

Ryan:
[2:55] Never going to get through this episode. All right.

Michael:
[2:57] Community feedback this week.

Ryan:
[2:59] Our first feedback comes from Tony, and they say, so what bet did Michael lose today? that he had to wear a DOS Geek t-shirt. First of all, Tony, that’s rude. Why would you assume he lost a bet to wear my t-shirt? He is a huge fan of everything I do. Number one, he loves my art that I do for my YouTube videos. That’s his favorite. And number two, he loves my content. So what do you mean what bet he lost?

Michael:
[3:27] We did a best two out of three, and he got two of the three.

Ryan:
[3:30] Two of the three. Actually, what happened is Michael bet me that he could install Arch, and turns out he can’t he’s just not skilled enough and so.

Michael:
[3:39] A little too.

Ryan:
[3:40] Complicated for him so after losing the bet he was forced to wear my shirt and that is the true story there tony of how.

Michael:
[3:47] Why might not the true story the true story is that we had this uh unending intense battle of like versus tetris and uh he won barely and i had to be like okay fine.

Ryan:
[4:03] Well my story was way better um.

Michael:
[4:05] Yeah but it’s also not 91 of them are accurate so whatever it matt actually happened i don’t even remember i.

Ryan:
[4:13] Think you were wearing it um to like paint or something and then it was.

Michael:
[4:16] I was i was wearing it because it was like uh you know an everyday shirt that you don’t go out out inside it with you just kind of wear you just kind of wear it and it’s like yeah you know it’s it’s there it’s in the closet who cares it’s fine and then I had it on and I actually changed the shirt and he comes back and he’s like hey, what happened to the shirt and I’m like okay fine you saw it on me I guess I have to do it I sort of accidentally committed that’s sweet Michael.

Ryan:
[4:43] That’s really sweet you’re such a good friend our next piece of feedback comes from Bruce because that was too short I’m not going to just do that little, comment there we got to have another one and he says hi DLers Merry Christmas and congrats on 400 episodes Okay, on to serious business. I think you could have spent a little more time, Bruce, congratulating us on 400, telling us how great we are before you went on to serious business.

Michael:
[5:08] And also more important, why is that not serious? Are you not congratulating us on 400 episodes? Where’s the joke?

Ryan:
[5:14] That’s a good point. They’re like, on the serious business. That is serious business. Bruce? Jeez. Okay. Bruce goes on to say, it absolutely kills me that every time I get a kernel update, I’m running MX Linux, it kills OBS Studio. Is there a simple fix for this? I’m sitting here having wasted the last hour trying to get OBS running again after a kernel update, and I’m ready to scream. Thanks in advance. I can see why now Bruce wanted to get down to business. This is very frustrating. Thankfully, not something I’ve ever experienced. But Jill, what do you think about this? What are some options Bruce might or Tony might have here?

Jill:
[5:54] Yeah, so MX Linux has a Debian stable version and a Debian testing version. So we don’t know which one you’re using. But if you update the kernel on Debian, it would actually be best to compile OBS from scratch. I actually know several people who do this that use OBS in production. So that’s something if you update your kernel.

Ryan:
[6:18] You’re a big Debian fan. Why in the world would I need to recompile OBS every time I do a kernel update? No other distro I’ve ever run.

Jill:
[6:28] I know.

Ryan:
[6:30] In the history of me running distros, which now we’re at like six, seven, maybe eight years. I don’t know. Michael remembers, but Pepperidge Farms knows for sure. Yeah, somewhere in there. Have I ever had to recompile a program every time I do a kernel update? That seems like a major flaw of Debian. And it may be something OBS does, but I say it’s a flaw of Debian because I don’t run Debian and I’ve never run into that in any other distro.

Jill:
[6:58] Well, you know, in regular Debian, you can still install the latest stable version of OBS, and it will work fine. But if you’re updating the kernel, then you need to update OBS with compiling to get the latest and greatest. I don’t know why, but that’s just been…

Ryan:
[7:20] Come on, Debian, fix this crap. Tony or Bruce, whichever it is, they need your help. Fix it.

Michael:
[7:28] I suspect it’s because when you go get the regular version inside of the packages for OBS in Debian, it is very old.

Jill:
[7:37] Yeah.

Michael:
[7:37] Very old. And obviously because that’s what Debian does. So I don’t know why it needs to be compiled anyway, because why is there not any dev packages? Like why can’t you pull the dev from the PPAs or that sort of thing and make packages that way? But it is because it’s just an older system. And if you’re using MX Linux and using the stable branch version, then that’s probably why you’re having those issues. But one of the things that popped up to me was that the Flatpak is the official format that the OBS team recommends. So maybe that is a good option for you.

Jill:
[8:13] Yeah. And I was thinking that, too, because I’ve actually used the Flatpak of OBS on my Steam Deck, and it works really, really good. and there is a snap version of obs as well that is improving but i know there are some issues with it and but i have also used the unofficial app image builds of obs in the past and they worked well i even streamed with it the app image version experimental and it worked you know i have run.

Ryan:
[8:41] Imax i’m a huge fan of imax and uh dolphin listens to this show who is the creator of MX. So Dolphin, if you could write in and let us know or comment in the YouTube comments, Dolphin’s usually in our YouTube comments, let us know like, Hey, is this something Debian needs to fix? Is this something you’ve seen periodically happen? Is this something if they run your advanced hardware support edition, they wouldn’t run into perhaps, uh, cause I know that has later drivers and things. I’m curious to know your thoughts on that. So let us know there, but But really appreciate you letting us know, Bruce, about that issue. I didn’t know it existed. I would never run a distro personally, like, you know, like Debian or something that, you know. You had to recompile stuff every time. That’s annoying.

Michael:
[9:29] Says the guy who loves Arch and the AUR.

Ryan:
[9:31] Arch, you don’t have to do that with. Arch runs perfectly every time.

Michael:
[9:34] But the AUR is also compiling. Every time you do it.

Ryan:
[9:37] You’ve got to compile. Yeah, but once it’s compiled, it’s done. Like compiling’s fine, but I want to do it once and be done.

Michael:
[9:42] But every time you update an AUR package, it’s going to be compiling again.

Ryan:
[9:46] It’s like, it’s not because it’s broken. It’s because it has an update. And it just runs and does its thing.

Michael:
[9:52] That’s fair.

Ryan:
[9:54] No?

Michael:
[9:54] That’s fair.

Ryan:
[9:55] All right.

Michael:
[9:56] But yeah, fair enough.

Ryan:
[9:58] You know, it’s actually great that we have.

Michael:
[10:01] It’s actually great that, that dolphin is in the thing. So we get them the email from Bruce asking us for a solution. We don’t have a solution, but we can get it for you.

Jill:
[10:11] Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan:
[10:12] Well, we have a solution to flat pack. We have a solution.

Michael:
[10:15] Well, that’s true. Yeah. That’s true.

Ryan:
[10:17] And Jill, do you feel guilty that you can, you know, talk people into running Debian all the time, And then you find out that they have to do stuff like this in order to know, you know, I feel like you should feel guilty. You know, I want you Jill tonight to reflect on how many people you’ve hurt by recommending Debian to them.

Jill:
[10:39] Well, they sure have learned a lot about Linux, haven’t they? I mean, honestly, I still even compile an employer. I compile it on every machine I use. because you get better performance out of it.

Ryan:
[10:54] But you compile it once. You’re not compiling every time you do an update. No, no.

Jill:
[10:59] Yeah.

Ryan:
[11:00] I think that’s the problem. No, I’m teasing for all the fans of Debian. Debian is, I can’t even say it. I can’t even lie. All right. So if you want to send in your comments, go to destinationlinux.net/comments and send them in to us or destinationlinux.net/forum. And you can tell me how much you hate it.

Michael:
[11:19] But it’s not surprising that the Arsh guy does not like Debian because they are the polar opposites for sure.

Jill:
[11:25] Yeah.

Ryan:
[11:26] Slow and old, fast and edgy. You know what I mean? Like there’s just nothing to compare. Anyway, send your hate mail to destinationlinux.net/comments. Can’t wait to read it.

Michael:
[11:39] You chose Linux for its stability and security, but as threats grow more sophisticated.

Michael:
[11:43] Detecting them in time without putting your systems at risk is more critical than ever. Traditional endpoint agents can cause downtime and performance issues, leaving visibility gaps. But isn’t there a better way? Well, there is. It’s called Sandfly Security. Because Sandfly Security is the agentless Linux security platform. Sandfly not only does endpoint detection and response, but also performs SSH key tracking, password auditing, and drift detection to find the widest range of threats. Whether your servers are in the cloud or on-premises or even embedded devices, Santafly protects them all without the need for risky agent installations. That’s the most important part. The agentless stuff is just awesome because you update the security system rather than having to update every single system and every single incident with all these agents. So awesome. And Ken Kleiner, the senior security engineer at the University of Massachusetts, explains it best. He says, SandFly is the first product that I’ve seen that accurately and quickly detects thousands of signs of compromise on the Linux platform. Its unique method automates tasks that would be impossible to perform manually. So you can get fast, non-invasive protection for your critical systems. No agents, no downtime, just smarter security that works. Visit DestinationLinux.net/Sandfly to learn more. That’s DestinationLinux.net/Sandfly, S-A-N-D-F-L-Y.

Ryan:
[13:09] Did you know that you can actually try this on 20 hosts? So you can try this for free. Make sure it works for your system. See what we’re talking about. Check it out. Test it. See how amazing it is. And then, you know, you’re welcome. You’re welcome.

Michael:
[13:25] You’re welcome.

Ryan:
[13:25] Go there now and check it out. You know what’s funny, Michael, is that our next story is Debian 12.9 release. After my little rant. My little rant there. uh so speaking of debbie really exciting news everyone debbie in 12.9 bookworm has released which means you’re gonna have to recompile all of your programs uh once you update to it, it’s a joke people like i don’t really dislike debbie and oh gosh it’s so hard to lie it’s the eighth release of 12.3 was skipped so that’s why it’s the eighth release so the reason why 12.3.

Michael:
[14:05] Was skipped was because there was some kind of like uh issue was extended for but also why was it skipped you could it doesn’t the numbers are arbitrary you could just say 12.3.

Ryan:
[14:13] Anyway they had to recompile the numbers to do that and it would take too long that makes sense in this one there’s 72 bug fixes hey good news bruce uh maybe one of the bug fixes is the obs thing it’s possible i didn’t look but it could be in there 72 chances that it was one of the bug fixes and 38 security fixes um none of that may be particularly exciting but what actually is exciting is mx linux is updated because i like so hard to tell what.

Michael:
[14:45] You think about debian it’s so hard.

Ryan:
[14:47] So i’m here on record i’m gonna tell everybody that if you want to run debian don’t just go straight to mx linux, Uh, because like, if you want to be in that world, MX Linux is the best version of Debian that you’re going to possibly get. And MX 23.5 has released, uh, they have a KDE version.

Michael:
[15:08] Just real quick, uh, Jill, what distro do you use? You remind me.

Jill:
[15:12] Um, what am I using on, on this rig now?

Ryan:
[15:15] Just one of her other 12,000 machines.

Michael:
[15:17] Your main distribution.

Jill:
[15:19] Oh, it’s Debian. I’m sorry. Yes. So I use.

Michael:
[15:24] I just want to make it clear.

Jill:
[15:26] On hundreds of my machines, I’m using Debian because Debian is the Swiss Army knife. It supports all the older architectures and or it has a community support for all the older architecture architectures of computers. Anything from Sun Solaris systems to deck alphas and and the like. and it still supports i386 and that’s very important in today’s world where most distros don’t support 32-bit that’s true so there is benefit there.

Michael:
[15:59] And i just.

Jill:
[16:00] Want to be like you.

Michael:
[16:01] Know you can go to destinationlinux.net/comments but.

Ryan:
[16:04] You know jill.

Michael:
[16:04] Just did it most of your work for you.

Ryan:
[16:06] Uh you know the reason why mx is the best debian is uh not only because dolphin’s awesome and does all kinds of additional things on top of debian to make it very user friendly but he has advanced hardware support edition which that means you get the latest and greatest hardware drivers you know and you still get the stability that you love with debian so one of the problems with debian is it’s a bajillion years behind it’s very slow like that’s literally the number it’s one bajillion years behind every other distro you know it’s funny I.

Michael:
[16:42] Have a feeling that they’re going to make a new release in a few months for Debian 13. And you’re going to be like, see, it’s updated now. And then you’re like, yeah, but then it’s going to be frozen for two or three years.

Ryan:
[16:53] So it’s yeah, exactly. It’s a bajillion. It’ll be a bajillion years. Uh, Old in no time.

Michael:
[16:59] So apparently the translation of bajillion is two or three.

Ryan:
[17:02] Two or three years behind, yeah. I mean, think about all that happens in three years. Two or three years ago, I had a positive outlook on life. You know?

Jill:
[17:14] Well, Ryan, since you love Arch so much, why don’t you run Debian Sid? There you go.

Ryan:
[17:19] Yeah, Debian Sid, that’s an option.

Jill:
[17:22] I like Debian Sid.

Ryan:
[17:23] Debian Sid is a really interesting one. So if you’re going to run Debian, use MX Linux. And then if you still don’t want to listen to me, at least use Debian Sid and you’ll get some update stuff. But if you have to recompile things every time, probably not great.

Michael:
[17:36] I mean, also, that was literally called unstable. So not everybody’s going to want to have that set up for you.

Jill:
[17:43] Debian testing is great, actually. I run that as opposed to Debian stable because even testing is very stable.

Ryan:
[17:51] There you go. You get some more up-to-date packages and testing and things like that.

Jill:
[17:56] Yeah.

Michael:
[17:57] Speaking of packages. the things.

Ryan:
[17:58] That go ahead.

Michael:
[17:59] I was like speaking of packages uh mx linux has uh the new release with 20 uh was it 23 what was it 24.3 is that the number 23.5 23 okay there we go 23.5 i am very excited for the fact that it has the i think it might be the first maybe it’s not the first but it’s one of the first to have xfce 420 in in the release so there are people who want to have x the The latest XFCE can check out MX Linux for that.

Ryan:
[18:28] Yep. And they have the MX package installer enhancements, which is updated, improved handling of package persistence, making it easier to manage software across different systems states. So, you know, this allows users to install packages from all kinds of different sources like apt, flatback, deb, and MX testing. So again, this is where you could get your flatback for the OBS that we talked about earlier. MX makes Debian great. And that’s just the fact. It’s indisputable. That’s period. End of story. Jill, you don’t need to comment. I’ve already ended this segment and we will move on. Okay, Jill, go ahead.

Michael:
[19:04] Jill, what did you want to say?

Jill:
[19:07] It’s okay. I just want to emphasize that MX Linux, because it is Debian-based, also still supports 32-bit for my older machines. They have spins that are 32-bit. And it works great also on the Raspberry Pi. They have a really nice Raspberry Pi image that I’ve used before.

Michael:
[19:26] So, what about the people who are going to comment and say, hey, you know Ubuntu is based on Debian, right?

Jill:
[19:32] Yes. But Ubuntu, you can’t use on really old machines.

Michael:
[19:38] That’s true.

Jill:
[19:39] They don’t have a 32-bit variant anymore, unfortunately.

Ryan:
[19:43] Yeah, like they should just do a tagline, Debian. If it belongs in a museum, we can run on it.

Michael:
[19:51] No, if it belongs in a museum, Debian belongs on it.

Ryan:
[19:56] That’s nice that’s a good tagline right there i like that all right so i promised you we were going to get to a distro that shreds your data because who doesn’t want that as a daily driver and we’re going to deliver michael we’re going to talk first of all it’s not.

Michael:
[20:11] A daily driver for those.

Ryan:
[20:12] Who are curious it’s just it’s a distro that’s a tool that you put.

Michael:
[20:17] In your toolbox to run uh shredding functions if you want to.

Ryan:
[20:21] Michael but you probably should april pools is right around the corner and you’re ruining my whole april’s fools run so it’s it’s currently january right it’s right around the corner man every.

Michael:
[20:35] Holiday is right around the corner whatever ryan wants it to be yeah.

Ryan:
[20:39] Okay so my goodness fine we don’t run it as a daily driver but shred os is a specialized linux distro solely for securely erasing data from this this is something that i I know a lot of people actually store their old machines forever, even though they have no plans of using them because they’re so afraid that their data is going to get into the wrong person’s hands. They work on their taxes or other things on these machines. They’ve read all the news. And so they kind of leave their machines in a closet because they don’t want to sell them when they get a new machine because they’re afraid their day is going to get somebody’s hands. This also happens a lot with servers, by the way. People don’t want to resell their servers and companies. and things because they’re afraid, again, their data will get in the wrong hands.

Michael:
[21:25] Why not just take out the drives and the disks and everything and then sell the rest?

Ryan:
[21:31] There you go. That’s kind of the key. But a lot of people are not comfortable getting into their computer.

Michael:
[21:36] That’s true.

Ryan:
[21:37] Them, that’s scary, opening up a computer or anything else, even though it’s not. It’s super easy. And if you just follow some very basic YouTube, anybody can get in there.

Michael:
[21:46] Especially now, unless the laptop is very old and you might, hate life at that point but you know some of these laptops are actually easy to open and some of them are just.

Ryan:
[21:57] Some of them glue everything down now so that’s a little more difficult but either way if you’re going to give it over to a family member maybe you have a you know nephew child whatever you’re going to hand it down to one of the things you can use is shred os and you install shred os onto a usb drive you boot from it and the program uses in wipe to annihilate data on your chosen disk um you know it’s basically replaced something called d-band did you ever use that jill db oh.

Jill:
[22:25] Absolutely and i’m actually really happy there’s a new fork of derek’s boot in nuke live cd you know i used it.

Ryan:
[22:33] For years ryan.

Jill:
[22:34] I remember actually back in the early 2000s doing a demonstration of d-band for my students so they could learn to correctly wipe their hard drives. And in fact, D-Ban was in every PC builder’s and system administrator’s IT toolkit. And it was often their first introduction to even using Linux.

Michael:
[22:53] My first was not that, but I do remember having D-Ban on like a USB or a live CD for years. And it hasn’t been, it’s been deprecated for a very long time. They haven’t been making it for years. I don’t remember when they stopped, but.

Ryan:
[23:06] Stopped in 2015. I literally just said that. I’m like, gee, you never listened to me.

Michael:
[23:13] Unfortunately, I can’t listen to you because you talk so much, and it just goes through eventually.

Jill:
[23:19] One ear out the other.

Michael:
[23:21] Exactly. Sometimes it’s like a flood of talking from Ryan sometimes.

Ryan:
[23:27] Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that. I know that’s an April Fool’s joke.

Michael:
[23:31] Yes, exactly. It’s right around the corner. You might as well. But it’s very cool. I mean, I like the fact that this exists because, uh, I know I use D band for many years after it was no longer maintained. So I’m glad that there’s, and also I like the name shred OS. It’s a good name.

Jill:
[23:46] Yeah, it’s great.

Ryan:
[23:48] So, Jill, why couldn’t you run this as a daily driver? I feel like you’ve just challenged people. Can someone in our community try to run this as a daily driver and let us know how it goes? Because it’s got to have an OS base. And then, like, I don’t know, does it just boot right into the shredding program or is there like a desktop?

Michael:
[24:05] I think it boots into the shredding.

Jill:
[24:06] No, it boots in the shredding and it’s a, you know, a terminal GUI, as it were.

Ryan:
[24:15] It would be so cool if you could run it as a daily distro. at any moment you could wipe the whole thing it’d be a great hacker tool actually you know like have no person you just cops come you just shred it right there you’re already you’re already in it well okay so clear.

Michael:
[24:29] It’s great and in wipe is really great too it also does take quite a bit of time for this to function.

Ryan:
[24:36] The cops are knocking on your door it’s like oh let’s give me a second more minutes yeah.

Michael:
[24:41] It’s like we’re open the doors uh 17 minutes it’ll be all.

Ryan:
[24:47] Right so how does this work it has multiple data wiping methods including fill with zeros dod short gutman wipe among others for thorough data destruction it supports 32-bit and 64-bit systems jill so you can go around and erase all your machines if you want yeah that sounds like fun and then it comes equipped with tools like hd parm hex edit and others to aid and disk manage it and clean up and then after data erasing it can generate a pdf report of the process so that you can you know if you need it for compliance reporting or other things it can produce that for you as well so pretty cool little tool there to check out shred os if you’ve not played with it um don’t play with it on your main machine that would be bad but if you need to erase a machine uh go have fun with it because this is a great way or something you know yeah or.

Michael:
[25:44] Something like that or if you have a spare you could do that as well Shredo West would be a really good example of like you want to take the data off the existing machine but still be able to use that machine if you would like to completely erase the data for no one to able to use your system whatsoever ever again you could do what Mr. Robot does and put it in the microwave.

Ryan:
[26:03] Also, it does have some limitations. If you’re using SSDs due to the nature of flash memory, they suggest, literally on their site, physical destruction for SSDs. So it’s better to just destroy those drives. You can microwave them, as Michael suggested. By the way, don’t put it in the microwave. We want no responsibility.

Michael:
[26:22] We’re making it a joke based on a TV show.

Ryan:
[26:25] Yes. We all know TV shows are not.

Michael:
[26:28] Suggestive of actual methods methods of doing anything properly.

Ryan:
[26:32] I don’t want any responsibility for your microwave blowing up because you heard it on this show it will blow it will blow putting metal.

Michael:
[26:40] Into your microwave not a great idea.

Ryan:
[26:42] Drill it shoot it stomp it sludge hammer it uh all kinds of different things you can do with it chainsaw it yeah have fun but uh we can’t it’s not the not the mic yeah.

Jill:
[26:56] And speaking Speaking of your other question, Ryan, I know Shredder West can be used as an installation, just a basic Linux install. Because you can put G-Links in it, E-Links, and do terminal web browsing and whatnot.

Ryan:
[27:15] Oh, so you can use it as a daily driver.

Jill:
[27:18] Yeah.

Ryan:
[27:19] That’s amazing. Listen, if you run Shredder West as a daily driver, please send us pictures.

Jill:
[27:26] Tell.

Ryan:
[27:26] Us how long you’ve.

Jill:
[27:27] Run it for you at least got to do it for like a week and.

Ryan:
[27:30] Then tell us your experience of using shred os as a daily driver i will be your biggest fan uh and you will go down in destination linux history that’s.

Jill:
[27:39] Awesome i mean so you know it’s a lot bigger than tom’s uh nuke and boot uh the original uh linux utility on floppy disk and that was running busy box and even with that you could still surf the web and whatnot in the terminal so nice Michael.

Ryan:
[27:56] This could be a challenge for you if you lose like a bet or something.

Michael:
[28:00] No, we already established that the biggest thing for me to do, the most difficult thing for me to do is to wear a DOS Geek t-shirt.

Jill:
[28:09] Yeah.

Ryan:
[28:10] So rude. That’s so rude, man. We talked about satellites buzzing over your head. I mean, this is a common occurrence.

Michael:
[28:18] Yes. I mean, of course. I mean, they’re in orbit, so they technically are always doing that, but… I wonder how close they are for you to hear the buzzing. It’s very terrifying.

Ryan:
[28:29] No, there is people who are hearing a lot of buzzing, Michael. Before we get into the main story here, you know, these drones in New York and New Jersey. Have you been following this story of these mysterious drones that have appeared and people do not know the origins of these drones? I know you’re a big news person.

Michael:
[28:48] Most certainly have not. I have heard about it and that is it.

Ryan:
[28:53] Just in general that there were.

Michael:
[28:55] I heard that it was happening. It was like someone mentioned it on like a, like discord, the discord server or something, maybe, or maybe it was like, I don’t know. I saw it on a YouTube video, someone randomly mentioning it or something like a comic or something like that. And then you also mentioned it a couple of weeks ago or something. And I don’t really.

Ryan:
[29:12] We did it for our 400th episode.

Michael:
[29:14] Yeah, exactly. And, and I didn’t really, I don’t know any details beyond the, like, you know, some people are like, Oh, I’m a headline reader. I didn’t even read the headline. I just know that something relevant happened or something. That’s it.

Ryan:
[29:28] Literally, the world could be an Armageddon ending. There’s no food. Nukes have gone off, everything. And Michael will be showing up here on Wednesday like, so hey, guys, I know nothing about what’s going on outside. Zombie apocalypse. You’d have no clue.

Michael:
[29:43] I avoid the news as much as possible.

Ryan:
[29:45] That’s smart, actually. Jill, are you aware of these mysterious drones that appeared in New York and New Jersey?

Jill:
[29:50] Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan:
[29:51] So I was actually asked, you know, to get the opinion of the hosts of Destination Linux about what these drones are. Like, what was the cause? So Jill… Jill, I know that we have no definitive conclusion. Nobody, as far as I can tell, looking through the news today, knows who was operating these drones or what they were for. But what is your best guess, it could be silly or real, of what these drones were in New Jersey and New York for? What do you think was the purpose of these drones?

Jill:
[30:31] I’ll say for the zombie apocalypse.

Ryan:
[30:36] Fair enough.

Michael:
[30:36] Seems legit.

Ryan:
[30:37] Oh, it is coming. All right. Jill predicted negative. Something negative, Michael. That’s incredible.

Michael:
[30:42] I think this is a first. Mark it down, people.

Ryan:
[30:45] Oh, my God. She’s giggling about it. Who giggles about a zombie apocalypse, Jill? My God. Unbelievable.

Michael:
[30:54] All right.

Ryan:
[30:54] So, Michael, there are these drones. They were flying around. And what was interesting is the government, like the FAA, FBI, all these agencies got involved. And they kept getting on TV and saying things like, we don’t know where they’re coming from. And I’m like, how does the biggest spy network government in the world with all of these satellite images, we’ve got jets and planes and sensors and radar and all of this stuff have no idea after weeks of where drones are coming from and where they’re going. That seems very unlikely to me that we don’t know where they’re coming from.

Michael:
[31:38] It’s an interesting point. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine that they would, it depends on, uh, maybe they are just a random people doing drones, you know?

Jill:
[31:48] Okay.

Ryan:
[31:48] So I looked up conspiracy theories because we need to.

Michael:
[31:52] Of course you did. Okay. First, before you get into it, I have a theory that actually might be right.

Ryan:
[31:57] There’s these.

Michael:
[31:58] Company recently announced that they removed the geofencing from their drones and people can just get a warning now and still do it so maybe people are just doing it you.

Ryan:
[32:10] Know so one of the conspiracies was because these also people were spotting them over very sensitive military sites and other things that other governments were spying on us and then the fact if our government’s like we don’t know where they come from if that’s true like that scares the crap out of me like we have all this We don’t know. I don’t know what those drones are. They fly around and whatever. That’s pretty scary. But the best conspiracy theory I heard was that they’re part of a covert operation called Project Blue Beam. Are you getting this down, Michael? I see you taking that.

Michael:
[32:43] Yeah, yeah. I’m making sure that I have this written down so we have record of this.

Ryan:
[32:48] So this theory is that the drones were being used to project holograms in the sky, simulating an alien invasion or otherworldly phenomenon as part of a grand plan by global elites or the government to control the populace or usher in a new world order. Which seems like, when you put all the facts together, is the most likely explanation, probably, out there.

Jill:
[33:08] Oh, boy.

Michael:
[33:09] So, first of all, this is ridiculous and a waste of that technology. Obviously, you would not use that technology to do alien invasion. What you would do is you would create a super suit, and then you’d have this big helmet globe on your head. And then you would fly around and protect all the people from these giant monsters, like a water monster or a ghost monster. And then that would all be illusions created by tons of drones working together in this network. And then you actually just see the smoke around the drones. And then I come in and fix it and save the day as the superhero.

Ryan:
[33:54] Brilliant.

Michael:
[33:56] Maybe that’s the plot of Spider-Man Far From Home. Whatever, but close enough.

Ryan:
[34:01] Oh, is that what you were explaining? Wow. I wasn’t even following. I thought you were making that up on the go. To leave on a happy note, one of the conspiracy theories where the drones were a secret Santa’s reindeer scout team, which I think, you know, that could probably.

Michael:
[34:16] No. All other controversy. What is it? Not controversies. Conspiracy. I know so little about conspiracy theories that I even forgot what it was called. But anyway, all other conspiracy theories are now out the window. It is 100%. It is reindeer. So it’s Reindeer Scouts. Is this… Is it drones in the shape of reindeer or is it drones forming a reindeer?

Ryan:
[34:44] Well, the theory claims that the drones were part of a secret operation by Santa Claus to scout out the best routes in urban landscapes for his sleigh’s journey on Christmas Eve. And that’s why we don’t hear about it anymore because Christmas is over. Although, the next Christmas is right around the corner.

Michael:
[35:00] It’s right around the corner.

Jill:
[35:01] It’s right around the corner to Ryan.

Michael:
[35:04] For those who don’t get that joke, I don’t know when he first said it. He’s like, Christmas is right around the corner. It was July. yeah like it’s no.

Ryan:
[35:12] It’s not these years every year i get older they go by faster it does feel.

Michael:
[35:17] Faster that’s true so anyway i i think that that the logic of the the santa thing is 100 makes the.

Ryan:
[35:23] Most sense for sure right into our show and let us know your best theory of what these whether true or or um maybe uh heavily conspiracy uh labeled let us know what you think uh or conspira true.

Michael:
[35:36] Whenever.

Ryan:
[35:36] Conspira true.

Michael:
[35:37] Conspira true. Conspira true. Let us know. Testationics.net/comments.

Ryan:
[35:42] The real news is the things that are buzzing that you can’t hear, you know, is these, there’s new satellite mobile connections that I want to talk about because this is fascinating to me. So our very own Wendy used to have very severely limited internet due to living in a rural area. And in fact, a lot of people don’t know, we’ve covered it in past shows, but there’s a lot of places in the United States alone, all over the world, but in the United States alone that have limited access or no access to internet at all. In fact, there are estimated 42 million people in the United States that do not have access to the internet.

Michael:
[36:18] And not even like dial up internet, nothing.

Ryan:
[36:21] No internet, none. And then there’s 129 million people who only have one internet option. And sometimes that option is literally dial up or worse. So there’s, you know, we think of the United States as, oh, we’ve got this super fast internet everywhere and big cities, lots of technology, not the case in rural areas, right? We don’t have very good internet, but Wendy uses something called Starlink, which has been a super powerful tool all the way around and connecting people to the internet with high speeds. And it’s consistent enough that you can even do things like video live streaming or gaming. And that’s incredible because even in the rural areas that could get internet, usually it was very unreliable. And the ones, the satellites that existed before, there was a company that used to do it. They would advertise, but it was like super slow and really expensive, like hundreds of dollars a month. It was like Hughes or something like that, if I recall. But it was, you know, it was not good, but it was like a last ditch.

Michael:
[37:22] HughesNet. Yeah, HughesNet.

Jill:
[37:23] Yeah, HughesNet. I… Actually have a little experience with that one because my, my mother bought it one time. She got finagled into it. I said, mom, why did you get rid of your fiber? Oh, no. She actually got finagled into it. You know, she’s older and not thinking right. And, and I was wondering why it was so slow and why half the time it didn’t work. And yeah, it was bad.

Michael:
[37:52] Give salespeople a bad name.

Jill:
[37:54] Yeah.

Michael:
[37:54] But yeah, it used to be that the Saturday night internet was like spotty at best and the latency was horrendous.

Jill:
[38:03] Yeah. And this was years ago. This is like probably early 2000s.

Ryan:
[38:08] Well, no, I mean, listen, that their commercials ran everywhere. So I could see people being fooled into thinking like, hey, maybe this is satellite sounds like it’d be faster than fiber if you’re not a technology person. I want my signal from outer space. But, you know, obviously, if you have access to fiber and things, that’s still better than even what Starlink’s offering. But Starlink’s getting better and better. More satellites they put up there, more space trash they put up there, then the better the signals.

Michael:
[38:38] Space debris.

Ryan:
[38:40] But Starlink has a new feature they’re introducing called direct to cell. And this fascinates me. I’ve been in the cell phone industry for 25 plus years. And so watching the technology change and evolve is incredible. But one of the things that, you know, I’ve always been dreamed about for phones is being able to connect satellite. But the question is, do you need a special phone for that? Is the phone going to be gigantic? We’ve all seen satellite phones before military things utilize them. They’re usually huge. And, you know, how is the technology, the signals going to work between getting between the two? We’re going to use a proprietary signal algorithm to get between the satellite to the phone or whatnot. but they figured out a way to, to use LTE. So every phone that has LTE compatible can connect without needing any device modifications or new phone, making the service really accessible to a huge audience here.

Ryan:
[39:37] And what’s insane about this is that, you know, when you’re utilizing your cell phone, and there’s a lot of people who like to go on outdoor adventures, there’s people who live in rural areas or people who go visit rural areas, that’s the biggest fear is you don’t have any cell phone signal. You break your leg, you fall down a hill, emergency happens. You’ve got nobody you can talk to. And this is now saying basically this advancement could enable people in any location, whether you’re isolated in rainforests, you’re on a boat in the ocean, you’re in a desert.

Michael:
[40:11] You’re climbing for, we’re free climbing in a desert and you get stuck for 127 hours.

Ryan:
[40:16] Um all sorts of it’s very it’s another.

Michael:
[40:21] Movie reference but anyway.

Ryan:
[40:22] You’re in a zombie apocalypse that jill’s predicting is going to happen in what year jill like or is it this year is the zombie apocalypse coming or might be feels like it probably uh i feel like it.

Jill:
[40:33] Has been with our fires here in los angeles.

Ryan:
[40:36] I bet yeah well that’s an interesting kind of segue there too jill because Starlink has also been utilized to help do something interesting in California. Are you aware of what they did with Starlink there?

Jill:
[40:50] Yeah. So they’re bringing them in into the areas that were affected by the fires because it turns out that the fire not only burned homes, it burned all the transmitters, the cell transmitters. So Starlink is coming in and and starting to fix that actually they have been for the last few days and i’ve even seen um i’ve even seen their trucks actually going down the street i was like.

Ryan:
[41:17] Oh yeah okay so they sent a fleet of cyber trucks and they arranged them with star links connected to them because they obviously cyber trucks have batteries in them so they can run these things for a long time and then this fleet of cyber trucks set up kind of like a mesh network of the star links so people could connect and communicate with loved ones and enable the communication, which is really very cool. really neat kind of use case for that. And beyond voice calls, the system is expected to support text messaging, data services, and Internet of Things integration, further enhancing global connectivity. So there was somebody who wrote in a while back talking about having a rural spot they lived in and they needed cameras for it. And, you know, so this, you know, when you think of Internet of Things in rural spots, you know, you may have a shed or a workplace or something out there a research center even uh out in the middle of nowhere that you need internet connectivity to and this would enable that um before we go on any further i do want to mention i know a lot of people hate elon musk right now and all that and we don’t get involved in politics on the show uh so we’re just going to give all the credit to the amazing engineers that made starlink and uh avoid any of that conversation because it’s still cool tech uh and the engineers are brilliant that have put this together.

Michael:
[42:32] Technological advancement of this sort of stuff is awesome. Like there’s so many cool things. I mean, the, the LTE connection where you can have, I mean, even if you’re talking about the rural areas or the like deserted areas and you’re like out in the ocean or something and you get, you get stuck for like the boat stops working or whatever, like all these different things are very important things, but also that even just traveling abroad is very difficult to get cell service and stuff like that depending on your your carrier and all that so this would be like a fantastic backup if you’re a traveler because this this would be you wouldn’t have to worry about where you are and if you have connections and stuff like that so there’s so many use cases for this would be just great so technologically speaking this is very very cool well.

Jill:
[43:18] You know A lot of the vloggers I watch on YouTube that are travel vloggers are using Starlink to upload all their videos and basically produce their shows, and they wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Starlink. Because they’re able to go to those remote places and upload the data. So having the cells make sense. In fact, it’s kind of funny that the data came first before the cell phone functionality. Right?

Ryan:
[43:51] Yeah, the Starlink satellites broadcast on these frequencies that are compatible with the LTE. So they really thought ahead to have the ability to do that. And then it uses signal amplification as well. So the satellites have the capability to receive and amplify the signal they’re getting from the smartphone, even though the signal could be super weak, obviously, at the distance. The satellite can detect it with its very sensitive receivers and boost it back to Earth or other satellites to keep transmitting it, which is just crazy. I want to see it in action, but the concept is just crazy here. It just seems super, super cool. So very excited about that. Yeah, satellites on our phones. It’s a thing. It’s going to be like the AI on our phones, satellites on our phones. And now, you know, before there probably were places where Google couldn’t track you. And now they can track you 100% anywhere you go. Thanks.

Michael:
[44:46] Anywhere you want to go. Thanks, Sister. But it’s also like, that reminds me, because I was going to make a joke about negative two, because it reminds me of the plot of one of the Marvel movies. I don’t remember which one, but there was a thing where they made like a movies today a set i don’t know why but like this does kind of correlate having like a a giant satellite system that just tracks everybody and the and the problem is that people get you know who who has control of this can be like the the worst situation and uh it’s like a dome around the planet sort of thing of satellites and now i’m thinking like maybe you know for all the conspiracy theories people out there just you know have food for thought man.

Ryan:
[45:33] People are going to be really traumatized over.

Michael:
[45:35] This you’re going to be like hey hey uh i think people are going to be thinking like hey ryan, Where’s the Linux in this show?

Ryan:
[45:43] Listen, Android is Linux. Phone, satellite, hello. And what do you think operating system the satellites run?

Michael:
[45:51] Probably Linux.

Ryan:
[45:52] Guaranteed, probably Linux. Like 99.9% chance they’re using Linux. In fact, the OS that Starlink’s using, 99.9% Linux. In fact, can we have one of our fact checkers in our patron room validate that the satellites, It’s Starlink, just that Starlink uses Linux. I’m sure they’re using the embedded Linux, some embedded Linux version to run those.

Michael:
[46:15] Probably. And in the meantime, let’s move on to the next topic.

Ryan:
[46:19] Jill, how are we going to get over the trauma of the show?

Jill:
[46:21] Oh, there’s a good way to do that, Brian. There has been no shortage of trauma-inducing events over the last few years, including what I have been dealing with with the LA fires and the hurricanes we’ve been having across the US and all the major catastrophes.

Jill:
[46:40] And so that’s why I wanted to bring up some interesting studies around the classic block rotation game created in 1984, Tetris, in our gaming session. Playing Tetris after a traumatic event has actually been shown to reduce the frequency of intrusive memories and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder as supported by research where participants who played Tetris reported fewer flashbacks. This is awesome. And studies suggest that engaging in Tetris gameplay within the first six hours post-trauma can act as a cognitive vaccine by disrupting the consolidation of traumatic memories, potentially preventing the establishment of PTSD symptoms. As a lot of us who have been through some very serious things know, and I think most everyone has been through something that has caused PTSD at some point in their lives. And the effectiveness of Tetris in this context is attributed to its visually demanding nature, which compete for the brain’s visual processing capacity and interfering with the memory consolidation process of traumatic visuals.

Jill:
[48:05] And the interesting part is that this isn’t just one study. There are now several studies dating back all the way to 2009 that have all come to the same conclusion. This is a really amazing for one of the first computer games that took off in the world.

Ryan:
[48:24] Yeah, it went viral.

Jill:
[48:26] It went viral. It’s on everything. so you know next time you or someone you love is dealing with some trauma inducing events try a game of tetris out and you might help hack your brain this.

Michael:
[48:40] Is also amazing tetris is is the fact that this is uh like been shown for in studies is very cool and it’s also funny because uh just a couple months ago i got hooked into watching like hardcore tetris playing like like super not like super intense like battles of tetris players and stuff.

Michael:
[49:01] Like that and it i don’t know why but i watched this documentary about it and there was like after 31 years someone finally beat tetris yeah the little kid because the little kid was like 15 yeah and and i was seeing how they were doing it and they’re not not even playing it in the normal way so they’re like they have like their hands on the controller and they’re like kind of rolling their their fingers in the bottom controller and just because you you can’t you can your hands can’t keep up with the normal usage of the of the controller so they had to invent a new way of using the controller for tetris like the high speed stuff and then there’s a um so like every every round of tetris is like 10 lines once you cross 10 lines it’s a new round and there’s there’s this part where they when they when they were figuring how to beat tetris it was designed to never be beaten like its whole purpose is to never get to that point and the way they decided it was beaten is because you went so far in the game that the game just broke and it just stopped working yes so it would glitch out and and certain types of like certain tiers or certain.

Michael:
[50:10] I forgot what it’s called but like certain rounds it starts changing the colors.

Michael:
[50:13] And things start breaking and just starts glitching everywhere and then instead of the.

Michael:
[50:20] 10 lines per round thing, once you get to a certain I think it’s like, I don’t know, 250 rounds somewhere there, the lines you have to clear is 800. And then once you clear 800 lines, then you go to the next round, and then it changes everything. And to the point where you can barely see the blocks anymore, and it’s crazy. And then people are actually creating these world records, and there’s this huge community of building it and stuff like that. I was so fascinated.

Ryan:
[50:49] Wow, you geeked out on Tetris, man.

Michael:
[50:52] I geeked out on watching Tetris, watching other people play Tetris.

Ryan:
[50:55] That is pathetic. You can’t play it, but…

Michael:
[50:59] I can play it. I can… Okay, challenge… Earlier I made a joke, but I challenge you. I challenge you to a game. Yeah, to a versus Tetris match. I will crush you.

Ryan:
[51:10] I’m going to play it on Debian so it glitches out immediately and I win.

Michael:
[51:15] No, actually I win because it took you too long to compile it.

Jill:
[51:20] Tetris already comes on Debian. You can play it in the terminal. But what was awesome about that? But I saw that same documentary. Actually, there have been a few of them floating around. And I even saw a web conference with the 15-year-old boy and Alexey Pajitnov, who invented Tetris. And he was blown away by what the 15-year-old had done. And it says, you are the winner. You won the game.

Michael:
[51:54] I mean, it’s actually super interesting. I watch so much stuff of this and it’s like to the point where you can just watch Tetris and it’s soothing. You don’t even have to play it. You can just watch it. And it’s so true. It also works, I think.

Jill:
[52:08] Yeah.

Ryan:
[52:09] So there’s a lot of Tetris clones in the software store if you want to play Tetris now that you’ve heard this. But this is a really great thing. Jill, you’re dealing with no joke. Like a lot of people are dealing with a lot of trauma right now in California and things. And so North Carolina, California, all these places have been hit with this. that’s, you know, I know people probably don’t feel like they’re in the mood to play a game right now, but obviously this is something may take your brain off of those events for a little while and let you kind of, you know, who saw and get a little break from it. So it’s really cool that they’ve done these studies and it’s really interesting. It’s Tetris. I think this is a big brain game. Like to me, if you’re good at Tetris, like you’re, you know, like people are good at chess. People are good at Tetris. To me, they’re all in the same category, big brain. So yeah, I think it’s a really cool thing to take your time to learn out there.

Ryan:
[52:58] So, by the way, just to follow up on the Starlink satellites. So each of SpaceX Starlink satellites run Linux. It is reported that the launch of 60 Starlink satellites includes more than 4,000 Linux computers, contributing to a constellation of more than 30,000 Linux nodes and over 6,000 microcontrollers in space. This was discussed by SpaceX software engineers during an AMA on Reddit. So, yes, we power… star link and yeah that makes me happy you’re.

Jill:
[53:28] Welcome star link yeah i knew they must have because uh spacex here in los angeles um a lot of the developers were using debian and red hat so it just makes.

Ryan:
[53:39] Sense nice love it by the way speaking of red hat michael and i michael i’m putting you on the spot michael and i are going to red hat summit michael was like i think i am but he has to now because I announced it on the show. We’re going to Red Hat Summit.

Michael:
[53:56] Is that how that works?

Ryan:
[53:58] Super excited. We’re going to be there. It’s May. We’ll get the exact date.

Michael:
[54:02] It’s 19th through 22nd.

Ryan:
[54:04] 19th through 22nd. If you want to hang out with us, see us, whatever, go to Red Hat Summit. Even if you don’t want to hang out with us, Red Hat Summit’s amazing and we’ve been invited back.

Michael:
[54:15] Even if you don’t want to go to the Red Hat Summit but you want to hang out with us, we’ll be in Boston.

Ryan:
[54:19] Either way. Can you imagine they re-invited us back?

Michael:
[54:23] I know. They actually liked us and want us to come back.

Ryan:
[54:26] They didn’t say like in the email. They just said, I guess, sort of, if you guys want to.

Michael:
[54:32] They didn’t say they liked us. They said they liked our content that we made.

Ryan:
[54:37] And they said, can Jill please come this time? They really want Jill.

Michael:
[54:40] Yes, please let Jill come.

Ryan:
[54:41] They really want Jill. We’re trying to. Maybe one day we’ll get Jill out there. Yeah.

Ryan:
[54:49] Michael, you are taking over the software spotlight because you introduced me. I actually installed this and I’m kind of in love with this, although I’ve left it default so far with what it gave me.

Michael:
[55:00] Of course I did.

Ryan:
[55:01] Tell us about the software spotlight this week.

Michael:
[55:03] So the software spotlight is a, it’s kind of a pie menu. If you’ve ever heard, if you’ve been on Linux for a long time, there was, there’s been a couple of these. One, it was called a GNOME pie and it gives you like a circular style menu but this one is called i think can do so ryan apparently has a can do attitude and so this is a cross-platform tool that works on every os that you probably i’m not not every i maybe not every os but most of them and you can basically have an interaction of opening different applications or functions and keyboard shortcuts and all sorts of stuff by moving your mouse, you click like an empty area and then you move your mouse a certain direction and you can activate stuff. But you can also do multi-tier menus. So it’s kind of like doing gestures, but with your mouse. So, and it’s more of like a very customized thing. So instead of having just like one gesture that does one thing, you can do very quickly by going from one sub main menu to multiple sub menus and then finally to activate whatever you want. And it’s just by the movement of your mouse. So you click on your desktop, you move around, and then you can, like, different directions will activate different menus and different submenus. It’s hard to really…

Michael:
[56:21] To explain in the audio version for so those who are curious just go check out the links in the show notes you can see the video demo because it is very cool and it’s very customizable and you can make it do all sorts of stuff and there is a flat pack for it if you want to check it out so it’s really easy to get access to it you don’t have to compile it and but it’s very cool application and.

Jill:
[56:40] I’ve actually been using the kando pie menu for quite some time i’ve known i’ve known about it for a few years. And I’ve actually used it to create quick links to websites I visit often for doing my destination Linux show notes. In fact, I used it yesterday. And I also use it for a quick way to mute, play and pause my audio when playing music and YouTube videos.

Michael:
[57:02] So I thought you’re going to say he’s a quick way to mute Ryan when he’s talking.

Ryan:
[57:07] Jill, do you have a gesture to mute me no she’s lying did you see how she responded oh my god it was very hesitant very coy no, does like an r or something or a d for dusk geek i don’t know it’s.

Jill:
[57:23] An r with a/through it yeah there we go.

Ryan:
[57:26] You’re on tour all right jill uh how can we use ai more effectively because we’ve gone through this whole episode we’ve not talked about ai i started to bring in it At least once per episode.

Jill:
[57:38] People. Our tip of the week this week is making effective use of your favorite AI program more efficient by utilizing the attachment features available in most of the AI tools. For example, let’s say you’re working with a data set that’s not integrated into the AI tool, but you need it to write you some code. The problem is it doesn’t know the tables nor the output. So give it an example by uploading screenshots, and it can interpret those images by providing you with the code you need that’s more specific to the actual data you’re working with to improve the AI and the output.

Ryan:
[58:20] Yeah, it helps it learn. And its ability to interpret images is… incredible. So one of the other things that you can do to enhance your ability with AI is you can even draw out something like you want to create an interface for a new program, draw it out on a napkin or a piece of paper, and then take a picture of it and tell AI to make and code an interface that operates like the picture. And it is incredibly effective at taking pictures almost better than prompting it and being able to interpret things from that picture and write better code I find than a lot of prompts in there and I know there’s prompt engineering and things where people spend a lot of time learning the prompts maybe they can do it better but pictures have been a really effective way to use AI and I don’t see a lot of people doing it and so I think it’s really something you should check out.

Michael:
[59:09] I have only done it in like a very tiny amount of like using it as an example of stuff like I want to look something similar or whatever that kind of thing and but this is very interesting I never thought about like interpreting it and trying to you know, do an output through the image or a prompt through the image. That’s very interesting.

Ryan:
[59:26] Yeah. And like Jill mentioned with the data sets, it can be very effective with that because now it has table names. It has some example because you don’t have to screenshot all the data, maybe just the output of a SQL code, the first 10 lines or something. And now it kind of understands what each table represents, the type of data that’s stored in it, the format it’s stored in and the tables available to it or the actual columns available to it for it to write code around. So utilize pictures, check it out, see what you think.

Ryan:
[59:54] I bet you’re going to find your AI skills improve tremendously with that. All right. So a big thank you to each and every one of you for supporting us by watching or listening to Destination Linux. We did it. We got every single topic on this episode. So we’ve been getting feedback, Michael, that people were like, let it run. Let it go on for four or five hours. We just want you to finish the episode. And the thing is, Wendy has to edit it. And she has a temper.

Michael:
[1:00:21] She yells at us if we go too long, people.

Ryan:
[1:00:24] Yeah.

Michael:
[1:00:25] I mean, we’re reversing to them.

Ryan:
[1:00:27] Through Starlink Satellites, she can reach us. So, listen, however you enjoy this show, whether you listen to it only on a podcast, I suggest you check out the YouTube version. Sometimes it’s great to see our faces. But no matter how you enjoy our show, we love your faces. And you can join us on Discord by going to textdigital.com/Discord discord and come hang out with the community that we have there it’s growing it’s awesome they’re great people they’re amazing you want to come hang out with them and we’re there too.

Michael:
[1:00:59] And if you want to support the show and the Tux Digital Network, then go to TuxDigital.com/membership and become a patron. You get a bunch of cool perks, like getting access to the patron only section of our discord server, where you can watch the show live. You can join us in the patron post show that happens every week after the show. You can get access to unedited episodes and you can even get some merch discounts in our store. We have a store. That’s right. TuxDigital.com/store. So go there. You can get some hats, mugs, hoodies, T-shirts, all sorts of stuff, and so much more.

Michael:
[1:01:32] TuxDigital.com/store.

Jill:
[1:01:34] And make sure to check out our awesome shows here on Tux Digital. That’s right. We have an entire network of shows to fill your whole week with geeky goodness. Head to TuxDigital.com to keep those Linux penguins marching.

Ryan:
[1:01:47] Everybody, try to have a good week because the zombie apocalypse is coming. Jill forecast it. Try to have a good week.

Michael:
[1:01:53] Play some Tetris, people.

Jill:
[1:01:55] Yeah.

Ryan:
[1:01:56] And remember, the journey itself is just as important as the destination.

Michael:
[1:02:01] Thanks, everybody. See you next week.

Jill:
[1:02:03] Love you all.

Ryan:
[1:02:06] Most of you. Hey, Jill, can you give us a little more accurate prediction when the zombie apocalypse is going to happen? Like, we think in three days, like five days?

Jill:
[1:02:16] I think April 1st.

Ryan:
[1:02:20] It’s right around the corner.

Jill:
[1:02:21] It’s right around the corner.

Michael:
[1:02:23] The zombie apocalypse is right around the corner. See you next week, everybody. Or will we?