I doubled down on Podman when moving to Fedora a couple years ago- couple small hiccups but mostly my shallow knowledge on SELinux and bind mounts. Big fan, especially quadlets + stow on my homelab- thanks Podman people!
I recently worked my way through (in order) Anna Karenina, Crime & Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. Each time seeking Garnett translations as I found the usual recommendations just not hitting the spot. That said, and for context I'm English, and new to the classics- so not sure if the writing style just clicked more. I did switch half way to McDuff for The Idiot and wasn't too far from Garnett.
The last 3 books I’ve purchased from Amazon (UK) have been of questionable quality. The most recent was Designing Data–Intensive Applications (O’Reilly) and I’m still not sure if it’s print on demand, counterfeit- or just a reject. Roller marks, damaged pages, slightly off print. The returns process is inconvenient, one-offs are okay but on multiple purchases it’s fatiguing and so the book stays.
This isn’t specific to Amazon, I had the same issue with Waterstones in the UK (online)
I now just buy second hand (Abe, WOB) and hope for the best.
Had this thought multiple times over the years. However, reality in the UK is training cost and time (~2 years with 2 days a week college + at least ~£5k cost and further 2 years gaining experience) can be quite a blocker- difficult to achieve with dependents for most. Then throw in the reality of domestic work and building up experience. Greener grass and all that
Great list! Not sure how I've missed all these in my search but I've had success with Plexamp (Gnome, Fedora), with Plex served from my Synology NAS. Opinions on Plex aside, it's been the most successful "native" experience across mobile/linux that just works.
Majority of GTK/Adwaita solutions are always so close but missing something critical, especially when using DLNA (e.g treated as secondary to local library, intermittent first load issues etc) That said, I got quite far with Gapless [1]
Thank you adamors, I’ll be sure to give Satantango a go next- I’ve been struggling to find a modern substitute for the Russian classics and haven’t been able to put my finger on why- there is a quality to it that keeps me engrossed.
I’ve been working through more Dostoyevsky- currently ending the year reading The Brothers Karamazov (Constance Garnett translation).
It’s topping The Idiot for me- and a fitting way to end the year. I have spent most of 2025 stuck in a 19th Century reading cycle which started when reading Murakamis “After the quake” short story collection, specifically Super-Frog saves Tokyo where he mentions Anna K.
Anna Karenina-> Crime and Punishment-> The Idiot and some various Kafka in the mix too.
I followed this exact same path. Started with HTML for guilds, learning to slice PSDs and ended with learning VB6 to develop auto buyers / adopters :D Slopdog forums was my inspiration for using VB I think?
Just went through this today for my daughter- struggled to find an i5 not on pre-order, and the RAM was crippling- ended up going Ryzen 7 for a first time and 2x8Gb DDR5 6000 @ £119 - looking forward to building it with her!
The author briefly touches upon this under the section 'Word and character frequency analysis', but I'm not sure this would really help with writing style?
Thank you for sharing this, I am in a similar situation and often think this, however always fall back to the "I'm just being lazy train of thought".
I didn't actually make it through the exams that would allow me to study Computer Science, after studying hard I just couldn't concentrate when it came to the exam, I had plenty of time and knew it was important however couldn't focus. (I was like this throughout most of my education, good in class - failed the exams)
Perhaps this is just more excuses in a modern world full of distractions, either way I think I'll seek some professional advice.