Have never used cryptocurrency before, all I know is that Bitcoin transactions can be tracked, Monero is the most widely accepted untraceable cryptocurrency, and many exchanges enforce KYC. I do not presently have the hardware to mine for myself at an appreciable rate. What do I need to know and use in order to set up a wallet, acquire crypto, exchange, and spend it as anonymously as I practically can?

Leaning heavily towards the Lattepanda Mu with Intel N100, but also considering the Raspberry Pi 5 compute module as an alternative. Main reason for the preference is performance. But does that still hold up if passively cooled? I've read that the N100 doesn't really reach its full potential at its 6 W TDP, instead often drawing around 15 W during benchmarks. All of the benchmarks I've come across are for an actively-cooled setup.

I'm planning on a heatsink that will be open to ambient air and not much larger than the compute module itself, maybe 6x12x1 cm. How much do those extra watts beyond the TDP matter to the performance of an Intel CPU?

Family is asking me if I can help them acquire and set up a Windows tablet to replace their old one. I've got the software part down, but I'm not too familiar with tablet PC hardware. As far as I know, the use case is:

• MS Office, web browsing, streaming, video calls, syncing MP3s onto an iPod via iTunes
• Media player when travelling, they like the tablet form factor for this
• But most of the time, it'll just stay around the house, so battery life isn't too important

And yes, most of this could all be doable with an Android or even Linux tablet, but I know they'll just keep on using the old tablet if the new one doesn't have Windows 🤷.

• 500 USD budget
• New, open box, or like new condition
• True tablet with detachable keyboard
• Pen not necessary
• Performant enough to comfortably browse the web for the next several years
• Battery not too prone to swelling
• SD card slot and some level of repairability would be nice-to-have

So far, every tablet within the budget I've come across has its own share of quirks and flaws, so I'd be interested to hear if anyone had a particularly good experience or found a hidden gem among tablet PCs.

The device in question is the USB dongle for my 2.4 GHz wireless headset. Everything works fine except for volume control, so it is stuck at max volume, regardless of where the volume slider in pavucontrol is. Volume controls within individual websites and programs work, but it seems that the system volume control is delegated to the USB device, which itself has no concept of volume control. This is the case with both pulseaudio and pipewire. Is there a way to limit the system-wide volume before it reaches the dongle?

It's happened again, I've come back from a walk in the (light) rain and the left shoe of my current pair has just sprung a leak. This seems to be part of an annoying trend over the past several years, where after 2 to 5 months of buying a new pair and wearing them about daily at a primarily office job, the left shoe will develop a leak. The right shoe always emerges unscathed. I'll always avoid puddles if I can help it, so it seems as though the water just gradually seeps in as I walk. If I can get back home quickly, I try to dry them out, but sometimes they develop a mildewy smell and it's just never the same again.

I have a few theories, but none really convince me:

• I walk fast, am left leg dominant, and my left foot is ever so slightly larger than the right. Maybe more strain on the left shoe? The sole does end up slightly more worn than the right.
• But the same shoe size still comfortably fits both, so is there even a solution to be found?
• People travel on the right where I live, maybe there's an asymmetry of the walkways?
• I'm cheaping out and can't justify buying shoes over $80. In half of the cases, I notice the sole starting to separate from the upper part. But again, why the left in particular and why only these past few years?
• Or I'm meant to wear heavy boots. The only kinds of shoes that have escaped this fate in recent years have been my snow boots and steel-toe boots, which I wear almost daily in the winter.

Would be interested to hear any similar stories or better reasons from those more knowledgeable about shoes and shoe defects than I am.

Most file managers I've encountered default to icon view. One of the first things I do is set the default to detailed list view. Might be a preference for seeing names and dates over many identical folder icons, or just an old habit from using Windows. But I'd be curious to hear about the benefits of icon view and why it's usually the default in Linux GUI file managers.

What does everyone else use and any reasons to prefer one over the other?

In words with left- and right-handed letters on the keyboard, like "word", sometimes I will instead type "owrd" because the command from my brain seemingly is processed faster by my right hand than my left. It rarely, if ever, happens the other way around. In recent years, I think this accounts for as many as half of my typos. Interested to see if this happens to other people and how I could try correcting this.

Searching gives me the impression there's a million ways to solve the same problem on Linux, and I find myself profiling answers into about four categories at a glance:

• Succinct: one or two-liner, a single config file, or just a few clicks
• Long-winded song-and-dance: Full train of thought interspersed between various commands and logs, several config files (some of which don't already exist), or installing an obscure package that is no longer maintained
• Specific to a desktop environment or version I don't have
• Just looks wrong

I'll usually just take solutions from the first category, which almost always works, save for differences between updates and versions. Solutions in the second category also seem to end with a 50% chance of the OP unable to solve the problem. If I'm desperate, I'll try the second one, but it often ends up not working, eventually leading me to come up with a much cleaner solution of my own.

Curious if anyone else does this too and if those one-liners are really better solutions or if it's just confirmation bias.

Sometimes I wonder what the thought process behind the gaming aesthetic was. RGB (*if tunable) itself is fine and adds a nice opportunity for personalization, but are those tacky fonts, crystal-facet enclosures, and overall showiness just tasteless or do any gamers actually prefer that look?

I've realized that the display size, in inches, is sometimes in the name or model number of electronics that are sold not just in the US. Do people outside the US also talk about buying 55-inch TVs, 14-inch laptops, and 27-inch monitors? Does it naturally roll off the tongue or does it seem strange to anyone?

If it's all inches, why didn't measuring screens in centimeters take off?

Got myself a Dell Latitude ~~E4310~~ E6410 and Thinkpad T510 for free, both with discrete Nvidia graphics soldered to the mainboard. I've installed Linux on them and just went with the nouveau driver since the proprietary Nvidia driver for such old cards is no longer in the Debian 12 repo. Not going to do anything cutting edge on them, but it does leave me wondering:

• I read that I could, with some effort, install the proprietary driver manually. Am I missing out on anything at all without them, or is nouveau mature enough and the graphics old enough that I wouldn't notice?
• Is nouveau with old discrete graphics better or worse than having just Intel's integrated graphics?
• Does power consumption vary significantly between nouveau and proprietary drivers?

EDIT

Answering myself after going down a rabbit hole with the T510:

1. The dGPU is the NVS 3100M, which does have some level of hardware acceleration support under nouveau, so at least it isn't draining power for zero benefit. However, the dGPU is unable to go past its lowest power state without manually manipulating /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/pstate (I did not try to) and I suspect that this is what kneecaps 3D performance. There should be a marked difference, but I won't be doing any serious work on these machines, so I'm leaving everything as-is.

2. This situation is worse than having just integrated graphics due to the inherent power consumption of the GPU core while unable to benefit from higher power states and other optimizations.

3. Power consumption is probably less, but for much worse performance. At least it is a much better fallback than leaving at maximum.

• A later variant has the BIOS option to disable the dGPU, mine is an early variant with no options

A recent trip to the dumpster netted me a couple of old laptops (from around 2012). The batteries are completely flat and will not take a charge. I plan on using them as beater computers around the house, so battery life doesn't really matter but would be nice to have. The cheapest no-name batteries available for them are about $15 each. A used OEM battery with about 75% health is a dollar more.

For those who bought the cheapest aftermarket battery, was it worth it? Were the batteries surprisingly good or am I better off with a used but original one?