I used Slackware quite a few years back but eventually got tired of spending time endlessly compiling things and chasing down dependencies. Then used Mandrake for a few years and moved on to Mint which I consider the best user-friendly distro. I run a couple of VPS's (virtual private servers) and one has CentOS and the other Alma Linux. I have CentOS on my main work laptop (not a distro of choice but it enabled me to exactly replicate what was on the VPS to make working on things easier). My older Toshiba L850 work laptop has Mint installed and an audio recording desktop is running AV Linux.

@perlinator I agree with everything you say. I've never been a Facebook user (apart from using a FB account to research entrants on this site). From the cases here on SAV you can see what a huge role Facebook played as a platform for misinformation. Makes sense that'd be a place to try to inject some sanity but sounds like it's impossible from what you say. Using counter-memes is a good approach. I get that it's more a case of like-minded people building a sense of community that an outreach site. I think there's two aspects of SAV. The posts themselves that present the cases - this is probably the changing minds part of the site. And the comments section which is more of a community of like minded people. I've decided there's no point engaging with anti-vaxxers in places like youtube comments. There's such a strong anti-intellectual thing going on that if you mention a science journal article or virologist or whatever you'll be shouted down for being gullible enough to believe people like this who are part of the "narrative". I think part of the appeal of the anti-vaxx movement is people who previously spent their time watching reality TV and the like can now use clever words like "narrative" and outsmart scientists (so they think) with their arguments. But there's a lot of people who are undecided and want more information. I usually just mention another video on the topic that's from a reliable source without too much comment. If they follow the link they'll get some reliable information and there will be a much higher ratio of informed comments for them to read. I've seen Amy predict mid 2024 as an end date for the pandemic when she gets asked in Q&A live-stream sessions on Vincent Racaniello's youtube channel. This was the last session they did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ns3DNjyPP4 I'm pretty busy at the moment but figure there will be opportunities to spend a bit of time here now and then over the next year or so. No matter what people think this pandemic will be with us for a while yet.

Is Jackie the Scottish nurse still around?

@WolfenBane 🐺 SAV Werewolf Excellent use of that infamous graphic of yours! Exactly. Good to see you are still causing mayhem around here! I'm taking a bit of an "all things in moderation" approach at the moment. I remember once you told me to get some sleep when you spotted me appear in the early hours - that's when I had major addiction issues but I'm in recovery now after withdrawing :) Hope you are doing well and don't have any lasting effects from that bout of Covid you had. I've escaped so far, touch wood.

Yep pretty much sums up how I feel at this stage. Also, the commenting here is very time consuming because notifications don't take you back to comments. You tend to hang around on the pages which eats up a lot of time. Think of youtube notifications. You can spend thirty seconds making a quick reply and get back to whatever you were doing. [Edit: I notice the email notifications for the forum do take you directly to the comment which is good] This site won't sway many people. If you want to change minds go to where the misinformation is and get involved commenting there. Also there's a lot of good info out there to spend time watching/reading if you want to take an interest in Covid and the pandemic. This site is more of a social thing where people know each other and have fun etc. That's great and there are such smart and witty people here. But it just depends on what you want to do with your time. Giving corpses (and stupid ones at that) so much attention becomes a bit of a dead end after a while.

I wondered if Schadenfreude Here was still around. He does a lot of good detective work so I'm glad to here he is still around.

Vax Hellsing is another who vanished suddenly. I saw his last comment as he made it. It was on the Jeremy & Monica Voss page and he made a very, how can I say it..., direct comment about the two entrants who were at death's door. Jeremy survived but Monica didn't. I noticed their daughter Faith had entered the comments and after making a statement about how she felt about the comments regarding her parents she went through comments one at a time as they were being made and asked for respect where she thought the comments were unfair or hurtful etc. Vax Hellsing had just made a comment and I watched as Faith reached his comment and wondered how he'd feel when he realised the daughter had read it. She asked him to be more respectful and that was the last comment from him. I don't know if this has anything to do with him leaving but it's when his last comment was made.

He vanished without a word. He was brutal and even his avatar looked kind of menacing as far as I remember.

I like Dry Cleaning rather muchly. Completely different but I like Melt Banana too.