Aesthetics, plus the seductive appeal that pre-modern, pre-liberal-democratic societies (when the governments were authoritarian, the women were submissive, and the men “were men”) have for reactionaries, incels, and cryptofacists.

But as I noted above, the average UK citizen is not in favor of strict immigration controls (legal or otherwise) and certainly not supportive of the recent riots.

Of those who are, the majority comes from lower-income areas that suffered the most under years of Tory austerity, which is understandable. But even then it’s really a case of the socioeconomic elites pointing the finger at immigrants rather than themselves.

As for the Muslim community, again there is good evidence to suggest that a lot of the fears you mentioned are unfounded. Surveys have shown that most feel that they belong in Britain and have no objections to integrating with the culture.

Again, the problem you tend to find is that extremists like Anjem Choudary are amplified by the press, giving the impressions that the Muslim community is incompatible with British values, when in fact the vast majority disagree with that statement.

It’s ironic you mention ‘reality’, since the hysteria surround immigration is largely based on misinformation and xenophobic propaganda being spouted by right-wing politicians and media for well over a decade. This has led to a highly distorted view of the scale and severity of the issue.

First off, the mass migration of peoples seeking refuge from war and other geopolitical disasters is a global issue rather than something that is unique to the UK, but even then the UK has taken in far fewer asylum seekers relative to other EU countries.

For instance:

• When measuring the number of asylum applications per 10,000 citizens, the UK only ranks 20th when compared to other EU countries.
• In terms of migrants arriving by boat, the UK is well behind other EU countries like Italy, Greece, and Spain.
• Despite the obsession with small boat crossings, they represent only a tiny fraction of overall arrivals. The vast majority of immigrants still come through official channels for work, study, etc.

Also, the UK population is actually pretty positive when it comes to immigration:

• In a global survey, 55% of UK citizens said immigration was a net positive, and only 30% were in favor of strict limits.

The paranoia about immigrants causing higher crime rates is also based on a myth:

• The overall rates of violent crime has been steadily falling for decades despite a steady rise in the number of foreign-born citizens.
• There is no evidence that an increase in the rate of foreign-born citizens even correlates with a rise in burglaries, thefts, and other property crimes.

All this is to say that a lot of the anger inflaming these racists riots come from a combination of political and media misinformation and many people’s innate prejudice towards non-Europeans.

Defecting to the party whose own canvassers openly drop the word ‘Paki’ when think no one is listening is certainly… a choice.

The odds of a face-eating leopard moment are pretty good all round.

Like it or not, Twitter is still the de-facto place for breaking news stories. You just have to sift through the dross.

As much as Mastodon is a far nicer and healthier social platform, it has a long way to go before it gets anywhere close in this particular regard.

General is for work visas, whereas Academic is for applying to university courses. Generally speaking.

You should always double check with the institution/company you’re applying to, though.

This is why the UK needs proportional representation.

Firstly, the decision to leave was made through a diplomatic referendum, which makes it practically and politically awkward to reverse without making the UK look even more foolish on the world stage. Another big reason is that the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly. Like the proverbial oil tanker, turning around is no quick and easy task – it would take years to reverse what has already been done and would leave Britain in an appalling position when it came to negotiating the terms of reentry.

Realistically, it’s been estimated that if the UK can get back on its feet and make a good go of it, the earliest point at which reentry would be advisable is in about ten years time.

It’s a big deal because the Conservatives have been in power for the last 14 years and everyone is sick of the sight of them. Current projections show that this may be their worst showing ever.

Their main rivals, Labour, are going to dominate on a centrist platform, even though they are not promising much in the way of reform or change.

The biggest downside is that the Trumpish Reform party are looking like they’ll do quite well with xenophobic, right-wing, ex-Conservatives.

Labour is expected to win 410 seats, with the Conservatives on 131

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn09xn9je7lt

I think the phrase “landslide” is going to be putting it mildly.

I think if substantial change is what you’re expecting from a Labour/Starmer government, then you’re going to be disappointed.

https://www.politico.eu/article/keir-starmer-labour-party-uk-election-u-turns/

More frequent kernel updates.

• requires a fair bit of post-installation configuration (suboptimal OOTB experience for newbies)
• Uses btrfs by default but comes with no snapshots or GUI manager pre-configured for system restore
• Less software availability compared to Ubuntu or Mint
• More likely to break than Ubuntu or Mint

But isn’t this something you can tweak within your DE configuration? I’m on Gnome and don’t have this issue.

This sounds like a DE thing than a Wayland/X thing.

Ok, thanks for the heads-up. I’m running it in a local VM and for some reason my host Arch system is significantly faster at downloading and installing packages than the blendOS guest. Not sure why, but just thought I’d mention it.

Edit: never mind, I messed up the first installation so had to do-over, and the slow download speed seems to have recovered this time.

Follow-up question: I’m in the US and the initial installation is taking forever. Pacman seems to be running at just 60-80 KiB/s when I normally get 5MiB/s. IS there a way to have the installer choose a local mirror before downloading all the packages?

Cool. Will definitely be giving blendOS a spin in a VM.

Very intriguing. Is there a wiki or support forum in the works, too?

Mastodon has a major engagement problem and I’m not sure why.

It has significantly more users than Lemmy but also manages to feel a lot less social, somehow.