Political Custard

Like all distros, they have their place. And sometimes if you want to boil a frog you have to heat them up gently. 😅

Any distro can be a steep learning curve and sometimes something to lessen that curve will be a good thing. I wanted my dad to try out Linux and I knew that it had to not look different as he would immediately get confused, he’d seen my setup and I tried to gently show him around and he said he liked it but it was all a bit too different and he would get confused. My dad’s late-70s and apart from programming on the ZX Spectrum in the 1980s he’s always used a PC with Windows and is at the point where if something is too different he knows he’s going to have trouble with it.

I do get where you are coming from, for people who are more mentally agile I would prefer to try something a little less Windows-like but in some cases I don’t think it’s a good idea and it is nice to have a more Windows-like alternative available.

Yep, I set 2 for public trackers. I’m not very good at holding onto stuff for long periods of time, but I just got my first seedbox on Saturday so that may change. I am also kicking myself for not getting a seedbox years ago, it’s so good… and holy hell the speeds are amazing.

They should have put a stop on all crypto apps as soon as the last debacle hit. Each one should have been checked and tested before being released back into the store. Like it or not, people trust these stores when they shouldn’t, nobody reads the T&Cs that tell them the store takes no responsibility for the shit in them. I think these stores should take some responsibility for what appears in them - especially apps relating to money management/wallets. Canonical (hopefully) are taking a reputational hit at the moment, and so they should. If you can’t run a store properly don’t have a store.

People scammed out of money sometimes kill themselves. Grrr Canonical.

That is an absolutely fascinating article on the technical operation of a scam app. A definite warning to us all. Also I was very interested to read the terms and conditions of the Snap Store, specifically section 14: Limitation of Liability (which could be titled “Sorry, You’re Fucked”).

I don’t like bitcoin, it’s an environmental disaster that had potential but has turned into a highly volatile speculative device beloved by libertarians, grifters, and scammers. I do feel for the person who lost the coins, that cannot be a very nice experience to deal with.

I can’t wait to get a Kobo… but my 10 year old Kindle Paperwhite refuses to die (I just transfer books to it via USB, it’s not been in contact with Amazon for years). I did put an OS on the paperwhite allowing for white text on a black screen and it allowed epubs but it was a bit crashy and needed to be rebooted every now and then and a Kindle reboot takes several minutes. Definitely a Kobo next though…

I don’t think he’s coming out of nowhere, he became well known in left circles in Europe when he became the Greek Finance Minister in 2015 (for the left-wing Syriza party) and attempted to defend Greece against predatory European lenders. He’s written several books and has taught at many universities.

I’ve been seeing Yanis pop up a bit more recently, seems like he’s selling a book. Not complaining, could be good. I will give it a read and see if this really is a “new thing” or a new label stuck on an old thing.

Focusing on the core business (the browser) and dropping products (that are already done better by others) seems like a very good idea. I have seen zero people on Mastodon on a mozilla.social account and I’ve never seen their VPN appear in a list of top/recommended VPNs. I just want a world class browser that pounds the competition and regains browser market share. If Firefox dies, we are f’kd.

It’s a listed app here, so I guess so: https://podcasting2.org/apps

Thanks, good to know. At the moment I’m just plugging my phone into my computer and passing .opml files around which feels fine for the moment… and very secure.

AntennaPod on Android or Kasts on Linux and always RSS! I was very happy to see Spotify has failed in its attempt to grab the podcast market.

Giggling at the thought of the Taliban leadership being told what “af” means… they’re probably a bit miffed about that. Perhaps they’ll take it on the chin and set up taliban.af or something.

I like to think that the last sound ever to be heard on the internet will be someone getting slapped with a wet trout.

What a magical world irc was in the 90s when I was a gay closeted teenager talking to queers from all over the world. When you find your people for the first time. IRC will always hold a special place in my heart. I always keep an irc client on my install… for old time’s sake.

I love Trafotin, he has a wonderfully dry sense of humour. If the ghastly Tom Murosky does a reaction video, it will be the only video of his that I will deign to watch.

You could try Orpheus, I managed to join today. It’s even got a what.cd skin so you can pretend you’re home again. https://interview.orpheus.network/

Oh no! That’s good to know though, thank you. I will study a page a day and do the interview in a week or so, this will stress me out no end, I’m sure. 😅

Yeah, weirdly enough I just found it after remembering how good what.cd was. I have seen that the interview asks about transcoding… so yeah… might have to do some learning 'fore I have a go at an interview. I guess if the bar to entry is high then that is probably a good thing. I think I only got into what.cd because I met someone who had an invite.

Yeah, I think the same. Good news for piracy… but sad that people will have to rely on trackers that can disappear at any time and without warning. Mind you copyright does expire… but I have no idea how that would work. Project Gutenberg for media with large file sizes would be expensive to run… but then storage may continue to get cheaper. But yeah, it won’t be a corporate that will be offering a solution.

I went to bed late last night because of this video! Nicco is a wonderful content creator, there’s very little fluff in his videos and he clearly put a lot of time and research into it. Historically it’s very interesting and we really should be putting effort into taking down Lunduke who is a right-wing piece of shit. I followed him a few weeks ago not knowing about him and after watching a videos I was like “what the fuck is this shit?” and unfollowed him, but other Linux people might fall for it - this video will be a great resource to send to people who do fall for it.

Piracy sites are now very often the best archive sites; if you are into old and/or obscure films very often your only choice is to go to piracy sites. Same used to be the case for music with what.cd - what an amazing musical archive that was. I still miss what.cd. Until corporations figure out a way to offer such archives, piracy will continue to grow as more and more content becomes unavailable because these corporate digital libraries are being taken away.