Back in my day we used to make “tfw” (that feel when) or “mfw” (my face when) posts that rarely if ever contained a face or a feeling

This is digging into pretty legal territory and copyright law is (arguably unnecessarily) complex – but licenses are things that you use to let people use your patents. I think that’s what they were initially and mainly; but then software and the copyleft movements kind of detached the concepts of licenses and patents.

The fediverse protocols could definitely be patented and licensed, but, like you said (or implied, really), that’s… sketchy af. Like, anyone we could trust to patent it would probably refuse to do it – Linux Torvalds would probably curse me out for even suggesting it, and the lecture rms gave me would probably never end.

You literally can’t be a billionaire without exploiting people. If you’re not sharing profits equitably, you’re exploiting your work force; if you ARE sharing profits, then there’s no way you’ll become a billionaire.

None of the rules and restrictions that they impose on us will ever impact them or anyone in their families, political power is just about maintaining and increasing political power. If we ever get any protections or services it’s just because doing so will enable them to get reelected.

I don’t think most people understand how politicians live - every room they go into, everyone in the room is suddenly their servant; they live every moment surrounded by sycophants who are making a career out of preventing access to you. There are a handful of people that have more power than you, but you hardly ever encounter them. A few months of that would change anyone - imagine living years like that?

One day, someone taps you on the shoulder; it’s some dirty 20 something who doesn’t even know what wagu steak is, much less why you shouldn’t be interrupted while it’s still hot.

What the fuck do you want, kid?

I’m up to my ears in medical bills, is there anything you can do about socializing our healthcare?

You look around the table apologetically at the people you’re eating with, three of whom work for health care companies. They don’t say, “that would destroy our line-goes-up” or “any normal job will get this kid health insurance, he just doesn’t want to work.” They don’t say anything. They just roll their eyes and flash a sheepish, such an embarrassment kind of look.

Now’s not a great time, ok? But call my office and we’ll set something up.

But there never really is a good time, is there? You turn back to your plate, your beef is still mostly hot, and don’t bother giving the kid your number. You forget the kid a moment later and don’t think of him again until years later. What ever happened to that kid? I hope he figured out his debt problem.

I just wrote like a 10 page response to another comment on that same post I made so I don’t think I have the energy to go too deep on this - so, to keep it short:

1. I was just rebutting that person’s claim that a car and a digital object have the same relationship to value, and they don’t; physicality requires resources that “digitality” doesn’t.

2. I feel like you might’ve agreed with me in the second part? Or, if not, I think you managed to destabilize the entire data economy in like 2 sentences, so, fuck yeah.

First off, I was specifically addressing your concern about the car & it’s physicality. Value of physical objects is directly related to the scarcity of the resources; digital content pricing is skeuomorphic (sp?) at best and absolute bullshit at worst.

Surely the sale of that copy of the movie has value

Secondly (and thirdly in a sec), this is the fundamental misapprehension that surrounds piracy. Each instance of piracy does not mean one lost sale. In terms of music (I read a study about music piracy a few years ago), this is rarely the case, and in fact, it was the opposite: the study found that the albums that were pirated more resulted in more sales, since the album’s reach was extended.

Thirdly, one of the core issues with the entertainment industry at the moment is that the streaming services have no way to gauge the draw of a specific show, movie, or song, since subscribers just don’t approach their subscription that way - you don’t subscribe to Spotify because your want to hear Virtual Cold by Polvo; you subscribe because you want to have access to their entire collection, as well as all the other awesome 90s noise/math rock - even though, let’s be honest, you really just listen to Virtual Cold over and over.

As a result of this clusterfuck, streaming services can’t correctly apportion payment to their content - they do an elaborate split of the profits. So - the best way for the “content providers” (ie copyright holders) to increase profits is to reduce the amount of content on the streaming service - so the profits are spread over fewer titles.

This is massively hurting the production companies - please note none of these fuckers are getting any sympathy from me, this is just an explanation - they’re having a hard time finding a balance between how much they can spend given that half of their productions’ profits are pennies. (Oops, forgot one element: because of streaming tech, no one buys films in tape or DVD or whatever - which was half of a film’s profit.) Do they make a bunch of huge budget action movie sequels that fill the theater seats? Or do they make smaller-budget films with smaller profit margins?

It’s a shitty situation, and I don’t know what the answer is - but I know that the answer isn’t whatever the fuck this is. And, until they figure their shit out, I’m just going to step outside the market for a bit.

I’m not living in some dream world where piracy doesn’t reduce profits. I know that the underground bands that I like are usually supportive of piracy because it helps them more than it hurts - and when it comes to film and TV, when those companies complain about piracy , it’s just like those bullshit shoplifting claims - attempts to turn their “line not go up” on poor people. Piracy is a grain of sand in the Sahara - they have way bigger problems than that - though I do think increased piracy metrics might help encourage them in the right direction.

Anyway, if you got this far, I appreciate your time.

It’s got nothing to do with whether it’s physical. Cars are different from movies because the movie can be reproduced infinitely without resource cost (or, very minimal). If you steal a rental car, they have to buy a new one. If you pirate a movie, they haven’t lost anything.

Donkey Kong wishes! No, Dead Kennedys

This thread is filled with people who don’t make a connection between shitty government websites and the roads that are filled with pot holes, several train derailments every day, a tax collection agency that doesn’t have enough staff to do audits on wealthy people, and schools that ban books that have rainbows in them but teach books by Prager U.

We could have better government websites - but not if we elect “starve the beast” politicians.

Ok I should preface by saying I think ancap is dumb and having a slight disagreement with what you’ve said does not mean I’m not defending them. They’re asshats.

But: imo, anarchist thought escapes definition. There’s no such thing as anarchism (in the sense of an agreed-upon political philosophy), only anarchists.

Readers of Rene Girard might describe coersion (insofar as it’s a natural result of hegemony), as a sort of force of nature, like violence, that, if society doesn’t find a healthy way to express, will come out sideways, in ways that are anti-social.

Hmmm. What about anarchocapitalists that leave capitalist out of their descriptors and larp like they’re contemporary versions of the DK-listening, doc martens wearing, spiky hair having kids from the 1980s. And ancaps might be slightly better than the rich people at the top that use every advantage they’ve been given as a lever to suppress the success of everyone else. At least ancaps still have the potential to change.

Seconding this. For someone that doesn’t know anything about Python, there are vital aspects of Python 2 that need to be covered.

In the context of learning a language, most of the time, a lower version number doesn’t mean that much. In the case of Python 2, there are fundamental incompatibilities - and, as you say, it’s still out there, and when your see it, you need to know what that means.

Maybe you don’t choose a library or a piece of software if you notice it. Maybe you get a legacy code base dumped on your lap. This shit happens.

I’m not sure if there is a “good time” to buy - not as a blanket timeframe for all things. If you want to save money, use camel camel camel and patience.

However - it all depends on how much you’re talking about trying to save, how substantial that amount is to you, and how much your time is worth - because if you make $20/hour and you spend 16 hours in order to save $5, that’s not a great investment.

Black Friday is almost always a scam. Maybe once upon a time it wasn’t, but, capitalists gotta capitalize.

Oh you mean the IBM Enterprise Linux upstream? Is that ok to use on a desktop computer?

(I’m just kidding, Fedora’s great.)

Idk if I would say it’s looks > usability, and it’s certainly not gaudy… There are theming styles that are much more unusable and gaudy than the “riced” look.

It’s an aesthetic that idealizes a kind of barebones utility, and while it often will lean towards the look over the usability, the look itself is like a “beautiful utilitarian” - minimalistic, uncluttered, etc.

Fwiw rice is a backronym, it originally comes from just “rice burners” which were the kind of cars & motorcycles that got “cosmetically enhanced”

Removed by mod

As a librarian irl, if I could make a horribly reductive characterization of the difference:

Librarians’ top priority is providing access Archivists’ top priority is preservation

Do you seed? You’re a librarian Leech and no seed? Archivist

be a librarian, we’re better

I was under the impression Chrome doesn’t let you use ad blockers anymore? idk I use arch firefox btw

which is why everyone I like to watch content of posts their stuff on YouTube

I’m not sure this is exactly true - like, first off, I am not a YouTuber and I only watch a very specific kind of content there (breadtube), so idk if my opinion is valid, but

From what I’ve heard creators say, it’s not that YouTube is great, in fact it kind of sucks in a lot of ways, it’s just that the alternatives don’t do it better, and obviously don’t have the size & reach. All the things that YouTube does badly or not at all, the competition doesn’t do well either, so why bother.

You’re 100% right tho that Google’s success at this point hinges almost entirely on their convenience. Google drive/docs/sheets/etc are kinda garbage, but they’te fast, simple to use, and the integration is incredibly smooth. If there was any alternative that was as simple to transition into from email or whatever, I’d jump ship in a second.