The year of the Linux desktop I’m thinking of was like 2008. That was then it became perfectly usable on the desktop and I haven’t had to switch back since.

I don’t understand why anyone care’s what Linux’s “market share” is. It’s open source, no one makes money when someone installs Linux.

Of course bitcoin is a scam. It’s a “currency” you can’t spend anywhere. It’s only purpose is a pump and dump scheme for early adopters.

Yeah it pisses me off the way people are like “tech bros ruined the internet”. No, users ruined it! There was no reason to stop self-hosting webpages, forums and IRC servers. Users switched to Facebook instead because they preferred it and didn’t care about the downsides. There’s an alternative to every website and app which respects privacy, serves no ads, and has no algorithm to farm your outrage. Users refuse to use them because they aren’t cool enough.

Hexbear is better on this than most places to be honest. Surprising coming from a community that formed around Chapo, whose favourite insults are autistic and smooth brained.

This is why I can’t do online left wing spaces any more. They talk the talk about ableism, but then its “why can’t you boycott the only food you can eat, just eat something else”, “you could talk to service workers if you wanted to, you just think you’re better than them”.

Then sharing a video of people with their fingers in their ears at a black music festival with a caption calling them racists, when they’re clearly autistic people enjoying the festival but having sensory problems.

I blame the popular understanding/misunderstanding of neurodiversity. People think autism is just a personality type.

Is this part of a series or something? I have no idea what any part of it means

Does anyone else not really like talking about their special interests?

I can see how bored people are the second I start, like their eye contact suddenly breaks and they look around the room, and only say “mmhmm” instead of replying. So I shut up after one sentence.

But if the other person also likes the subject, I don’t like talking to them either, because there’s nothing to say. If we disagree I don’t want to be rude and argue so I awkwardly pretend to agree. If we agree then all you can do is tell each other things you both already know and agree that they’re good.

All the answers you got show why this conversation goes badly. No one can come up with an actual problem that data collection causes, it’s all silly comparisons to giving people your credit card number or shitting in front of them.

For me, having my data collected is like having CCTV cameras in stores. Yeah, technically someone is filming everything I do. Yeah it would be bad if a private individual was filming me for nefarious reasons. But no one actually uses that data for anything bad, and it doesn’t actually cause any problems.

All that happens is I get more relevant ads.

Ha, I was thinking about “how to make friends” advice earlier. When you ask NTs how to make friends they just list places you can go. They assume once you’re in a place with other people you will naturally make friends with them.

Locating humans is not the problem!

VR porn needs to be at least 4k for immersion and you can only get that quality with a paid account. But that’s a waste of money so you pay for one month and fill a hard drive before you cancel.

It’s a shame the strategy is now failing because software as a service is so popular. Nothing in the GPL forces you to distribute your changes if you don’t distribute the program. So just put the program on a webserver and let users interact through an API and hey presto, steal as much GPL code as you like.

Everyone crucified MongoDB when they tried to create a licence that prevents this, and FSF have declared that the problem can’t be solved with licences and everyone just has to boycott non-free software (good luck!).

End of free software as we know it, IMHO.

I suspect a lot of “breakages” were failed pacman updates due to signing issues, before pacman knew to update arch-keyring first. I know one person who moved to another distro when that happened.

if I take a hoop/window and place it quickly over an object

Then the velocity of the object relative to the “exit” of the hoop would be the same as the velocity of the object relative to the “entrance” of the hoop, which is option B.

In your analogy, option A would mean the object has a relative velocity of entering the hoop but suddenly no relative velocity exiting it, so the object magically starts following the hoop.

Best simple magic trick I’ve ever seen, blows people’s minds:

Cut out a piece of black paper the shape of the opening of a beer can, lick it and stick it to the lid. From a distance it should look like it’s open. Prick a hole in the side with a pin and drain out a quarter of the beer, enough that you can squeeze the can and bend it. Lay it on its side on a table, with the pinhole pointing up so it doesn’t leak. Now it looks like an open, empty, crushed can. Do all that secretly obviously.

Now ask someone if they want a drink, and point out the “empty” can. Pick it up and cover the pinhole with your finger, then subtly wave the can around as you magically summon more beer. The remaining beer will fizz up and the pressure will cause the can to inflate and uncrush itself. Secretly remove the black paper and hide it. Show them the magically restored lid, crack it open an pour the beer into a glass (so they don’t notice it was partly empty).

What makes it so incredible is you never hid the can from them or did anything tricksy. From their POV, an empty can just refilled itself in front of their eyes.

Edit: Here’s David Blaine doing it for some obvious actors. You will be able to make it more convincing than this. Can’t believe David Blaine was so popular back then lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTG-MIqU-Q

Yet here you are, posting on a website that doesn’t allow absolute free speech.

I was really interested coming into this thread, because although I am conscious about privacy I sometimes wonder why I bother.

Unfortunately none of the counterarguments in the comments are convincing at all.

Analogies with letting someone see you naked are stupid. We’re not talking about naked photos, were talking about stuff like your age range and what newspaper you read. I don’t care who knows that.

“Future authoritarian governments could use it against you” isn’t worth worrying about. The government will have access to official records and can question you in person. Your ethnicity, religion, politics and sexuality are all easily found out whether you post them online or not. The fact that some advertising start up knows them will make no difference.

“If someone knows enough about you they can tailor Facebook ads to control your mind” is just sci fi conspiracy theory paranoia. Besides which they could run the same ads without targeting and I’d be just as mind controlled even if my data was a secret.

Edit: I really don’t mind getting downvotes, but if anyone has time to make an actual counterargument that would be great