Political Custard

I have AtlasOS. I only use Windows for two games, Rust and Destiny 2, that absolutely do not play on Linux. You will absolutely get better performance because the number of background tasks running all the time is quite minimal - it’s clean and there’s no store, no crappy apps you don’t want. I don’t care about security on the machine because I literally only game on it and maybe a little bit of web research if I get stuck on a game somehow. Anyway, I think it’s good, it’s really how Windows should be - if Windows didn’t get so bad perhaps I wouldn’t have gone to Linux.

You could try dual-booting for a bit to see how you like it.

A friend of mine used to mark undergrad papers, to be honest this would be a kindness to teachers.

Espionage can result in a death penalty but it’s currently the case that the UK (courts) would like a guarantee from the US (lol) that he won’t be executed. Other than that I think it’s over 100 years and they can add more charges when he arrives.

They did something similar with Chelsea Manning, announced they were “thinking about a pardon” to see if there would be pushback.

It’s proving to be rather embarrassing for the UK, it’s clear to many here how he’s been treated and how much of a stitch up the trial has been. I imagine the US could do without the international attention on this - court cases, more Russia speculation in an election year.

And the “authorities” have made their point: don’t try to take the piss out of us, we will ruin your life even if we don’t get you to trial. Julian Assange’s case will certainly be putting off quite a few people from becoming radical journalists.

Shit in… shit out, or to put it another way: racism in… racism out.

I propose we create another LLM… a Left Language Model.

Sorry, you are correct. I researched plans to get a Kobo last year and I guess what I found out morphed from a rooted Kobo with Koreader into Kobo being open source. My apologies.

I can’t wait to get a (regular) Kobo, my Kindle Paperwhite is still going strong and it’s 10 years old, but I really want a Kobo because it’s opensource. Amazon’s OS is dreadful, mine’s been in airplane mode for most of those 10 years and I just use a usb cable with it. I hope it dies soon so I will have a good excuse to replace it.

Nice news to read. I hope we will see many more court cases; it’s clear we cannot rely on politicians to try to fix this problem.

People in India were watching people checkout?! Poorly paid workers watching Westerners consume… this is so grim.

Time to dust off those guillotines.

I was listening to a Linux podcast and one of the people on it said that their partner didn’t mind adverts and didn’t mind their data being mined because it meant that the adverts were more appropriate. I was absolutely stunned, I didn’t think anyone, for one moment, would actually think like this. I had to have a sit down after hearing that. 😅

If I were to ever see an advert on my computer or phone, I would immediately flip out and have to go searching to find out how it got there (though admittedly this never actually happens).

That’s a good idea about the VPN on the router but it’s just my computer and phone that connect to the internet and I maintain a non-“smart” home. It would be nice for guests though. That’s interesting about Matrix, I didn’t know about that. Sadly, for the moment it will be something I have to live with; I’m in a few groups that use Matrix, but it’s good to know though, thanks.

I am finally really happy with my privacy setup, I am not feeling like there’s anything more I need (or want) to do at the moment…

1. NextDNS on PC and phone
2. Linux on PC - I do have a drive with Windows (AtlasOS with no Microsoft login) on it for dire emergencies (Rust and Destiny 2)
3. Mullvad VPN
4. Degoogled phone with LineageOS
5. Non-self-hosted Nextcloud
6. Browsing: FireDragon and Mullvad Browser on PC and Mull on phone
7. FreeTube for YouTube

Some of the responses here have me laughing at how uptight they are. What you did was perfectly normal, he was rude and you’re best off not thinking about him ever again. Fuck that guy!

Matt Mahmoudi, a researcher with Amnesty International, said Israel’s use of facial recognition was a concern because it could lead to “a complete dehumanization of Palestinians”

Oops, bit late for that, mate.

Welcome to the modern day equivalent of wrist tattoos…

I’d imagine quite a bit of the stuttering and lag on Androids was/is a result of all the bloatware phone companies insist on putting on their phones. I’ve a 2018 OnePlus 6 that doesn’t lag or stutter because the only apps on it are the ones I choose to have on it and allow to run - it’s a degoogled phone running Lineage OS (Android 14) with zero bloat and zero ads and as a result a six-year-old phone is still buttery smooth. Phone companies have a lot to answer for… it’s lucky they don’t sell cars; they’d sell you a Ferrari and then weld a mobile home to the back of it to make it incredibly difficult to disconnect.

I recently watched a documentary called Palestinian Identity, made in 1984. I am in the UK and was a young boy at the time, smothered in Very British Propaganda so I was interested in watching it because it was made by the PLO Film Unit. It was excellent and, of course, many parallels to be drawn between then and today, especially because the film begins with a walk around a recently destroyed children’s school. It included some fascinating interviews with some of the leading Palestinian cultural figures of the time including Mahmoud Darwish who’s considered to be Palestine’s national poet… which reminded me I needed to start reading poetry again! Anyway, I’ll be quiet now, that went on longer than I was expecting! Thanks for the lovely question.

https://palestinecinema.com/movies/palestinian-identity

Thanks… a year later I found your post. I was looking for info about this after seeing someone with a Keyoxide bit in their bio. I used Keybase.io a few years ago and saw that zoom bought it so… that’s the end of that. Looks like Keyoxide is what I need now. Cheers!

I’m on a private tracker (pejoratively known as a “piracy site”) that specialises in obscure films and documentaries - no mainstream, big studio films are allowed. It is an archive that I am happy to be a part of… and I definitely consider it to be an “archive”; corporations are not going to be interested in maintaining anything that’s not profitable. I regularly upload queer films that are difficult to get hold of and I’m happy that they are held on the computers of others in case someone, someday, would like to watch them.

Here’s some potentially good news about an alternative…

There’s an interesting comment on this Mozilla Github post about Graphene OS’ plans in this area, it’s quite a long comment so I’ll link it. The first para reads:

GrapheneOS Foundation has been planning to host a network location service for GrapheneOS and projects collaborating with us for a while now. We’ve received significant funding we can put to use for this to make a high quality, modern implementation on both the client and server side. A new unified app (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons) for gathering data to publish as fully open data could also be part of it. We also plan to make a SUPL implementation as part of the same service as an alternative to our Google SUPL proxy to replace it as the default in the long term.

There’s an interesting comment on this post about Graphene OS’ plans in this area, it’s quite a long comment so I’ll link it. The first para reads:

GrapheneOS Foundation has been planning to host a network location service for GrapheneOS and projects collaborating with us for a while now. We’ve received significant funding we can put to use for this to make a high quality, modern implementation on both the client and server side. A new unified app (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons) for gathering data to publish as fully open data could also be part of it. We also plan to make a SUPL implementation as part of the same service as an alternative to our Google SUPL proxy to replace it as the default in the long term.