ExFed

Hey, at least they promote Lemmy!

Fair enough. Although, for those reading at home, I’ll reiterate the distinction between nonprofit and charity; all charities are nonprofits, not all nonprofits are charities. Research universities are an example.

On that note, I guess I’m enough of an academic to not consider grants a “gift” … It’s not consumerism-driven revenue, but it’s hard to call it a gift when you’re on the hook to produce something (research papers & prototypes) that you then turn around and use to sell for more revenue (in the form of grants).

Being a “non-profit” doesn’t mean the company “shouldn’t make profit” … It means that the owners/investors don’t earn anything extra based on profit. The organization itself still needs to be financially sustainable.

As shady as Mozilla is, they’re competing against a functional monopoly, so the playing field is hardly fair.

Completely agreed. At one point, maybe 12 years ago, I remember trying to learn NP++'s macro system. It was better than whatever we had at the time, but I’m glad I didn’t spend more time than I had to. Just a couple months ago, a coworker was raving about how great NP++ macros are … to do a task handily solved by some light regular expressions and/or column edit mode. Both REs and CEM are far more ubiquitous concepts than some bespoke, domain-specific language for defining repetitive tasks.

https://generalstrikeus.com/

Clearly this is a controversial statement. I’m team “use what’s available and preference tools that get the job done quickly.”

I work in several different languages. VSCode has TreeSitter and a bevy of slick plug-ins. NP++ does not. I can use VSCode on both Windows and Linux. If I’ve got a desktop environment, I will hands down pick VSCode over NP++ every time.

Otherwise, let’s be real, NeoVim is king.

I fear signal has to be mentioned a thousand times from all directions before they “trust” it.

Yes. A thousand times yes. The risk profiles humans naturally adapted to are not well aligned with the artificial risk profiles we see today. I can’t fault someone for not transcending their own natural instincts, because heaven knows I can’t.

Signal is licensed under AGPL.

Then nuance is dead and nothing is good enough.

Okay, so the Apache license is a “closed source” license?

Sure. That’s one possible vector. Is it “Open Source” software? Yes, they accept contributions for the community. It’s is “Libre” software? No, they depend on closed source software.

I’m trying to illustrate that the definition of “open source” can be weaponized for no good reason. Dismissing Signal because it doesn’t fit a narrow definition of “open source” makes everybody less secure. I have a hard enough time convincing my non-tech-savvy friends to switch to Signal. There’s a snowball’s chance in Hell I’ll convince them to use something even more obscure.

Following that logic:

Many popular Linux distros contain closed source blobs. Ergo Linux is closed source.

Not open source

There are lots of good reasons to be upset with how Signal produces builds. And maybe Signal has no good reason why they keep opaque dependencies. But by every common definition of the term, Signal is open source. Being on FDroid is not the definition of open source.

Please don’t gatekeep. There are better ways to criticize Signal. This is not one of them.

It sucks when you’re led to believe you can trust people whom you definitely should not trust. Universities, like all other organizations with people in them, are full of broken people who don’t know how to respect those with whom they disagree. My former supervisor (and underlings) cost me a lot more than thousands of dollars of therapy. But I know I have to forgive them, or else I’ll just perpetuate the cycle in creative ways I can’t imagine.

…coolant to warm enough to evaporate the moisture…

Where I come from, we just scrape off enough ice to see where you’re going, and crack a window to keep it dry enough the interior doesn’t freeze. But, hey, if you know how to leave early enough to get to places on time in a warm cabin, more power to you 😉

…in Chicago … pre-heating the car is a must 3 months of the year.

I don’t believe you’ve lived anywhere cold for very long. Cold places existed long before remote start. The car warms up while you finish shoveling and brushing off the car. You’re warm from shoveling, and the car is ready to go. If it’s just cold and you’re late to whatever, you sit your shivering ass down behind the wheel and drive away anyways…

I hate headlines like these. It feels like they’re intentionally ambiguous.

Honestly, I’m a bit skeptical of StopKillingGames. It feels like a good thing, but it also comes off as naive. Like the whole “just distribute the server” requirement is impossible with the way modern games are developed, and may be cost-prohibitive to implement for most developers well into the future. Besides, some games really are less like a painting and more like a musical; performance art necessarily has to end at some point, so it’s all about the experience and the memories. Nobody complains when the actors take a bow, because that’s the expectation.

Louis Rossman sometimes rubs me the wrong way, but he usually makes really good, nuanced points: https://youtu.be/TF4zH8bJDI8?si=m4QGHfHY1fOtITpw

Keep the debate alive, because we all love playing games.

The challenge is that requires creativity. Creativity isn’t a stable investment.

Viva La indie game studio!

Didn’t they give out refunds? That seems like the right thing to do when a massively multiplayer game is dead on arrival.