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taohansen

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I'm not certain we need to make this accessible to "the next billion". We like to dress up these actions in virtue but the truth is we hook people up because it's a business. Facebook devastated our social fabric. I don't think it should have been invented. But here we are with its nuclear fallout all because some young douche thought it was a good idea.

If everyone owned a personal cloud box, security procedures would quickly fall off a cliff, those people are now the new botnet.

Maybe leave people alone, stop sticking our fingers in all the places they might stick to money. Let the geeks take care of their little tribe.

I also love my Synology DS-218+. I'm hosting my own Spotify (Airsonic [1]); music tagged to perfection with Beets [2]), an IRC bouncer because Matrix is still not ready, my own Netflix (Synology's Video Station [3]), and my own mailserver (Synology's MailPlus Server [4]). I've been giving out access to this pod to close friends. It's empowering and community-building. This is the kind of social network I desire: close-knit around the warm glow of a server.

It's really self-host heaven. I don't pay for Fastmail, Spotify, or video streaming anymore.

[1] https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-airsonic

[2] https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-beets

[3] https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/feature/video_station

[4] https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/mailplus

This was the Buddha's own thinking when he established his order of monks. Sadly, it has not weathered the last couple thousand years in such grace, as many East Asian Buddhist monasteries have become thoroughly corrupt, with monks misappropriating funds.

Perhaps nothing can preserve institutions from ossifying than date-determined termination.

Has anyone called dang's attention to this? Hacker News should be in support of a free and open web, not a gated one. Allowing such links is implicit approval.

This is deeply upsetting to me because I have continually pushed Firefox to friends and family as the only alternative to Google's strongarm dominance of our virtual lives.

I have no other alternative to recommend my social circle and feel, daily, increasingly helpless to do anything about a future determined to shake down the miracle of humanity for pocket change.

Mozilla Corp--the for-profit business arm of nonprofit Mozilla Foundation--has sold out its users before in a partnership with German ad company Cliqz and again in a marketing blitz for Mr. Robot. No amount of outrage from its users has changed their behavior. Perhaps because we are locked into a browser duopoly, Mozilla Corp feels privileged to continue to abuse user trust.

How do we take back user privacy when the world's computing window becomes poisoned by those impassioned for money? It is deplorable behavior.

A team spent years raising funds and developing first Light Table, then Eve, only to walk away with apologies. Why does this make me frustrated? Does the team owe those who pitched money into this (I wasn't one because I didn't know of Light Table at the time) a show of commitment to their product? I can't help but think of the bad will Google garnered shutting down beloved products, such as Inbox and Reader. That bad will will take decades to repair, perhaps longer.

I am not making any personal attacks: I am only curious at the way I feel knowing two projects were shuttered before they really had their chance to live.

I don't know why the article didn't mention the most prominent technical features of Pop!_OS that propels it beyond being a mere copycat.

* HiDPI Daemon: They wrote this themselves and what it does is if you have mixed DPI monitors, it auto-detects and conforms them to the lowest common denominator. Wayland does this by default but support for Nvidia isn't there yet and applications like Firefox don't reconform between monitors.

* Systemd-boot. GRUB is the past. Systemd-boot is life. Faster startup to desktop.

* Do Not Disturb and performance profile picker from the menu bar.

* Dat installer. They collaborated with Elementary OS' Daniel Foré on this. It's polished, easy for anyone to grok, offers simple full-disk encryption, and and creates a recovery partition in case you hose your install.

System76 has really thought through these usability improvements to bring us a desktop that anyone can use and encourages security out of the gate.

Born in Denmark to a Danish father and American mother. When you're born on foreign soil to an American parent that parent declares your birth to the United States and you receive a Consular Report of Birth Abroad: your US birth certificate.

I know for a fact the Danish state allows for dual-nationals because I just renewed my Danish passport and because of new biometrics requires dual-nationals to give a copy of this Report.

There's one big downside to all this, since Denmark now knows very clearly I am two people. Should the state decide to revoke this law I will most likely be forced to choose. Which would be unfortunate, since I can't imagine living in just one or the other country.

Delta Chat, which is free and open source (available in Android’s F-Droid repos) does conversational email better than anyone.

Most of my emails are responded to because I don’t send a wall of text and the subject line is automatically formatted on their end to contain the beginning of your first sentence.

I’ve completely done away with “Dear,” and “Kindly, Tao” because obviously the email is from me and dear is an artifact. Everyone I write to this way responds in kind. I like to think I’m training them out of bad email habits.

I’ve reduced all my chat apps down to just Delta Chat for acquaintances and Telegram for inner circle who I feel comfortable asking to install yet another app for (this is also a great litmus test to find out who your true friends are by the way).

I’ve made this comment before but I’ll do it again because I honestly feel like the way Westerners approach this problem is deeply wrong.

Look to the East my brethren! Get a kneeling bench or meditation cushion set, buy a bench from Ikea, put your computer on it and get to work.

This goes even better with an external ergonomic keyboard like the Kinesis and a height adjustable laptop stand clamped to the bench.

Check it out! https://cloud.disroot.org/s/XZnwfi9m7xicyCx

These moral fiat statements are unhelpful to no one. You simply don’t know the context. In a very flat power structure or a very small company (2 to 3 employees) at the office, social dynamics change dramatically.

Never mind that caffeine is legal yet it’s the shittiest productivity drug I can imagine yet everyone is falling over themselves to serve it to you and get you one while they’re out on break. I’d much prefer people ask me if I’d like a pill of modafinil to the addictive cranky horror that is caffeine.

Nix 2.0 Released 8 years ago

If I may rush to the commenter's rescue: Darch addresses your issues with NixOS by combining a familiar set of tools (Arch Linux) with stateless architecture. Its a fantastic welding of extreme package availability and best-in-class documentation with declarative dependability.

Nix 2.0 Released 8 years ago

Except that Docker et al are already that compromised solution. No need to replicate.

And for what it's worth, the #nixos community is one of the kindest, most helpful communities I've ever encountered. Stop by and ask your questions!

VC-backed companies do exist in socialist countries (i’m from Denmark). maybe it’s all time Hacker News readers did start arguing for socialism: self-obsession exists now in more abundance than ever and capitalism is doing everything it can to broaden the cloak of its dreadful shadow

try bringing up this argument with any of the reddit communities for meditation, Linux, or communities you'd expect to make ethically informed choices about the software they use and support. you will not be well-received.

for whatever reason, people have these shield-walls up against criticism of the software they use every day. it points to a double-think that allows people to engage in ethical practices (meditation) while blissfully continuing to neglect the activity of living ethics (which is the only true meditation). if one doesn't inform the other, you're doing it wrong.

it's deeply troubling.

I was in a years-long relationship with someone with BPD, and eventually what I realized is that time doesn't strengthen anything with them. Nothing builds up over time, there's no foundation being built, you are always one instant away from being nothing to them.

i’m sorry for your experience but this is also patently false applied as a general statement to “us”. you’re not helping the situation by putting all of us over “there” where there is always one instant away of you being nothing to us.

also BPD here, and also inclined to point out you’re misrepresenting the other as much as he may be misrepresenting you.

those of us who accept our diagnosis and work toward treatment (and it is a small subset) are often deeply aware of the impact our condition has on others. often i feel i go the distance to cultivate the good more than others in my circle because i am so distinctly made aware of my own inhered failings in the social arena.

how may i help you? how may i make your life a more pleasant experience? how may i alleviate your burdens? these are all questions at the forefront of my mind when communicating with humans generally and even more with those i have invested time and effort.

it’s a real effort which i am inclined to point out you may not fully be aware yourself of the enormity of despite saying so. you don’t live in this mind where every emotion is like a firestorm. we may talk of our disorder as a real sickness, as an illness to be eradicated but you on the other end have not felt what it was like to fall so deeply in love that self and other disappear in a moment of self-self knowing. if humans knew all other humans in such a fashion, humankind might be better off.

my goal is to eliminate the poisons and elevate what i know to be good in me. we can get better. i have seen the results myself. please don’t write us off as a population.

i’d urge the mentally healthy to also strive to be even more tolerant, compassionate and selfless than you may already think yourself to be. being human (”healthy” as it were) can be seen itself as a kind of mental condition that one is enslaved to: extraordinary people like the Buddha have made such observations.

we’re in this thing together.

the software you list shows a disinterest in considering alternatives. if you’re already considering Linux or BSD, it behooves you to also consider open source alternatives to your applications, especially when at least some of the responsible companies are currently engaged in predatory business practices (1Password).

BitWarden is a fantastic FLOSS alternative to 1Password, Emacs’ org-mode for Things is perhaps the finest of its kind and easy to get started with with a distro like Spacemacs, a plethora of Alfred alternatives, Marp for DeckSet, i could go on but at this point i just want to throw up my arms and shake you.

i’ve switched dozens who were sick of proprietary lock-in. it doesn’t sound like you’re sick enough.