But that’s how dogwhistles work: they can hide behind a veil of plausible deniability.

And his refusal in the leadup to the 2020 election to denounce the Proud Boys.

“Stand Back and Stand By” isn’t the kind of thing you say to a group you want nothing at all to do with.

‘Bricked’ in this sense meaning not that you’d just trash your OS and need a reinstall, but that it could actually stop your computer from booting at all. So the system32 analogy doesn’t exactly fit.

It’s because some motherboards implement UEFI in a way that allows important variables to be overwritten by I/O processes. Executing sudo rm -rf /* would recursively go into the EFI parameters folder where the kernel mounts EFI variables and attempt to delete things. Some motherboards allowed these delete operations to remove things in the motherboard’s firmware it needs to complete POST, thus rendering the motherboard useless.

But that’s a problem with the motherboard, not with Linux or Windows. The same damage can be caused by Windows.

‘Brigading’ would be if pro-Linux communities were organizing to specifically target another community.

The fediverse is likely to attract the kinds of people interested in Linux in the first place, and all the negative attention that community attracts comes organically.

I talked with the user a bit in Linux_vs_Windows before they were booted from the community, and it’s my opinion that they just have a hate-boner going for Linux. It’s possible to have valid criticism of Linux, but they go way past legitimate and straight into obsession territory. They tend to post in that community daily. So their points aren’t exactly great (though sometimes they hit on a good meme) and they get the points they get naturally.

It’s not a conspiracy, their arguments just tend to be shit.

I work for an ISP in the southeast USA as a field technician and it’s dirty work sometimes. Fixing rodent damage to fiber connection boxes for businesses, placing temporary cables when underground lines get cut, working in dusty equipment closets, etc.

It’s not bad or hard work most days.

As someone who took the plunge years ago, you just have to accept that some programs will just be unusable. There are likely alternatives, though very few will be ‘drop in’ replacements so to speak. So there will be a learning curve.

It’s the price you pay to have full control of your system. As time goes on, it gets easier.

On one hand, I get it. You’re used to Windows and want to use an environment you’re used to and apps you’re comfortable with.

On the other, you need to be aware that you’re going to be constantly fighting an uphill battle. Microsoft doesn’t care that you don’t want those programs using resources, they’re going to install them because it’s in the best interest of their shareholders. The programs might be able to be removed using third party tools, but then you’re relying on random tools found on the internet to remove bits of your operating system without hurting anything or doing anything malicious.

The data these programs gather is more valuable to Microsoft than the blowback because this is the exact stance people will take: sure it sucks that this is being forced upon me, but it’s still better than leaving. So I’ll either deal with it (99% if users are here) or ill find a random program and cross my fingers it does only what’s on the label.

The only solution I see is to swap to something else, causing Microsoft to lose market share and thereby convincing shareholders not to force this on users.

The choice is yours.

I don’t think anyone is advocating for turning a blind eye to Mozilla. I think the argument being made is that a monoculture for browsers is a concern that can outweigh some blunders Mozilla makes.

I’m old enough to remember what a shit show ActiveX was for web security.

Never ask a company to pick between the right thing and profit.

It’s fundamentally impossible for a publicly traded company not to choose profit over ‘The Right Thing’, fullstop. Shareholders feel that have a fundamental right to growth, and if Google’s CEO were to choose ‘The Right Thing’ over profit, the shareholders can oust them in favor of a CEO willing to choose profits.

Enshittification is where every public company ends up, because the line MUST go up, no other alternative is acceptable.

I can’t help but see it as the foot in the door.

I understand that Mozilla needs money, but I can’t make everyone who uses Firefox commit to donating money to keep them from having to do things like this to stay afloat. But them going down this path makes me not want to donate at all.

I never said I was, just that I wanted to support the browser that respects my privacy, and this move is making me reconsider it.

As long as it’s open source someone will be able to find a way to turn it off, either by an addon or by patching and compiling the source code.

IMO, that’s splitting a hair.

For a browser that supposedly respects user privacy, the fact that this is opt-out rather than opt-in really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I’m going to reconsider my monthly recurring donation to Mozilla, especially if they keep this up.

Even if law enforcement can get a warrant, unless there’s a backdoor in the encryption then the data stays private. That’s the whole point of encryption.

The fundamental problem is law enforcement feeling entitled to snoop on private communications with a warrant vs the inherent security flaw with making a backdoor in encrypted communications. The backdoor will eventually get exploited, either by reverse engineering/tinkering or someone leaking keys, and then encryption becomes useless. The only way encryption works is if the data can only be decrypted by one key.

Anyone else remember when TSA published a picture of the master key set for TSA approved luggage locks and people had modeled and printed replicas within hours?

I think my favorite part of swapping has been forgetting how Windows does things. I’m so embedded in Linux and how it works every day that I don’t remember where to go for certain things in Windows without having to search.

I remember some power user shortcuts like run prompt shortcuts (appwiz.cpl or control userpasswords2) but I used to be able to walk people through how to get certain pages in the Windows UI, and I couldn’t do it today.

I made the swap after they forced Windows 7 update behavior to change. You used to be able to download updates but you got to choose when to install them. Then they changed it to either they’re on and fully automatic, or fully off.

At the time, I was running a computer repair company, and my work computer running Win7 was running a data recovery on an accidentally formatted drive for almost two days. After I had left and the program finished, Windows was all “Oh, the computer is idle now. Let me give you a 15 minute warning that I’m going to install updates and reboot if you don’t cancel”.

After the second time, I formatted my work computer. Shortly after, I did the same to my gaming PC. Haven’t looked back once.

Some of us manage to break the cycle, but despite how much I love Linux (ups and downs) I understand that it isn’t for everyone currently.

What most people want is a stable system they can just use without understanding much if anything about how the underlying systems work. They don’t care that wifi drivers can be fixed through a few terminal commands, they rail against the fact they have to do much of anything at all besides click [Next >]. And I can’t blame them; that’s what Microsoft has trained them for.

So many people with random toolbars and junk extensions in their browsers because the [Next >] button is how they get past whatever problem they have. The average user isn’t very tech savvy, and it takes someone with a desire to learn to truly thrive in a Linux environment.

I’ve converted my mom to Kubuntu, and she does well, but she’s also an outlier (she has an expired CCNA certification).

Linux suffers from a catch 22: there’s not enough users because there’s not a lot of commercial support because there’s not enough users because… And the people who are donating their time to make it better are saints as far as I’m concerned, but there’s only so much people can do for free. Things truly have gotten better, but until more typical user types can adopt Linux with little to no fuss, not much will change.

And that fact hurts my soul.

If the constitution isn’t equally enforced, it might not have categories of importance written in, but it’s functionally no different.

The whole idea of the three different branches of government was supposed to be that each would keep the others in check. Once the Senate refused to convict Trump for contempt of Congress, I could see the writing on the wall. The houses are no longer co-equal, and one party likes it that way because it means they get to do shit like take away abortion from those godless libtards.

The real issue is it’s too easy for Republicans to paint it as weaponizing of official powers against political rivals who are absolutely innocent. The fear from Democrats is that holding him accountable would damage their public image badly enough to lose them seats in the House/Senate, thus giving the Republicans more power. Imagine a Trump Presidency with both the House and Congress controlled by MAGA Republicans.

If you want to know how Republican voters could see it that way, just watch Faux News for a few days. I work for an ISP that delivers TV services, and it’s scary how many old people have Fox turned on 24/7.

Project 2024 scares the shit out of me. I’ve applied for passports for me and my two daughters, if Trump wins the next election I’m getting the fuck off this carnival ride.

AFAIK, the unilateral nature of TOS/EULA agreements in the day of Software as a Service hasn’t been litigated. Which means there isn’t a court’s opinion on the scope or limits of a TOS/EULA and what changes can be made.

Currently, Adobe has the full force of contract law to initiate this change without any input from consumers because a case about this has never made it to the courts.

It’ll be interesting to see where this goes, but Adobe will likely backpedal on their language in the TOS before any case gets to a Judge because the last thing any company wants is for a TOS/EULA agreement to be fundamentally undermined by a court.

Likely the only reason why the SC came down on this the way they did was because of the nebulous standing.

Generally, you can’t come to court without a realized injury. Meaning you’ve been actually hurt, not that you have the potential to be hurt. It’s the difference between arguing “This law may prevent me from getting a marriage certificate as a homosexual individual” and “I legally applied for a marriage license and was denied one”. Whether or not you think it’s a good idea, it reduces the case load of courts around the country.

The Mifepristone case was brought all the SC by a group of people who couldn’t show an actual injury. Their arguments all centered around “Some of the people we represent might be affected by the fact that Mifepristone is so flagrantly prescribed, and dealing with the fallout of an abortion goes against the beliefs of these specific people we represent”. And the SC rejected that on standing alone, because it would open the flood gates for all sorts of lawsuits. “My child is threatened by the manufacture of AR-15 rifles by X company because they’re used in school shootings!” etc.

That is the only reason why this case was decided the way it was. If you want to protect Women’s rights, you need to turn out in your local elections every chance you get.