What problem are you attempting to solve?

How to you imagine this solution solves that problem?

It is difficult to consider a greater rube than one who interprets open mockery as lavish praise.

It’s a practice at least as old as type itself. It seems the attention Trump garnered, and the highlighting of his stereotypical Boomer typing, have merged the two in some people’s minds.

We’re at a unique crossroad where Gen X and Y grew up with their grandparents mostly refusing to use cell phones and their parents mostly fumbling with them. Now Gen Z and “Alpha” are growing up with grandparents who have mostly been shamed into acceptable text etiquette, and parents who are mostly as tech savvy as the next parent and who were there when the deep magic was written (so to speak).

Mango Mussolini’s narcissism is as pervasive as his parasitism so it’s no wonder the lecherous rapist’s sins against modern digital convention survived along with him. Some spin that as brilliant tactics but I’m not so sure. I’d wager it’s a coincidence he leaned into because it garnered attention.

Most of those now driving online discourse hadn’t had the same exposure to that style of texting prior to the 2016 US Presidential election cycle as preceding generations. So it seems novel to them. It’s history and perspective bring formed in real time.

Your comment reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2RXoqB1LjA

A recent ~2 minute video from the ever-excellent Dr. Dan McClellen. The opening sentence is: “Every last attempt to identify divine commands in the Bible that are relevant to anyone today requires negotiating with the text.”

Your comment makes no sense and helps no one.

The Tea Party was an astroturf’d campaign cooked up by the Koch brothers to realign conservative ideology with oligarchy under the guise of “originalist” patriotism. A very successful farce.

Much like the “right to life”, “Moral Majority” (which is a useful misnomer for Christian Conservative minority), and the rest of American Conservatism. Effective smoke and mirrors. All of it.

I keep seeing this sentiment and I don’t understand it. Are you speaking purely out of anger and ignorance? The recent No Kings protest was either the third or first largest protest in the history of the U.S.A. and some communities have literally been running ICE gestapo out of their towns.

The Christian Conservative minority have gridlocked the American government, silently stacked the judicial system in their favor, and partnered with the American oligarchy to bankroll fascists and create the most pervasive, effective, and enduring propaganda machines ever seen (that’s already worked its way into Australia and had been finding footholds in Europe).

The idea that Americans aren’t doing anything about this or that there could ever possibly be a single unified movement that magically fixes “the issue” is incoherently reductive and impractical. If I see a comrade struggling for air I don’t yell at them to just breathe. I help them remove the pig standing on their neck. What are YOU doing to lend a hand or show lost comrades that there’s still hope?

What’s your point and why do you think it matters in this context?

Call 1-877-447-4487

https://girightshotline.org/

They can help.

Near as I understand it: years ago some dumb engineering decisions were made, acknowledged, and corrected. Is there some recent scandal I’m out of the loop on?

Sure! That’s an SMTP Relay. A lot of folks jumped on the poopoo wagon. It’s common wisdom in IT that you don’t do your own email. There are good reasons for that, and you should know why that sentiment exists, however; if you’re interested in running your own email: try it! Just don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Keep your third party service until you’re quite sure you want to move it all in-house (after due diligence is satisfied and you’ve successfully completed at least a few months of testing and smtp reputation warming).

Email isn’t complex. It’s tough to get right at scale, a pain in the ass if it breaks, and not running afoul of spam filtering can be a challenge. It rarely makes sense for even a small business to roll their own email solution. For an individual approaching this investigatively it can make sense so long as you’re (a.) interested in learning about it, (b.) find the benefits outweigh the risks, and (c.) that the result is worth the ongoing investment (time and labor to set up, secure, update, maintain, etc).

What’ll get you in trouble regardless is being dependent on that in-house email but not making your solution robust enough to always fill its role. Say you host at home and your house burns down. How inconvenient is it that your self-hosted services burned with it? Can you recover quickly enough, while dealing with tragedy, that the loss of common utility doesn’t make navigating your new reality much more difficult?

That’s why it rarely makes sense for businesses. Email has become an essential gateway to other tooling and processes. It facilitates an incredible amount of our professional interactions. How many of your bills and bank statements and other important communication are delivered primarily by email? An unreliable email service is intolerable.

If you’re going to do it make sure you’re doing it right, respecting your future self’s reliance on what present-you builds, and taking it slow while you learn (and document!) how all the pieces fit together. If you can check all of those boxes with a smile then good luck and godspeed says I.

It’s clear you’re arguing from ignorance as your argument is patently absurd.

The judgement is partisan, inconsistent with established case law, and relies on (at best) specious distinctions between “information service” and “telecommunication service”. Griffin creates a distinction without a difference to manufacture the perception of judicial leverage where none exists.

It’s like arguing the DEA has no purview over cannabis because the Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973 refers to “marihuana”. It’s clear what the intention of the law is even if the language is imprecise. To argue that ISPs provide some new class of service that’s legally distinct from all other telecom service and therefore immune to regulation is an argument made out of ignorance, stupidity, corruption, or some combination of the three.

Whichever species, if any, rise to sapience after the age of mammals comes to its close.

I find it more likely because it’s pathetic.

Would you elaborate on this concern? I’m not sure I understand but I’d like to.

laughs in home lab

Not that I’d buy it but, if I did, that power button might get used twice a year. Likely less since I wouldn’t be able to upgrade or maintenance its hardware.

That’s a problem. Absolutely. It’s not the problem though. I’m not sure the problem can be summarized so succinctly. This is the way I’ve been putting it:

These are the top reasons humanity needs successful, decentralized, open social media platforms:

1. Collecting and selling user’s private data is dangerous and unethical.
2. Using that data to intentionally and directly manipulate user’s thinking is even worse.
3. All of the major centralized social media companies have been proven to either allow these illicit information campaigns or coordinate them directly. TikTok is the focus right now but Sophie Zhang exposed Facebook for doing exactly what TikTok has been exposed for recently. Can you recall any meaningful consequences for Facebook? Do you think Facebook is now safe to use?
4. It’s clear that most political leaders are either too ignorant, too corrupt, or too inept to meaningfully legislate against these problems.
5. The concerned public can’t shut Pandora’s box. No one is coming to save us from big tech or the monied interests and nation-states that wield it.
6. The concerned public can’t easily and legally audit the platforms big tech builds because they are closed and proprietary.
7. Personal choice is not enough. Not using centralized social media increases personal safety but does little to curb its influence otherwise.

These are listed by order of intuitive acceptance rather than importance. I find it aids the conversation.

The best reasonable answer to these problems I’ve seen proposed is for the public to create an open and decentralized alternative that’s easier to use and provides a better user experience.

Will that kind of alternative be a force for pure good? I’m not sure. To your point: I’m not convinced social media of any kind can be more than self-medication to cope with modernity. Then again I’ve had incredible and meaningful conversations with close friends after passing the bong around and spent time on Facebook/Reddit, and now Mastodon/Lemmy/etc, doing the same. Those interactions were uplifting and humanizing in ways that unified and encouraged all involved.

I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. We need to take care of each other, refuse pure hedonism, and protect the vulnerable (and we’re all varying degrees of vulnerable). At the same time: humans aren’t happy in sterile viceless productivity prisons. Creating spaces for leisure which do no harm in the course of their use isn’t just a nice idea… It’s necessary for a functional and happy society.

That’s a fair take. Silver Blue is great and, in the spirit of the thread, if I were helping an interested but hesitant lifelong Windows/Intel/Nvidia user migrate to Linux today I would:

1. Buy them a new SSD or m.2 (a decent 1tb is ~$50 & a good one only ~$100).
2. Have them write down what applications, tools, games, sites, etc they use most often.
3. Swap their current Windows OS drive with the new drive and, if needed, show them how and why that works or provide an illustrated how-to (so this choice is not a one-way street paved with anxiety. If they want to swap back, or transfer files, or whatever else; they can. Easily). Storage drives are just diaries for computers. The user should know there’s nothing scary or mystical about them.
4. Install Fedora Kinoite on that new drive.
5. Swap them from Fedora’s custom Flatpak repository to Flathub proper. A decision that should be given to the user on install IMO but I digress.
6. Install their catalogue of goodies from step 2 so they’re not starting from scratch.
7. Install pika and configure a sane home directory backup cadence.
8. Ask them to kick the tires and test drive that Linux install for at least a month.

Kinoite is going to feel the most like Windows and, once configured, stay out of the way while being a safe, familiar, transparent gateway to the things the user wants to use.

My personal OS choices are driven by ideals, familiarity, design preferences, and a bank of good will / public trust.

I disagree with some of Red Hat’s business model. I fully support the approach SUSE takes. I’m also used to the OpenSUSE ecosystem, agree with most of their project’s design philosophies, and trust their intentions. I’m not a “fan” though and will happily recommend and install Silver Blue or any other FOSS system on someone’s computer if that’s what they want and it makes sense for them! Opinionated discussion can be productive and healthy. Zealotry facilitates neither.

That said: Aeon has been out of beta for a while. The latest release is Release Candidate 3 and they’re closing in on the first full release. Nvidia drivers work after a bit of fiddling. 🙂

I’m going to edit my previous post to add the Kinoite suggestion for posterity’s sake.

Check out Aeon and Fedora Silverblue. I’m installing Aeon on Desktops and MicroOS on Servers. My computer needs to be a reliable tool. Immutable distros make it exactly that.

The last thing I want to do in my free time or during my work day is be forced to fiddle with some poorly documented and/or implemented idiocy on my personal computer because I forgot to cast the correct incantation prior to updating something. I’m not a masochist.

EDIT To the hesitant but hopeful Windows+Nvidia user: give Fedora Kinoite a try. Check my reply to @independantiste@sh.itjust.works below for details.

I was taught something different growing up and had to check myself with a quick read. Holy shit. You’re right. Thanks for sharing.