leraje

@leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does Britain feel so poor?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Redundant question when the government have just announced they’re taking money from disabled people but are considering not taxing huge tech orgs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mozilla Thunderbird Challenges Gmail With Its Own Email Service⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Thunderbird Pro will apparently be:

  This email thing plus Thunderbird Send (which is basically send.vis.ee), Thunderbird Appointment - a scheduling tool and Thunderbird Assist, which is:

  “…at least for now, being cautiously labeled as “an experiment” that will allow users to take advantage of AI features within their email. However, the goal is to be lightweight enough that the language models can be run locally on a user’s PC in the interest of privacy. This service is being developed in partnership with Flower AI, which leverages Nvidia’s confidential compute to provide private remote processing in the event a user’s PC isn’t powerful enough. Sipes emphasizes that any remote processing features attached to Thunderbird Assist will always be optional, in the interest of ensuring complete user privacy.”

  So AI shit that nobody asked for or wants.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mozilla Thunderbird Challenges Gmail With Its Own Email Service⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Archive link for anyone else for whom that article crashed their tab.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  ““A struggle for life is constantly going on amongst the words and grammatical forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the upper hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent virtue””

  Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Child poverty hits record high in UK with nearly 4.5 million in low income households⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  They’ll vote Reform.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Child poverty hits record high in UK with nearly 4.5 million in low income households⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure that I was, which is even more depressing to realise.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Child poverty hits record high in UK with nearly 4.5 million in low income households⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Not to worry, Rachel Reeves fantastic plan to decimate the welfare state will take care of this issue - and as an added bonus vastly inflate the value of funeral businesses across the country! Win-win!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  There was a post on some Lemmy community or other yesterday which stated that most Americnas support ideas like universal healthcare (55%) and getting rid of guns from private ownership (mid 60% IIRC).

  In that thread someone said it was awful that even amongst progressives the support for universal healthcare was so low and the very few responses to that were basically - :shrug: we’ve been lied to what are we gonna do about it?

  The responses to the gun ownership stat were numerous and declared support for ‘second amendment rights’.

  When even US progressives are passionately defending the biggest cause of child death in the USA in 2022 but are apathetic about universal healthcare, that’s a uniquely US problem that speaks very much to the level of thinking power available.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In Response to Amazon preventing to download books you bought: Some DRM free bookstores and publishers⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Lots here too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Suppose you were a dissident facing political persecution, how would you preserve your personal files so that you can retrieve it many years later, in case of imprisonment?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In terms of data, put TailsOS on a USB drive, configure persistent storage, download VeraCrypt over TOR, install that, encrypt everything tutorial

  What you do with the drive (or drives if you make copies) really depends. If the climate is very wet and warm where you live then storing them outside is going to need very good protection to keep them relatively cool and dry. You’d also have to find somewhere that you can absolutely guarantee isn’t going to get redeveloped or otherwise built on, or conversely, knocked down/demolished for as long as you’re away.

  A long term self-storage company might be an idea, or a bank vault, where you’ve paid for (for example) 10 years in advance. Of course that means you have to be absolutely sure the company won’t go bankrupt or be seized by the corrupt regime you’re hiding the data from. You’d also have to have someone else set these up in their name or it could be seized along with you. You then have to hope they don’t get seized, or get dementia or die.

  If you have comrades abroad in a safer country, maybe physically mail them the drives before the corrupt regime starts noticing you? Then of course you also have to hope they can return them and haven;t forgotten, died etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mullvad's privacy-focused search engine Leta is now free for all users | Leta acts as a proxy for Google and Brave search results⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  ‘Better’ is relative :) is it better than using something like SearXNG? No. But for those people who insist on using Google, its better to do a proxied search than a first-hand one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why's everyone freaking out about Firefox Terms of Service? Isn't it Open Source?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s been a few steps in a concerning direction by them recently. As of right now, it’s still OK to use IMO but I’m sincerely hoping this is the extent of it, or even that they row back some of the recent changes.

  However, I still want it to exist because its the only viable alternative at the moment to Google’s dominance. Yes there are plenty of forks (two of which I use) but they still rely on Firefox as the core product. I don’t think any are hard forks (or am I wrong?). I’m very uncomfortable at the thought of using a browser thats based on Chromium and/or unable to run the full version of UBO or have Containerised tabs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Proton will no longer post on Mastodon⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Privacy focused company move off privacy respecting service and suggest following them on privacy nightmare service. Are they trying to kill any trust in their own company?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why should someone join the Fediverse?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Star Trek memes. I didn’t even know I liked Star Trek until 2 years ago.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do most Americans use an iPhone?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not an American but to be honest, both Google and Apple are appalling. Google openly steal all your data and sell it. Apple do similar but on a smaller scale but also claim they’re all about privacy. Both make it difficult to use alternative app stores but with Apple its actually impossible. Phone vendors can and do install their own awful bloat on Android phones. Apple force you to use webkit for any browsing you might want to do, Android’s native GUI is a mess. Nothing Apple put on their devices is open source so all their claims of privacy can never be verified. Both companies constantly try and impose proprietary standards or charge you a bajillion pounds for a fucking pen or some such bullshit.

  The key difference for me is I can put something like Calyx or Graphene on an Android device and use a whole open source ecosystem of alternative apps which vastly improves the privacy of my device.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨HBO's The Last Of Us season two now has a release date in the US and UK⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  A year or so ago this would’ve been welcome news. But now the real world has become so appallingly dystopian I’m not sure there’s much incentive to watch a TV show based on an appalling dystopia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I do the same on mobile :) but I think once people do understand federation and why its actually a very good idea they would too - but thats not going to be true of the majority - certainly not before they use a federated service.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re “very open for all kinds of viewpoints” but simultaneously want to not be where left-wing voices are and also think a lot people aren’t left wing then I question the accuracy of your original statement.

  I suspect your desire to ‘freely express yourself’ means you want to be a cunt to people in marginalised communities without repercussions.

  Weird random mention of CSAM too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not suggesting its impossible to improve the UX but I a) I think thats going to be an incredibly low priority for the developers and b) I’m not sure what changes can be made to address the essential conflict between the whole point of the fediverse - decentralisation - and a sign up process that essentially hides that without taking away an informed choice.

  In reality, its not really that much of a difficult concept to grasp and there are loads of resources like fedi.tips etc to help people. If the communities and content was of a sufficient quality (as oppose to quantity) people would make the fairly minimal effort to understand why the fediverse is the way it is.

  And if people don’t or won’t thats really their call.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The vast majority of people want an experience where federation is invisible. Sign up and post/comment. To maintain the benefits of decentralisation and choice, that’s never going to be a truly workable thing.

  The vast majority of people don’t want to create or even participate in communities, they just want to lurk, scroll and get their new content fix. Every social media based site I’ve ever been on, federated or centralised has a large group of people complaining about the lack of new content but never take it upon themselves to apply the obvious solution themselves.

  These are not necessarily UX issues, these are people issues.

  Maybe its time to stop continually worrying about this subject and concentrate on creating great communities? Because if we do that then users will participate organically.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Copyright madness: YouTube seems to doubt whether Shakespeare is in the public domain.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Act IV, Scene 1

  [Enter pirates]

  First Pirate. Hold, villain!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why was Hitler so mean and hateful toward one group or another? I find it hard to believe he woke up one day and said you and you suck but these people over here are good. Taking it so far as killing?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re trying to find a rationale for some thing (xenophobia) that is utterly irrational. Some people are just shit humans.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Too many young people find doing a day's work 'stressful', says Liz Kendall⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  So Liz Kendall thinks its odd that in a country where there are no jobs for life anymore, no real job security at all, zero-hour contracts and the bullshit of the ‘gig economy’ are rife, minimum wage is far below what the ever increasing cost of living can afford to pay for, where contracts (where they exist at all) can be redrawn at a moments notice to suit the whim of the employer and where the right to take strike action is pretty much gone has led to a stressed out, exhausted work-force? Or a reluctance to join it?

  And then, couple that with the wait times now measured in years to access NHS mental health support and which largely constitutes being offered 4 hours of generic counseling and/or being told to download a fucking app she wonders whats going on and why so many people are so mentally unwell?

  Meanwhile MP’s get subsidised food, booze, accommodation costs and vote themselves a pay rise every time its raised in parliament.

  You’re taking the fucking piss Liz.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  So your sister, her friends and your friends have an inside joke about someone. An inside joke that you’re not aware of?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Nostr is where everyone who secretly admires Musk/Trump/Zuck goes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK shoplifting on the rise and more brazen, new survey says.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  More accurately, they fear not being able to feed or clothe their children.

  I once worked for a national grocery company and the unspoken rule was: if you saw someone taking food, no you didn’t.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An information dark age is upon us. I’m logging off⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Its a good point but my own take on it is that you can’t be the resistance in an environment they totally control. There are plenty of places to organise away from the billionaires control.

  I walked away from all Meta platforms under my own name recently as I choose not to have my participation used as tacit endorsement, data collection or ad-money generators for them. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped participating in organising resistance, just that I choose not to do that in a place they have absolute power in.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does interoperability work between different fediverse services?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Masto to Lemmy works OK. Lemmy to Masto not at all. I have a hazy memory of someone posting to Lemy from a Friendica insance but might be wrong.

  Generally, its a bit indifferent.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people preferring Blue Sky over Mastodon?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The people leaving Twitter right now want Twitter minus Elon. That’s Bluesky. They’ve heard a couple of their Twitter follows mention it and they’ve gone to their app store where they find an app called Bluesky, install it and easily join and start using it. Once they do they are finding it pretty straightforward to find people they used to follow on Twitter.

  That’s all people want.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trying to Help⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  How To Make An Apple Pie From Scratch has the recipe for that.

  (Seriously, it’s a great read - one of my favourite popular science reads since, well, since Sagan.)