Big Title

[girldraki]

kind of harmonically beautiful

[ninehammer]

I am a Linux user and a chronic distro-hopper.

Thank you for coming to my Linux Anonymous meeting.

[queercanelady]

how it is apparently

[toast1862]

like it just doesnt make any economic sense. replacing human labor with ai only makes sense if the output is as good or better and cheap as free. but just the fact that you have to build the massive data centers at all-- especially that gpus go bad in just a few years, but even if they didn't, the facility itself is going to be a big expense-- means it cant be cheap as free. they were banking on an uber type situation where they could crank up the prices once people switched to their business model, but the trade is literally "this will be cheaper than using human labor" so if it's not cheaper than human labor then people will just hire people again. and it's not even as good or reliable as a person. so while ai is "here to stay" in the sense that the technology exists and will find its niches, probably people are going to be sexting with them forever just maybe on local models, the current business model cannot survive and never possibly could.

it's all desperation. i do really believe ed zitron's rot economy idea, that the tech sector has been searching for a new internet or iphone or whatever that blows up and changes the world and they get to keep the profits so they'll uplift any garbage (hence nfts and the metaverse) to try and astroturf that. and relatedly, i think nvidia and the cloud compute companies and the ai companies are just passing the same dollar back and forth to create big numbers that paper over how bad the economy really is. it's all an attempt to keep the infinite growth hack going.

like i actually think all of the problems with ai are problems that already existed that are just getting a huge spotlight on them because of the massive reckless expansion and apocalyptic marketing. like people are cheating on essay assignments? no shit, they used to use fiver and other cheating services. higher ups are devaluing and trying to get rid of creatives? yeah, we've been talking about how vfx artists need to unionize for over a decade, especially people working on marvel movies. people with mental health problems are turning to the internet instead of getting support or medical assistance and end up hurting themselves as a result? yup, especially when it comes to like eating disorders, there are some really awful places that will validate you into the grave. data centers use a lot of energy and water? yeah, they also did that before they were used for ai, they do that for youtube and twitch, and tech in general is a massive source of pollution. politicians arent listening to their constituents' needs and demands, instead handing money and special privileges to corporations that wont keep up their end of the bargain? yeah, i remember the public transit proposals cancelled to hand money instead to elon and his terrible tunnels. like it all already existed, they're just doing it so much so quickly that people can actually see it in front of them

[hannahmontanalinux-official]

Reminder that H.264, 5, and 6 are proprietary codecs that fall under licensing fees! AV1 is free and generally offers better compression!

[attelash]

This also goes for the MPEG (aka Mp3s and Mp4s) filetypes. They are under both a patent lockdown and extract licensing fees. A much better alternative is the matroska file type (Aka the MKV) MPEG also has some inbuilt potential for DRM which matroska lacks entirely.

[hannahmontanalinux-official]

matroska is my wife

[androdragynous]

there is a screen reader / magnification program that is the only one the low vision clinic knows of with these features and it is $650 Canadian Dollars behind specific approved vendors that require you to be geographically close to them and get government approval of a degree that I am only just now reaching after being visually impaired for going on seven years. I feel normal about this

[androdragynous]

if you can code a program that does any or all of the following:

Magnifies a display beyond standard options with keyboard / mouse movement inputs or voice commands,

Can read text on the screen,

Has different color filter options for text / background distinction,

Can change and magnify the cursor beyond standard amounts,

Works on Windows or more than just Windows,

Has a keyboard echo (says the character you've pressed on the keyboard out loud)

... there is a genuine, GENUINE need for you to code this and put it at a more accessible price point than $650 Canadian Dollars which I also just learned is a SUBSCRIPTION FEE AND NOT EVEN PERPETUAL. if you are reading this and able to code I am begging you. would genuinely change lives

[psychic-waffles]

We're at the "JK Rowling is personally funding litigation to try and destroy AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL" stage of rabid UK terf brain.

Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky

Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*

You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.

*Not so friendly reminder there is no way to engage in the wizard books without enabling this shit.

[escuerzoresucitado]

[ickaimp]

So this is not a plea for money. This is something that surprised me, and chatting with people on discord, they were unaware of as well.

Discovered last year I couldn’t look at my 2015 MacBook Air without it triggering nausea and migraines, and figured the screen died. Have been getting by on my phone, but concluded I really need a laptop again.

Saved up, realised I could afford a brand new MacBook Neo, and got one.

-And I couldn’t spend more than five minutes looking at the screen without massive eye strain, nausea, vertigo, and if I pushed it, I-need-to-lie-down-in-a-dark-room-for-hours migraines.

Looking up MacBook and Eyestrain explained what is going on. The liquid retina displays that Apple currently has uses Pulse Width Modulation or PWM. In order to give the screens a deeper depth of colour and contrast, PWM flickers between several hundred to thousand times a second.

And there is currently no way to turn it off. There are settings and apps to reduce it, but there is no way to stop the screen from flickering. Checked Apple forums, called Apple Support, and the time I could look at the screen kept shrinking. Got the laptop Tuesday, returned it Friday, today is Sunday and I’m still dealing with a vertigo migraine.

For MacBooks, it seems to vary on the computer model and the software it uses. In retrospect, the issue with my MacBook Air started after a major software update.

And it’s not just an Apple thing. Current Windows and Android screens do the same thing. There’s even a Reddit for people who are sensitive to PWM flickers to help find computers and screens that won’t trigger eyestrain and headaches.

So, yeah. This week has been a learning experience. But for those who are prone to headaches and migraines, this may be something to be aware of, cause I was not.

[transstuffandmore]

Please Reblog is Your Blog is Safe for Non-Binary People.

[bees-and-voids-deactivated20210]

If my mutuals can’t rb this then we can’t be mutuals

[drax-the-vampire-king]

Ive said it before and ill say it again all kind people are welcome here.

[mimosa-sex-tea-people-contrsf]

If you don’t support nonbinary people, then get the fuck away from my blog

[ninehammer]

I will try to install Linux on this. I failed before but I might look into it again.

I bought this several years ago, it was old then, and it was slow when it was new.

I had issues getting anything installed on it, I forget exactly why. But I vaguely remember an issue with 32 bit.

Recently I saw a thread talking about MX linux being able to install onto a 64-bit device that uses a 32-bit UEFI. I still can't remember anything about this device but I'm hoping that was the issue, and that I finally have the solution.

I hope it works!

[sodaraptor]

Possibly looking into selling official physical editions of the Hypnagogia games at some point... would you be interested in buying one if I did a limited release?

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[intercal]

some people seem to think that "make your code as short as possible" means literally removing every single space possible and using single-letter variable names. noobish behavior. sad!

[piratesexmachine420]

take the whitney pill

[asundergrowth]

[nyxiemeow]

[windoftime]

[hannahmontanalinux-official]

rust

[rohirric-hunter]

"We're gonna achieve immortality by turning ourselves into machines" buddy I want you to find yourself a 15 year old laptop and try to run a 10 year old piece of software on it please. Connect to the internet, if you can, and attempt to log into any of your online accounts

[abbiistabbii]

Everyone things of Linux as this uber nerdy serious thing, and it is, it basically is the backbone of the internet and digital tech, however...

There's a terminal program called "sl" you can get where, if you type it into the terminal, it summons an ascii steam locomotive. The people responsible for it include "sometimes displays the files in your home directory" as a bug, because "ls" is the command you use to list the files in whatever directory you're in.

Another terminal program you can get is "cmatrix" which does that digital rain from the matrix because of course we like the matrix.

There's a completely independent Linux Distro called YiffOS. It's a completely independent non-meme linux distro that just so happens to be furry themed. It's package manager is called "bulge".

The reason the Mascot for Linux is a Penguin was because Linus Torvalds, who started Linux, got bit by a penguin. His name is Tux, but there was another entry into the mascot competition which was a Fox called Xenia. Her creator originally intended her to be male, but when she was rediscovered she was drawn as female. The creator approves of this, and now we have an alternate mascot which is a transgender Anthro Fox.

Unixsocks is a community where transfemme linux users show off their set ups wearing thigh-high socks.

Yes, the main photo editor for Linux is called GIMP. It stands for "GNU Image Manipulator Program".