Imagine two ladders - one has a metre between rungs, and the other has 10cm between rungs. At first glance, the ladder with three rungs looks like one could climb it faster - after all, it has only three steps to get to the top. However, anyone who knows ladders knows that anyone could climb the second ladder faster …
Read More

We're all going to die, so we have to share passwords.

When family die, we already have a mountain of nonsense to deal with, and I have no doubt that we'll see a growing number of people wrestling with American corporations, attempting to regain access to Coinbase accounts, banking apps, et c.

Clearly, we would all …

Read More

The GPL states that any users can use the source code under the GPL, or any later version released by the Free Software Foundation. So the entire FOSS movement hinges on the continued sanity of the Free Software Foundation.

Theoretically, a GPLv4 could come out, allowing people to not release the source code, which …

Read More

Games

I hear Linux podcasts and bloggers pulling themselves back, with an eye to keeping things realistic, and too many end up with unwarranted pessimism.

'You have to admit that computer games are just better on Windows'.

And I won't disagree, but I don't see why they phrase the situation like that.

Linux is the …

Read More

Rick & Morty's parallel episodes show myriad alternative versions. There's Fat Rick, Juggling Rick, et c.

From the point of view of Fat Rick, all alternative Ricks have an easy tell - they are all skinny. And of course the Drama-Morty can instantly spot alternative-universe Morties because they don't have the same …

Read More

My phone bings three times, and I really want to tell it 'listen, matey, if I haven't answered the first three bings, I won't answer the next'. I wander over and tell it to shut up.

Of course if I forget to turn off silent mode, I could miss something important in a few hours. The entire approach here misunderstands …

Read More

Ella the Cat posted up their i3-gaps configuration to help with Parkinson's, and it got me thinking a lot about how FOSS software typically views disability. Briefly, they have Parkinson's Disease, which causes tremors, which makes the mouse a pain to use. The i3-gaps desktop is keyboard based, so it doesn't require …
Read More

The FOSS community have generally grown a kind of tacit acceptance of proprietary computer games. Everyone loves them, so nobody wants to make too much of a fuss, but I think we have good reasons to treat them differently.

Computer games do not - by default - require environment interaction. They can (mostly) operate …

Read More

I never had the money for serious gaming, and perhaps it did me well; I've focussed on other things. But when the pandemic hit, I decided that this was exactly the time to start playing again, so I bought Tomb Raider from 2013.

Having not played anything much since Metal Gear Solid 3, I was blown away. The seamless way …

Read More

We determine causes by Ethics, rather than any type of science.

A man drinks some vodka, and soon after starts a fight in the pub, concerning a political point.

If we investigate the cause of the fight, we'll find many differing answers.

• The man claims the vodka was the cause, and he should stop drinking vodka.
• The …

Read More