XMPP can be a nightmare to operate, but I still think it provides better long-term benefits than Signal, because XMPP without any encryption gives all the benefits of distribution, which grant better protection than encryption, overall. XMPP is a Nightmare My journey with XMPP so far has been: Use OTR encryption. Ask …

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Every time Adobe does something horrible, hordes of Adobe Photoshop users attempt to migrate - generally to either GIMP or Inkscape. They arrive and start a standard string of complaints: This UI is bad (it should be like Photoshop, but it's not) GIMP can't do vector graphics properly. Inkscape can't do bitmaps …

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'Organizers', 'wikis', 'note-taking apps', et c. - these apps are mostly Markdown with an attached GUI. Today, I'm trying each of them out for twenty minutes apiece. AnyType Site: anytype.io Size: 383 MB AnyType comes encrypted, meaning you can't easily grab the raw markdown notes and stick them in a Git, or do much …

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I once met a man who, having talked to some FOSS-enthusiast, felt moved, and told me he was sure to use 'free' software, but not that 'open source', software. His attempts, of course, would be futile, because the words refer to the same software. The Free Software Foundation (could they not at least have called …

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Shopping If you ask Google what to buy, it wants to show you the products from companies which have paid it the most, or products that it owns, such as Google's Office suite. Friends & Activities Someone posts up an event - skating, clubbing, or gardening - whatever it is, the algorithm correctly detects that this kind …

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I wake, and enter my algorithm-free RSS feed. It is perfect and pure. I see a list (in the order I select) of everyone I want to follow. YouTube channels show up just like everything else, and I see only the name. With a quick shortcut-key, I tell the computer I want to watch the video later. Onto the next feed, I find …

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My partner watches YT videos in the background while working, and the nonsense I hear is unreal. People stop to discuss the algorithm, and request audience intervention, persistently. People use code-words for drugs, death, suicide, and anything else they think the algorithm may dislike. Sponsorship ads last minutes, …

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Tumblr will soon attempt to join the Fediverse, and I'm going to argue that this is - overall - a good thing. Methodology I'm going to assume a consequentialist outlook, because I'm a consequentialist, and because other schools of ethical thought have no ability to do anything but argue over methodology. I also want to …

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The most efficacious piece of Philosophy written this century was buried in a software licensing agreement, and the Philosophy faculties of every major university have missed it. While clicking 'I agree', to all those licences, everyone will have come across this piece at some point. 1## Preamble 2 3The GNU General …

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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 …

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