Ferk @ Ferk @lemmy.ml

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4 yr. ago

It still limits where / how you use them.

For example, it's easier / more efficient to call a shell script from sway (or whichever other software that might be running without a bash login session behind) than to try and force it to load a whole shell login session that includes those functions (which might also slow down the startup of the program and make it need a bit more ram without much of a benefit).

Scripts can reliably be run from everywhere (specially if placed somewhere in $PATH), functions require some preloading for every single new shell process and making sure the program invoking the shell (be it a terminal emulator or something else) is actually loading it. So as someone who likes to automate everything and often assigns hotkeys to particular commandline oneliners, scripts are much better.. even a symlink might be more reliable than an alias.

You don't need root level access though. What I usually do is stick a PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin and then place all the scripts in there.

And remember that Mozilla is supposed to be a non-profit.

I don't understand how it makes sense for a nonprofit to make it so profitable to their executives to manage it... why is that not regulated?

I think that's the point, he's saying he'd rather use USA-linked FOSS than non-USA proprietary software.

No, it's not the same. Firedragon users have a different default. I'll repeat the question that you didn't answer yet:

"would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it (upstream Firefox) had no users?"

And this is just an example. There are many other forms of partnership possible beyond search engines.. the point is that the number of users that actually are exposed to the default browser settings (ie. the users of upstream Firefox, whether they change the settings or not) does give some leverage for making funds out of, while still giving options/freedom to the users who can freely change the setting.

When you watch a video article with sponsored content, even if you skip the sponsor, the creator still benefits because it builds up the numbers and that's what attracts sponsors.. but if someone starts re-posting the videos with the sponsor bits cut out and the re-posting channel becomes MORE popular than the original to the point that the original gets much less views... do you think companies are gonna want to still have as many sponsor deals with that creator who now gets very few views on their sponsored content?

No I did not say that. Do you recommend people to use their browser on default settings?

Mozilla gets paid for having it be the default, regardless of whether the user switches it. They get to make money from it because of the number of users alone being already something interesting to target for their partners. So just you using the browser is beneficial for Mozilla, even if you turn all the sponsored features off.

And do you think that most Firefox users donate to Mozilla?

No, most don't donate directly, but some do use some of the features that indirectly do provide funds. Like for example, would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it had no users?

I feel the weight of Firefox being a popular browser has allowed them to have some partnerships and carry on some strategies that are likely to have been a source of funds. I expect many people do not turn off sponsored links and other features that are likely to help them support the browser and that are likely not available in the forks.

The thing is that it's not very common for people who use a fork of Firefox to donate or encourage contributions to Mozilla... most of the people who go for forks do it because they do not trust Mozilla in the first place or don't agree with the decisions they take. They are not willing to let Mozilla make profit out of their use of the browser, even when done through an option that can be turned off in the browser, they don't like it even existing.

So if enough people did that, I don't think Mozilla would keep developing Firefox, at least not at the level that they are now. In fact, I think even today Mozilla is not seeing much gain, since they keep starting side projects to raise funds in other ways.

If there were a separate foundation that was started by all these forks to maintain a base from which to build on (sort of the Chromium-equivalent but in Firefox world) that isn't connected to Mozilla and that can fully sustain itself.. then that would be good in my book. But as things stand, those projects don't look like they would survive without Mozilla.

I feel like it makes more sense to support an alternative project entirely, like Ladybird or so.

The biggest part of people use Chrome-based browsers.

Also.. the point is that it's thanks to those people who use stock Firefox that the codebase stays maintained. So admitting that having those people is a good thing is kind of against the idea of encouraging people to move away from stock Firefox.

It's ironic that GTK actually used to stand for GIMP ToolKit.

They were the first ones to use Gtk ever.. and it's looking like they will be the last ones to migrate to the newer major versions :P

Just because it entered RC phase doesn't mean it won't take long to release. It's not unlikely that a lot of bugs and problems could have been reported in the RC phase, specially for such a big changelog in a popular program that many people are likely to be interested to test during the RC phase.

To be honest, I expected it would take at least 4 months (specially given how it took them years to reach this far). I'm pleasantly surprised that it was this fast.

Can we have meaning without purpose, intention or aims? What about making meaning out of things that are essentially random?

Doesn't this contradict your previous definition of "meaning"? If there isn't intention/purpose then how do you reflect on whether the "outcome matches the intention"? didn't you say that this reflection is what defines meaning?

Maybe I'm missing something? or perhaps you are using a different meaning of "meaning" here?

What I feel we humans do too much is give too much importance to ourselves... we tend to see faces in the cloud because we are constantly measuring reality to our own little pocket of experience.. we tend to think the bullet stopped because of something we're meant to do... we tend to think we got cancer because of something we did...

We keep thinking nature governs itself with the same rules and motivations that we experience in our little minds.

Note that "life" is not the same thing as "nature". The purpose/goal of life might not be the same thing as the "goal" the Universe moves towards.. most of the Universe is dead, non-life. For all we know, the Universe might actually have ultimate death as its destination, and we are actually "the baddies", we might be the ones who fight against the ultimate "purpose" of the Universe, the ultimate maximization of entropy and the peaceful state of equilibrium where things stop exchanging electrons and we reach a cold thermal death.

I don't think the Universe "cares" about whether we see faces in the clouds, or what we think about the bullet/cancer hitting/missing us. Life might have the purpose to preserve itself.. but that's because life is shaped by evolution to be that way (and we had to!). We had to use those same thermodynamics the Universe moves towards in order to perpetuate ourselves, sometimes thermodynamics are on our side, but not because the Universe willed it so, but because we adapted ourselves so that it is so (we would not have survived otherwise). I feel there's a lot of "survivor bias" in most of the existential questions humanity makes itself. We ask ourselves "Why are we here?" while forgetting about the astronomical amounts of trial-and-error that happened to reach this point... it's like someone wondering "why did I pick the right door?" after having chosen every single other door before that one and failed.

Let me end in a happier note:

I feel most problems become meaningless when we sit back and see things from a broader perspective. We often put too much value in things we believe are valuable, when in reality, they only are valuable because we ourselves place that value on them.

Being able to sit, relax, and just enjoy your time (without being stressed about the things you are NOT achieving) is not a bad way to pass your life. In the grand scale of things, we are insignificant, don't worry too much about things you can't change, it's not worth it.

And for the things you can change to improve life... why worry about it? just do them! There's literally no logical reason to be stressed about things. Just go and do what you can do and don't worry about the things that you can't do.

Hahaha, I do enjoy the conversation :P

Ah, I see.. then meaning/purpose it's not 2 aspects of the same thing, but rather... one is the thing, the other one is the performance/efficiency of the thing.

But.. would you say that the use of the word "meaning" in "the meaning of life" is meant to imply "the performance of life at fulfilling its purpose"?

I feel that then talking about meaning without purpose makes no sense, because you can't evaluate the performance of something without having a goal to evaluate it against.

Meaning of something can be different to its purpose, we discover after its done. This is why Failure has such value in life.

Hmm... but "Failure" is a consequence, not a cause. So I feel here by meaning you are including the evaluation of the consequences of the action, not just the cause/purpose/intention of it.

I feel "meaning" is a word with too many meanings (lol). When applied to an ongoing "action", it might refer to the cause/purpose motivating the action.. but when applied to something that has happened in the past it's sometimes used to evaluate the consequences of the action and try to retroactively judge the performance of that action based on whether or not it met an overarching "good/optimal" cause (purpose).

When people say "the meaning of life" generally they don't mean the consequences of life, or how should life be evaluated under a moral framework to determine whether there was a "failure" we should correct, I feel. At least that's not what I get from the expression.

we can have purpose without meaning, where we know we’re engaging in boring meaningless activity because it’s necessary and functional.

Good catch! ..though it feels again like another meaning of meaning :P

By "meaningless activity" I feel we typically imply "trivial"/"not-impactful"/"irrelevant". And even this definition continues tied to purpose, since to determine whether something is important / impactful /relevant we need a main topic that it measures against (a purpose). Even the most "meaningless" of activities will carry meaning if you see it under the right frame of reference. So this looks to me like 2 different purposes competing for relevance, the activity is only meaningless because its purpose is not as relevant for the main goal in our mind.

That makes sense. However, that means they are just 2 aspects of the same thing, it's just the position from which you are looking at it which changes.

In that sense, any purpose that is unknown will require reflection, and thus will be a meaning, because we would need to look back to our own deeper motivations to understand ourselves.

I'd argue that purpose is like an onion.. behind each purpose there's a deeper purpose, and it often becomes more and more obfuscated, to the point that most purposes end up linking to deep subconscious wants, desires and instincts. I'd argue that most of our actions are done without being fully aware of the purpose we are following, or at least, not without a considerable level of "reflection" into ourselves. This further blurs the line between purpose and meaning.

In fact, I wonder if it's possible to act being fully aware of your decisions.. because if you were capable of knowing every inch of your mind, wouldn't that information about yourself have also an effect on your mind? like a snake biting its own tail, the more you learn about yourself, the more new information is added to your mind which potentially changes yourself.. making you into a new person, different from the one you thought you knew.

What's the difference between the "meaning of an action" and the "purpose of an action"? ...I feel actions are interpreted through their purpose. I don't think "to invent a meaning" makes any sense when applied to "actions" unless you are including the possible purpose/motivation of the action as part of what you are inventing for it.

Unless what you mean by "meaning" is "consequence".. but in that case, you are not "inventing" it.. consequences do happen, they are factual.. at most you can interpret the consequence of the action, in the sense of viewing them through different moral perspectives, but even this would be heavily determined by "purpose", since all moral frameworks judge reality based on a purpose/goal/ideal.

I feel the popular concept of "the meaning of life" is equivalent to "the purpose of life".. and talking about "what should we do?" as the "only choice that matters" does implicitly set the weight on meaning/purpose, since that's what directs our choices.

But in there the virus and Megaman was part of the same software system/universe. What I'm arguing is that it would have been possible to set up 2 separate systems/universes, one is the one where Megaman is plugged, and the other one is one that has read/write access to all inputs/outputs of the first, without the first being able to detect that in any way.

So.. Megaman would be sent to the first and see no problem (or worse, see enemies that aren't real to keep him distracted) while the other alternate OS would have no Megaman in it, but still it would be able to analyze all Megaman is doing in the first system/universe (sort of like in Matrix), and possibly even transmit/translate his actions in a modified way so that it serves a different purpose.

But it's not something the plugged OS can do anything about, because the malware is not running on it. It's an attack that uses hardware, you can't use antivirus against that, you'd need a person to physically manipulate the circuitry in the keyboard/monitor or whatever peripheral that is being manipulated.

Wouldn't it be kind of insecure to be plugging your private data into public places?

In theory, the publicly available terminals could very well have their own system under the hood, wired into the hardware, just so they can run some keylogging or recording of everything that goes through the peripherals, including the screen, without the plugged OS being able to know, right?

The bad guys in those shows/games could have hijacked the terminals so they can take remote control of the inputs when an OS is inserted and wreak havoc. Dr. Wily could have messed with some terminals so that when Megaman saves its progress on them parts of his brain are saved with different data, so when it's restored you'll get a different/evil Megaman.

Do you use it on Linux? I recently got a Vader 4, it works wireless on xbox mode (using the xpad linux module), but I was hopping to make use of the gyro (hopefully without losing the analog triggers), and it seems that the dinput mode (which does allow some gyro action + analog triggers and working extra buttons) does not really work with the wireless dongle for me (it works if I plug it via cable, but that's also not optimal since it disconnects mid play sometimes for some reason).