"Copyright fuels creativity [...] promotes free speech", heh
It's important to note who benefited from it and how, because it explains why there was such a fight to stop an obviously cruel and barbaric practice. Even the Founding Fathers knew it was wrong, but most of them still did it. They kicked the problem down the road because tobacco wasn't profitable to grow in America anymore, so they thought the "problem" would solve itself in a generation or two. Then the Cotton Gin made slavery profitable, so it boomed.
We need to be able to talk how it was beneficial, and who benefited from it, so we can see why it was so hard to end. Because we have a very similar problem with fossil fuels, and capitalism. They're both destroying the world and causing us to do barbaric things to people. But there's resistance to ending dependence on both, because they have benefits, even though most of those benefits go to an elite few.
For note, this is an option on Kbin. You can go to /d/thedomain.com and block the whole domain
Someone played too much True Crime: Streets of LA
If there's a crime in progress in the area, let's say a little old lady getting mugged, you can either:
- Get out of your car, kung fu the assailant into submission, and handcuff them (you get good karma)
- Drive over everyone involved (you get bad karma)
Either way, you get points for it and the message "Crime successfully resolved"
I use kbin.social mostly because I liked the interface better and I wanted to be contrary, and if I ever self-host it, I'm much more familiar with PHP than Rust.
For sure, they'll make some spec that isn't very compatible with lots of cables, chargers, devices, etc. But, it will charge. A normal usb c cable might not Super Ultra Mega Charge your iPhone like an apple cable and adapter would, but it will charge, and vice-versa. That's basically what we have with usb-c standards currently, though.
Even thinking of it in terms of non-fediverse platforms. reddit often had multiple subreddits about the same exact topic. But the communities were different, often even splinters from each other because of disagreements on content and moderation. You end up with the original sub, Foo, followed by FooMemes, and TrueFoo, TrollFoo, FooJerk, etc.
If communities start getting merged together automatically, it's going to end up causing problems. Most likely the culture of someplace like lemmy.ml will end up being marketedly different than some other instances (and already is). I would not want posts from a memes group there mixed with a memes group from elsewhere. Grouping the same post client side, sure. But there's a reason for separate groups about the same topic.
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I have a VPN that I pay less than 100 a year for. Here's some examples of what I use it for:
- Free movies. Each of those movies would be at least $5 to rent and more to buy. If I could even find them.
- Pirating TV shows for streaming services I don't have. For a long while, almost everything was on Netflix, so I didn't need to pirate shows. Now with everyone making their own streaming service, it'd cost me $50+ a month just to get access to all the different shows I want to watch. I have Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and I have access to HBO and Disney. But I don't have: CBS All Access, Apple TV, etc etc. There are a ton of platforms where there's only 1 or 2 shows I want to watch. I can pirate them instead.
- Pirating TV shows for streaming services I do have. There are streaming services I have that my friends and family can't access, especially because of Netflix's new location restrictions. So often I'm subscribed to torrent RSS feeds for shows to put on Plex for my friends, even though I'll end up watching them through the actual streaming service.
- Breaking through geo-restrictions on streaming sites. I'm a pro wrestling fan, but I don't have cable. In the US it's very hard to watch AEW without cable, because they have an exclusive deal with Warner Brothers. Eventually they might go on HBO Max, but in the mean time the only way to stream them is over Fite.TV, which is restricted to outside the US. I can VPN to England, then pay $9 for all the AEW weekly shows, with no commercials. I can also access a bunch of wrestling pay per views for half the price as in the US.
- Pirating audiobooks. Often the only place to get an audiobook is Audible. I don't want to pay a subscription, the books are expensive, and I don't want to deal with DRM. Instead I can just download them.
- Pirating retro game ROMs. I have a raspberry pi with RetroPie on it, a handheld abernic retro console, and a ROM cartridge for my N64. Instead of having to buy the same retro games over and over for new consoles, I can just download the ROMs and use them on very cheap retro consoles. Many of the games I wouldn't be able to buy at all, outside a flea market for 80 bucks
To an extent. But whenever there is a political discussion on Hacker News, the lib right response is very, very loud, and I try to remind myself I appreciate Hacker News for its tech news.
I think the culture is just different. Lemmy was started and run by Tankies. Hacker News was started by Y Combinator, which incubates silicon valley startups. They're going to attract different audiences, or at least different groups of people who will put up with different politics. I can't claim to be particularly upset about the .ml domains being pulled and the center mass of Lemmy moving away from those instances.
Also because the mainstream manufacturers don't want to have to support Linux.
There is less hardware support for Linux than Windows on laptops -- largely because very cheaply made components just have their firmware loaded into them by the OS when it starts, and since they're largely proprietary firmware they conflict with open source licenses.
Linux laptops are just flat out more expensive to make, because you have to use more expensive components that don't do that, confirm compatibility, and have everything setup before you ship it. Also manufacturers don't preinstall bloatware because they feel like it. It's because they get paid. The kickbacks for preinstalling bloatwave well exceeds the cost of the Windows license.
So preinstalling Linux is more expensive component wise, support wise, and bloatware wise. There's little reason for companies to do it, unless they're trying to court software developers. Dell and Lenovo and others court software developers quite well. But there's little incentive for them to try to increase Linux's market share.
I setup a Mastodon instance at leftist.network back in 2020, when I was worried that the COVID/Trump situation was going to quickly transition into something more serious. Besides Jan 6th that didn't happen, but hey, it was a cool domain for people to join when Twitter started tanking!
But the thing is, I never really used Twitter. My social media was Facebook and reddit. Both of them for the discussion groups (Facebook isn't boring if all your friends are gay communists). Mastodon didn't quite scratch the itch, mostly because there's nothing like Facebook groups or subreddits. I had looked at Lemmy before, but there wasn't a big enough user base to really move over.
I looked up kbin and lemmy with the reddit diaspora, and they fit both social media fixes. Most communities are on Lemmy, but I like kbin's interface more. I just want kbin to add the feature to hide upvoted posts.
I'm a little dismayed that more and more stuff is moving to Discord though. I was an IRC regular back in the day, but I could never quite deal with Discord's 24/7 conversation to try to keep up with.
I've only really seen it in two contexts. Mainly "don't scare the normies", which was largely the advice given to my larp communities to not freak out people in real life with their hobby stuff, and probably also applies to subcultures like furries and such. And secondarily as self-deprecating. I'm a Facebook meme group "Normie Has-Beens" tied to the page "Stale Memes for Normie Has-Beens", and it's certainly not people who consider themselves normal.
Right, the copyright is specifically for random essays added to the book, so that they could release it and say it wasn't entirely public domain, so you shouldn't copy it. A weird place to say "copyright fuels creativity" when it's clearly not the reason for the copyright here.