Palacegalleryratio [he/him]

I would be delighted if I saw something that whimsical and bad in the wild. It’s less asinine than a lot of other crap I do actually have to use that was designed by professionals.

Type h for “hello” does literally nothing… ok… thought this was a text editor why can’t I even write… mash esc still no response, try typing “hello” but no matter how many time I mash h nothing happens. Right let’s leave and find a guide. Right so closing a terminal program that’s usually Crtl-c nope that’s done nothing, erm, what else works, nano uses Ctrl-x let’s try that, nope. Erm kill nope nothing, fuck this I’m just closing my terminal. - my first vim experience.

The Swiss German layout looks fairly reasonable in a vacuum. The ä key having 5 letter options on it is pretty wild though. The Swiss French layout is maybe better than standard French too - it’s certainly got more sensible punctuation.

They would unironically probably like that. Many of my clients have negative taste. “It’s a bit bland, can you just add in…” - goes on to describe an aesthetic that would have been considered a ‘bit much’ back in 2008 on someone’s MySpace page.

Mandriva Linux, then RHEL, the Debian and fedora.

I can’t speak for Krita - I’ve not used it. But as someone who has designed a lot of software I agree with you fully here. Making software intuitive is the hardest and also most important part of my job. When I test with users the first time it soon becomes clear how stuff that me and my team thought made sense is totally opaque to the end users or just doesn’t fit into the real world workflow. It’s all well and good expecting users to learn the software - there has to be an element of that - but if you force thought, cause confusion or waste time every time you do that you add friction to the product. That friction ruins the users experience of the product and can ruin productivity.

There is a balance to be made, complexity where it allows for power is fine, if you have dedicated frequent users. E.g. my favourite editor is Vim - very complicated and (initially) opaque but also extremely powerful and logical once you know it. But complexity that adds no power or complexity in software where you don’t expect users to be using the software frequently enough to be expert in it is not ok.

Mr Sumlenny said German post-war thinking plays a role too. “They were designed by a generation of German manufacturers that hadn’t seen war, and so tended to overcomplicate the system. “Older systems, designed in the 1960s by those who actually saw war, are far more useful on the battlefield but have weaker armour.”

Yeah but Rheinmetall can’t charge the government megabucks for a simple system can it? They have to justify bumping another 0 on the end of the price somehow, an increase in complexity is the perfect way to do this.

If a fascist man, who nazi salutes at public events and who publicly supports nazi and fascist aligned governments around the world cannot be called a nazi, who can?

I have also heard this line of thinking, it’s very dark and does not paint a hopeful picture for the emancipation of humanity. But I kind of see the logic to it. Europe doesn’t have the martial strength to impose a European empire, especially not in the face of the American war machine. Nor does it have the economy to make one, especially with neoliberalism ripping the copper out the walls of European economies preventing reinvestment and industrialisation (see: the Bank Of England’s policy of quantitative tightening ruining the plans of the uk Labour Party, and all of Europe’s industrial capital looting its own assets).

In this proposed reality Europe must look to the other powers, America being the default choice, but an increasingly unfriendly one, does Europe fancy itself being an extraction zone for an exploitative empire? The boot on the other foot for them. To look the other way, would BRICS even be interested in Europe coming cap in hand? Maybe, but certainly not with terms Europe wouldn’t be too proud to accept. However individual BRICS countries maybe. Russia - a weird one, some countries may be happy to side with them (Germany possibly would consider it in a role as Russias workshop?) but I don’t see other countries like Poland going that way without a fight. China - too remote, too far away and too hated by most of Europe, maybe some nations like Turkey could look to them though. Brazil? Surely too busy with the American empire to its north to have time for Europe. South Africa - who knows? It’s a very different future to the one we grew up in.

If Trump starts an inter nato war or just dissolves nato due to America invading one of the other founding members, that’s going to be the biggest geopolitical win for America’s enemies who won’t have to lift a finger.

My advice would be look up The Missing Semester it’s a free online MIT course on how to use the terminal and it will govern you a better understanding of how to use it and Linux more generally. Really helpful to find your way around and give you an intuitive sense of what you’re trying to achieve.

Then beyond that installing arch is easy with archinstall but it’s probably more helpful to learn about the components of desktop Linux and what they do so that you actually know what you’re doing.

Haven’t you heard? China is collapsing the same collapse that the west has been wrongly predicting since the 90s…

Western economists keep doing the “Ah! Well. Nevertheless, ” thing about Chinas economy that Libs do regarding Trump’s legal Teflon.

“They can make cheap junk, but can’t compete with high tech manufacturing” - they are now better at high tech manufacturing.

“They’re building railway infrastructure they can’t afford” - they could afford it and now their railways are world leading.

“Their housing market is a bubble” - they just nationalised the companies and make houses for homes not for commodities

“They can compete on high tech manufacturing but not do their own designs” - their own designs are now eating western designers markets (electric cars anyone?)

“Western investment in china is drying up, which will slow their advances” - Chinese state investment makes up the slack

“Global demand is slowing” - the domestic market is growing

Etc… etc… etc…

looking at a Jewish guy thinking “well the antisemitism charge isn’t going to stick…”

Then having the brainwave:

“wait, antizionism, is this… terrorism?!?”

By German industry I really meant German post industrial financial capital e.g. the automobile finance companies who incidentally make cars. Not German steel producers.

And in fairness Germany tried its hardest to keep importing cheap Russian energy for as long as possible, despite American requests. I’d say that was probably why America blew up Nordstream2. So I wouldn’t precisely say they enthusiastically chose to sanction Russia.

Also German car manufacturers have been moving car manufacturing out of Germany and even Europe wherever possible (profitable) for decades. It’s not (only) manufacturing costs that’s holding them back. They’re failing to compete as their cars are overpriced and out of date. This was true before Ukraine war. They’re simply uncompetitive. That’s why Chinese car manufacturers are having their breakfast. They’re providing newer cars, with new platforms new styling and new drive trains, with new infotainment and new comfort tech all at better prices.

On the back of VW profits dropping 60% the EU is protecting German industry at all costs. Even if it means preventing the wider adoption of electric vehicles and keeping them out of reach of poor people.

I always find gnome to be rock solid, even on Fedora, which is not known for a conservative attitude w.r.t. stability. Perhaps just my specific hardware

My favourite that I use lots of places is Gnome. Love using it. Use it completely stock.

I also use KDE, which is fine, but I don’t much care for it, I always find it to be buggy and unreliable. Could well be pebkac errors, but I’ve seen it across multiple machines over the years. With this said I still use kde on one machine.

I also use sway. Which is a wayland window manager. I find it very good. I’ve heard that hyprland is also good, but I’m not looking to mess with a window manager, I just like it to be simple, so I’ve not really tried it.

Ok so you do accept that history can provide legitimate motives for an event?

Ukraine did not invade Russia

Cmon you’re almost there, one nations invasion isn’t the only thing that could justify another nations invasion. Other acts of violence across the border of another nation could be legitimate grounds for an invasion too.

And to the second part, so to your logic, every country that is weaker than a neighbour should just let them in taking all the land?!

Again, I literally did not say that, that’s your logic not mine. I don’t believe in nations full stop. It’s a very dumb concept that seeks to divide and control. I believe all nations should be dissolved and we should all live in stateless queer communist paradise.

But…

How I think the world should be is irrelevant. What I believe other countries should and shouldn’t do is irrelevant. This is idealism. Idealism is nonsense.

The only thing that matters is the material reality of a situation. The material reality is nations exist. Nations use violence to further their interests. Some nations are stronger than others. Some nations band together in defensive pacts to prevent aggression from larger neighbours. Some strong nations band together in pacts to assert their will and control over weaker nations and dole out violence with impunity. Whether anyone should or shouldn’t do these things is neither here nor there, the simple fact of the matter is that they do engage in these actions, therefore what matters is how you react to the current situation. And the material reality of the Ukraine war, as it is right now, is that Ukraine will lose and Russia will win. So what is your desired course of action given the existing material reality?

Ahh yes, history always begins on the day of the invasion. The western allies were wrong to invade France on D-Day as being the invader is always bad. There is never any preceding events that may give light to the motives of the attacker. For good or for bad. Libs ‘consider world events not just on in the moment vibes’ challenge: impossible.

There being no losses or gains in Ukraine is because Russia has changed its tactics, they’re now grinding it out until Ukraine collapses totally due to lack of material and manpower, not going for territorial gains. Despite this they’re still making strategically important gains in Ukraine. You know Russia has reclaimed a quarter of that land in Kursk back already don’t you? Also that it is a tiny region of land they claimed in the first place, 300 down from 400 square miles. Your vision of the future where Ukraine takes huge swaths of Russia and trades for occupied Ukrainian lands is never going to happen.

You say, every small country should all just let their bigger neighbours get control over them without a fight, because “tHiS wAr Is aLrEAdy LoST”?

I literally did not say that. In fact nothing of what you’ve put in quotation marks is a quotation of mine. Truly you have a beautiful mind. I very much doubt you really care about other nations territorial integrity, in the way your argument seems to suggest, as I doubt you’re making the same arguments when America or other nato aligned nations invade other countries.

Regarding Russian military successes and failures, I think there have been heavy losses on both sides, and major humiliations on both sides. However given that Russia controls nearly a fifth of Ukraines territory and that number is going up not down, I’d suggest that they’re doing ok in terms of land gains. Which isn’t even the main objective of Russia in this moment who have pivoted to a war of attrition, which they will certainly win.

So back to my previous point, what do you think is going to happen? And given the inevitable conclusion, why do you want to promote the war in which you will be sending thousands of Ukrainians (and indeed Russians) to a futile death?