I’ve just watched the first third of this (original source linked by squirrel) video.

tl;dw This is a great idea: Cory Doctorow explains how

1. all the countries the US trades with were forced, in their trade agreements with the US under threat of losing the US market, to pass their own digital copyright anti-circumvention laws so that US big tech companies can seek rent and collect the personal data of citizens of those countries with impunity, and

2. Now that trump has imposed all these tariffs on them and violated the agreements anyway, there is no longer any reason for them to to keep those laws on the books, laws which only hurt their own people and help US tech companies. He explains retaliatory tariffs only hurt their own people, that the best response is for other countries to stop protecting US oligarch and repeal those laws, which will help their own entrepreneurs and citizens, and withhold billions in rent to the US oligarchs.

And that’s just the first third of the video, but I stopped to post this before watching the rest. edit update: yeah the whole video is worth watching.

I think it’s ironic that the alternatives to Android (graphene, calyx) only fully work on Google phones.

There are so many options. If you’re looking for a free and open source wiki-style setup, a couple I haven’t seen mentioned in the thread yet are Zim Desktop Wiki and Feather wiki (hmm looks like their web certificate is expired at the moment)

I’ll check and see if I can do that with this one!

I should have thought of that. Thanks! Ironically, I have a very old lead-acid UPS in the basement that I’ve been kind of afraid to plug in again after all this time.

Why removing the battery? I was thinking that could be one good thing about using a laptop is that in a way it has its own UPS.

Does anyone actually know why we are putting tariffs on Canadian goods?

I think his objective is to try and damage Canada’s economy, but I’m not sure exactly why. Apparently he really is serious about the “51st state” thing along with the Greenland and Panama thing. He’s just that megalomaniacal. He wants to be like Putin.

Shit, I was thinking about getting one but my brain didn’t make the connection that I needed to get it before this. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get it anyway to support some of these companies that may be taking a sales hit because of all this. Or I could just wait a while, maybe it won’t be very long until Mangolini backs down.

Yep, I’m on the latest version.

I’m having the same issue on Freetube, it pops up and says it can’t play the video because Youtube requires being signed in. Sometimes if I retry a couple of time it’ll play, but usually keeps getting the same error. Freetube is great though, maybe they’ll come up with a solution soon.

The video on that page is pretty interesting.

If you answer wrong, what does it do? Refuse to show you any more of the program you are paying them to provide?

Oh wait, I know. It shows another ad, right? That’s gotta be it. We’ll keep showing you ads until you fucking pay attention!

Neither Medicare nor most health insurance covers hearing aids, or glasses for that matter. And it’s not like hearing aids magically make people able to hear like normal.

Not to mention that all the waiting rooms also have TVs in them, making noise. I really miss the days when you would go places and it was just quiet unless someone was talking (and it would be to someone physically present). The place I take my car for an oil change or whatever plays country music in its waiting room. It’s torture.

Same, if I’m walking around outside with it in my pocket, I don’t notice the vibration or even hear it ring over the background noise and wind.

If your package manager is apt, you can get a list of all the packages you have installed with

apt list --installed

There’s also a command to automatically reinstall all your apps from the list, I don’t remember offhand, but I usually just do them manually from Synaptic.

As other commenters have said, some people keep their /home on a different partition so you can reinstall or install a different distro without losing all your configurations (always back it up first anyway of course). But another thing I’ve done a lot is just have a different disk or partition with all my data files on it (called ‘data’ of course :p ), and I put a link to it in my home directory. So when I reinstall the OS I do have to backup my home dir and then copy it over to the new install home dir, but it’s small and just has my dotfiles and things.

Also on the data partition I have a backup subfolder where I keep a copy of any system config files that I’ve edited (usually found in /etc/), such as my pulseaudio config, so I can restore those.

And you can always try out different distros in a virtual machine or with a live USB before making the commitment of installing one on your hardware.

Ubuntu was my entry to linux as well, 19 years ago. But Ubuntu of today is not the Ubuntu of 15-19 years ago, and not in a good way.

When first coming from Windows, starting with Mint is the safest bet for a good transition because things will work pretty much as you expect them to, and there’s a very helpful forum if you have any questions. But I always say to try several distros and Desktop Environments to see how you like them. Everyone is different and it’s all a matter of preference.

I suggest that once you’ve got whatever distro you decided on up and running, install a virtual machine software such as Boxes (very simple) or Virtual Box (a little more complicated but with more options). Then just download various distros and make VMs for them to try them out easily. Have fun!

Reading this thread, I feel like having a nice rant:

“Waah, all our problems are caused by the boomers! They’re all rich and selfish, they had the easy life and got all the money and the houses and ruined the environment while our lives were ruined!” Keep believing that and stay distracted! while the oligarchy laughs it’s ass off at you.

Pay no attention to all those poor boomers who could never get a house, who are scraping to get by–those are the exceptions that prove the rule, they must have been especially lazy or stupid boomers, if they’re not rich like the vast majority of boomers! Yeah, that’s it.

Pay no attention to the corporations that have bought up all the housing so they can rent it to you at any price they like, that has nothing to do with housing costs–it’s the boomers who were too selfish to leave you their house when they died who are to blame! Yeah, that’s it.

Pay no attention to the oil companies and big corporations that control congress to keep their profits private and costs socialized so they can spew their effluent into the environment as the world burns and the ice caps melt, it’s the boomers’ fault! Boomers only started the environmental movement and demonstrated and pressured the government into creating the EPA, Clean Air Act, and many more, but so what, all the bad things are still their fault.

Stay distracted! Keep believing what you’re told and blaming who you’re told to blame as you get older and older and the boomers all die, and then enjoy how Gen B and Gen C, etc. hate you and rail against you and blame you for all their problems. Why didn’t you–yes you! stop global warming? You could have, but you didn’t give a fuck. You who had it so easy, living your selfish life with your fresh water and electricity and air conditioning and video games and all those nice things, while their lives were ruined? It’s all your fault!

Never the oligarchs, though. Not them.

[I can also do another version of this for the right wingers, substituting immigrants for boomers].

I’m pretty sure all of us have given up on any boomer giving us anything anyway

That should work out since most boomers didn’t get anything from their parents either.