Parallels is good for running Windows. It’s heavily optimized for Windows. I have both Fedora & Windows on my MacBook Pro through Parallels.

But it’s nowhere nead native speed and you’re still using an ARM version of Win / Linux which comes with its own set of issues.

Having said that, Parallels is good for when you need to run a specific Windows program. I haven’t run into anything that runs on Linux that I can’t set up on MacOS so I haven’t really needed the Fedora.

On my desktop I use Fedora and it’s my favorite OS / Linux distro. But MacOS works. The M2 is worth it

Virtually any computer that isn’t Apple Silicon can install Linux on it and it’ll run smoother and faster than Win or Mac.

People who are anti-Linux either don’t understand computers or are traumatized from the early 2000s

What I do know is that what we have now isn’t working.

Why isn’t it working? What is the harm in people seeing beheadings? Reading the media of the opposite side? We start outlawing “misinformation” and the only information allowed is the official state narrative. People are so quick to forget that governments lie all the time. Weapons of mass destruction was an elaborate lie perpetuated by both governments and the media. When the US blew up a hospital in 2014~2015 in Afghanistan, they immediately denied it and blamed in on the Afghanis. There’s multiple examples of Israel killing journalists or bombing civilians and then lying about it.

We live in a post-truth age. Outlawing one lie simply allows the other to proliferate more easily. It’s dangerous and we’re looking more and more like authoritarian China every passing day.

People should have the right to decide for themselves what sort of media they want to consume. They should be able to decide for themselves what lies they want to believe.

EU is starting to more heavily censor things. Social media that is “terrorist sympathizing”, “misinformation”, or “pro-hamas protests” when in reality what they’re doing is cutting off access to information from the other side.

Even on Twitter we’re seeing certain accounts get banned. I followed a guy who’s part of Hezbollah that would give on the ground updates. He got banned. Many other accounts have too.

Is this what we want? An iron curtain around the internet? So we can’t see the other side and they can’t see us? It’s a dangerous path we’re walking towards.

I actually don’t mind subscription services in general. I would rather pay a monthly fee and not get any ads.

The issue is of course with Google is that your subscription cost is not only the money you pay per month. You’re also giving them your data and many YouTubers end up putting ads inside their videos anyways.

Really what we need is a sort of Peertube service with a model that uses ads and optional subscription service (to remove ads) to generate revenue.

This revenue would first pay for all expenses to run the service and then the remainder be split between all content creators relative to how many views or subscribers each content creator manages get.

The issue with current Peertube is that video hosting is expensive. Video hosting at scale is even more so. However, with enough subscribers the math starts to even out. I don’t know at what # this becomes viable.

Open source and transparent services ran by non-profits

I would be more than happy to pay a subscription for this. I donate regularly to lichess and Wikipedia for this reason. We need to support these projects because they’re the only viable path forward, I believe, that doesn’t end in inevitable enshittification.

Fiction I think is much more important than non-fiction. It explores the human condition and the nature of reality. It’s been shown that people who read fiction more are more empathetic. The reason is clear - reading puts you in the mind of another. It allows you to visualize their perspective.

This is not only good generally because empathy makes the world a better place, it’s even good in a machiavellian sense because the better you understand humans the better you can manipulate them.

There’s a quote by Twain I believe where he says something like “Fiction is much more real than non-fiction. Reality doesn’t have to make sense, but fiction does”

Conversations are more about listening than talking. I suggest reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People” for a more in depth overview. Essentially, become genuinely interested in the person you are talking to.

Try to understand them. Try to figure out what is important to them and ask questions with these interests in mind. By being interested and asking questions that the other person wants to answer, they will do a majority of the talking and will feel like you are a great conversationalist.

Of course, sometimes this is easier said than done… and it must be done genuinely. You must be genuinely interested. There are subconscious cues you communicate when you are interested in someone, and everybody loves being the focus of someone else’s deep and genuine attention.

Once you’ve done this and built up rapport, then you can give personal anecdotes or get to your sales pitch or what have you.

Some other general tips are - speak slowly! Don’t go overboard obviously but slower is more confident and puts people at ease. Say the other person’s name when appropriate. Everybody loves the sound of their own name. Compliment people on things you genuinely appreciate. Nobody likes flattery but everyone likes being appreciated.

The manufacture of plastic bags produces much less carbon emissions than paper bags. Consider the costs of logging, transportation of wood, the manufacture process which uses a ton of water, the transportation of paper which is heavier than plastic which means higher fuel costs, etc. And also consider that most trees we cut down from paper come directly from farms which often require irrigation or items like fertilizer (which have carbon costs). Although not every tree farm uses that, some are more “natural growth”

Plastic bags tend to be more durable and re-usable than paper bags. Unfortunately most people don’t re-use either.

Of course, the main issue is the fact that they take hundreds of years to decompose and end up everywhere. Also, plastics come directly from petrochemicals which are a finite resource. There are ways to create plastic from renewable oils, although that raises the carbon emissions significantly.

I think this is an excellent example to give people to illustrate that a lot of times, the choices we make as a society about simple things can be counter-intuitive. Often times, we’re making decisions about what bad thing we want less. Do we want plastic building up in landfills and oceans, or do we want the global temperature to stop rising?

Of course, these aren’t the only two options and it’s not a 1 to 1 linear relationship. But it’s an interesting example.

What sort of things do you use BTT for? I use it too on my MacBook with Apple silicon. Although I view it as a consolation prize. Most everything I use it for I can do with a bash script + hotkey in Linux on my desktop.

Then again, maybe I’m just not creative enough. I understand BTT has a wide range of options to allow for complex shortcuts. But practically speaking, I don’t know if I can use 95% of those options.

yes but that has little do to with random people sharing misinformation and more concentrated efforts by people with resources to try and manipulate the population

this is something that happens with or without social media. billionaires love spreading their pet ideologies. banning social media won’t stop them and in fact probably just helps them as “official” sources become the only source of information.

two days ago, there were reports going around online that 20 drones had entered israel from lebanon in the north. the information was coming from the IDF. at the same time, sirens were going off across all of northern israel. 1.5 million israelis were told to shelter in place. again, information from the IDF

right after this, rumors online started going around that the US government was evacuating their embassy in beirut, essentially implying that the war was going to spread to lebanon. a really big deal, if true

turns out those were false. the rumors spread about 30 minutes or so and then the embassy in beirut responded to this and said there was no evacuation.

moral of story? yes, misinformation spreads quickly. people are deathly afraid and fear spreads like fire. but it also gets debunked because there are people out there paying attention.

it’s sort of the idea of the open marketplace of ideas. bullshit spreads, but there are people out there dedicated to the truth. it’s a price we have to pay, otherwise we would be blind to these things.

twitter has been the best place to get real time updates about both the ukraine war and now this israel v hamas conflict

i don’t doubt there’s a lot of questionable content on there, but the value in spreading information outside of “official sources” is huge. the first casualty in a war is the truth and governments would love to get rid of people spreading the reality of the facts on the ground

Ya and ban all forms of protest against apartheid.

That’s the EU and it would be the US too if we didn’t have the first amendment

I think it is possible under the right circumstance. For example let’s say internet disappeared tomorrow. I think what would likely happen is local areas would start to connect.

It would start would smaller groups and slowly integrate more and more until you had the internet back.

I remember watching some sort of video, maybe it was a Vice bit, I don’t remember. They were in Cuba at this massive apartment building complex. Let’s say like 1,000 people lived there.

They didn’t have regular access to internet - they need to purchase credits from state store to use the internet. But many people have computers and want to play multi-player games even though they couldn’t afford the internet credits.

So what they do? Create a localized network between the entire complex so every person could connect, share files, share games, play games, etc. You have a mini-internet between all members of a community.

That’s all the internet is - networks connected to networks and done at the global scale. So is it possible to create another? Absolutely. Although you need some sort of incentive to do it, otherwise nobody will bother. The Cubans had an incentive, but I’m hard pressed to find a reason one would want to in the US these days. You never know, though.

They’ve proved they don’t have their users best interests at heart.

This is true for any for-profit business. They exist strictly to make profit for the shareholders. In fact, the executives can be held legally responsible should they not act in the best interests of the shareholders. By their very nature, no for-profit organizations will EVER have the users best interests at heart.

And who doesn’t do it?

OSS operating systems. The more proprietary software you run, the less and less you actually own your computer and the more it becomes a tool to advance the interests of megacorps.

I would much rather some government on the other side of the planet know my intimate details rather than the government at home who can actually act on that information

They know everything about you.

Of course, I agree with you. I would never initiate an action with the intention of causing harm - like kicking a puppy to death.

I also try to help when not too inconvenient for me. I typically give spare cash to homeless whenever they show up in front of me. I try and tip service workers well. I donate to a few non-profits, although they are mainly open source projects and is admittedly more ideologically driven than ethically. I try to be kind and polite and compassionate to the people in my life.

I’m just not about to dedicate my life to feeding the homeless or caring for orphans. I don’t care enough besides giving a few bucks here and there. I’m simply just more concerned about myself and my family.

Having said that, of course we can do better and we should try. For example the animal thing. If lab grown meat was at a comparable quality and price, I would prefer it every time. If I can choose the option of less harm without lowering my quality of life I would in a heartbeat. But I actually won’t lower my quality of life, at least not significantly.

It’s a similar story with environmentalism. The only real way to lower carbon emissions to a level where the climate isn’t at long term risk is for billions of people to stop using so much energy, stop eating so much meat & carbon heavy foods (almonds, avocados, etc), stop driving cars, stop using A/C, stop buying items that get sent on cargo ships all across the world, etc.

We can reduce it with renewable energies and plastic substitutes and reducing personal usage, carbon taxes… whatever. But nobody is actually willing to go back to the 18th century. Any modern society at such a scale that we have will inevitably change the climate. The Unabomber had it right 50 years ago and nobody wants to admit it.

For example even renewables. To build solar panels requires a supply chain with a massive amount of carbon being released into the air. You can’t escape it. Just like I think you can’t escape evils against humans in our society. The machine is cold and uncaring. The gears will not slow down just because a child (or a million) gets caught inside of them. It will keep spinning unrelentingly as if nothing happened, crushing without feeling.

Maybe I’m just cynical, I don’t know.

I like that quote you give, vanity is the devil’s favorite sin. Question, are you a believer? Do you believe in a God? The Christian God?

I’ll eat meat that comes from large scale animal torture, my taxes have paid for bombs to kill civilians, I’ve spent money on countless products that exploit an untold amount of people. My country is one that benefits from resource extraction of the third world.

I get to live in relative opulence while billions have a fraction of the quality of life I do.

At the end of the day, I just accept these things and continue to live my life.

I’ve always seen myself as a good person. But I figured I can’t be a good person and do all that. That mismatch in identity caused me to re-evaluate my position. Turns out I’m not actually willing to give up anything from above. So I’m probably a bad person.

That way there’s no hypocrisy.

The Bible actually brings this up in an interesting way. Rich man goes up to Jesus and asks how to get into Heaven. Jesus says sell all your belongings and give the proceeds to charity. Then follow me. Rich man cried.

We’re all going to hell.

This is strictly a civil lawsuit against Pornhub (Aylo) AFAIK

I guess stuff could turn up in this trial that leads to criminal charges, but from what I understand nobody at Aylo was involved with the GDP activities. They were simply a popular channel on the site.

The people behind GDP did get charged and convicted with a long list of criminal charges including rape, sexual assault, fraud, sex trafficking, etc. Some got charged with like 20 years. Pratt, one of the founders went on the run and was on the FBI wanted fugitive list. He was arrested by Interpol in Madrid eventually.

Pornhub was/is a video hosting platform and the lawsuit is because they didn’t react quickly enough to remove the videos. Legally speaking, they aren’t responsible for the content assuming they make a good faith effort to remove it should it be found out it was illegal.

The law exists in this manner because otherwise social media sites wouldn’t exist. At any point any user can post something illegal and then the website would be liable for criminal charges.

They had 1 moderator responsible for checking 700,000 videos. The plaintiffs are claiming that this means they weren’t making a good faith effort to remove these videos.

IANAL but I think they have a legal argument although we’ll have to see what happens. It’ll be interesting to see how the ruling goes. Other social media websites are definitely watching with interest.