One of the great things with Mastodon is that in case of your instance shutting down you can just move to another one. I have moved from Mastodon -> Firefish -> Mastodon without issue. In the case of Firefish the instance shut down... So I do not follow your point.
Readit Newsshellkr commented on Nobody cares about decentralization until they do (2024) kyefox.com/nobody-cares-a... · Posted by u/Kye
shellkr commented on Do the simplest thing that could possibly work seangoedecke.com/the-simp... · Posted by u/dondraper36
I think I learned this from Arch Linux and their focus on the KISS principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle). This is also something that goes beyond the computing sphere. It is really a good principle for life in general.
shellkr commented on Hyprland – An independent, dynamic tiling Wayland compositor hypr.land/... · Posted by u/AbuAssar
It's a phase. I used to try and customize everything, tiling window managers, custom color schemes, Arch, etc. Right now I'm on a Mac so vanilla I didn't even change the wallpaper.
I guess I am still in that phase then, after 25y+ of Linux. Not that I rice constantly but that I configure my desktop exactly how I like it and then let it stay. Usually the ricing/configuring comes when I buy new hardware.. so not that often. Or when a major change like Wayland comes around which is what made switch from Arch/X11/Bspwm to Arch/Wayland/Hyperland. I have tried but can not use vanilla for long... I just have to adapt the system to me. I feel constrained if I have to adapt to the system.
shellkr commented on The global population pyramid ourworldindata.org/global... · Posted by u/wormold
>And if you encourage immigration as the solution to shrinkage you end up with rising racism and other reactionary trends to these changing demographics.
One of the worst things about using immigration as a solution is that it's merely a bandaid. The worst thing is that people who encourage mass immigration are (likely) unknowingly saying their country is more deserving of the temporary benefits of immigration, and the source country can go to hell.
Many countries that are currently sources of large numbers of immigrants are rapidly approaching sub-replacement levels (e.g. Mexico), if they haven't already reached that point (e.g., Vietnam, China). The idea behind mass immigration is that you have a constant supply of workers and tax payers to subsidize the welfare of the retiring natives of a country. The idea of having a class of people subsidize others is troublesome enough, but the real problem is those less wealthy countries that immigrants come from are now lacking in workers and losing their own future. For countries that are still only beginning to develop, such as Vietnam, their future is a hell of a lot more at risk than something like Canada.
First world countries relying on immigrants have infrastructure and various frameworks built up that'll last them for quite a while after populations begin to dip. Poor countries do not have that benefit. Shit will hit the fan and hard. Young people who struggle to meet basic daily needs are going to be pissed when they're working for dollars a day and expected to support the social nets given to 3 generations above them while being told there's nothing left for them.
Right now, the government is saying we should mass import Vietnamese people to change the diapers of our old and do dirty construction jobs. What's Vietnam going to do in 25 years when its population crisis catches up with it, and every country around it is going through the same problem? Nobody's changing their diapers and their streets are going to crumble from insufficient laborers.
Being able to move where the jobs are... aren't really a bad thing. It helps all participants. The only downside is that you might have a bit of a brain drain. Which is not necessarily bad. Those with brains goes to another country where they can work and then being able to send money back home. Poor countries in Europe did this in the big emigration and populated America. Those countries are among the richest in the world now. Both America and Europe benefited by it.
They might not be able to find jobs in their home country which could be a burden on the country. If they move and start working in another country. They might get a job that is harder to recruit to and not only just fill that spot but also pay taxes.
Most studies I have seen claim that the more exposure one have to people of other cultures, the more acceptance it will have. So it is actually the opposite. The more immigrants, the more acceptance there should be.
I have the below for cases when I have to make a quick screencast. It needs ffmpeg and I am not sure how well the yt flag works as I don't really use Youtube any longer. Anyway.. first I do 'ffsc sc' and if I want that video to be smaller I do 'ffsc yt <path_to_file>'.
## Make screencast or convert to yt
ffsc () {
vid_name="$HOME/Videos/Screencasts/screencast_$(date +'%y%m%d-%H%M%S')"
case $1 in
sc) ffmpeg -f x11grab -s 1920x1080 -i $DISPLAY -r 30 -f alsa -i default -preset ultrafast \
-c:v ffvhuff -c:a flac ${vid_name}.mkv
printf "${vid_name}.mkv" | xsel -i
echo
echo "- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -"
echo "Output file name: ${vid_name}.mkv"
echo "- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -"
echo
[ -e /tmp/ffsc.tmp ] && { rm /tmp/ffsc.tmp }
printf "${vid_name}.mkv" > /tmp/ffsc.tmp
;;
yt) ffmpeg -i $2 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow -pix_fmt rgb24 -c:a copy ${2/scr/yt_scr}
yt_name=$(cat /tmp/ffsc.tmp)
printf "${yt_name/scr/yt_scr}" | xsel -i
echo
echo "- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -"
echo "Output file name: ${yt_name/scr/yt_scr}"
echo "- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -"
echo
;;
mini) ffmpeg -i $2 -strict -2 -s 1680x1050 -r 60 -c:v libx264 -b:v 164 -crf 22 -preset slow \
-pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy -an ${2/scr/mini_scr}
mini_name=${2/scr/mini_scr}
ffmpeg -i ${mini_name} -filter:v "setpts=0.5*PTS" -an ${mini_name/.mkv/.mp4}
rm ${mini_name}
printf "${mini_name/.mkv/.mp4}" | xsel -i
echo
echo "- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -"
echo "Output file name: ${mini_name/.mkv/.mp4}"
echo "- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -"
echo
;;
esacAnd another nice one I didn't see here..
# Python as a calculator
pc() { python -c "print($*)"; }
shellkr commented on Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia weforum.org/agenda/2018/1... · Posted by u/walterbell
I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer.
I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't accepted at the festival anyway).
When I could get someone to pay for me directly, transferring the money back to them was hard (since the festival didn't have any ATMs), so I had to go through the whole burdensome SWIFT procedure with getting their bank account number, their full name and address, their bank info, IBAN number of their bank etc, so I could send the money back when I got home to Norway.
Utopia my ass.
Ok... so you went to a festival without money? How would you have solved this without Swish? As you said there was no ATMs. Card readers are expensive and not really viable for most booths. They are also kind of a monopoly.
You don't have to use SWIFT... you can do Paypal, Western union etc.. too.
For Swedes.. Swish is god send. I lost my credit card once at a train and had no cash. I was at a hospital out of town with my son. I was able to Swish to a doctor and then get cash from him.
shellkr commented on Apple Reports Third Quarter Results apple.com/newsroom/2018/0... · Posted by u/coloneltcb
Not only do I occasionally game, I also have a DSLR that generates quite the stream of photos and videos to edit. I also run a bunch of VMs (including one of Ubuntu, my favourite dev environment), and I use photoshop and illustrator for the occasional design thing.
Me too.. but mostly just personal stuff. I use DarkTable and Gimp for that. I did this on a 13 year old machine running Linux. It is still running but I got my hands on a cheap NUC that I use nowadays. My machines are pretty much running 24/7 all year around..
My impression when it comes to Mac is that people don't want to pay ludicrous prices for repairs e.t.c.. anymore. Also that they can not upgrade because their current machine can't handle the new OS e.t.c..
shellkr commented on Why ActivityPub is the future blog.joinmastodon.org/201... · Posted by u/gargron
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter: they grew to what they are today because each of them had people behind the wheel with a product mentality. This mentality attracted the capital and talent necessary to create products that resonated with people.
Now, some would say that, these services had the goal to make money and that's why they attracted capital and could hire top talent, but it doesn't change the fact that they had to have a strong product mentality to get to where they are today.
Most decentralized software I see have a project mentality based on idealism, but idealism is not enough. That's why desktop Linux failed to capture significant market share even if it costs zero to Joe Average to install it: it stayed at the level of idealism, of a project, while proprietary platforms like Windows an OSX had serious money and talent behind them because they weren't just projects.
On the other hand, Firefox and the Linux kernel are good example of successful open source softwares with a strong product mentality. Mozilla had a vision and they realized they need a strong product to fulfill that vision, so they needed to be able to pay their developers well, meaning they had to generates money. Same thing with the Linux kernel, which is backed by a lot of big companies.
So I guess what I'm saying is; if ActivityPub is to be the future, then there should be more than idealism behind it.
Don't agree. Mentality is important but it will not automatically lead to success. Look at how well Windows Phone did. Microsoft put everything they had to make that product but ultimately failed.
Both Mac and Windows is successful because retail. People do not want to troubleshoot issues themselves.. They also want something they know. Apple is good at marketing and Windows is something we all know. Linux has just a bunch of small shops and does not have the same brand recognition. It takes much longer for Linux desktop to reach that level of trust. Especially when Microsoft uses their considerable capital to lobby against Linux adoption. Linux adoption is continually rising though.. It is at about 3% right now.
ActivityPub is like the Linux kernel. It is the foundation that other software can use. It took a long time but eventually the idealism behind Linux made it work. It became an important infrastructure that saved money and thus an edge. ActivityPub have the same possibility. It could become the infrastructure of social media.
I'm using Sailfish OS on an Xperia X since when it became available. My main reason to migrate from Android was "battery life" which was confirmed (battery now lasts ~5 days instead of the usual 2-3), but the OS has a lot of small and bigger bugs (e.g. carrier selection, 2G/3G/4G priority, stuck data comm for Android apps) and missing features (notoriously: tethering/wlan access point, bluetooth) that do not currently make it a valid alternative for a normal user if compared to the other operating systems. Version 2.1.4 beta is available (https://blog.jolla.com/sailfish-os-2-1-4-now-available-early...) which might fix many bugs and deliver some key features, but the date for the final release has not been published (and I'm too scared to brick my phone by installing the beta).
Those missing features do exist on the Jolla1 so it should work on the Xperia soon enough.
Only issue I had is some apps not working.. but none important.
shellkr commented on It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance theverge.com/2018/4/15/17... · Posted by u/Tomte
Wow! He actually recommended to use the browser password manager... Yes, I use FF and have since it came. I did try Chrome a couple of times but it was just a resource hog and ugly. With FF I could get it to look as I wanted and the extensions worked better.
So I agree with his decision but not his arguments or recommendations. They are just crap. The best way to protect your passwords is via a password manager that is not in plane text. Like Pass or Keepass. Pass is my fav as it is extremely portable.