“Free as in Freedom” doesn’t mean “Free as in Beer”.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a paid service using FOSS software if that’s the route they want to take. Using FOSS doesn’t mean you have to rely on donations only and aren’t allowed to charge. It only means you have to keep the source code freely available.

There’s a pervasive, damaging, and limiting misunderstanding about the word “Free” that has always been a problem in the Open Source world. This notion that things that are Open Source should be “No Cost” just because the source code is readily available and anyone could technically spin their own fork of it if they had the ability to do so.

But NO WHERE does it actually say that FREE means “Free as in Beer”.

If you don’t like it and don’t want to sign up, more power to you. That’s your freedom of choice. And to be honest, an instance asking for a fee probably wouldn’t be very successful.

But pretending that there is something either shady or legally or morally wrong with asking for a fee for using FOSS software is harmful to the very notion of FOSS and the upvote ratio you’re getting is a shameful example of how pervasive the whole “But GIMP/INKSCAPE/BLENDER is supposed to be free!” whining has become from users who have no clue what the “FREE” in “Free and Open Source” actually means.

I can’t be the only one who immediately thought “e pluribus anus” can I?

I’d have more respect for our Canadian leaders if even ONE of them would just stand up at a podium and say “nope…we’re ignoring it. Everyone knows it’s a pump and dump scheme to deflate and reinflate stocks. And in a week he’ll be removing them.”

Everyone KNOWS he’s a fucking grifter, but politicians don’t want to say it out loud.

My previous Motorola also has an e/OS/ spin. But sadly my current one does not.

Any Google app that would have Gemini baked in has long since been disabled on my phone. I’m presuming it’s bullshit isn’t going to be able to access my Fossify Messages or Dialer or Gallery or every other app I’ve replaced and disabled, especially since I’ve also disabled the Assistant and Google Apps.

(If I’m wrong please correct me.)

I guarantee you this man turns out to be a pedo.

Sooner or later, the U.S. is going to have to face the reality that the only thing they should be seeing in a photo like that is a really good spot to have planted an improvised explosive device.

Trump: Putting the “fat” in “fatwa” since 1946.

You will never convince me that shit like this is more than just performative play-acting for the sake of their base.

They aren’t actually fucking praying. They don’t actually believe any of this shit. It’s a tool used to keep the support of their base of white christian nationalists.

That’s why we see them doing shit like this now than every before.

In a world where more liberal minded Christians are balking at how “unchristian” these idiots are turning out to be, they have to make these shows louder and more obvious…and make damn sure there’s a camera around, so that they can play even harder to the more extreme supporters.

If they were to quietly go about their business with no “performative acts of faith”, more people would recognize them as the monsters they are.

But with shit like this, 81 year old grandparents the country over can look at them and say “I don’t understand what they’re doing, but they MUST be the good guys because look how christian they are…”

If anyone thinks America is getting out of this without resorting to firing squads and hanging these fuckers upside down in town squares, they’re naive as fuck.

That’s good to hear. It’s been many years since I’ve stayed in touch with either my extended family or my friends who live down there. (Most of my family moved from Portugal to Canada, but a couple of distant cousins moved instead to Brasil…around Niteroi if I remember correctly)

I last spoke with them in the early 2000s, and back then it was a pretty crazy contrast between the rich and the poor. Almost no true middle class. You either were wealthy enough to have servants, or you WERE the servant and went home to your favela that (if you were lucky) had electricity.

Sure. That might end up being a socially healthy place for adults to end up.

But it will never work that way for young teens. Their brains aren’t done baking yet. They don’t have the emotional maturity to understand that enough to be “okay with it because it’s just a fake”.

That’s why we protect kids rather than just telling them “hey it’s okay…it’s only a fake.”

I’m not even going to begin describing all the ways that what you just said is fucked up.

I’ll just point out that online deepfake technology is FAR more accessible to the average 13 year old to use on their peers than “porno mags” were in our day.

You want to compare taking your 13 year old classmates photo off of Facebook, running it through an AI and in five seconds creating photo-realistic adult content featuring them, and compare that to getting your dad’s skin-mag from under his mattress when he’s not home, cutting your classmates face out of a yearbook, taping it on, then sneaking THAT into the computer lab at school so that you can photocopy it and pass it around in home room, and then putting the skin-mag BACK under the mattress before your dad finds out.

Is that right…is THAT what you’re trying to say? Are those the two things that you’re trying say are equivalent?

When a stock price is all that matters, everything gets reduced to line items on a spreadsheet. That includes humanity.

This is unquestionably a good thing. But it’s also kind of weird that it’s Brasil of all places in on this, since the inequality there between the super wealthy and the folks living in the favelas is just an accepted part of life…kind of like the caste system in India.

I’m not saying that that’s a good thing. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t imagine the Brasilian authorities would actually give a shit considering the state of their own inequality and how it’s just kind of taken as a “reality of life” down there.

Yes. They are proud.

I hate to tell you, but they’re not covering their face out of a sense of shame; they’re covering them in order to prevent retaliation from people who disagree with them. They have no shame about what they’re doing.

If they are recognised and shunned, or refused service because of their actions, there’s no shame or self-reflection. it’s still the fault of the “damn libs”. THAT’S why they cover their faces; because they know they’re actions are unpopular and will get them retaliated against.

But knowing their actions are unpopular doesn’t mean for a second that they’re ashamed of those actions. On the contrary, the fuckers are proud to be doing Trumps dirty work.

The other side is already scouring obscure precedent to use to disqualify and deport him. So while this is great news, I won’t hold my breath for any sort of actual election victory past the primary.

Going through the motions of elections right now feels very much pointless since only someone incredibly naive would think that the right has any intention of allowing elections to matter any more.

The sooner Americans realise that it’s Let Them Eat Cake time the sooner they can move on with guillotine o’clock.

Peaceful protests, boycotts and sternly worded letters rely on the people you’re protesting having a sense of shame. Which the right (and most of the left) no longer have.

I just use Syncthing. No cloud, just keeps any folders I choose on any devices synced with one another. Never had a problem, and while the files yes accessible on the internet technically, they’re not stored anywhere except the devices that have access to them. Works like a charm.

I usually move to Lineage once my two year warranty is up, just in case.

I know that by law hardware manufacturers can’t deny hardware warranty based on your software (at least where I’m from…I worked in for one of the big three telco’s up here in Canada)

But I’d rather not have that argument with the manufacturer, so I wait for it to run out. If my phone has a rom available I run that until the hardware dies and then I upgrade.

In the absence of being able to switch to Graphene (Don’t own a pixel), I’ve done everything I can to replace Google Apps with FOSS alternatives, and disabled Google Assistant on my device entirely.

I know none of that will stop a determined Google eventually fucking with me, but at least I’m trying.

I’m so damned tired of the modern corporate world.

On the bright side, if Trump says they obliterated something, it either means they totally missed, or it was lightly damaged at best. Fucker lies every time he opens his mouth. It’s generally a safe strategy to go with the opposite of anything that pours out of that burger hole.