Interesting, thanks!

Guess it’s the same kinda thing as amd64 on Intel lol

Why does default config check Mozilla specifically?

{
"name": "generic-browser",
"user_agent_regex": "Mozilla",
"action": "CHALLENGE"
}

Guess that’s why I’ve seen Anubis check screen quite a few times.

Hehe, I dream of having my own lab at some point too! But in my case it would be worth $200.000 on the low end.

And overall, nice!

About a month should be covered

Yay!

Yay!

Can’t it automatically be renewed?

Right as we speak, the US assists Israel in its genocidal mission to destroy Palestine - one condemned by nearly the entire world. So much for “global benevolent police”.

Sure, there needs to be some updates to ensure UN has what it takes to establish an actually useful peacekeeping force. Guess who’s gonna veto it before anyone else, though, and for what reasons. It’s so so profitable to declare yourself a world police without asking anybody, and ravage any place on Earth on demand.

And this is one of the issues where I can’t reasonably agree to disagree. Covering up for mass murdering hegemon is not an option, whatever said hegemon is.

Cheers, though.

So, bring in security by initiating wars?

My point is, these interventions have never been about democracy, or freedom, or security for that matter. They were about forcibly creating dependent puppet states acting in the economic interest of the US and reinforcing its hegemony, locals be damned. And it’s what every “successful” invasion has provided.

Take something like Chile as an example (it’s a particularly black-and-white one, but there are plenty more). It was a liberal democracy ran by an elected President, who just so happened to be socialist. The reforms he has introduced threatened foreign capital within the nation, including the American one; as a result, CIA has first launched a propaganda campaign, and when this failed, sponsored and armed a coup that led to the instatement of a brutal and bloody authoritarian regime.

Did the country become more democratic? No. Did it become safer? Hell no. But it suddenly became very dependent on and friendly to American capital, which this entire operation was all about.

If we want some real world police, we should extend the scope of the UN Peacekeepers, instead of relying on a country with a hundred year history of arbitrary invasions and covert interventions. We need the peacekeeping force to be globally recognized and supported.

I don’t know why do some people feel their country is entitled to carry world’s justice. It’s not better or more just, it’s just properly defended against retaliation. It is harassment, not policing.

F I N A L L Y

Now tell me it supports IPv6 and I’ll be the happiest man alive

For what it is in what respect? You tried to argue that Cold War is a good vs evil situation, I argued that it is very much evil vs evil.

I fully admit Russia is and always was (I told you why nineties don’t really count) an autocracy, and that actions of Russian rulers have caused a lot of misery and suffering. This doesn’t stop me from admitting the US is a deeply flawed democracy, that American rulers are known to take plenty of unpopular decisions (including wars that no one asked for), and are generally known to not care about lives of people outside the country, causing even more misery all around the globe up to this day.

And this is exactly why I want the governments to have less power, and advocate for direct democracy. Any power is potential for abuse, and Russia and the US have likely proved it the most. Curbing the power of all governments, big and small, has great potential to reduce violence and abuse. With direct democracy and independent media, Russia could have never attacked Ukraine, Israel could never attack Palestine, and US wouldn’t threaten to enter Iran yet again. Russia also wouldn’t have opposition in jails or abroad, US wouldn’t send immigrants to Alligator Alcatraz, and level of human misery would be so much less.

As long as we lead ourselves to believe that this misery and suffering is righteous or “not that bad” to any degree, we empower the tyrants all around the globe.

Oh, Connect is still out there? Thought it is dead.

Annexation by USSR touched Baltics and parts of Poland. The rest was more of puppet governments - something the US has practiced extensively all around the globe.

Part of it was ex-Axis powers (like Japan), the other part - just about any government thinking of socialism or economic independence from the US or having oil (Vietnam, Cuba, Chile, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Brazil, Bolivia, Cambodia, Syria, Guatemala, China, Egypt - you name it). After the Cold War, there were barely a few years US was not involved in some conflict or the other over its “national interests” or “national security”, suggesting that it was never about rivalry with USSR. Needless to say, local population was generally not very happy about getting these military interventions, carpet bombings, coups and instated dictators.

So, I cannot in good faith agree that US was any better in this respect. Both sucked a lot, and same is likely to happen to any grand military power - if anything because military needs experience to stay efficient, and with great power comes great desire to use it to your advantage.

This took a weird turn, and I hoped we are on the same page.

I do not support Russian government, and I hoped I made it very clear. All I call for is being honest when making accusations towards anyone.

“Russia is behind this” became a common trope that seemingly doesn’t need any confirmation. Someone called it on Russia - then Russia it is. It’s an instrument of propaganda, and it’s how people are trained to believe whatever they hear without even attempting to check proofs.

Cold war is literally both sides, and I don’t know what angle makes it not true. Could you elaborate why you put all blame on USSR, exactly?

There were issues with USSR, and quality of life and level of democracy was generally higher in the US; but what does it mean in the context of foreign relations? Isn’t/wasn’t the US literally the number 1 most invasive country on Earth, with military installations all around the globe and an insane toll of global conflicts and inflicted misery? With all respect, if we compare these two countries specifically, USSR was rather a cute little nuance, and it must take a lot of indoctrination to fail to see it.

Again, this is not to say either USSR or Russia are flawless or even good; a lot of fuckery went on in each, which has caused immense suffering. But if we consider Russian/Soviet imperialism, we should be sure not to apply double standards, or else you’ll risk overlooking dangerous precedents.

Oh, I know that feeling! Sorry to know the long comment is gone, happened to me more than once.

Oh, so you attribute the rise of Finnish right-wing to Russia as well, as in Russian agencies artificially create a wave of anti-immigration and then send immigrants in? Honestly, with all the real damage Russia has done, I feel like it is used as a scapegoat here; among a few reasonably confirmed cases (mostly of Russia killing dissidents abroad etc.), there is a sea of practically baseless speculation. Last time I saw this was a few days ago, when German military vehicles burned and journalists attributed it to Russia because some random pro-Russia Telegram channel mentioned it (and did so with clear factual errors that are alone enough to dismiss it).

Cold war, we should remember, was a two-sided conflict. It was not good vs evil, it was capitalist world full of red scare and propaganda vs communist block full of authoritarianism and, again, propaganda. Both sides could do much more to maintain peace, it’s just that one side has eventually collapsed, leaving the other to rule the world and write history books. And as much as Europe was concerned about USSR being on their doorsteps, so was USSR concerned about militarization of Europe with the aid of the US. That’s what this entire showoff is based on; it’s not a one-sided show of intimidation, and, arguably, both sides would rather not have it. Moreover, it was started by the US swinging nuclear arms around, and then USSR jumped along.

I’m not sure what you consider to be a shot of democracy - perestroika itself or the dissolution of the Soviet Union? In first case, yes, it was a welcome change, but as some of the Soviet republics, particularly in the Baltics, were essentially held in by force and censorship, it was a catalyst for the future dissolution, which is likely why it wasn’t done sooner. Dissolution itself brought a lot of freedom to the former republics which were not super fond of being Soviet to begin with, but was a disaster for Russia, Belarus, and new states in the Middle East. In the latter, there was nothing to blow as there was nothing democratic about them to begin with - it was just a bunch of new dictators.

Speaking of Russia in particular, while trying to show a face of democratic change, Yeltsin has consolidated power by creating puppet parties (including a puppet Communist party), silencing opposition by not letting them into main federal TV channels that were the main information source at the time, and destroying existing democratic institutions, sometimes with actual military force (see the assault on Congress of People’s Deputies). By the time Putin (heavily endorsed by Yeltsin as the new leader of the country) got to rule Russia, it was already heavily in United Russia party’s grip. Make no mistake - this was a show of democracy designed to be blown. And, sure, it was an easy play, as Russians by then never really knew the times they, and not someone in the high cabinets, could vote someone in.

We should certainly have experts running and planning critical parts of the economy, but we should also make sure it’s as hard to corrupt as possible. Governments are prone of injecting propaganda in schools we both care about, cutting medical spending, and attacking nuclear plants during the wars. If we should have governments at all, they should either work through as much of direct democracy and self-organizing as opposed to representative power (which is quite close to anarchy), or through careful and open computerized planning with active input of the people. The global political goals in the meantime should shift towards cooperation and integration on all levels, so that one plot of land uniting against the other plot of land would look as absurd as it actually is.

Instance name checks out

Also, hello there, fellow labrat! Are you a microbiologist?

Immigration being seen as a weapon has always bewildered me. If people come to your country, commonly running away from famine and war, and you see them as nothing but a weapon, something is seriously wrong. I am aware some countries like Finland are already fairly filled with immigrants, but Europe could use some more cooperation to solve this.

To my perspective, Russian government was not the bad one, it was a rival, as in yet another place being run by shitheads. Funnily enough, 1991-2000 was actually the time when liberties coming from Perestroika were tanked again, the country was destroyed against people’s will, and wild privatization combined with corruption has left millions in deep poverty and famine; crime arose. People had their homeland taken away from them before they could react, and they were intentionally kept clueless on what was going on. But it was also the time when Russia had better relations with Europe and the US, which is why this period is seen as “Russia being good”.

Removing all governments overnight is not feasible indeed. But we should admit the harms patriotic and, as a radical extension, nationalist models cause to society at large and our global cooperation, we should own up to what it means to hostility, warfare, and breeding idiots who make it worse for all of us. Every time someone tries to instill patriotic feelings within the population, they just want to make us more controllable and divided. We shouldn’t let them. And as an extension of that, we should advocate for direct democracy and gradual dissolution of government as a main controlling entity.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t praise certain decisions made by your government. They can be objectively good!

Oh, I should make it very, very clear: Ubuntu is a mess that newbies shouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. Comparing to Ubuntu, even Arch can look appealing for lack of confusion. Nothing that I say goes to support this abomination, and I did not mention it positively.

Generally though, most distros featuring KDE/GNOME will already have everything in one place - but, ironically, not Arch, which actually features three places to look for apps: the official repos for precompiled packages, Flatpaks, or AUR. And without something like pamac - a tool made by Manjaro team available through AUR - you can’t have all three in one interface or through same commands.

If I would choose distro by how easy it is to have everything in one place, this would likely be Fedora/OpenSUSE/Debian with Discover app store from KDE suite. Everything, be it native packages or Flatpaks, is in there, and you can easily select the source for any given app.

As per compatibility, I’m a strong proponent of Flatpaks. They are not significantly harder to manage than any other apps (in most cases, they don’t require any extra configuration), but they will help you avoid dependency issues and they also won’t get full access to your entire system, which is to me a disaster waiting to happen.

I started with Manjaro, and found myself in quite a predicament once I figured out what it means to have Arch under the hood. It was…a rude awakening.

Then I moved on to Debian and Fedora, and from there I gained enough knowledge to manage Arch systems. Now, I have Endeavour on my main computer and OpenSUSE Slowroll on my laptop.

For a casual experienced user - maybe, if bloat is a super big concern and ricing is an absolute priority.

For a casual newbie - please, no. Arch will immediately force the user to go through a lot of hoops, learn a million terminal commands to make basic changes, and overall it will be a very frustrating and non-intuitive experience. Also, rolling updates will inevitably lead to bugs here and there, and without the experience managing Linux systems, there’s only so much one can do to fix it.

Guess that’s why Europe has built defences against immigrants, and many European countries straight up rejected to accept them? And that’s why right-wingers with their anti-immigration policies win over more and more votes?

My point is, this is one of the consequences that comes with national identity. For some, it’s just unfair preference of “their” people and things, for others, it’s nationalism and xenophobia.

Blocking “disinformation” is also a slippery slope towards autocracy. Y’know, Russia did the same back in the day. I understand that it feels like a necessity amidst hybrid wars, but it’s bound to be problematic down the road.