CW: slurs, bigotry

Well this was apparently their chat log. I found the link through the comments on Hacker News. Whatever you think of Drew, he’s not wrong at all, they sound like they just discovered 4chan.

Sigh…Seems like every time Proton gets criticized, their fanboys always ensure to let you know that you’re somehow wrong. I don’t know how they managed to get recommended by so many people considering they provide unaffordable services for everyone not on a high income. I would try to migrate if I were you, they’re pumping new features constantly despite their users wanting bugfixes and improvements to existing ones to gain more and more ecosystem users. It’s a dark pattern. Look at Google and Apple.

“Oh, what about the free-tier?” It’s a joke having to use their own clients when powerful open-source ones exist. “Oh, but it’s because of the encryption that’s protecting you!” I know how to use PGP, thanks. Plus, it only works if you’re sending to other Proton accounts, and guess what? I don’t even have control over my own key pair! (Edit: and when migrating away, I can’t even bulk export my emails!)

Even the comments made by me and Dsklnsadog got vibe-based downvoted because they can’t even bother to come up with a response on why our opinions were wrong. I’m glad I stopped using their services before I sent them any money.

Also why would someone who want enhanced privacy put all their eggs in the basket by trapping themself in Proton’s ecosystem. Compartmentalize is important, and it ends up being cheaper too. Proton’s pricing is cutthroat.

I see 4 here.

Being downvoted for a Wikipedia link? You have ghosts following you, it seems.

Vanadium and Adguard home

Interfacing markdown:

• Joplin (pretty popular, haven’t used)
• Standard Notes (same as above)
• Markor (feature-packed, a bit outdated)
• BeautyXT (maybe a bit too minimal almost, but gets the job done if you just want text based editing)

Interfacing orgmode:

• Orgzly (beautiful simple app that uses a superior syntax when compared to Markdown due to its built-in agenda and to-do structure)

Syncing flat files (might not be compatible with all of the above)

• Their own hosted server if available (easy but not private, some provide E2EE)
• Syncthing (easy and private)
• WebDav or an SFTP server (hard if self-hosted or otherwise easy through some providers)
• Termux + a Git server (pain)

In French culture, wearing them is not something French people would do.

Explain to me what French people wear in French culture. Are you trying to stereotype French people here? What do you call the Muslim population who migrated to France, hold citizenships, have children, speak French, work in France? Are they not French? Or are you implying that French people cannot be Muslims? What about white French who converted to Islam? Are they no longer French?

SSH into my PC, from there pretty much anything is possible. Neovim works pretty well.

If you watch the videos, the voice is hilariously bad, it has to be some generative AI voice acting.

If you want some cloud syncing but also want privacy, then you will have to self-host, or pay someone to do it for you. There are some free tier Nextcloud accounts, but quite limited in storage. Disroot is one of them. If you do end up self-hosting, there are really good budgeting stacks out there:

https://awesome-selfhosted.net/tags/money-budgeting–management.html

My partner and I use Actual budget, and I can recommend it.

For any of these services, you don’t even have to have a server running 24/7 if you don’t add transactions live. If you do it once a day, just boot up the Docker container, store your stuff, and go about your day. But if you want constant access, you’d have to leave the server running all the time, and to access from the public network, then I recommend Tailscale.

I’ve been waiting on this issue the day it was posted… It doesn’t bother me as much as I have a second vertical monitor so the flashing is at the edge of the vertical one, and it’s definitely reduced but not gone away. Coupled with these recent driver updates, my X server just gets slower over time (not in game, thankfully).

Nvidia doesn’t even have to go FOSS, they can just go OS, and this issue could probably be resolved by now due to increased transparency of what the f is going on with the drivers, as well as better collaboration between kernel developers and driver developers. Who knows what they’re attempting behind the curtains, 3+ releases since this bug was filed and still not fixed.

A genuine fuck you, Nvidia.

Nope, seems like an issue for a lot of people, including me.

RT might be soft blocked on your ISP using some quirks with their SSL certs, it’s blocked on my network but I can access it over Tor / VPN just fine.

Just to be clear, what do you mean by Google-affiliated links, anything *.google.com ?

Is your default container the one with the Google cookies? Or is your default one not signed and you have a separate one you have to manually open to access the Google account?

Regardless, I would do the following:

• Default container (not signed in to Google)
• Special container for Google account

Therefore, any link you click on will go to the default container, and is isolated from the Google containers. If you do want to, say, go to Gmail, then just open a new tab in the special Google container manually. This is easier to set up than the inverse where you have to filter by links. Or, if you only use Gmail signed in, but say, not YouTube, then add a auto redirect rule so that Gmail always open in the special Google container.

Also look into Temporary containers if you don’t care about cookies and want more isolation on top of the default container.

Damn they’re making todo lists a subscription service now??

To answer the question: anything that provides a CALDAV backend (e.g. Nextcloud, Etesync, Radicale). Some are free with limited storage, but some are subscription based, but you get calendar, storage, other stuff too. You can additionally self-host a CALDAV server or Nextcloud to use these services gratuit. For a more minimal implentation, try plain text, markdown, orgmode, etc., and use Syncthing to sync between devices.

Because of better accessibility. How so?

Because not everyone has the money to afford these new and expensive laptops designed for a niche market. They are still enthusiast-grade products, the prices speak for themselves.

Because not everyone comes from Europe / the US, so it’s not easy to find these with affordable shipping.

Because these laptops are only normally offered new, which, for responsible and personal ownership, is excessive. There are thousands of used hardware lying around, why not put some life back into them instead?

It comes down to price, availability and ethical concerns. Unless money doesn’t mean anything to you, why do you need a $1000 laptop when someone wants a device for higher education or personal casual use? The world doesn’t need more rampant marketing of niche, hyped-up tech. While a fully-FOSS system may be the ideal machine for every Linux enthusiast, we live in a material world with finite resources and chasing after some unicorn laptop is unsustainable.

I know people who graduated in CS with one of those old IBM X220s, but for the sake of modernity, there are a lot of options, the T and P series have good releases, but one model can have different specs. I have the T480s and if you can find a used T470 or T480 (s or without s), it will serve you well. Some of these will also allow you to upgrade the RAM and SSD. It might be a tad slow if you do all those things you mentioned at once, but I can open 4 or 5 PDFs, 30+ tabs and a few terminals and it’s still quite responsive.

Some guides on different models (I don’t know how useful these are, but they might help you):

• https://www.bobble.tech/free-stuff/used-thinkpad-buyers-guide
• https://dankpads.com/tpg/
• https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

Consider refurbished or second hand, please don’t buy a brand new laptop as there is so much waste in the world already. If you buy from big brands, you might be able to buy replacement batteries. If not, install Linux and use TLP. You could also ask the seller to measure the battery life. I was patient and managed to score a used ThinkPad and the battery health was 98% when I bought it.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

But anything that requires configuration…should have a fully functional GUI.

Does this apply to ones with only 4 or 5 options to configure, where’s the cutoff? Configuration files set the default flags and arguments, and a lot of command line tools that are configurable are small and simple enough that making a GUI just to configure it is not worth the hassle, the increased complexity and codebase size. The idea is that if the software is one or a few executable binar(ies) with enough flexibility, then contributors who’s proficient with GUI toolkits can write the GUI wrapper (as a separate package), otherwise it’s actually just a waste of time for the main dev(s). If that sounds reasonable, then you could write it yourself, pay someone to do it, or wait for someone to volunteer their time.

To address the problem itself. Maybe you should explain what problems you have with editing the configuration files yourself? I know the cons are: (1) having to know or be able to read toml, yaml, json, ini, or some kind of config syntax (but I think they are designed to be generally quite easy to understand), (2) it takes a bit longer to find and open if you’re not used to it, (3) everything is a file so it’s linear, making it harder to see where things are, so longer configs are a PITA. Good tools I think benefit from a GUI or TUI is TLP, archive managers, calculators, volume controllers, font manager or viewer (kinda obvious), why would you want a GUI to configure, e.g., bat, pacman, i3, dunst, all the xorg stuff like xresources, xmodmap??

In return, the pros are: (1) if there are no external docs, the docs can stay inside the default or sample configuration in the form of comments, whereas for GUI you can’t possible include this information for every single toggle, (2) it’s harder to version control because of increased abstraction, (3) it’s not possible to translate every configuration field to a GUI if it’s beyond just a toggle, you would still have to type things in.

I think having an extra GUI wrapper is a matter of complex balance, and made into reality by contributors and volunteers (or eventually, the devs themselves). To say everything should have a FULLY functional GUI if you have to configure it is a bit of an exaggeration and overreach.