Americans look around at all the cheap commodities around them and think “yes, capitalism is the best system for organizing an economy”. What they don’t realize is just how much this lifestyle has been the direct result of exploitation of workers and resources in the global south, destruction of the environment, consuming at a level ~5x what the earth can sustain, not to mention US dollar hegemony and a military with 800+ bases around the world that can impose the will of capital (which realizes cheap stuff is needed to pay off the working class in the global north. When capital is no longer able to maintain this, I genuine believe workers will question this whole “capitalism is the best system ever” thing.

Nah this guy sucks. Obviously death threats are over the line but making his life uncomfortable is the least the Judas Iscariot of Linux deserves. We don’t need devs like this anyways, I hope he steps away from the project forever.

The DPRK has nothing to do with this.

You know it’s possible to do both, right?

Yes

The real horror of the future is climate change, which is usually the first thing people cite when questioning if it’s a good idea to bring kids into the world at all.

100% this was a CIA operation.

When George Lucas was filming A New Hope he did not have the notion developed that Vader was actually Luke’s father, and that he only came up with it after the movie was released. There is no actual foreshadowing of this, no hints, and really nothing in A New Hope would even point to this possibility. To say Vader “killed your father” but to really mean “uhhhh I meant the ‘Vader’ persona metaphorically ‘killed’ the person your father was” is such a ridiculous stretch I just don’t get why more people don’t ever call this out. The much more straightforward explanation is that Lucas came up with the idea as a way to build up drama in the movies that followed, after A New Hope was already out.

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It’s a good thing first and foremost because tariffs have been Trump’s #1 tool to bully other nations into bending to his will.

I believe the reason Labour in the UK, SPD in Germany, the Democrats in the US, etc etc are so hated at this moment is not because they are “too woke”, but rather because when they have been in power, they have done nothing to help alleviate the material issues that the people face. The answer to defeat the rising fascist tide is right there for the left: do things that help the working class in their material circumstances and tell billionaires to fuck off. And yet (so far) they seem incapable of doing so. I hope for success in places like Portugal and France and then that can be a model for everyone else.

or need breeding facilities

Setting aside the weirdness of this comment, the DPRK’s birth rate is significantly ahead of ROK’s, to the point that I wouldn’t entire rule out ROK seeking reunification eventually in order to avoid demographic collapse.

What the EU doesn’t have, at least in the short/medium term, is energy. That industrial base needs (a lot of) energy. Russia was able to supply this cheaply, while the US is charging an arm and a leg. Of course in the long run, renewables can help keep that energy production local, but that means developing closer ties with China. And right now the US is trying to throw up walls to prevent other countries from accessing China’s renewable energy products.

The EU does indeed have a significantly larger potential industrial base than Russia. But that also requires coordination, intentional action, and long-term planning. So far the EU hasn’t seemed capable of doing these things but who knows, maybe Trump has been the wake-up call Europeans need.

I also hope Trump has shown Europeans that the US is the bigger threat to European sovereignty than Russia. And this will be true after Trump is gone, it’s not a one-time thing (Biden did things hostile to European sovereignty but that goes under the radar because he was more supportive of Ukraine). But yeah, if the EU makes some coordinated effort to build military defenses, they shouldn’t have a problem protecting their sovereignty against Russia. And that assumes Russia wants to try and military conquer parts of Europe, which I do not believe but even if I did, a more robust, domestic EU military would be enough to prevent an attack even if that was Russia’s intention.

The US is Europe’s fake friend - with or without Trump - and it frustrates me to no end that Europeans can’t see it.

I haven’t heard of WinBoat before, I will check that out thank you.

It’s been a few years since I tried making my Zune work on Linux, I should give it another try, thanks.

It really is a great little device. I believe there has to be a market out there for a Linux device similar to it, something just for music / radio / podcasts.

Because once the news broke of the Ellisons buying US TikTok (and their transparent reasons for doing so), it became clear to me that for the free and open internet, “winter is coming”.

Oct 7th and the global outpouring of support for Palestinians (and trashing of the reputation of Israel) was a huge wake-up call to the ruling classes. I think until then, they were largely content with controlling the narratives via traditional media spaces. The aftermath of Oct 7 taught them that social media and the internet cannot be ignored and in fact must controlled. It’s not like anyone under 65 is watching Fox News or CNN, and not many reading the NYT. All of the actions we have seen in the last 2 years - making sure Facebook / Google / Twitter / Reddit and now TikTok have tightly controlled messaging, requiring IDs and verification, etc - are pointing towards a future where free expression online is severely limited. I don’t want to be a part of that.

And I do believe that it’s important to get out there and discuss things that are important to me with others (Palestinian and indigenous liberation, communism, online privacy). I’m not happy to just retreat into my own bubble. That is ultimately the reason I joined (I was of course already included to using the fediverse as I’ve long appreciated FOSS and decentralized systems and non-commercialized things in general).

They know just how bad it will look and how unpopular it will be if they just take Greenland by force. They’re trying to convince the Danes to sell it under duress to give it a veneer of legitimacy.

“We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication,” Nadella wrote in a rambling post flagged by Windows Central, arguing that humanity needs to learn to accept AI as the “new equilibrium” of human nature.

I’m starting to notice a recent trend in tech CEOs. They seem to be saying “yes, we know you hate it but too bad get used to it”.