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SnotFlickerman

@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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SnotFlickerman , (edited )
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Finding sources about Bush and Cheney fuckery from 2000-2008 is getting increasingly difficult. Their crimes are getting memory-holed.

EDIT: Specifically, does anyone else remember the specific act that Bush wanted to hit Quakers with terrorism charges over? I remember it being a bunch of Quakers in kayaks doing a blockade of a naval ship, preventing it from leaving port to go to Iraq. I can't find a fucking word on it anymore, and I can barely even find sources on Bush wanting to hit Quakers with terrorism charges other than some broken links at the ACLU. Quakers, as a reminder, are the only religious group in the USA that are default conscientious objectors because violence is 100% antithetical to their religion. These are the kind of people they wanted to use "terrorism" charges against.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Probably a good bit. I have a backup from my personal website from 2006 to about 2013. Along with a lot of media going back to my teen years. I'm really lucky I've been a good digital steward of my own data and haven't lost almost any of my personal digital history.

SnotFlickerman ,
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SnotFlickerman ,
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To be fair to China, our top EV maker's (Tesla) CEO Musk claimed that COVID wasn't real and didn't want to shut down operations and Musk claimed he liked China more because of their propensity to lock the workers in the factory due to COVID restrictions.

The people who run US companies will absolutely used forced labor if they can get away with it.

I'm not trying to paint China as some glowing bastion of freedom (it's far from it, obviously) but it's weird to present this as though it's a "China" problem and not a "capitalism" problem. Companies like Nestle won't commit to removing forced labor from their chains of operation, hiding behind "it's too hard to find it all!"

https://www.reuters.com/business/hershey-nestle-cargill-win-dismissal-us-child-slavery-lawsuit-2022-06-28/

The lawsuit being dismissed is evidence the US government also doesn't care about forced labor. So China isn't alone in not giving a shit.

Every major world power is some kind of dogshit, essentially.

SnotFlickerman ,
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But the status quo is more important than *checks notes... climate change! Won't someone think of the economy! /s

SnotFlickerman ,
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But you trust "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments" and "COINTELPRO" and "PRISM" US government?

I'm with Douglas Adams, if you want power you should explicitly be denied power. The only ones who deserve any power are those who don't want it because they understand the implications and care deeply about making mistakes that could hurt people.

People who desire power only ever want to Rule and Control.

There isn't a single world government that isn't currently filled with idiots who are only in it for power and power alone.

Bring back fucking sortition, we've shown we're not capable of handling a democratic system without it.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Because bombing the future into burning rubble is preferable to burning it into rubble or something I guess.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Thanks for the well considered reply. I agree that the US's political system is part of what has held it back from going rogue, but the problems I referenced were all growing cancers that may very well lead to an autocratic Trump empire.

Just the Trump cases alone are absolutely destroying any credibility the legal system had left, and when people in a nation start to lose trust in their "justice" system... well, things tend to get pretty bad when people stop trusting authority and turn to Mob Justice.

Even without Trump as President, that's where we're headed because he has firmly shafted regular people's trust that the legal system is in any way fair or just. We all know for fucksure now that the only thing that matters in the US is having money and connections.

When Trump was elected, it was because he was seen as the outsider to shake things up. People are still waiting on things to be shaken up in favor of regular ass people instead of corporations. That includes conservatives even if they're too stupid to understand that's what they are actually mad about. Don't expect Trump's wiping his ass with the legal system to not have long-term impacts.

That's not going to end well, Trump as President or not.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Too right.

🤝

SnotFlickerman ,
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Yeah, the EU is where I hold out my hopes, too.

Good luck out there, it is indeed scary.

SnotFlickerman ,
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No shit they need to stop it. Do you or I have a choice in making that happen?

Short of a nationwide labor strike in every industry in both nations, no one citizen exactly has the power to make this stop, and all the legal avenues to make it stop are denied by both governments.

I love it when people complain shit needs to get done when there is no legal avenue to getting it done. Cool, what's your plan chucklefuck? We're supposed to just magic this better world into being by willing it so like The Secret or some other dumb shit?

They both suck because they fucking do. Part of the reason they do is that there is no recourse for regular citizens to stop this kind of thing from happening except boycotts and labor strikes. Boycotts do fuck-all because they're busy selling the fruits of their forced labor to the rest of the planet, meaning they won't lose enough money from the boycott to impact them. Meaning only labor strikes have meaningful impact.

Let me know when you've got all the laborers from both countries ready to go on strike. I'll wait.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Brilliant rebuttal.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Because the best way to handle stupidity is to coddle it like Trump, right? That's been working out just gangbusters, right?

Sometimes people say something fucking stupid and need to be told why it's stupid.

Even if it's just so other people don't have to suffer these fools.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Because some bigots want to filter it out.

SnotFlickerman ,
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This is exactly what everyone thought it was: A stealth layoff to get the most costly employees to bail without having to fire them/give them severance.

Now they can be replaced with cheap H-1B workers, especially when the DOJ changes that rule to make it so that companies no longer have to prove they cannot find a US worker for the same job before they hire a foreign H-1B worker.

This was all to cut costs and fuck over the most senior (read: costly) workers.

Fuck all that institutional knowledge, I guess.

SnotFlickerman ,
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I've been trying to find this interview with Mark Hossler for over a decade. It was around 2006-2008, it was pre-youtube and hosted as an mp4 file on someone's blog... I have been unable to find it, nor have others. If you can find it easily on YouTube... it's not the interview I'm talking about.

Anyway, it spoke deeply on this point. I'll try to make my best summation of what Hossler discussed in this interview.

Basically, his position on art and how you can have "control" over your art was this:

If you want to control your art: Keep it in your home, don't take pictures of it, don't post it online, keep quiet about it and maybe let people who enter your home view it.

The key is this: All human minds function on copying and memetics. We inherently "copy" ideas that we see in real life, without even thinking about it. Taking this a step further, anyone who wants to "copy" your art can simply do so by viewing it, internalizing the details in their mind, and then (if they're a talented artist) recreate your art themselves.

In other words, there is no real way to have complete control over your art short of locking it inside of a box and never showing it to anybody. The act of sharing it with others means you've put the idea of that art into their mind, and if they wish to do so, they can absolutely copy it. There is no stopping this act, this is innate to how the human mind functions, learns, and adapts.

So if you want "control" over your creations, you better not be sharing them with anybody.

Once you've shared your creations (art or engineering) with the world, someone out there will be capable of copying what you did. Further, with billions of people on the planet, someone out there will be capable and willing to do it.

The point I personally think Hossler was making is that in sharing something at all, you've already destroyed any of your own attempts to control the use of the idea. Stop trying to control your creations and instead hope society will do it's best with them.

SnotFlickerman , (edited )
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EDIT: Downloaded and shared on Soulseek, so now there's at least two people sharing it on Soulseek.

I'm in a queue to download it on Soulseek. m4b format all right? I think that's the iTunes audiobook format.

I fucking swear people. Soulseek is still ridiculously useful for finding more obscure shit.

I know it's old and insecure as shit, but holy fuck it still works and you can find shit you just can't find elsewhere other than maybe USENET.

EDIT II: It's even good for scene releases if you know the exact title.

Soulseek Download: http://www.slsknet.org/news/node/1

Soulseek Alternative Frontend Nicotine+: https://nicotine-plus.org/doc/DOWNLOADS.html

SnotFlickerman ,
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System Shock 2

Need a remake of this waaaaaaaaaaaaay more than System Shock 1.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Please have co-op, please have co-op, please have co-op.

How are companies or developers supposed to make a full time living with OSI opensourced projects? ( opensource.org )

There has been a lot of talk about companies and individuals adopting licenses that aren't OSI opensource to protect themselves from mega-corp leechers. Developers have also been condemned who put donation notices in the command-line or during package installation. Projects with opensource cores and paid extensions have also...

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

My partner is on SSDI for disability. If she works, she will lose her SSDI income, but she's allowed to generate income that isn't work/labor.

She is exploring FOSS as a career path because she could accept donations and that wouldn't impact her SSDI. She understands donations would be minimal, but she's hoping it's a way for her to break into the FOSS scene.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Title: Authentication, Authorization, Accounting?

Body: Auditing?

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

You also have better found a way to pay for the burner in cash or with a pre-paid debit card. A lot of places in the US won't let you buy a "burner phone" without a credit/debit card that has your name attached to it.

SnotFlickerman ,
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All Androids since 9 at least have been encrypted by default as long as you have a lock screen enabled. Doesn't matter if its cheap, it is there.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Soulseek never stopped working.

SnotFlickerman ,
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hahahahahahahahahahahahaha... no.

but it does allow you to only share your files with a specific other user.

however, it's explicitly not secure. It's literally from the Kazaa era of file transfer apps.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

This Just In: Most photos uploaded to the internet are not stripped of their metadata, and one of the common things kept in metadata is... (drumroll please)... your GPS coordinates.

This is a lot less interesting than it seems to be at first glance, imho.

filminator_developer , (edited ) to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Hello, I'm the developer of this Windows program.
You can download it from here
Please introduce Filminator to your family members, friends and colleagues.

Thank you very much!

SnotFlickerman ,
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Someone should download this just to run Wireshark on it to see what it's actually doing...

SnotFlickerman ,
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It's aimed strictly at audiophiles. The extra jack is a 4.4mm jack that's more common in things like DACs.

An example:

https://nobleaudio.com/products/dac-amp-with-4-4mm-pentaconn-output

Pair a phone like this with a pair of Sennheiser's and a bunch of FLAC files and you might have a really good time.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I mean fuck, if only we could get shit like kei trucks.

Some of us have been open to foreign vehicles you can't really get in the US for a long time. Oh well.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I keep getting shit on for wanting an EV with manual roll-up windows where you have to use your hands, a super basic FM stereo kit, and a dash clock being the most advanced shit inside. I don't need rear-view cameras and sensors and other shit that complicates and increases repair and insurance costs. I don't get it. Give me dead simple, please and thank you.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeesh. I'm still driving a vehicle from 1999. Guess I'm out of the loop on the backup camera thing.

Torrenting exposes your public IP. In a country where government doesn't care, does that pose a risk?

I honestly don't believe I will have any legal trouble because I don't do anything like cp or worse, I just pirate media I like, not even porn. But across users of communities, or on public trackers, is IP exposure something to be concerned about?

SnotFlickerman , (edited )
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

but it’s not my job to teach you how to break the law.

It sounds like it's literally not against the law where this person lives. Like The Pirate Bay when it began, they responded to US lawyers sending them takedown requests by pointing out that US law didn't apply to every country on the planet.

That could change in the future, sure, but I think that this person probably has a better idea of whether that's a possibility in their home country than we do.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I have questions:

  1. Does the government just "not care" or is piracy specifically legal because there aren't local laws against it?

  2. While you say they don't care right now, do you think there is a possibility that they might care in the future? Because governments often capture lots of information on their citizens with the knowledge that they can then target people that they dislike. Piracy is one of many things governments can use against a person if they really dislike them or what they're doing.


If it's explicitly not illegal and won't be in the near future, I wouldn't be too worried.

However, it might be a good idea to avoid public trackers anyway and focus on slowly growing a good reputation on private trackers. That might take some time, especially if you have a slow connection, which is quite possible in a country that doesn't care about this sort of thing.

You won't necessarily need a VPN for a private tracker, but it gives you a small amount of protection since at least the members of a private tracker are a (supposedly) vetted, trusted community instead of just any random person grabbing your IP.

SnotFlickerman , (edited )
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar
  1. I think McDonald's makes you make an account these days to use their WiFi, I could be wrong, however. This means you now have identifying information about you and your connection on McDonald's servers, which can be subpoenaed in an investigation.

  2. Local libraries generally require you to have a Libary Card, which is associated with your library login. Because lots of people need library computers, they need to be able to get people to leave the computer without having to physically remove them. One of those ways is with tracking who is connecting by associating their account with a library card and disconnecting them automatically after a period of time. Your library usually wants you to live (or at least exist in) the neighborhood, and will have your name and address on file. This can also be subpoenaed in an investigation.

  3. MAC address spoofing is trivial, sure, but a lot of folks don't know to do it, and in any one of these cases, if they used the MAC address that was burned in when the product was sold, they have a real opportunity to nail down which specific device connected. They would subpoena the manufacturer for records of where that device was sold, they would subpoena the records of the local retail outlet, and have information on the sale of the device used to connect.

  4. In your neighbors case, you could just be condemning them to civil or criminal liabilities, depending on the laws in your jurisdiction. That's a pretty "not nice" thing to do.


I'm sure there's plenty of others. Those are just off the top of my head. Most of the reasons involve "companies keeping information about who uses their services and how," often called "logs."

There's a lot more information than just an IP being sent in a TCP packet.


To be clear, I'm not the person you were responding to originally and I think OP is fine if piracy is legal where they live, you just asked how it would be possible and so I tried to think of ways related to the suggestions you made. Cheers.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

lol ya got me

SnotFlickerman , (edited )
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Arrrr, I'm here t' make replicas o' all yer punctuation!

Avast, wher' be th' interrobang!?


Seriously though, while this post is cute, let's remember not everyone speaks English as a first language, and while many languages do use the English Alphabet, many do not and so there are still quite a few people unfamiliar with the proper English punctuation.

SnotFlickerman , (edited )
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Any "How To" that doesn't just use Rufus isn't worth the page its text is rendered on. Rufus can do Linux boot disks, but is indispensable for Windows boot disk utilities. It's one of the only ways I know of to make a Windows ToGo installation (equivalent of a Linux Live USB), which I used to install Windows on a friends SD card for their Steam Deck so they can dual-boot.

https://rufus.ie/en/

If you're looking to make a Linux boot USB from Linux itself, BalenaEtcher is probably a better bet since Rufus is Windows-only.

https://github.com/balena-io/etcher

I've noticed there's tons of how-to's for making a bootable disk on Windows, hardly any for Linux. Perhaps we ought to remedy that?

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Neat, I wasn't aware of that for Mint.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Man, Google really does suck now. It feels nearly impossible to get something like a how-to deep in the Debian FAQs to come up, as it mostly surfaces this auto-generated SEO crap for How To's.

Very cool, I'd assumed there was a simple command line set of commands, just was failing to find it. Thanks.

SnotFlickerman , (edited )
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

qrmu-debootstrap is also super useful if you want to customize and image for a different architecture (for example building custom RPi images).

Super useful information, thanks!

EDIT: Is this anything like the isorespinner.sh? I've previously used that to get Linux on an RCA Cambio W101 because it needed a fancy ISO since it has a 32-bit bootloader and a 64-bit CPU.

SnotFlickerman ,
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Oh I know, I posted Zitron's article here on Lemmy myself just the other day lmao. Part of why it's on my mind.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yet another option is to install Windows to a VHD file (using a virtual machine, or using Disk2VHD to convert an existing install), then copy it to your USB, and make it bootable using Ventoy

Neat, I saw Ventoy in here, but wasn't entirely sure about it until you mentioned this. Initially, I assumed it was what it said on the tin but just for Linux ISOs. Very cool you can finagle a Windows install on there as well.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I got booted a long time ago because it's impossible to keep a decent ratio on there (I downloaded two books, never stopped seeding them, and got banned), but Bibliotik has a lot of up-to-date tools on removing DRM from various types of ebooks. I would start by trying to find someone with access to Bibliotik.

SnotFlickerman ,
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I would check over at !trackers to see if at some point Bibliotik is taking applications.

They generally post about open sign ups for various private trackers over there. Good luck!

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Because they have up-to-date tools and guides, numbskull.

They're not "impossible" to join more than any other private tracker who doesn't often have open signups. I got in on an open sign up, so it's not like they don't have them at all.

I think Bibliotik has issues as well, but the fact of the matter is they're one of the best sources for exactly the kind tools this person is looking for.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If you'd read the article, you'd have realized it's specifically because of a bad implementation by Apple of their URI scheme for handling links.

They're literally suggesting users use Brave over Safari because it isn't susceptible to cross-site scripting in the same way.

They urge iOS users in Europe to use Brave rather than Safari because Brave's implementation checks the origin of the website against the URL to prevent cross-site tracking.

This is anything but Apple propaganda. It's literally calling Apple out on a huge failure of their own design.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Then I retract my statement and hope you have a good day.

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