Why was the US funding FOSS projects? That strikes me as weird, inappropriate and suspicious.

A mixture of the elements within the US that actually believed the stuff about personal rights and democracy still existing behind the more sinister realities, as well as it being in the same pot of funded projects like Radio Free Asia, Radio Liberty and the likes, which always were a mix of just outright propaganda organs, but also providing the scaffolding of free media access for some regions in the past.

So, it’s complicated, ultimately rooted in a mix of the cynical US wanting to support dissidents in other countries, and the idealist US also having people actually believing in personal freedom and privacy, even within their government/state structures.

Also, just in general, a lot of FOSS projects get funding from governments, US or otherwise. If I remember correctly ReactOS got a lot of funding from Russia, for example, because they saw a potential way to get away from Microsoft in it.

From what I gather, there was no open influence wielded over those projects, I at least don’t remember the OTF forcing a backdoor onto Tor Browser for the CIA or something like that - thankfully the open source structure makes that easier to control - but the weakness becomes apparent now, of course, because funds could now be withdrawn, as the government turned fascist.

Kind of, I wouldn’t really call them an international organisation in the way I would be imagining, see how easy it was to cut their funding when national interests turned openly fascist. Their affiliation with the US government above more independent, international organisations meant, that they would support privacy and a free and open internet, as long as it helps dissidents in other, non-aligned countries, but quick to cut it, if it reaches their own doorsteps.

Not the one you answered to, but I think I can understand the idea of US funding having been a toxic source of dependency, and it being better in the long run to get money elsewhere. That “elsewhere” is a good question, though.

Just me, personally, my dream would be an international fund, carried by the UN or maybe an independent NGO, that can get funding from both private and public funds, that prioritises free internet access the way the WHO prioritises health. But I think that’s still far off.

Yupp, seems that they quickly changed it back, too, lol.

the bears and shorts all entered this morning with their trades queued up from the weekend.

Yupp, that’s why it would be very fitting as a proper dead cat bounce from just the massive amount of shorting that had already been happening.

But you are also right - no one has a crystal ball here. Who knows where the volatile ride will stop.

They are doing their best with the framing, but I do get the feeling - considering how futures had been trading before - this is going to be a dead cat bounce.

I think the sad reality is: Criticism of the Soviets by now has been reduced to just a surface level “feeling” of their tyranny. Basically a thought of what made it tyrannical was the lip services to communism and the red flags - not understanding the actual problems underneath. In the worst case, some people even openly say, that it’s just that they put the wrong people into the Gulag, to then post memes about throwing lefties out of helicopters.

I think history has shown by now, both the Soviets’ criticism of US imperialism, and the West’s criticism of Soviet human rights abuses has always had huge hypocrisies within, both systems very much capable of the crimes of the other. We need another international class based movement, that doesn’t get caught up in national interest like that.

“I don’t want to have to worry that everyone is constantly changing my financial reality,” said Alison Carey, 64, of Oregon, a freelancer in the theater industry. “Let the economy do its machinations, but don’t put me in the gears.”

Sorry you had to learn it this way, Alison, but “the economy” has always been grinding people up in its gears. The main difference is, that it is now reaching you, personally.

I know what you are getting at - but, have there really been accounts of cannibalism among the Sentinelese? I only know of their habits of killing strangers, often in mocking and ridiculing ways.

Also - as an aside - beyond protecting dumbass tourists from themselves - it’s also there to protect an island population like this from any new pathogens that may be spread inadvertently. So it’s not just him being a dumbass concerning his own safety, he was also a dumbass where it concerns their safety, too.

Sad, but, yeah, that is more than understandable, the whole database migration alone would be a massive headache to get right, I think.

When setting up my own here, I was debating to go for PieFed because I like the underlying features - but having had no sysadmin experience before, I went with Lemmy due to better documentation. But I am thinking about switching - can you “migrate” your instance, or did you just set up a new PieFed one and abandon the old Lemmy one?

Sounds like an easy way to do unproportional damage to projects with a bit of location spoofing.

I can understand the tensions from the housing crisis, and I can also sympathise with not having a lot of personal sympathy for the Americans moving right now, who most likely won’t be refugees as such, but just people with the financial privilege and ability to choose where to emigrate.

But long-term, depending on how shitty the shit-show will get, there might be tent cities for persecuted Americans in the future, both for you and for us here in the EU (and, ironically, in Mexico, of course). You can say that you don’t like it, and you have every right to - but at least in my eyes, it’s an international duty to human rights when that point comes, and I, personally, won’t give a shit what people feel, then. The international community will have to take them in unless we want to follow the international trend of fascism and say “empathy is the problem” like Elon. (Even though I actually don’t think this would be about empathy, it’d be about upholding what remains of international standards, duties, laws and human rights, eventually with force if necessary)

Sounds like the app is indeed quite a mess, then, unfortunately :/

Ah, yeah, it’s my own PeerTube instance, using the “share” function gives you a link to the instance you are currently on, not the original one. I use the PeerTube companion add-on to redirect PeerTube links to my own instance automatically (where I can easily interact with my own account), so always linking to the original instance can get a bit finnicky for me - and usually, it shouldn’t be a problem. (Hadn’t come up before)

But now that you bring it up - I gues “usually” might not include app interactions? 🤔

Oh, that would be a good way to use it then. Other than that, the official app isn’t too bad, from my cursory glance.

EDIT: Although, I guess your problem may still happen, if the issue was actually unrelated 🤔

Yeah, I think the official android app is pretty bad, sadly, from all I have heard. Not all the devs fault - I heard they had problems with apple/google app store rules, where they were under extra scrutiny to only allow videos from a “vetted and moderated search index” or something to be allowed on their app. (ludicrous, IMO, that their project of all projects suddenly got scrutinised to that degree, compared to other shit on their stores)

I think there were some decent FOSS app alternatives on F-Droid, but since I myself am 99% on desktop or use just vanilla Firefox mobile, I am sadly not a good person to recommend apps myself.

My personal thought was “Aww, poor tech-bro capitalists are learning what the actual, obscene fundamentals of their antisocial ideology have always been, and that they were in fact not high-IQ genius technocrats knowing better than anyone else how to run mankind”.

But then I realised they most likely learned nothing and will claim that they, themselves, would never have been so stupid.

Ah, good to know, I was just glossing over it and saw the CC0 in the info. I think for something like this, that shouldn’t be much of a problem (especially for the original use-case of a Plasma splash screen) - but of course it’s a bit risky, as soon as you get into more complex works, and them potentially being re-used after you publish them - where people that put it online orgininally, did so with more complex CC licenses, or no public licensing at all.

Just as a heads-up in general. I, personally, think it’s better to err on the side of being creative when sharing things - but the reality is, of course, that with a bit of bad luck, licensing stuff can get quite complicated down the road. (Highly doubtful for something like this, though)

Oooh, I like it a lot, I might end up using it in a game or smth, too 🤔

Thanks for sharing it with the world! It is really cool.