Hell yeah!

Awesome!

Even in the U.S., women can vote, non-white people can vote, working conditions have vastly improved, press freedom is better, etc… It is not perfect, far from it, with massive wealth inequality and still lots of racism and discrimination towards minorities. But it’s a hell of a lot better than the 1800s!

During the Industrial Revolution (think 1800s), working conditions were not regulated like they are now (and yes, it is not perfect, but it’s a lot better now!), unions have been successful in representing the worker’s needs (and yes, it is not perfect, and varied depending on where you are, but it’s a lot better now!), society is certainly more equal than in the 1800s era (women can vote, minorities can vote, acceptance of all beliefs, stronger democracies and less colonialism, prejudice is still a problem and imperialism is still a big issue, but far better now)

The core idea of communism is the goal for a classless, stateless society where all are equal. Unfortunately for us, the Soviets have successfully made the concept associated with Bolshevism / Marxist-Leninism, which calls for a vanguard party to represent the working people, i.e. an authoritarian one-party state. Communism by itself is not the antithesis to democracy, but Marxist-Leninist states are usually very authoritarian. And once you have a dictatorship, you foster a cult of personality and policy is based on the decision of one person, and that never ends well for anybody but them and their inner circle.

Communism was born when capitalism was uncontrolled, working people did not have minimum wages with poor working conditions and, often times, no rights either if they were the wrong gender, background, religion, sexual orientation, or simply social class. Don’t get me wrong, capitalism now is still bad (for both people and the environment), but unions are stronger, restrictions on corporations is stronger, and society is more equal. Freedom of speech and the press is more prevalent, though certainly more can be done, and inequality of all kinds is still a global issue that must be tackled.

Is communism “dead” then? No, of course not. I respect all who work towards the goal of an equal, classless society freed from the shackles of capitalism. But those who want to stifle democracy and establish dictatorships, I do not respect.

Everybody has already mentioned that, actually, neurodivergence isn’t exclusive to ASD and ADHD!

As for your point about it being for everybody, that is definitely a heated argument. You could argue that neurodivergent conditions were created, in part, to separate them from the “normal” people (especially in earlier times), but you could also say that having a good classification means you can better help people who have these sorts of conditions (especially in modern times! We are in a golden age of accessibility!)

Speaking as somebody who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome as a kid, now part of ASD :D

What the hell mate?!

I think it depends on the artist’s interpretation, some show her as trans while others cis. People will write whatever stories they like (for the better or worse, some of them are not so nice)

It looks like a trend that has gotten into the hands of people with all sorts of intentions. Girl Malfoy is sometimes cis, sometimes trans, depending on the artist. Some people are rightfully mocking Rowling, while others like to feel the feelings.

I dunno why it would specifically be “owning the libs” (possibly it could be depicting women as overly arrogant/obsessive/Malfoy-like? I dunno.)

edit: I also know some people are not calling the character “Malfoid”, instead a variant of “Draco” like Draconia or Dracaena, or simply just “Draco Malfoy”.

Some more searching shows up that a lot of incels are using the character for their power fantasies, gross, and there’s plenty of generated AI “art” of the character too

Just because code isn’t copyleft doesn’t mean it does not require attribution or consent to being scraped by LLMs!

Also, I don’t think there’s any model out there that has asked for permission for scraping, and if any claim they do, they’re almost certainly liars.

In my opinion, you should ideally avoid LLMs if you can do the task yourself. It definitely has some genuine applications, especially translation, but functionally, ethically, and legally, it is not a suitable option for most people.

The new one has nice graphics, and SO MANY playable characters. I’ll always love Mario Kart Wii and the forever new “8” in my heart though. Double Dash was also very good for that era, and there are ROM hacks offering even more courses which make it extra awesome!

It is pretty important in that the House of Representatives and the Senate have their seats exchanged, and I believe they have the power to pass or reject laws (albeit the president can still veto). They can’t immediately fix everybody’s problems, but it is a step in the right at the very least! It’s also super exciting that many Republican “safe” states have swung Democrat, including Texas (the big one), South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa (and others, like Florida, were a tight race)! People have truly voted “as if Trump was on the ballot”, and it’s a sign that they want change!

And Abdul Al-Sayed from Michigan is the first Muslim senator, and he achieved victory, despite the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby dumping tens of millions of dollars into the campaign against him and the Islamophobic rhetoric of the Republicans. He is advocating for universal healthcare (Trump calls this “communist”) and the end of U.S. military aid to the Israeli war machine.

Note that I’m not American, so I could be wrong in some aspects here.

This is why I don’t like the CPU duopoly…I really hope RISC-V takes off soon! Or at the very least maybe ARM chips from a variety of different brands, I dunno

“No stupid questions”, in this community at least, does not mean “stupid questions are bad! We don’t want them! Go away, stupid people!”

It comes from the phrase teachers say, “Remember, there are no stupid questions!”, to encourage discussion and curiosity in the classroom. When question-asking sorts of communities formed, they shortened it to just “no stupid questions” (context is lost if you do not know the phrase, a little ambiguous)

This community prioritises discussion and curiosity, so questions that are against that (e.g. attacking individuals or groups, personal arguments, unfounded conspiracy theories) are not what we want (so yes, the score number will become more negative)

As for me, I updoot the questions that I think are worth asking. Topics I’m not as interested in or am not familiar with I ignore, but if somebody is being unkind or generally awful, downdoot for them.

I swear to god if you’re that canal guy again…

For me, I would first replace the smartwatch, since that’s the most intertwined with the “ecosystem” (more like a hellish prison, but whatever…), then try and replace the computer(s), since Linux devices will work better with iPhones than Mac does with Android (and mobile Linux) devices.

I used to use an iPhone, and moving to an Android device was relatively smooth bar WhatsApp, which was incredibly annoying to deal with. It is possible to transfer message history though, and my family (now on Android) are very happy to get much better battery life!

If you need specific recommendations, I would go for the Fairphone if possible, else Sony Xperia and OnePlus devices are pretty neat too (former if you like headphone jack and notchless display, latter if you want top spec mobile gaming). You also have mobile Linux being a real option nowadays with the Jolla Phone (SailfishOS) and Nura devices (OnePlus 6/6T, Pocophone F1, Fairphones, etc.)

As for smartwatches, you have WearOS watches of course, but jumping into another ecosystem isn’t great. Pebble is really fun, and if you are into fitness Garmin has lots of options, and both work for iOS and Android (nice!), meaning it is an easier transition.

For Android tablets, OnePlus ones are pretty good though, and GrapheneOS can run on the Pixel Tablet. You of course have the various x86 tablets that can run Linux, as well as many ARM devices that support Nura (formerly postmarketOS), the latter usually being some sort of Chromebook (please don’t use ChromeOS)

And of course, the laptop. If it’s an M1/2/3 Mac, Asahi Linux could be an option, then you don’t need to buy any hardware! Old Thinkpads are awesome on budget, and you have a variety of Linux oriented laptops (System76, Tuxedo, etc.), and most Windows laptops will run Linux just fine as long as you’re not running an old kernel (e.g. Debian) on very new hardware.

As for desktops, you have endless amounts of Windows mini PCs and old workstations to choose from, buy used because memory prices are insane. Go for the ones available on the nearest used marketplace for cheap! It’s amazing how compatible Linux is with older devices, even more so than Windows.

If you need good alternatives to proprietary software, you have LibreOffice, Pinta (or GIMP if you are fancy), Inkscape, Kdenlive, Audacity/Tenacity, an endless number of code editors, etc. If you want to game, Linux is a lot better than Mac in this respect nowadays with Proton and such, Steam, Lutris (all-in-one, super customisable), Heroic (for GOG), and Minigalaxy (also for GOG) are awesome

I find it’s an in between of something like nano vs VSCodium or Zed. It works well for editing single files + has features like syntax highlighting and such, but it is not as powerful as other code editors. And the editors I have mentioned are a step down again from full IDEs (which do their job very well with all the features you could want for debugging and whatnot)

Kate isn’t a bad code editor, I think it does the job while being relatively lightweight compared to VSCodium and especially full IDEs. Zed is very quick so I’ve mostly replaced Kate (and VSCodium) with that, but Kate is an awesome piece of software too!

Personally, LLMs are too often wrong and overly confident to be useful for me. Plus, unless you’re running a local model, yet another subscription is not fun, especially by the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. And you have all the ethical issues with LLMs that I’m sure you’ve heard about already.

It would be much better if you used the vast swath of online resources we are very lucky to have nowadays, don’t take it for granted as the internet becomes increasingly saturated with low-effort LLM generated garbage.

Again, the only scenario where LLMs are potentially useful is translation in my opinion, and even then, you have to mindful it is often pretty wrong.

If you want to try game development, game jams are always a fun experience! Godot is an excellent for this and is what I use (GDScript is very nice, less resource heavy compared to the proprietary options too). As for guides, GDQuest and HeartBeast are awesome!

There are a bazillion different online resources to learn programming, whether you want to make websites, mobile apps, whatever. As long is it’s not an obvious cashgrab (a small fee to support them is fine!)

Personally, I learnt Python by reading a book. Dunno which one, but it was a very good book!

And don’t be afraid to search for the answer (p.s. Google is not your friend, but Ecosia and Qwant are!), I still sometimes forget how to make a for loop in Python. Try to avoid using LLMs if you can, they often promote not so good programming practices or are simply flat out wrong (and confidently so!). The only instance where it could be useful is explaining concepts to you in your native language if you are not a first language speaker of English (not vibe coding, mind you, that helps nobody!), but again, you have to be mindful that it often gets stuff super wrong!

Mum looks out for what’s best for you, while Claude looks out for what’s best for Anthropic’s shareholders (not you)