What is preventing you from switching to one of the thousands of versions of Linux?

Alan_Crowe · 2023-12-21T22:03:43+00:00

I'm happy with FreeBSD.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-04-04T18:21:32+00:00

I scrolled a long way and I think that thread is worse than you say. No-one is explicit about the terrible things that Trump is going to do in his second term. Sure, he didn't do them in his first term, but it is shaping up that he will do things too terrible to mention. Not just too terrible to mention, so far beyond too terrible to mention that nobody even dare notice that we are maintaining strict silence about horrors too terrible for the mind of man.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-28T20:25:37+00:00

I found this, on page 115, about "Free Software", very interesting

TMTG must comply with licenses related to the use of free, publicly-available software incorporated in Truth Social products; failure to do so could cause the loss of the ability to use such software which could in turn adversely affect TMTG’s revenues and results of operations.

In October 2021, Software Freedom Conservancy policy fellow Bradley M. Kuhn accused TMTG of violating the licensing agreement for the free, publicly available software platform, Mastodon. Although any entity can use the code from Mastodon, according to the licensing agreement (AGPLv3), each user of the software must receive “an opportunity to receive the entire Corresponding Source for the website based on that code.” Early users of Truth Social, Kuhn alleged, did not receive the source code.

On October 26, 2021, Mastodon sent a letter requesting that the Truth Social source code be made publicly available in compliance with the license. TMTG has since taken action to resolve this issue by publishing its source code.

TMTG may face similar risks in the future, and failure to comply with such licenses could cause the loss of the ability to use such software, which could in turn adversely affect TMTG’s revenues and results of operations.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-23T13:39:35+00:00

When they work out how to get good doctors for themselves, while letting bad doctors mistreatment ordinary people, and not get caught.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-02-03T16:47:06+00:00

Democracy is a rich wolf buying the Daily Baa and the Wool Times and filling them full of lamb and mutton recipes until the sheep vote to sacrifice themselves so that wolves can eat the protein they need and deserve, because Wolf Lives Matter!

Alan_Crowe · 2023-11-01T21:58:15+00:00

UK has dietary information, complete with red patches that I use to help me find the good stuff. Trying to avoid reduced fat versions? Check for the red fat warning. I'll do the same will meat warning labels, seeking them out to avoid soy.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-17T15:46:46+00:00

Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford

Alan_Crowe · 2023-08-09T00:13:56+00:00

But they don't make the full $990 as profit, because they have to share the money with the politicians who pass the laws that keep the prices up. It is a state-planned, social-profit system.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-06T19:59:19+00:00

I thought that elephants had exactly six sets of teeth. They wear them down chewing vegetation, then the next set comes through. After the sixth set they cannot eat and die quickly. That gives them a fixed expiry date, unlike humans who keep going until cancer gets them.

The obvious experiment is to give elephants dentures to see if it gives them post-expiry date cancer.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-06-09T18:54:39+00:00

You can still get it in the Scunthorpe Walmart.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-04-14T23:47:45+00:00

Trump is a real estate tycoon. He is bound to hate war because buildings get knocked down.

Also, seeing him with his son, I suspect that he might hate war because young men get killed.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-04-11T21:28:25+00:00

Jeffrey Epstein knew how to do his thing. Invite a mix of respectable people and targets. Then the targets will think that they are rubbing shoulders with respectable people (and getting a little extra too!) without realising that they are targets.

It is like how the New York Time builds credibility with truthful reporting, so that they have credibility to burn on pushing carefully selected lies.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-24T16:01:24+00:00

I would also like "Published but not enforced" for the FDA. I would love to have information on drugs that wasn't funded by drug companies. And I would love to be able to ignore it if it got corrupted somehow.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-23T13:36:43+00:00

This is open to the objection that a free system depends on creating and sharing knowledge of which lawyers are competent. But knowledge is a public good, so it tends to be under produced by free market systems. You hope to find a competent lawyer for your own case, but are disappointed to find that lawyer ratings are hard to come by. Here are three alternatives:

Status Quo: Government attempts to checks who is competent with a bar exam and a disciplinary tribunal for lawyers. The results are not just published they are enforced. If you have an official black mark against your name, you are forbidden from practicing.

Information Only: Government attempts to checks who is competent with a bar exam and a disciplinary tribunal for lawyers. The results are merely published, not enforced. If you don't trust the Government, you can still chose to be represented by a lawyer with a Government black mark against the name.

Taxation funds competing certification authorities: The Government funds Bar-A, Bar-B, Bar-C. That results in inefficient duplication. It offers the public weak protection. A lawyer who fails the Bar-A exam can still pass the Bar-B exam and get to practise. On the other hand, the Bar council is no longer a power honey pot attracting wasps. If Bar-A abuses its authority, the public will lose confidence and trust Bar-B.

There are untested alternatives in the space between raw government power leading to abuse and market mechanisms under producing public goods.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-23T13:15:51+00:00

The ordinary meaning of intelligence is about joining the dots: when X happens again, you remember that X happened before, ten years ago, and have the wit to notice the similarities and differences between this time and last time.

Intelligence tests are tests of quick-witted puzzle solving. Does an IQ test involve getting the subject to memorize something, then coming back a year later to see it they still remember? No, it is all done in half a day; no long term memory required.

So why do IQ tests and the ordinary meaning of intelligence line up, when you need long term memory to be intelligent in the ordinary sense? I think it is partly coincidence; among the humans of today, good long term memory and quick-witted puzzle solving ability are strongly correlated. And partly about brain health. A healthy brain does both puzzling solving and remembering. Testing puzzle solving tells the tester about brain health, which tells the tester about memory.

You are noticing the correlation breaking down. My guess is that peoples memories have got worse. They respond to each news story as it comes, solving the puzzle of what they are supposed to learn from the story as presented on the day. But failing to remember earlier stories, presented differently. Maybe memory is worse due to lack of use. People just look stuff up. And if Wikipedia has been edited, they don't remember the old page, and don't notice the change.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-03-17T20:26:24+00:00

Macron is the new Napoleon III

The Crimean War was fought from October 1853 to February 1856

Historian Norman Rich argues that the war was not an accident, but was sought out by the determination of the British and French not to allow Russia an honourable retreat. Both insisted on a military victory to enhance their prestige in European affairs when a non-violent peaceful political solution was available. The war then wrecked the Concert of Europe, which had long kept the peace.

Alan_Crowe · 2024-01-04T16:30:04+00:00

Under first past the post voting systems you basically have a choice of two candidates. If both are physically unwell old people, that is what you get, however you vote.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-12-28T20:59:02+00:00

"Minimum wage" is not the kind of thing that you can raise or lower. It is a restriction. The government makes it tighter or looser.

Will making the restriction tighter work through the economy to the benefit of some, at the expense of others? Probably. Who? Whom?

The sneaky language of raise rather than tighten is enough to warn you that the restriction is negative sum.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-12-18T22:28:53+00:00

We already did

13th abolished it.

16th brought it back.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-29T16:05:48+00:00

I just tried Yandex and it got me https://thewashingtonstandard.com/feminist-camille-paglia-transgender-mania-sign-cultural-collapse/

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-27T18:40:21+00:00

It is not a repeat purchase. Alfred gets his college degree. Ten years later he regrets, but this isn't about him returning to college for another one, this is about Boris, ten years his junior, making the same double mistake.

Double mistake? The obvious mistake is going to college. The unobvious mistake is not checking how it worked out for people ten years older. Boris could in theory have asked Alfred. But Alfred didn't check with some-one older, and neither did Boris.

Would checking with some-one older even work? College enrollments have been rising. 50 years ago only about 4% of people went to university, and a degree really meant something. Checking with older people tells you about a world now gone.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-25T15:42:31+00:00

Immigrants are the people who said "I'm not staying to fix my country, I'm moving on." They move to the US and say "Yes, moving on is sound strategy." Then the war starts and they are invited to fight and die for the US. But they have already learned that moving on is the right strategy.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-20T15:34:02+00:00

I used to think that America's electronic voting machines were insecure because people didn't realize that security holes could be used for electoral fraud. But the reddit post shows that even fifteen years ago, people realised that dangers of insecure software.

That has changed my mind. I now think that America's electronic voting machines were insecure because people did realize that security holes could be used for electoral fraud.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-12T19:19:59+00:00

What a photo! Hybristophilia or bestiality?

Alan_Crowe · 2023-09-10T14:44:51+00:00

I was going to go on a rant about raccoons living in North America, not the UK. But the article turns out to be a decent piece about raccoons as an invasive species. Real problem in German due to escapes from fur farming. Not yet established in the wild in the UK, but...

Alan_Crowe · 2023-08-30T23:27:22+00:00

We will have to wait and see how drone warfare works out. My guess for the next stage goes something like this:

The infantry man doesn't carry a rifle because infantry fight each other at ranges of two or three miles. Fly your drone out ahead of you, two or three miles. Spot the enemy infantry man flying his drone. Relay his position back to your artillery. You kill your enemy with a 155 mm shell, not a 5.56 mm bullet.

Do drones engage in dog fights with each other? Does an infantry man juggle several drones? Are there wheeled/tracked drones that go to look in trenches and bunkers?

On a different tack, what happens with decoys? Currently, if you try to stock pile ammunition, the pile gets spotted and attacked. OK, but tents are cheap, what if you put up a thousand tents, spread about. Perhaps with covered walkways. Which tent actually contains the ammunition? The enemy could use up a lot of suicide drones attacking every tent.

Maybe I've phrased the previous paragraph badly. Currently one puts camouflage netting over genuine assets, with the intention that the camouflage netting gets mistaken for trees, not camouflage netting. That is getting tricky, drones are getting too close and seeing that it is just netting. But if you go to town, with lots and lots of camouflage netting (perhaps covering nothing, perhaps covering inflatable tanks copied from the deception operations before D-day (the netting just has to conceal the tank/self-propelled-artillery well enough to conceal that it is an inflatable)) , it is sufficient that the drones don't get to see through it and see which nets cover genuine assets.

I foresee a lot of tactical innovation before things settle. Maybe that is a repeat of WWI. 1914 to 1918 saw a lot of tactical innovation as the British invented the tank and learned that you needed to use tanks in mass formations. Meanwhile the Germans invented Storm Troopers using infiltration tactics; lightly manned positions are vulnerable to infiltration, well manned positions suffer too many casualties from artillery barrages.

The importance of drones will lead to the importance of electronic warfare. Will there be an electronic equivalent of the machine gun, to slaughter drones just like the machine gun slaughtered conventional infantry attacks? I would guess at a few early successes for electro-magnetic pulse weapons leading to great victories in the wake of all the enemy drones falling out of the sky. Then disaster as the enemy re-equips with EMP hardened drones.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-08-24T17:59:40+00:00

Wagner group was messing with French colonial possessions in Africa, so I'm getting Rainbow Warrior flash backs.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-31T15:33:27+00:00

Democracy. The ancient Athenian thing, with the elite meeting up to give speeches, debate, and vote, made sense for small a city-state. Our version of democracy is very different.

Universal suffrage! Every-one gets a vote. One each. Combine those who are busy and not paying attention to politics and those who are stupid and not understanding politics. Together they form a solid majority. So what happens to power? Who is in charge?

Mass media! The elections come round and people vote the way that the mass media tell them to. It isn't always a direct instruction. Push the stories that make people vote for candidate A. Ignore the stories that would make people vote for candidate B if they knew. That also tells people to vote for candidate A. It is the owners of the mass media who have the power. Or do they? What if there are competing news channels? People with the leisure and inclination to read and compare multiple news sources can play off the different channels against each other and reclaim their power.

Two problems. I've already covered the first problem, universal suffrage. The people with the leisure and inclination to read and compare multiple news sources are a small minority. They have no power in a system of universal and equal suffrage. The second problem is consolidated financial capitalism. Rich men can borrow money from banks to buy up the competing news sources and establish a unified national agenda. No-one escapes the thought control. Modern democracy is just plutocracy with extra steps.

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-10T18:46:16+00:00

Good catch!

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-10T18:40:29+00:00

Missing the key warning signs of dangerously extreme white supremacy

Thinking Clarence Thomas is the best Supreme Court Justice
Preferring Thomas Sowell to Paul Krugman

Alan_Crowe · 2023-07-08T23:14:04+00:00

There are many variations. I think that the interesting one says 200 = 70 + 130 and says that the 130 extra years get slotted in between thirty years old and forty years old. So you reach 30 and ageing slows down fourteen fold. We might even change how we count birthdays: 27, 28, 29, 30, 30a, 30b, ,,, 30L, 30m, 31, 31a, 31b, ... 40, 41, 42

Think about what we mean by meritocracy. We say that we pick the best man for the job, but that is obviously bogus, we don't know how well they do the job until after they have done it. We actually guess who will be the best man for the job, pick them, and hope that we were right.

The two rival ways of guessing are (academics and examinations = credentials) or (apprentice ship and working your way up)

Currently we have big organisations with many layers. It would take too long to have people work their way up the organisation. If we used apprenticeship as the basis of meritocracy it would really be a gerontocracy. So we go with faster acting and less accurate systems of credentials. Which work less well over time and people learn to game the system.

But if people lived to be 200, apprenticeship becomes more viable. Yes, you are 120 by the time you become chairman of the board, but you still have 80 good years left in you to lead the organisation.

Alan_Crowe