I had moved from Slackware to Debian but by 2004 the long release cycles of Debian were making it very hard to use any Debian with current hardware or desktop environments. I was using Sid and dealing with the breakages. Ubuntu promised a reskinned Debian with 6 month release cycles synced to Gnome. Then they over delivered with a live cd and easy installation and it was a deserved phenomenon. I very enthusiastically installed Warty Warthog. Even bought some merch.

When Ubuntu launched it was promoted as a community distro, “humanity towards others” etc despite being privately funded. Naked people holding hands. Lots of very good community outreach etc.

The problem for Ubuntu was it wasn’t really a community distro at all. It was Canonical building on the hard work of Debian volunteers. Unlike Redhat, Canonical had a bad case of not invented here projects that never got adopted elsewhere like upstart, unity, mir, snaps and leaving their users with half-arsed experiments that then got dropped. Also Mint exists so you can have the Ubuntu usability enhancements of Debian run by a community like Debian. I guess there is a perception now that Ubuntu is a mid corpo-linux stuck between two great community deb-based systems so from the perspective of others in the Linux community a lot of us don’t get why people would use it.

Arch would be just another community distro but for a lot of people they got the formula right. Great documentation, reasonably painless rolling release, and very little deviation from upstream. Debian maintainers have a very nasty habit of adding lots of patches even to gold standard security projects from openbsd . They broke ssh key generation. Then they linked ssh with systemd libs making vulnerable to a state actor via the xz backdoor. Arch maintainers don’t do this bullshit.

Everything else is stereotypes. Always feeling like you have to justify using arch, which is a very nice stable, pure linux experience, just because it doesn’t have a super friendly installer. Or having to justify Ubuntu which just works for a lot of people despite it not really being all that popular with the rest of the linux community.

Niri is very promising on a ultrawide. Not so good on a 3:2 laptop. I maintain a config to experiment with it but it’s a big commitment to change not just your desktop environment but your whole workflow and then to have different environments on devices with different screen aspect ratios.

An additional benefit is DaVinci Resolve is Aussie owned (Blackmagic Design from Melbourne Australia) which is great for people outside the US looking to decrease their dependence on US owned products and services.

I am more than happy with kdenlive for my video editing needs but I don’t edit video professionally.

It’s fucking childish. Like a spoiled toddler who doesn’t get their way so throws a tantrum and lies on the ground screaming.

The seppos fought a war to preserve slavery. The politics gets dragged to the right because on the whole they are an abhorrent, damaged, immoral society. They have massive incarceration, capital punishment, don’t act to prevent mass shootings, let people die of preventable causes, don’t have fair wages. They are ignorant about everything including socialism. Their media is fucking awful.

Yet it is the fault of their center-right political party for following the votes? They are where they need to be to get half the votes and no further. There are some shit people in the US Dems for sure. But its a reflection of a shit society. There aren’t millions on the streets demanding a shift to the left and they aren’t voting in primaries or trying to reform the political system.

The thing is if working people consistently voted for the least shit option the parties would drift in the other direction or the right would be entirely wiped out. They don’t because they are brain washed and ignorant. Instead what has happened is all the culture wars, politics of hate and fear and weird cultish bullshit that has now made the GOP the party of the uneducated working class who now vote like suckers for billionaire authoritarians against working class interests. The US needs a true Labor Party that is focused on restoring wealth to working families. But until then adults should accept they need to always vote for the least shit option until they can reform their society and have real choices instead of merely damage control.

Yep. This is a waste of time. Canva are just another US VC backed SaaS company despite their Australian origins. An affinity suite port would have been interesting under the previous UK ownership.

You fool. This is social media where the loudest ignorant voice wins. You should agree with the clowns and farm the upvotes like on Reddit.

Stupid seppo propaganda because they don’t know what the fuck democracy is. Dumb cunts. Enjoy your fascist dictatorship losers.

The spread of this brain cancer will kill universal healthcare, public education and all the worker entitlements and minimum wages the rest of us enjoy in real liberal democracies. Canada and Australia are voting and we don’t need shit takes from our idiot ex-allies right now. Every vote counts here. Save this shit for the next US election if you ever have one.

Have actually seen people post this bullshit in countries with proportional representation with lots of minor parties. It’s a fucking stupid oversimplified distortion even in its country of origin.

The idea in Australia is to place the responsibility on the social media companies.

The government isnt filtering traffic or enforcing behaviour. It is fining companies if they don’t implement a form of age verification that is compliant with privacy laws.

We can’t even make these companies pay tax and obey other laws so I am not very optimistic but at least it raises awareness of the problem.

A woman is absolutely a threat to another human. Any animal that size is. That you think women are harmlessly is ironically, misogyny.

Yes all people are potentially dangerous.

But the biomechanics in adults are very different and need to be recognised. Statistically the physical intimidation is mostly one way when you account for sexual dimorphism in height, weight, reach, muscle mass etc. There are always exceptions but women live in a very different threat environment. That isn’t misogyny.

If people tend to hate what they fear and mysogyny is literally hatred of women like what the fuck? Perhaps some men are terrified of emotional harm. I can understand that but perhaps they would be better off with some therapy or a bit of self awareness.

I don’t understand misogyny at all. What’s it all about? If you were homosexual and were raised in an ancient Macedonian army or something perhaps you wouldn’t see a mother, sisters, daughters, lovers, work colleagues, neighbors, friends but who lives like that? Boys who live in front of a screen and are too anxious and scared to go outside? Racism I can kind of understand if you only have superficial knowledge of other people and cultures.

Once that testosterone kicks in at puberty women aren’t generally a physical threat to men. I don’t really understand all the fear of them. Some women are really, really cool. Like serious friend material and lifelong partner stuff.

These systems are based on the flawed assumption that poor people and minorities are less able to manage money that others. It is hugely discriminatory and treated poor people (and specifically the most disadvantaged racial group in the country) like criminals and addicts. It removed personal agency and forced people to use specific retailers, preventing them buying used goods and fresh market produce. The program was expensive and the only people who benefited were the company running it. It is populist divisive nonsense.

Anyway the point is digital payment systems can absolutely be used in democratic states to enforce spending behaviours and you can even see how it starts with people here believing such a system is justifiable. Then it gets extended to other minorities. The elderly, veterans, disabled, unemployed.

Fortunately in a democracy we can educate people as to why overly simplistic solutions that appear to protect vulnerable people are in actuality a really bad idea.

Sadly not entirely true. The incredibly shitty previous government in Australia widely trialed a racist, classist cashless welfare card for indigenous people. Recipients got 80% of their welfare on it and it could not be used for alcohol, gambling or cash incase they spent it on drugs or porn or other “sinful” things.

As we become more dependent on digital systems there are new ways for our privacy and freedoms to be eroded which makes participatory democracy all the more important.

Almost all my transactions are contactless payments and it pisses me off that they all go through VISA when there is a perfectly good local network for debit card payments.

A lot of the deficiencies with Australian health care are due to tight budget control. Insufficient staffing etc. Health care is expensive but I believe our government health care spending is less per person than the US despite having a more equitable system.

Some of the cost pressures on our system are likely due to increasing use of private services. You can feel the dream of universal health and education slipping away here as bits are carved off for the private sector.

Commented this elsewhere as an Aussie. It makes a quick buck for some NZ business person but it kills your reputation. Great country. Should be great products. I would buy 100% made in NZ above anything but local. It’s crazy not to promote local content when you have such a strong national brand.

Public hospital care is free and very good in my experience but we have a mixed public/private system and there is usually a gap between private fees and public compensation. So for most people going to a doctor or specialist isn’t free (it can be but generally isn’t) but it is subsidised.

Prescriptions are the biggest win. Trump wants to take those away. It will be over my dead body.

I love our labelling so much in Australia. Nutrition and origin. The only crap one is health star which is misleading. I occasionally buy NZ products and think we should be closer to an economic union like the EU but their labelling is much worse and I worry that they repackage products of different origin which hurts their reputation for the sake of some quick profits.

Need to seriously look at the taxes paid by companies with high foreign ownership, specifically American. News Corp. Tech companies. Mining companies. So much wealth being extracted from our country and so much foreign influence corrupting our politics with fuck all to show for it for the people who live here.

Time to grow a backbone Australia and demand a better deal for ourselves and our kids.

I live in a civilized country under the rule of law so I won’t advocate violence here. But factually and historically in the past countries with far fewer hand guns have found popular solutions to problems like this that involved mobs with sharp pointy things.

This is the furthest thing from responsible government I can imagine. Even the craziest authoritarian leaders usually commit to something then do it. Lets kill all the sparrows. Or lets shoot all the people wearing glasses. This is fucking crazy. It looks more like stock market manipulation than economic policy. The uncertainty alone has to be costing billions in productivity as businesses pause investments, orders, lay off employees etc.

The 16 is expensive. I would never buy one. I would rather upgrade my desktops. It is not unreasonably priced given the unique design but its clearly a premium niche laptop that goes way beyond just repairability. My personal opinion is that they over complicated the design of the 16. Its an amazing design concept but a compromised mass production, mass market device. I expect we will see some lessons from that with the 12" which should be engineered for cost.

The 13" laptops aren’t too bad. I bought the cheapest tier DIY and added my own parts a couple of years ago. I want to upgrade some things but I can’t justify it. I keep my laptops until they fall apart. I had several held together with tape, with missing keycaps, upgraded ram & ssd and even soldered on replacement ports. I am very tempted to buy a 12" for my kid if the prices are good but if they are more than twice the price of an MSI Modern its going to be a tough sell as an education laptop.

Edit: Looks like they fucked up the price of the 12", at least in my currency. I thought with a plastic body they would have gone much more aggressive on price. I can buy a couple of MSI which are permanently discounted with same or better performance and throw one out if it breaks.

Here you go: https://fosstodon.org/@frameworkcomputer/114297967333461078