I had missed that. Wild.

I mean, he’s been implementing hard right policies all along, so…

uBlock Origin has a V3 version, yeah. Been using it for a while, seems to work well. I do miss the ability of adding my own filters, hope they implement that eventually.

Vast question. Finding out who you are is a lifelong process.

My thought: “male” and “female” are, in fact, abstract ideas, simple labels that each imperfectly, awkwardly covers entire, partially overlapping universes of complexity. And in practical reality, no one is all the way in either universe to the entire exclusion of the other.

So perhaps you are fine in a masculine body enjoying feminine-coded traits and activities. Perhaps the body shape that you would like to see in the mirror fluctuates with time or with your mood. Perhaps you are fine with your genitals but would like to have breasts, or perhaps you are fine with your chest but are thrilled by the idea of a vulva between your legs. Perhaps you would love the way you look and feel in a skirt and high socks. Perhaps you just thrive socializing and belonging in groups of women. Perhaps – likely – none of the above, but something else, something lovely I can’t even begin to imagine. Only you can find out.

Ultimately all labels are, to some extent, bullshit. Each human is a rich multitude that defies naming and containment. I hope you love whatever it is you end up finding out are.

I mean, client-side scanning would do shit all to help anyway because nothing prevents culprits from encrypting the messages in a different app they are using for sending. This is just entirely a net loss – right as fash are poised to take over too. What a mess.

Go fash, lose cash. 👍🏻

Sorry, I should have been clearer: his party scored badly in the EU elections, so he lost credibility in France and is calling snap elections in France. I’ll edit my comment above to clarify.

Macron’s party got disastrous results and got trounced by the far right in the European elections.

He had been selling himself as the shield that protected France from the rise of the local far right party. With these results, he has lost his credibility, and therefore his government did as well.

Therefore he’s calling out-of-schedule French parliamentary elections that – I assume – he hopes will reelect his party and allies ahead of the far right. It might work: the far right party polls strong at around 30%, but has few allies, and may not be able to form a coalition government. If Macron himself can, that will strengthen his legitimacy.

Needless to say, this is a risky gamble.

Astounding, isn’t it? That’s publicly traded companies for you. The company’s objective is to keep its stock up and up and up. That means shareholders must want to keep buying the stock, which in turn means that the company must demonstrate that its value will keep growing, so that by buying the stock today the shareholders will get a positive return tomorrow.

Of course, the universe is finite and no growth is forever. The end state for such companies is not bankruptcy, at least in the immediate, but, more or less, the IBM fate: a previously uber-dominant mastodon whose market capitalization is now worth maybe one tenth of its modern competitors. The fact that it’s still turning a profit is only secondary: none of the big tech shops want to be the next IBM. Their executives are, after all, mostly paid in stocks.

And that’s how you end up with companies that are making amounts of revenue you and I can’t even comprehend flail in a panic like they’re on the edge of the precipice whenever the technological landscape shifts.

It’s both fascinating and remarkably dumb.

Interesting deep dive and very much worth a read. I’d say it probably underestimates the weight of finance-related pressures coming from the CFO’s office, though.

Too real. They’ll steal your heart alright, but god damn.

If you are considering picking up Outer Wilds, by god, go in blind. It’s all about finding out.

I don’t know why you are getting downvoted. This is a very valid and interesting point. Durable improvements are systemic, not individual, and the drive to look for heroes leads to nasty places.

Everypony.

An oft overlooked option that leaves no one indifferent.

Empirically: a pandemic. :(

It’s a trade-off that works for many. Not much you and I can do about it, even if it’s frustrating.

Thank you! I know all these things. This still doesn’t help when the DAW support and VST compatibility aren’t there.

If you’re intent on doing music production on Linux, at least do yourself a favor and get a Reaper license, there are few enough pro DAWs that are Linux native. But be aware that many of the big industry VSTs are still not going to work. If you’re fine sticking to e.g. ZynAddSubFX or Pianoteq, though, knock yourself out.

But you can’t reasonably expect musicians to jump those hoops and abandon their fav VSTs when their Windows tooling is there, and works.

JACK is very cool and if you’re willing to tinker there’s some really awesome stuff that can be done with LADISH session management and e.g. native Linux VSTs.

It’s still a non-option for musicians who just want to do music, not tinkering.

Considering it’s a reference to Monty Python’s Life of Brian, I’m gonna go with yes.

Yeah, definitely the vibe has changed. It’s kind of sad.