bigredcar

bigredcar, 17 days ago

As someone who started in the deep end back in 2001 (My first distro was a Slackware derivative) I actually enjoyed the satisfaction of trying to get XFree86 to work and seeing all the available command line tools. Of course this was back in the Windows 98 days so I was already used to going into MS-DOS mode. My first computer was a Commodore 64 as well so didn’t get mollycoddled at all when learning to use a computer.

bigredcar, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Geoblocking shouldn’t be a thing, unless it’s for a good reason like sanctions. It’s called the Internet (International Network) for a reason. If Coca Cola can operate in nearly every country, why can’t Sony?

bigredcar, 1 month ago

There are a lot of decades old embedded systems out there. Every so often you hear about a big company still relying on floppy disks and other old tech, including major railways and airplane companies. Having the source code will help with debugging better than having to disassemble or other reverse engineering.

bigredcar, 1 month ago

My personal theory is that the industrial revolution created more neurodivergence. The fact that stuff like computers and trains are common obsessions means that the development of technology is making life more neurodivergent friendly. My grandfather worked for Rolls Royce so I’ve got tech genes in me.

bigredcar, 7 months ago

I just hope Ofcom will have a similar idea for the UK. Currently you only have a “universal service obligation” for 10Mbps, and if you can be provided by 4G then Openreach doesn’t have to upgrade your old copper line. Large areas of my city are still copper only.

bigredcar, 7 months ago

The biggest insult is that Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia helped create fandom because he was fed up of people using Wikipedia to create detailed articles about fictional characters and video games. Wikipedia now has an artificially strict notability policy where things are falsely declared as not notable so they can be monetized on Fandom, all while Jimbo Wales has the gall to ask for money for his “non profit” Wikipedia while he makes the real money on Fandom.

bigredcar, 8 months ago

This is what Wayland should have done years ago, by forcing the lack of a fallback to X all bugs will be highlighted and therefore fixed faster. I just hope we can finally say goodbye to X for good.

bigredcar, 10 months ago

It’s time to use web integrity against them, by blocking access to your site if they “pass” integrity checks, and telling them to use a freedom respecting browser instead.

bigredcar, 10 months ago

The whole idea of playing videos on a computer is so heavily patented it’s hindering innovation. Even ancient by modern standards MPEG-2 video is still patented in some countries. And then companies keep patenting new codecs and new playback methods (“on a phone”, “on a tablet”, “from a qr code”) that pushes back the clock another 20 years. Same thing happening with AI, where they will make more money from licensing/lawsuits than actual innovation.

bigredcar, 10 months ago

It’s broken on the www.flathub.org domain but not on just flathub.org by itself. Despite browsers trying to get rid of www its still commonly used.

bigredcar, 10 months ago

I bought several physical encyclopedias as a a result of my Wikipedia addiction. Having physical encyclopedias to fall back on is a plus, as their information can’t be taken down by deletionists. I also got the Encarta isos off archive.org running in 86box.

bigredcar, 10 months ago

I’ve been using the internet since 1999. I’ve been using Firefox before it was Firefox, and before it was Phoenix, back when it was just “Mozilla”. (The original browser became SeaMonkey, but it’s been slowly abandoned to the point that it doesn’t work on modern sites anymore.) I’ve been frustrated at times and have sometimes used Chrome, Waterfox and Epiphany (Linux web browser) at times but I always come back to Firefox. Back in the Geocities era in 2000 Netscape 4.x was so poor at CSS I developed for Internet Explorer on my personal sites, (to my regret), but Mozilla eventually caught up.

bigredcar, 10 months ago

Even though it is the last official version for it, good to see they are still fixing Windows 7 bugs.

bigredcar, 11 months ago

Because I can use the real Firefox and not a Webkit imposter. I tried an iPhone for a year but it was too restrictive for me. Having a choice in phone manufacturer helps too. I've had phones from many different companies over the years.