I feel like this should be required reading for a lot of Linux users. That article is a couple years old now, but I think is even more true now than it was when it was written. Having a middleman (package maintainer) between the user and the software developer is a tremendous benefit. Maintainers enforce quality, and if you bypass them, you're going to end up with Linux as the Google Play Store (doubly so if you try and fool yourself into thinking it won't happen because "Linux is different")
You're paying them money, so it's in their best interest to keep hosting.
The uploader uploads their stuff to their own Usenet provider (whom they're probably paying for). Usenet servers are frequently mirroring/syncing with each other. So very quickly after the uploader uploads, you will find their post on your Usenet provider, and you download directly from them.
If a Usenet provider someday decided not to host any more, they would be out of business (because who would use them), and so you'd switch to a different Usenet provider, where you'd find exactly the same stuff mirrored.
Usenet providers compete/distinguish themselves mostly based on:
- Cost (duh)
- Speed (duh)
- Retention. This means "how long is a post kept on our servers after it's been uploaded". Some cheaper providers might have only 30 day retention while some might have 180 day retention, etc. If you're only interested in recent posts/releases, it might not matter as much to you.
- Tooling. Most Usenet providers have a web-based interface, with varying levels of service. Can you search for a specific filename, do different types of filtering, etc. Many providers will automatically package together files that have been split up, so you only have one download, and don't have to worry about par files and unrar and all that. Some will give you thumbnail previews, or even short video previews, of videos before you download, so you can check quality and language (important!! Some people on Usenet don't even bother to label the fact that they're uploading, say, a Spanish language version of something)
- Obscure communities. Many people do still use Usenet for discussion, its original purpose. If that's you, you're going to want to check that the provider you choose is going to have alt.fan.obscure.howdy-doody-berenstain-bears-crossover-fanfic.bonk.bonk.bonk or whatever weird interest you and 3 other people in the world have. You might think since the discussion communities are so low-bandwidth every provider would just carry everything, but you might be surprised.
Indeed. I used to have a circle of friends/acquaintances that had a huge number of vegans and vegetarians. I can honestly say I have encountered literally 0 vegans or vegetarians ever mention it unless food was being served. But if food is being served,,,I mean...you really can't avoid having to tell everyone.
On the other hand, I have witnessed a huge number of meat-eaters become insecurely defensive, aggressive, bullying, harrassing as soon as anybody mentions that they don't eat meat.
It's come up in interesting cases. I can't remember which package it was, but there was one package that was distributed under the humourous "Don't Be Evil License", where you could "use this software for anything that's not evil" or something like that. This technically does not qualify as free software (freedom 0 must allow anyone to use it for evil), so Red Hat (I think it was?) had to get their lawyers to contact the developer and get him to give them an exemption to the licence, just in case one of their users used it for evil.
I'll go against the grain and say that's cool as heck! Wikipedia says the designer (the guy flying/driving it, I think) has been working on it since the 80s. I like people passionate about their hobbies.
The Villages ~~and their sky-high STD rate~~ would beg to differ. (Edit: apparently that's just an urban legend. Still, old people in The Villages are very social)
I had a similar situation.
I had an old laser printer that was officially unsupported on OS X. Meaning that they had a driver for OS X for a similar model, but not exactly the same model, that supposedly worked for it, but they deliberately did not let you use it with my model of printer. Found some crazy instructions online that told you to install the drivers, then change the driver with a hex editor to force it to recognize your printer as a different model. It worked, occasionally, intermittently. I spend like half a week trying to get it to work under OS X and it just wouldn't work reliably.
Tried a Windows computer. Wasted half a day installing a driver, uninstalling a driver, plugging in, unplugging, turning on, turning off, but it just couldn't recognize it.
Booted into Linux and hit "print" and it worked perfectly. Didn't even need to install a driver.
TPM's not going to help with that situation, though, right? Either you're typing in your encryption password on boot (in which case you don't need TPM to keep your password), or you're not, in which case the thief has your TPM module with the password in it.
Netcraft confirms it!
I agree with your assessment. I have a lot to say about this, and I'm glad to have found this article, as I've been having some serious inner turmoil about this lately, and this makes me feel a bit like I'm not totally alone or crazy. (But also I can't find a link to the original survey, which makes it hard to trust, as I can't find any description of the methodology or the exact wording of the questions)
I'm an older Millenial (sometimes consider Gen X, depending on the terminology used) with young kids. It's true that I would rather have them brought up 30 years ago than today. Sometimes when I see posts about parents letting their young kids (like let's say 10) have their own smartphone and then complain about, people get snarky like "You're the parent. If you don't like it, just take their smartphone away."
But it is a tightrope to walk. I don't want them expose them something like Instagram, which gives them eating disorders, depression, anxiety, chips away at their sense of privacy, etc. But I also don't want them to be "the weird kid" who can't relate to any of their peers. When I was growing up, I remember "the weird kid"s who weren't allowed to watch TV, weren't to play video games, etc. I can recognize that in many ways they probably benefited from not sitting in front of the TV for hours each day, but I can also recognize they probably didn't benefit from not being able to talk to any of the rest of us about the latest episode of Fresh Prince. I do see it as a balancing act between teaching them that there's a lot about their generation that sucks, but also letting them experience enough of it to see for themselves, and relate to the other kids around them.
duncesplayed
joined 2 years ago
I'm guessing childless adults are significantly less than that. Just thinking about my kids and all of their book readers, barking animal toys, light-up fairy wands, I have a bad feeling they may be bringing up that average.
Though the nice thing about kids' electronics is they never get obsoleted. A light-up fairy wand is just as fun in 2074 as it is in 2024. So they just get cycled through the 2nd hand mommy communities until they break. It was $40 new, you buy it "mostly undamaged" for $20, hope your kid doesn't scratch it too badly so you can sell it a couple years down the line for $10 or so.
The bad thing about kids' electronics is it's that for new stuff, it's really impossible to tell how long it's going to last. Could be 20 years, could be 20 minutes.