luluganeta

Well, maybe next time just leave your siblings out of the discussion since it's you that can't jive with a speaker that does not correspond to your expectations of credibility (as your response to a sibling comment confirms to me)

Not that long ago, many people would protest and browbeat an asian person in any kind of authority position, and you surely don't need me to remind the kind of insults that were employed.

Finally, trans people are being denied basic healthcare, access to essential parts of life and society, when it's not their own life that's at risk; but it's you that feel "strong-armed" into just being indifferent to their existence and not bullying them against presenting themselves as they are.

Again, there are still many who believe your ethnicity should also be driven out of public view -- when you support the idea that some people should just remain hidden because a vocal part of society doesn't want to deal with something they don't understand, everyone loses. (and in this case, you and your family will be losing out on some great tech talks)

"I can't share a tech talk with my siblings because there's trans people in it" -- you definitely sound like part of the problem, esp. when so much of infosec research is done by trans people

It's her birthday today!

https://oldcompcz.github.io/jgs/joan_stark/me.html

This is not how Mastodon works, the point is exactly that cross-instance communication can work smoothly, and it does. Replies show up on your notifications just like any other similar platform, whether they come from your instance or another.

Genuine question: why the need to make this point?

The "no one should be surprised" take baffles me: you clearly care about the progressive loss of privacy, and news like this are the only way to spread awareness of this problem. I cannot imagine someone running into this "news at 11" condemnation of laypeople's supposed lack of understanding, and actually becoming more interested in the issue.

This kind of comment is defeatist and demotivating, so I'm curious as to why you, as a proponent of fully open software, would be so intent in making this point.

"Other people are doing immoral things, so shut up about yet another instance of someone doing immoral things" -- thanks for being part of the problem

It's not that clear cut. Such restriction to self owned content is not in the law at all, but is frequently raised by pro-copyright proponents as an interpretation.

In Portugal there is an exception for copying copyrighted material for personal and noncommercial purposes.

The lobby does try to twist the letter of the law to serve their interest, but it is legal

Tidalcycles actually runs SuperCollider as its sound backend, through the SuperDirt library: https://github.com/musikinformatik/SuperDirt/

This set by yaxu (Tidalcycles author) is what convinced me to get into livecoding seriously:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IzfMqs5NGw

(this set is "from scratch", meaning that it opens with an empty file and starts from there, making it clearer to understand what is going on as it builds up)

this paper is the real deal! However it might be a bit tough without context, which this post does decently:

https://medium.com/code-music-noise/euclidean-rhythms-391d87...

(it goes at length into the algorithms, but the intro is well enough; in the end you can hear some examples too)

I second the other post recommending the Tidalcycles music livecoding language, as it uses euclidean rhythms as a base from which you can compose on. Livecoding combined with euclideans is such an interesting musical paradigm that I'd name it as one of the widest musical revelations I had.

not op, but k-9 mail is a fantastic mail client on f-droid

that's a nice company, but parent comment had a really important point about depending on Whatsapp for basic social interaction.

most informal social groups, parents included, now communicate mainly on whatsapp. You can naturally say no (i did) but then your kid is left out of most social events unless you're actively syncing with other parents every week to be in the loop (which is what i do and it's excruciating).

Whatsapp as a platform is extremely convenient, which is why other people will have a hard time understanding your reluctance to adhere, it's not uncommon to be seen as eccentric.

so again, congratulations on finding a great company, but there are real issues with the general social dependence on a single invasive platform.

Since there's no mention yet: this was done by eBoy, a long-running design agency famous for their gigantic and quirky pixel cityscapes (among many other beautiful pieces)

https://hello.eboy.com

I'll take it, not much to praise. It reads well (kayden live) unlike other names I have to grudgingly pronounce (postgresql, qjackctl, systemctl come to mind).

But cheers, now I see I was reactive towards a generalised view of your point; I now understand where you're coming from, I'm with you there.

You're right, but I don't think memorability and brandability are universal priorities that F/LOSS projects must also be measured from. Sure they can go for that (and many do), but it's unfair to hold them to that very specific standard.

I'm reminded of Debian Linux and its origins (the combination of names of the OS author and his partner). Ended up being pretty memorable, and brand-wise it works. And yet the motivations behind Debian's naming were unusually human for a software world full of empty buzznames.

The opposite exercise, treating proprietary software naming in such an un-generous way, is pretty easy too:

- Fireworks: you'll make bitmaps so good they'll blow up in colors?

- Dreamweaver: you can weave... dreams? I get the 90s web enthusiasm but come on

- Illustrator: there's bitmap illustration and vector illustration; Illustrator focuses on the latter, so good job on picking the wrong word in "vector illustration"

- InDesign: this name is a marketing dept playing it safe to a point that only a beige puddle of non-meaning remains

- GoLive: crappy subscription 1995 online service

- ColdFusion: lol

I'd love to see people taking such critical takes into the bigger guys for once. Especially because they have marketing departments. F/LOSS project naming reflects their often-personal origins and ways of expressing identity. Some do sound clunky, but give me the clumsy Inkscape any day (the "ksk" is hard to get used to, but you forget quickly) than any of the sad corporate names above.

I'm being snarkier that warranted, but man i'm crestfallen with all the unbridled hate on free software project naming around here.

The Polyend tracker makes for a complete portable music-making tool as well.

https://polyend.com/tracker/

I'm sure there's others, but it's true that the OP-1 offers an impressive feature set for portable production.

> Scribus is very serious about PDFs

This is its killer feature! I've had compliments from multiple pro printers regarding my print PDFs produced with Scribus. Even though most usual PDF pipelines are Adobe based, Scribus PDF files are superior.

Thank you for sharing this, it's a beautiful writing experience. And so easy to install, it was straightforward to make it available on a Tilde server for others to try.

(one suggestion for the docs: the included man page can be installed systemwide, with "sudo cp fri.1 /usr/share/man/man1/" on Debian systems)

Edit: having Hemingway/typewriter mode (disable backspace) available as a shell flag would be wonderful :)

I'm a father and you're spot on. It's easy to project what you would like children to get into and just tell them to try it, but it's essential to show that you're into it as well (even -- and especially -- if you're not!)

How about Sigal? It's a Python static site generator for photos that works pretty well: https://github.com/saimn/sigal

It is legal, yet it is still tax evasion, even if one uses euphemisms like "tax optimization" and so on.

It's not even an issue of "picking your battles" or "voting with your wallet".

Whatever your position, OP is justified in not wanting (and looking for an alternative to) a potential surveillance device in their home.

While not as serious, Firefox only allows you to set the new tab page as 1. blank or 2. the Firefox home page.

I wanted to use a startpage for every new tab and was surprised to find that it's not trivial at all, eventually gave up.

I'm a long time Firefox user and MS critic, yet feel forced to remark that this dumbing down of browsers seems to be happening beyond Microsoft.

IMHO, the suggestion of wokewashing is off the mark. Here in PT there have been recent instances of police violence, but they were not accompanied by a movement to force police to wear cameras.

The government presented a single law package covering police bodycams, wider surveillance, AI, biometric and police drones. I can only understand this mixing together of disparate issues as a way to diminish public debate and perception around some of them.

The bodycam issue ended up capturing most of the media attention, in part because it involves labour issues, whereas AI or biometrics are much more technical and harder to approach journalistically. I think this is why you find the drive to pass police bodycams -- they're trying to pass a lot of things under the rug, and bodycams just happen to be a convenient talking point to remove focus from others.

Indeed, Portugal was rightfully highlighted for zero-rating practices by some operators (not charging for some services, e.g. Facebook or Youtube).

But recently the EU indicated it might move to crack down on the practice: https://www.engadget.com/eu-zero-rating-net-neutrality-rulin...

Right now, it's still unclear.

Initially, it seemed like a done deal because of the likely support of the major opposition (PSD, centre-right), which has advocated for wider surveillance in other contexts. Its leader also has a history of being strong on policing and surveillance as former mayor of Porto.

However, in the last few days the PSD is apparently distancing themselves from government, e.g. recently u-turning and siding with the left opposition to approve compensating pensions for the disabled against the ruling party's (PS, centre-left) position against it.

Today, the PSD demanded that only the bodycam mandates and wildfire monitoring portions are put forward in order to vote favourably. This means putting aside the AI, biometrics and surveillance provisions. If this stands, the most concerning parts of the law would not go forward.

But in Portugal we're now in a pre-election moment, where positions might flip and statements easily get reversed, so we're bound to have a thrilling few days ahead until the final vote by the end of the month.

The article has tidbits of hyperbole (you're right that it's no secret move), but accusing it of "pure propaganda" is a pretty strong take.

A bit more background to complement yours: the law was initially put forward in early September, to be put to a vote in a few weeks, sidestepping the required opinions from certain public bodies (like the portuguese DPA, CNPD). This was uncharacteristically fast for a proposal that is supposed to touch a lot of new ground (AI, ethics, permanent recording, biometric storage).

Its quick approval only did not happen as planned because of the death of a former president, which suspended the Parliamentary schedule and moved things forward a couple of weeks. As you remind, this was followed by the announcement of the dissolution of Parliament by the end of November, to be followed by early elections in January.

If it was not for the passing of former president Jorge Sampaio, the law would most probably been successfully fast-tracked. Instead of backing down (the impending dissolution of Parliament would render the proposal void), the government doubled down and asked for special treatment to still get it approved in time. Add to that the fact that this law was initially presented right in the middle of the national campaign for local elections, and one can't be faulted for pointing out an unusual and determined drive to speed this through. Not secret, but hardly fair in democratic terms.

Finally, the framing of this as a "video surveillance bill" (which you follow) is loaded and inaccurate. Video surveillance is thoroughly regulated in Portugal; what this bill brings is the application of AI without any practical safeguards, or biometric databases with few security stipulations, in the 4th safest country in the world with no records of domestic or foreign terrorism. This is exactly the kind of bill that requires proper public debate and getting feedback from public bodies and civil society (as most laws like these do). Its formulation -- mushing together police bodycams, AI, drones, biometrics, expanded access to recordings -- made journalistic reporting and public debate much more difficult.

Why this law is being fast-tracked is still in the realm of speculation, and it's still in the air whether it will go through or not, but let's not dismiss the valid concerns with this kind of opaque political move.

(I'm happy to clarify and add to the relevant context for those not following this closely, but this comment is already long enough)

> the UI design is a blatant ripoff

It follows the design patterns of many node-based programming environments, so to call it a ripoff of Max/MSP is unfairly harsh. The theme in the second half of the video looks a lot closer to VVVV than Max.