communist (PSL ☭) unix nerd who likes to unplug

fountain pen + traveler’s notebook, long hair + hats, photography, and spinning indie records that could be cooler than yours (but probably aren’t)

liverpool fc supporter - you’ll never walk alone

homepage: ~savoy

  • 61 Posts
  • 68 Comments
Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: April 5th, 2020

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  • I adore Void; it’s been my daily driver for about 5-6 years now. Simple, fast, easy to configure, and the Void Handbook does a great job of detailing Void-specific items that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to find in the Arch Wiki, for example.

    the package manager’s command to install stuff is kinda hard to remember but does its job well

    xbps is incredible and very fast, but if you’re having trouble remembering the commands or just don’t want to have to type the chain, I’d recommend looking at vpm. It’s a very apt-like way to manage it e.g. vpm update vs xbps-install -Su and vpm search <package> vs xbps-query -Rs <package>














  • There’s a huge difference between expanding the Fediverse and allowing it to grow organically vs allowing communication with an entity as large and insidious as Meta, which Eugen doesn’t seem to get.

    There are comparisons to be made between Meta adopting ActivityPub for its new social media platform and Meta adopting XMPP for its Messenger service a decade ago. There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers, before each platform was locked down into the silos we know today. What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.

    This is the most ridiculous part to me. If Meta get to the point of locking people out and created a walled-garden separate from the Fedi, it’s because they accomplished their goal of taking users and content away. And until they reach that goal, the Fediverse would be harmed by the outpouring of shit, spam, corporate product placement, ✨influencers✨ etc. that plague mainstream social media. Also XMPP was disallowed growth because of Google abandoning it, and that would happen here as well.

    I just hope that most instances out of principal block them, but it isn’t looking so great.


  • It’s great to see AES countries beginning to adopt Linux and FOSS, even if it’s approached less from an ideological standpoint of FOSS == socialism and more from staying away from proprietary Western technology (Microsoft, Apple). If it’s solely the latter, that’s still the correct course of action.

    “What’s happening to Russian open-source developers gave a warning sign to Chinese developers,” one user commented on knowledge-sharing website Zhihu.com, referring to many software makers being blocked from the open-source community just because they are Russian or not supporting Ukraine. “Software without borders is just a dream that will never come true, and China needs to build its own open-source community.” … “This new version signifies that we have gained the ability to lead the OS’ development by ourselves,” Zhu said. “I hope more users will try our new version and give us feedback.”

    This is great to hear!







  • For sure, people definitely should be educated on what data is open (posts/comments), closed (voting on Lemmy as kbin seems to show them publically), “private” (DMs which are explicitly described as not private and to use Matrix etc. for actual encryption), or secure (Matrix). I feel like a lot of us on Lemmygrad are aware of privacy more than the average netizen, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a primer for new users.

    I think for social media the best thing would just be compartmentalization of identities, so the usual advice of don’t give away too much of who you are and keep usernames separate unless you want them to be connected/known.





  • There’s a lot of info and discussion on this post that explains why. Pretty much that voting has never been private on other platforms as votes must be tied to users, otherwise users could add more than one vote per post. And this data must also be federated so that other instances’ posts are also safeguarded.

    Lemmy isn’t designed as a privacy platform, it’s a socia media type link aggregator powered by ActivityPub. And with this federation brings decentralization, where it’s possible to not share data with other instances, but it will have to be shared in some way with any linked instances. There are pros/cons to each style: the current issues with Reddit show the problems with centralization, and there’s going to be an adjustment period as more people join Lemmy who don’t already know about the Fedi.




  • Don’t make yourself feel like you’re a “bad communist” if you’re not spending every available hour of your life organizing. You could eventually come to resent your work or comrades and burn yourself out, none of which is healthy for you or your org. A rested, focused, energized, and optimistic you is going to be a lot more productive in organization, and you’re going to be mentally in a better place.

    I’ve been down the route of using all my time for organizing, and it’s just not sustainable. Yes we’re dedicated communists and this is a sacrifice, but we’re not all Che. Each of us is not going to be a super-human organizer, which is why we build together as comrades and not individuals.






  • It goes hand-in-hand with a post-revolution socialist society. Proprietary software is essentially private property, which would be eradicated in a worker’s state. It would most likely not be a first priority for the new state as there are more pressing matters - for the US for example, the dismantling of the military and the closing down of all international bases - but it would be inevitable with socialism.