Germany Is Constructing Military Railway Network Leading To Ukraine – Report
Germany Is Constructing Military Railway Network Leading To Ukraine - Report
Germany is secretly building a network of railways that will be used for the rapid transfer of troops to the...Anonymous1199 (South Front)
Russia condemns revival of Iran sanctions by UK, France, and Germany
Russia condemns revival of Iran sanctions by UK, France, and Germany
Russia and Iran have denounced the Western European move to reinstate UN sanctions over Tehran’s alleged failure to comply with nuclear dealRT
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In Gaza City, I Have Surrendered to an Unknown Fate
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/35391498
Rasha Abou jalal
Aug 29, 2025
Like so many other Palestinians in Gaza, I have ended up in a tent—the enduring symbol of displacement. I am camped out on the rubble with my husband and five children in western Gaza City. The merciless Israeli military machine is bearing down on us, getting closer every day and there is nothing we can do. But we won’t leave here.At night, violent explosions from the eastern and northern areas of Gaza City thunder through the darkness, especially in the neighborhoods of Jabaliya, Al-Saftawi, and Abu Iskandar, just a few kilometers away from me, now emptied of residents.
The aim of the Israeli army in these residential areas is not just to invade and occupy them, but to systematically destroy them.
The army deploys robotic vehicles loaded with explosives into the heart of residential blocks and detonates them, causing massive destruction. Then they go to another neighborhood and do the same thing. Killing anyone who remains there. Their goal is to erase Gaza City entirely through this method.
In Gaza City, I Have Surrendered to an Unknown Fate
Rasha Abou jalal
Aug 29, 2025Like so many other Palestinians in Gaza, I have ended up in a tent—the enduring symbol of displacement. I am camped out on the rubble with my husband and five children in western Gaza City. The merciless Israeli military machine is bearing down on us, getting closer every day and there is nothing we can do. But we won’t leave here.At night, violent explosions from the eastern and northern areas of Gaza City thunder through the darkness, especially in the neighborhoods of Jabaliya, Al-Saftawi, and Abu Iskandar, just a few kilometers away from me, now emptied of residents.
The aim of the Israeli army in these residential areas is not just to invade and occupy them, but to systematically destroy them.
The army deploys robotic vehicles loaded with explosives into the heart of residential blocks and detonates them, causing massive destruction. Then they go to another neighborhood and do the same thing. Killing anyone who remains there. Their goal is to erase Gaza City entirely through this method.
In Gaza City, I Have Surrendered to an Unknown Fate
I am camped out on the rubble of my home as the Israeli army gets closer every dayRasha Abou jalal (Drop Site News)
In Gaza City, I Have Surrendered to an Unknown Fate
Rasha Abou jalal
Aug 29, 2025
Like so many other Palestinians in Gaza, I have ended up in a tent—the enduring symbol of displacement. I am camped out on the rubble with my husband and five children in western Gaza City. The merciless Israeli military machine is bearing down on us, getting closer every day and there is nothing we can do. But we won’t leave here.At night, violent explosions from the eastern and northern areas of Gaza City thunder through the darkness, especially in the neighborhoods of Jabaliya, Al-Saftawi, and Abu Iskandar, just a few kilometers away from me, now emptied of residents.
The aim of the Israeli army in these residential areas is not just to invade and occupy them, but to systematically destroy them.
The army deploys robotic vehicles loaded with explosives into the heart of residential blocks and detonates them, causing massive destruction. Then they go to another neighborhood and do the same thing. Killing anyone who remains there. Their goal is to erase Gaza City entirely through this method.
In Gaza City, I Have Surrendered to an Unknown Fate
I am camped out on the rubble of my home as the Israeli army gets closer every dayRasha Abou jalal (Drop Site News)
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Why are so many European countries getting worried about encryption and/or age verification? Why *now*?
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70 years of propaganda has its roots deep in generational beliefs that any criticism of Israel’s actions as a nation state could only be rooted in their ethnicity and religion and therefore must be countered.
No one wants to criticize privacy-invading “think of the children” laws for fear of being seen as a pedo or pedo-enabler, and likewise no one wants to stand up against Israel for fear of being seen as a Jew-hating antisemite.
The Germans are perhaps still motivated by guilt over the Holocaust
Honestly I'm not entirely convinced the Germans ARE motivated by guilt; it seems to me more that they're not happy with the image they created among their (perceived) peers and are now trying to create a new image to be seen by. They want TO BE SEEN as having overcome their past and become better for it, but the idea that they've fundamentally changed is a joke. They committed atrocities in Namibia for example but have never paid reparations to the people there, and of course why should they? Other European countries rag on Germany for the holocaust, none of them give a damn about the atrocities committed against the Herero people.
They bend over backwards for Israel because they don't want to be mocked as Nazis; they want to continue viewing themselves in the same lofty position they see other Western European countries in.
This. I always side eye people when they rag on Japan for not being publicly repentant about WW2 atrocities. I never hear Europeans tip toe and apologetic about Africa and especially not Asia. Americans are verbally repentant about slavery but not Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, ... Native Americans are mostly ignored and native Hispanic may as well not exist. Afghanistan and Iraq are referred to mostly as a waste of time and money rather than as terrible atrocities committed by us. Zero concern or feelings of responsibility for latin American imperialism by the US. Presumption of practically any immigration Muslim men of being problematic but little to no concern for the imperialism of their homelands that made them want to leave
I get annoyed at leftist meetings where people get annoyed at immigrants and their children for being successful because they must have come from money for their family to immigratr to the anglosphere or Europe. What money are modern people thinking people from Afghanistan came here with. The families from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia that came in the 70s-80s. China didn't really become wealthy until the last couple decades and most Chinese people in the US are from before the 90s. Insane poverty back then. Very interesting times in the west these days. Conservatives are crazy but leftist are starting to get a bit xenophobic and ignorantly presumptuous and blaming of immigrants in my opinion too. I'll add that I don't hear resentment about immigrants being successful from the former Yugoslavian states from back during the Yugoslav wars in the 90s
Not truly leftist but in times of frustration people look for a group to feel acknowledged so even if they're not an ideologue, they'll comingle and the not true leftist, opportunistic "leftist", outnumber the ideological leftist. Has to be watched out for in caution of them hijacking organizations to drum up a populist anti-immigrants/racist movement that adopts some leftist terminology for marketing.
Corporate/imperialist Republicans courted evangelicals for votes but didn't want to enact policy of evangelicals until evangelicals took over enough of the party positions. That's a caution for socialist commingling with labor activist that are really just about their paycheck rather than being about labor. I'm all about labor unions but I know labor unions are filled with people happy to pull up ladders and scapegoat out groups
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
It's partly because of the guit of holocaust, but also because they just don't personally want to lift a finger regarding Palestine. It's a toxic mixture of inbred zionism, cold geopolitical calculus, appeasing the US in trying time in transatlantic relations, and neocon hubris. They maybe can bend to appease their own populations, but they really are not prepared to stop Israel and they would much rather help them. They just want the genocide to happen, but quietly and out of sight and no protests.
But it's not really just Gaza. They do this because of Ukraine, rising cost of living, European humiliation in from of Trump, falling economy, their own unpopularity, etc.... They are fearing the upheaval and people getting ideas when Brussels doesn't seem to have any of it's own. Remember that these are the same people who though that the end of the soviet union was the end of history and they are the culmination of humanity. They cannon accept being wrong or stepping down at this point.
Does Israel have that much sway over Europe?
It's not so much that Isreal does, but for all intents and purposes Israel = America. It's our colonial outpost in the Middle East, an "unsinkable aircraft carrier", and as Joe Biden said, "if Isreal didn't exist, we would have to invent it". And as much as Europeans don't want to believe it, most European countries are American vassal states. Look at the pictures of all of your leaders gravelling at Trump's feet and literally calling him "Daddy".
Gaza is only the beginning. They are also preparing for mass unrest at home as standards of living worsen. Just this week the German chancellor said Germany "can no longer afford the welfare state", meanwhile they are spending record amounts on arms. They are preparing for millions of climate refugees at their borders.
You should expect and prepare for a lot more Gazas all over the world in the future. Your leaders are.
The Internet has become popular enough that governments care about what happens on it. And it's not just European countries, US states too (at least for age verification).
More specifically for your two points:
Encryption
It used to be that very little Internet traffic was encrypted, much less end-to-end encrypted. After 2013 (Snowden revelations), this changed, e.g. messengers started to E2EE, many more websites than previously started to use HTTPS. So all we are seeing now is the reaction to those positive changes...
Age verification
This has to do with mobile devices more than anything else. I think a lot of parents now just hand their children smartphones or tablets and may then be surprised that their children can then access things they don't want their children to access. This was less of a thing in the desktop era because it was easier to see what children were doing online if it was happening on a huge computer in the living room...
Now personally I don't think anyone (including young people) should ever be prohibited from watching or reading anything they actively want to see. For preventing young people from accidentally accessing porn, an "are you over 18" banner ought to be enough... I don't think people who want to prevent that kind of access want anything legitimate. But you asked about why it's happening now and not at another time and I think this is the answer.
Sidenote: I remember reading that when television was newly introduced in East Germany, it was still able to be somewhat critical of the regime; after some years, this stopped because a lot more citizens were able to watch it. The equivalent of that is currently happening to the Internet.
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messengers started to E2EE
This is a big deal. I've had the archetypal non-technical user, my mother send me a PGP encrypted email. It will probably come as no surprise to anyone who has done so that this did not become our default.
Now the majority of our messaging and calling is via Signal. It's effortless.
Once they figure that out, they'll probably just make any encryption illegal...
Then we will probably just develop encryption algorithms that look like regular text messages, or hide the encrypted content inside some audio, image, video or other normal types of files.
I do think it's Gaza. For decades until the last couple of years, the plight of Palestinians have been mostly ignored. The whole of Europe and algosphere in the middle east have had active or passive public approval for middle east policy for the past century. Vietnam war reporting soured the public on far east colonialism and war reporting went softball afterwards and that softball unraveled in the 2010s and now Gaza is the modern day Vietnam war for reporting on disregard for life from pretty much ourselves. Israel is an ally of our countries.
So now government policy is incredibly misaligned with public opinion now and what was a steady grind at enacting internet control is suddenly a mad rush for governments. Israel is a line in the sand for the powerful like Vietnam was in the 60/70s was for media control/influence
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Honestly this
I recall something (RFK?) said that tiktok took the narrative on Gaza out of their hands. They can't tell people what to think if people have access to events (through video and images) that previously the news used to either hide or share tidbits about but heavily color by narrative.
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It's not new. Maybe it's new to you but European conservatives always tried this, at least in Germany. They never missed a chance to try to implement harsher and broader surveillance and have many times had their laws repealed by the federal constitutional court.
Also the chatcontrol laws have been in the making for years in the EU, but over those years they have been reworked or not gotten enough votes again and again.
Now why do conservatives want surveillance? I think it's about control. Just like they believe a father should have ultimate control over his children (be allowed to hit them etc), they think that police shouldn't have to stop at anything while researching a matter.
Also there probably is lobbying by state agencies and those selling surveillance tech and whatnot.
The USA will go to war with China to keep them in line. My assumption is that like Afghanistan it will be presented as an attack on NATO so the EU will be involved.
People may question the validity of that war which is ok as long as the sentiment doesn't spread. With age verification those critical voices can be silenced easily.
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This is not solely a european problem, and it's not new.
A faction of conservatives will scream up and down that they're protecting the children. Most people will generally side with privacy.
My suspicion is that the end goal is to classify people to target your opponents, even the ones who don't have much of a platform.
Once you can identify all the anonymous people on the internet and build profiles of all their communications with ML, you can easily generate a list of people who are against your policies and target them. I'm pretty sure you could find other subsets of data linking these people so you can then target them indirectly without too much friendly fire against your supporters.
In the US, One easy target I haven't seen any actions for is Marijuana. All those medical patients are in a database somewhere. All the debit card transactions in stores are in a database somewhere. It's still federally illegal and the punishments are nuts if prosecuted. Take your communications list, and the MJ list, target the ones on both and ignore the rest. You get to legally enslave your opponents under the guise of weed.
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Google wants to be the go to for age verification so they can sell it to other websites. They'll also coincidentally control a lot of information on every user. They are fighting for these age verification laws.
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The baltic pipe, the sea cables, the train stop in poland are the bigger ones but smaller acts of sabotage where the perpetrator has been found to be working for Russia are common. Last month some Colombian dude lit two warehouses on fire and has been found to be working for Russian intelligence.
It may be just government propaganda or it may be real, we'll never know, but it's the agenda pushed to the media.
It's certainly the agenda being pushed.
Are you referring to Nordstream, or another Baltic pipe?
It looks like the Polish train accidents are no longer blamed on Russia.
Polish authorities initially believed Russian sabotage was afoot.1But after investigations were carried out by Poland's Internal Security Agency, it seems that local radio enthusiasts using amateur equipment managed to copy the brake signal used to override the manual functions of the train operator and force the trains to stop abruptly, causing the accidents.1
I no longer take any of the accusations from Western intelligence at face value (i.e. without evidence), because I believe they've lied about Russian culpability so many times in the past.^[Including the 2016 US election meddling and DNC email hack, the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, MH17, the Mariupol theater bombing, the Bucha massacre, and the Nordstream pipeline.] I don't discount the possibility though—the Baltic Sea cables one seems to have a plausible motive at the very least, if they were used for NATO communications.
Is Russian sabotage behind 20 recent train accidents in Poland?
After more than 20 train accidents occurred across Poland in recent weeks, authorities believe they have figured out who has been disrupting the rail networks.Euronews.com
Why are so many European countries getting worried about encryption and/or age verification?
EU elites want to hold on to power. They know everything is going to shit economically and politically and there will be backlash for this economic situation, covid, Ukraine, Gaza and everything. So they try to shut down free information and speech by censoring internet and enforcing self censorship to stay in power. Free speech and any civil liberty is on the loan anyway, unless the people are ready push back constantly. These fuckers have no morality or common sense otherwise.
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This battle will define the class war.
I doubt plebs win, at best tech savy will maintain modicum of privacy while under class will be fish in a bowl... All that data will be used to enslve them even further.
Sadly, many just accept it
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A lot of good points here, but I'd also like to bring forward another hypothesis which partially explain the incredible speed at which this is moving forward in the last few months (even though things have been brewing back and forth for years, decades).
The US has become a hostile state. For Five Eyes, Six Eyes, Nine Eyes, and Forty Eyes that means much less domestic intel since all the Eyes were sharing domestic intelligence to circumvent stronger protections on their own citizens. Canada would spy for the US and the UK, and vice versa, which was a neat way of getting rid of pesky rights afforded to citizens.
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are you antisemitism concern trolling or new?
Even if our elections were "democratic" (they aren't), there is absolutely no chance of voting this shit away before it is foisted onto the population.
The media is also controlled by those same donors. The people believe what they're told to believe, and then given candidates that only align with what they're told to believe. Anyone outside of the norm for the parties and donor's ideology is systematically portrayed as unserious and delusional. It is not in the interest of a party to win with a candidate that disagrees with their core beliefs. Which is why establishment democrats prefer to lose when the party is forced to run a leftist. You can see exactly this phenomenon in the NYC mayoral race.
I think if you asked the people whattl they voted for none of them would say it was this. And yet it is still set to roll out.
Makes you wonder what liberal democracy really means doesn't it?
Sometimes policy issues arise after an election cycle, in which case the voters didn't have an opportunity to vote for or against the candidates based on their position on the policy issue. Was that the case with age verification in the UK?
In a healthy democracy, future elections decide the fate of these policies, which can be reverted. Even the USA's complete prohibition on recreational alcohol, which was popular with voters at the time, and codified into the constitution itself, later became unpopular with voters, and was repealed. So as long as the democracy remains healthy, there is always an opportunity for bad policies to be repealed.
You should read the rest of the thread to get an understanding of why surveillance and deanonymization is being pushed. It is not to solve some real issue to the benefit of the public, it is a response to the failure of the media systems of control to control narratives.
Your claims about a "healthy democracy" are fairy tales. That's propaganda about how it works, not how it works in practice. The UK has its current Prime Minister due to a series of coordinated media campaigns against the previous leader of Labour, for examlle, with an internal purge using bad faith claims following his removal. No element of that was democratic and none of the UK governments have been popular for ages.
Question why so-called democracies only produce unpopular governments. Why don't the parties align with popular interests in reality? Whose interests do they align with?
Media companies oppose left candidates. Left candidates threaten the material interests of the owners of these companies, the ad buyers, the people who fund think tanks and establish or otherwise embed in academic programs like journalism schools.
The remainder is non-left candidates. These are people who work in those interests and therefore receive media support. For example, Reform UK gets inordinate neuteal or positive media coverage as well as volume compared to even the greens who are not much of a threat to capital.
These mass surveillance laws are a reaction to an failure in this overall apparatus to control thought and speech re: Gaza. They want to track and suppress and oppress information and speech that runs contrary to ruling class interests. The ruling class is heavily invested in the genocidal settler colonial project of "Israel" both literally with piles of cash and politically-strategically as a means by which to control and profit from political destabilization in parts of the Middle East.
Their explicit statements about why they want to do this are just a lie, a pretext. They are not personally or politically invested in protecting kids, lol. These are the people that protected Jimmy Saville and impoverished and made food insecure huge percentages of UK children.
I feel it's the same vibe with return to office policy in Canada.
These things seem like they come from absolutely no where with no legitimate reason and then all of these executives are on board making it happen.
Like what the fuck is going on
If you're talking about Toronto and Ottawa, as far as I heard, a huge part of the reason is Downtown businesses are struggling now that way fewer people are commuting Downtown.
But the solution to this is not RTO. If your DOWNTOWN of all places isn't self sufficient I don't know what to tell you other than your municipal policies are failing. Just let people live in the office buildings. "Oh they're too wide and you'll have to make the units narrow strips that only have a tiny sliver of window on one side" Do that then. Tons of people would still live in those because Downtown should be the most desirable place to live.
I don’t want to just dismiss this as “business as usual.” What stands out to me is how coordinated the return-to-work push was. Sure, we know there’s a “big club” of elites who share similar goals. But sharing goals isn’t the same as acting in lockstep.
Think about it: I can join a fitness club, but that doesn’t mean all of us show up on Wednesday wearing the same outfit. There’s a difference between belonging to a group and receiving instructions that lead everyone to move together.
That’s why I think this deserves more attention. The inference here isn’t just that the wealthy share values or face the same incentives it’s that they communicate and coordinate globally in ways that go far beyond coincidence. And that, to me, is a much bigger story than just “rich people doing rich people stuff.”
“Oh they’re too wide and you’ll have to make the units narrow strips that only have a tiny sliver of window on one side” Do that then.
Some people would be willing to live like that. But the rents per ft^2 or m^2 would be abysmally low. And renovating the buildings would still be very expensive. It may be physically possible to turn those deep floor plate cube farm skyscrapers into housing, but it isn't financially possible. The money would be better spent tearing the buildings down entirely and just building entirely new residential buildings from scratch.
Centralization tends be self-reinforcing. Social unrest might cause the public to demand more safety measures, which usually come at the expense of freedoms. I’d also wager that the lower the level of trust in government is, the more they want to impose control and authority.
And in the EU specifically it is because lobbyists have been working overtime to try and pass chat control: borncity.com/win/2023/09/27/eu…
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For those here who didn't know specifics, as far as I know the EU has announced in July 2025 guidelines, set to come into effect until 2026, that seem to basically be the same as the UK online safety act:
eunews.it/en/2025/07/14/the-eu…
mlex.com/mlex/articles/2368265…
ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redi…
These guidelines say, among other things, check the last link: "Where the provider of the online platform has identified medium risks to minors on their platform as established in its risk review [...] and those risks cannot be mitigated by less restrictive measures. The Commission considers this will be the case where the risk is not high enough to require access restriction based on age verification but not low enough that it would be appropriate to not have any access restriction [...]" And "Self-declaration is not considered to be an appropriate age-assurance measure as further explained below."
If you don't want the Online Safety Act in the EU, call or e-mail your representative now. If you enter your country here, it shows a list: fightchatcontrol.eu/#delegates As far as I can tell, unless it's reversed this will be coming soon. The clock is ticking.
The EU launches an online age verification app. Pilot project in 5 member states (including Italy)
The European Commission presented guidelines on the protection of minors from the risks of addiction, abuse and exposure to harmful content. Vice-President Virkkunen: "Platforms have no more excuses"Simone De La Feld @SimoneDeLaFeld1 (Eunews)
Any letter sent to them is nothing more than toilet paper for these people.
We are realistically looking at losing between 200 million and 1 billion people over the next 20 years due to climate-change induced famine and heat stroke. Those are realistic estimates. More optimistic scenarios could make that number less, more pessimistic ones could reduce it. We are on the eve of what future histories may refer to as the Great Hunger.
Even for those lucky enough to not live in regions being rendered uninhabitable, the quality of life for the average citizen is collapsing. The developing world will experience mass famine. The developed world will experience food prices not seen since the advent of mechanized agriculture. Home prices will continue to become more unaffordable, as more and more homes are destroyed by rapidly increasing natural disasters. In the US, tens of millions of homeowners are going to have their primary asset, their homes, rendered completely worthless after they become uninsurable. Governments can try to prop up the insurance market if they want, but not even national governments have the resources to subsidize an insurance market in an era of spiraling natural catastrophes.
Leaders around the world see a future of chaos, famine, and strife. Really all the Four Horseman are coming out. In developed countries, leaders fear millions of desperate poor people from developing countries trying to cross their borders. Internally, they fear violence by their own populations, who are seeing their standard of living rapidly collapse.
The borders are being locked down. The walls are going up. People everywhere are being increasingly surveilled and controlled. Political leaders might be cynical enough to deny climate change for political gain, but that doesn't mean they're ignorant to the actual future we're running headfirst into. Technology is also advancing, allowing "mass shooter" type individuals to potentially cause much larger acts of destruction in the future.
Most governments would prefer to maintain power by actually improving the lives of their citizens. That's the safest and most moral approach. But in a world of rapidly spiraling climate change, governments simply are not capable of on improving the lives of their citizens. They can't even maintain the standard of living their citizens already have. So, the leaders have to turn to more brute force methods to retain control. Best to be loved. But if you can't be loved, then at least be feared.
Who's "we"?
un.org/en/global-issues/popula…
"The world's population is projected to continue growing for the next 50 to 60 years, peaking at approximately 10.3 billion by the mid-2080.[sic]"
Population | United Nations
In 1950, five years after the founding of the United Nations, world population was estimated at around 2.6 billion people. It reached 5 billion in 1987 and 6 in 1999. In October 2011, the global population was estimated to be 7 billion.United Nations
Yes. That's exactly it. They assume business as usual. And your source is a landing page, not an actual source. And even then, that site doesn't discuss any effect of climate change on population projections. You just blindly linked to the UN's population agency.
For every degree of Celsius warming, farm yields of major staple crops decline 16-20%. We're already at 1.5C warming, and the rate of warming is rapidly increasing. We're looking at another 0.5-1.5C increase by 2050. There's no way this doesn't lead to mass famine on a Biblical scale.
This paper in Nature predict 4-14% in total global food production by 2050 due to climate effects. And these are using the RPC models, which we're learning are far too conservative in their predictions. I'm sure if everyone in the world went vegan tomorrow, we could absorb a 10% decline in agricultural production, but not a chance in Hell of that happening.
As far as the UN, they do work on climate change, but their population projections don't factor it into account. Here is a link to the 2024 population prospects summary
When you pull open that PDF, you won't find mention of climate change being incorporated into their methodology at all. As far as I'm aware, the UN's figures are purely based on population pyramids, demographic factors, birth rate projections, etc. Demographers don't like looking at factors beyond just population numbers, gender mixes, and age distributions. Other things, like war and economic policy, can certainly affect population numbers, but those are generally considered too unpredictable to properly model. The population projections you see are purely demographic models.
As far as I know, agricultural yields are never even part of their methodology. They look purely at what ages people are and how many children people of different ages have. They generally assume that resources will be available for those who want to have children. Do you have any evidence that they do take climate effects on agricultural yields into account when making their numbers?
Report: Warmer planet will trigger increased farm losses | Cornell Chronicle
Extreme heat is already harming crop yields, but a new report quantifies just how much that warming is cutting into farmers’ financial security.Cornell Chronicle
European elites are worried about losing control, and they are responding by restricting freedoms.
The Palestine/Gaza issue is one concrete example: European elites are very pro-Israel and pro-Genocide. But they have completely failed to control the narrative and European populations are not as pro-Israel as their elites.
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They might also be getting cocerned about people finding out that elites routine participate in sexual abuse of children.
I don't see how any regime can maintain legitimacy if normies finally grasp the scope of the issue.
They are prepping to rule by force, fuck your consent.
They will rape children and jack shit you can do about it.
Totalitarianism.
People outside Europe doesn't understand how our governments are speed running getting a totalitarian government. More and more aspects of anyone's everyday life are getting controlled everyday.
Here they are already starting a system of garbage bags with nfc tags to have our garbage controlled.
At the end of the day they are thirsty for power and control.
Here they are already starting a system of garbage bags with nfc tags to have our garbage controlled.
Sounds like a great way of getting people to throw their garbage in any place other than the bag...
PI Briefing | No. 32 | Breaking the Blockade [Gaza]
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/35390052
from Progressive International
29.08.2025
On 22 August, the United Nations declared a famine in Gaza. More than half a million Palestinians are facing catastrophic famine conditions amid Israeli genocide, while authorities in Gaza report over 10,000 additional deaths and 45,000 injuries since the collapse of the ceasefire in March — numbers that represent a significant undercount of the true devastation.In response, a historic coalition is mobilizing in the Mediterranean Sea — to break the blockade that created these unbearable conditions, to deliver critical humanitarian aid to Gaza’s people, and to signal that people from around the globe refuse to be complicit in the genocide.
PI Briefing | No. 32 | Breaking the Blockade [Gaza]
from Progressive International
29.08.2025On 22 August, the United Nations declared a famine in Gaza. More than half a million Palestinians are facing catastrophic famine conditions amid Israeli genocide, while authorities in Gaza report over 10,000 additional deaths and 45,000 injuries since the collapse of the ceasefire in March — numbers that represent a significant undercount of the true devastation.In response, a historic coalition is mobilizing in the Mediterranean Sea — to break the blockade that created these unbearable conditions, to deliver critical humanitarian aid to Gaza’s people, and to signal that people from around the globe refuse to be complicit in the genocide.
PI Briefing | No. 32 | Breaking the Blockade
On 31 August, the Global Sumud Flotilla — the largest humanitarian fleet ever mobilized for Gaza — sets off for Palestine with a mission to break the genocidal siege.Progressive International
PI Briefing | No. 32 | Breaking the Blockade [Gaza]
from Progressive International
29.08.2025
On 22 August, the United Nations declared a famine in Gaza. More than half a million Palestinians are facing catastrophic famine conditions amid Israeli genocide, while authorities in Gaza report over 10,000 additional deaths and 45,000 injuries since the collapse of the ceasefire in March — numbers that represent a significant undercount of the true devastation.In response, a historic coalition is mobilizing in the Mediterranean Sea — to break the blockade that created these unbearable conditions, to deliver critical humanitarian aid to Gaza’s people, and to signal that people from around the globe refuse to be complicit in the genocide.
PI Briefing | No. 32 | Breaking the Blockade
On 31 August, the Global Sumud Flotilla — the largest humanitarian fleet ever mobilized for Gaza — sets off for Palestine with a mission to break the genocidal siege.Progressive International
I think the meme is low quality and needlessly provocative (no offense OP I guess), but the answer is likely complex. Once the republics are under the purview of the USSR, the resources and engineerong may well have come from elsewhere in the country, even if the construction crews were primarily local people.
I don't know enough about Soviet construction to provide an actual answer, though.
soviets often try to steal all the achievements of the country
Thing is that the workers in those countries were Soviet as well. Credit goes to the labor regardless of nationality. The softening of national divisions was a great achievement of both the USSR and Yugoslavian socialist governments. It has been disastrous that those institutions weren't able to prevail until the current day (they should have evolved instead of been abolished, but I don't know enough to comment much further).
I don't agree with the depiction of the USSR as an outside force that developed these countries "for them". It was an opportunity to come together under one republic and develop.
I think the meme is attempting to disparage the "ungratefulness" of present day liberals in these FSU countries, but I think it lacks nuance to say the least.
I think the meme is attempting to disparage the "ungratefulness" of present day liberals in these FSU countries
Yes, well this is basically Russian ~~diplomacy~~ propaganda 101 - "I did this and that for you and now you're ungrateful". Similar stuff abusing husband says to abused wife. Basically if russians helped you in any way in history, you're supposed to be their vasal until the end of the universe, there's no expiring date on that. It's abusive and disgusting
Former Biden official justifies the murder of Palestinian children
Former United States secretary and Biden advisor, Jacob Lew, has stumbled into a series of embarrassing admissions in an interview with The New Yorker. Veteran journalist Isaac Chotiner had questions for Lew about the Biden administration’s handling of Israel in the early days of the genocide.
Lew describes how the US government at the time advised on not only Israel’s humanitarian obligations as the occupying power, but on their conduct:
We were engaging not just on humanitarian assistance; we were engaging on the conduct of the war. I’m not saying that everything went the way we would’ve advised, and I’m not saying we didn’t call them in the middle of the night many times saying, What on earth happened just now?
So, which is it? Did the US exert its influence over Israel over its conduct on war, or not When asked what was the content of those late night calls, Lew describes:
The general pattern was that in-the-moment stories were inaccurate, and that the Israeli military and government establishment were not in a position to fully explain yet. We could almost never get answers that explained what happened before the story was fully framed in international media, and then when the facts were fully developed, it turned out that the casualties were much lower, the number of civilians was much lower, and, in many cases, the children were children of Hamas fighters, not children taking cover in places.
Here, Lew appears to not realise what he has just said. Namely, that he considers it acceptable for children to be killed if they are “children of Hamas fighters.” Chotiner immediately pulls him up on it:
- Sorry, what did you just say?
- In many cases, the original number of casualties—
- No, I meant the thing about who the children were.
- They were often the children of the fighters themselves.
- And therefore what follows from that?
- What follows is that whether or not it was a legitimate military target flows from the population that’s there.
- Hold on, Mr. Secretary. That’s not, in fact, correct, right? Whether it’s a legitimate target has to do with all kinds of things like proportionality. It doesn’t matter if the kids are the kids of—
Lew, remarkably, doubles down:
If you’re the commander of a Hamas unit and you bring your family to a military site, that’s different. I’m not saying everything fits into that, and I’m not saying it’s not a tragedy.So, according to Biden’s former advisor, it’s not ideal that children are killed. But, it is certainly understandable if they’re the children of Hamas members. Chotiner, again, points out that it doesn’t make a difference who the children are when it comes to international law. However, Lew is adamant that this is the reality of the situation.
Former Biden official stumbles into embarrassing admissions
Former Biden official claims that the death of children is more acceptable if they're children of Hamas membersMaryam Jameela (The Canary)
Which ones?
According to the most recent report (2024), people in China have overwhelmingly positive views of their political system. 92% of people say that democracy is important to them, 79% say that their country is democratic, 91% say that the government serves the interests of most people (rather than a small group), and 85% say all people have equal rights before the law. Furthermore, China outperforms the US and most European countries on these indicators – in fact, it has some of the strongest results in the world. The figure below compares China’s results to those from the US, France and Britain. These results may help explain the high levels of satisfaction with government reported by the Ash Center.
Thanks for the graph! Happy to see that. I'm very willing to investigate my perception of China. What China-critical sources do you consider credible? What arguments would convince you that China is a bad place?
My personal experiences are from the scientific community, where those who come from China are extremely critical of it, in a great part due to extreme surveillance, low individual freedom and low respect for human rights. But that's just anecdotal.
My immediate (better sourced) concerns would be the Uyghurs, who don't seem to enjoy being Chinese , the five million people working under modern slavery, the people of occupied Tibet, and generally anyone who doesn't speak, dress or behave the way the state thinks they should.
I consider those credible sources, but I'd be happy to reconsider that if you have any good reasons to doubt them.
My argument is that while possibly lots of people in China think it's a good place and are happy with the overall direction, lots of other people in China are being treated with a terrifying brutality that is impossible to justify if you believe in the values of universal human welfare and dignity.
China: “Like We Were Enemies in a War”: China’s Mass Internment, Torture, and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang - Amnesty International
Since 2017, the government of China has carried out massive and systematic abuses against Muslims living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang). The human suffering has been immense.Amnesty International
These approval rates are generally positive across the board. There's no slavery of Uyghurs in China, no mass sterilizations or executions. The issue with your sources is that, generally, they aren't credible. Xinjiang in particular does have high approval rates, and while there was a response from the state to western-backed extremists, this has died down and the program has been seen as a success. See Qiao Collective's Xinjiang Resource Guide.
As for Tibet, read Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth. Here's 2 excerpts:
Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.”[12]Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.
Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeatedremoved, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.
In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location.
[18]As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.
One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.
[20]The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery.
[21]The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)
The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation — including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation — were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs.[22]Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” [23] Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet.
[24]In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who wasremovedd and then had her nose sliced away.
[25]Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W. F. T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. […] The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.” [26] As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri-La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.
Essentially, you only seem to trust organizations that have direct ties to western state department propagandists. Your sources on Xinjiang all lead back to Adrian Zenz, orgs like Human Rights Watch are just western government mouthpieces, etc. The UN report on Xinjiang is the least bad source on it from the west, though China's response should also be read.
My argument is that while possibly lots of people in China think it’s a good place and are happy with the overall direction, lots of other people in China are being treated with a terrifying brutality that is impossible to justify if you believe in the values of universal human welfare and dignity.
My argument is that you essentially have immersed yourself in a Cold War style understanding of China that doesn't reflect reality. China isn't perfect, it has a long way to go, but it's come a lot farther than any other country and is still rapidly improving with no signs of stopping.
Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation
Western governments have levied false allegations of genocide and slavery in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. A closer look makes clear that the politicization of China’s anti-terrorism policies in Xinjiang is another front of the U.S.Qiao Collective
Thanks again. I'd like to restate my question: which China-critical sources do you consider credible? Any western ones? Is there any way I could present this argument to make you change your mind?
I'm having a hard time accepting that all western sources are propaganda. I've never had reason to doubt the sources I cited before, such as Amnesty International, in other cases they've been accurate. Are they only misleading on China?
The free media of my country, Denmark, reports the same facts based on their investigations, across the political spectrum and despite angering our government, which has close economic ties to China. How does that fit with these organizations and this media being government mouthpieces?
America is an extremely natural trading partner, an overwhelming military threat, and right next door to all of Canada's major cities.
They, more than any other country, need to walk a tightrope.
They don't. Not really.
America is nothing economically without its trading partners. And that goes for every country, not just the US.
Accepting what the US does is a stupid idea on any country's part because Trump's tariffs have nothing to do with "normal trading". If anything, they're abnormal.
And they should be treated as such. Laughed off. Ridiculed. And most certantly not appeased. This entire situation isn't unlike the Hitler Sudetenland stuff.
Whatever Mr. President says Mr. President gets. Not really a good foreign policy move. It was percisely the US who set up penalties for countries "restricting trade". Why should other countries not hold the US to the rules?
Both import and export tariffs are barriers to trade. Since Mr President's childish demands are appeased, soon enough, those countries appeasing will start "reciprocal" tariffs on Mr President's percieved enemies. Why? Because it's Mr President's next logical step.
Now, short of all countries that decided on appeasig the US make a sharp U-turn, what's done is done.
But, should they decide on such a course of action, they'd isolate America on the world market, which would dissuade Trump from keeping his mercantilism up.
The alternstive is isolating themselves from others, together with America.
Pacific Front Without the US: Oceania Breaks Free from Guardianship
Pacific Front Without the US: Oceania Breaks Free from Guardianship
The geopolitical shift in Oceania began with a whisper that detonated louder than any fleet. Pacific island states declined to renew their military pactsРебекка Чан (New Eastern Outlook)
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autonomy is not granted by empires; it is seized by those who refuse to live in their shadow.
Kiev restricts mass gatherings after anti-government protests
Kiev restricts mass gatherings after anti-government protests
Mass events in Ukraine now require approval from the military, local news outlets reportRT
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you dumb tankieIs .ml account
Ha ha are .world libs making troll accounts on .ml now 😂
Need some opinions on my next Laptop and Linux Distro
Hi, im searching for a new Laptop and i was tempted to buy the framework 13.. BUT..
Usually i would search for a used or refurbished Laptop to give it a second life u know. And after it broke down in like 4-6 years usually, i would buy a new used one again.
So my first question is: Is the framework 13 really worth my money for the repairability and upgradability in comparison?
My prefered Laptops are the Surface like ones 2in1 with a stand and detachable keyboard...
But im okay with it to switch to a normal laptop Formfactor.
I would prefere 16:9 or 16:10 for multimedia but im used to a 3:2 so it would be kinda okay for me to stick with it.
How good can i implement linux on some surface like laptop?
I switched from win10 to linux Mint on my desktop this year. But i think im going to switch to another distro, because i need the ASHA-protocoll as fast as possible. Maybe not that important on my desktop but definetly on my next Laptop.
Someone switched from surface like laptop to FW13?
Im not a coder. More like a gamer with og cheat codes in gtaSA on a cracked Version of the game, which runs in deamon-tools as an ISO, lol.
Main use would be Multimedia and some gaming, if possible.
Another use would be AI.. but as far as i know linux doesnt support the build in NPU of the FW13 yet. Maybe ai tinker in a few years then?
And im something like a crypto bro i would say. So how good are crypto tools implemented in linux? Some cold wallet support for exampel.
Which distro would serve my needs the most?
Is there a better choice for me than FW13 ?
So all in all im hopelessly lost and cant decide shit ^^
My only hope is to ask some Linux OGs to help me out on dis.
plz halp.
Is there a better choice for me than FW13 ?
Yes. Especially if you want to game and dabble in local ML (which the 13 is unfortunately not great for, its NPU is too small and old to ever be useful).
But what's your budget, approximately?
Ah, crap, you're in Europe.
So basically the only laptop worth anything for AI is one with the new Strix Halo AMD chips, and the closest to what you want is the Asus Z13: notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Flo…
shop.asus.com/us/rog/90nr0jy1-…
Specifically the 128GB version if you can save up, or at least the 64GB version. While most laptops are useless for ML, this one utterly blows my desktop out of the water: it's like an of magnitude better than the Frameowrk 13 at that.
Even more importantly, LLM devs are targeting the Strix Halo chips, so they will be well supported. You can spin up a vllm, exllama or llama.cpp-rocm image on them right now, whereas you will struggle to get things up and running on most laptops older IGPs.
Coincidentally, you won't find anything 13" that can game better either. Its a surface-like tablet too, and franky its cooling is way better than a Framework 13. It's perfect!
...Problem is, I don't know if you can even get it in Europe. But historically, I know Asus laptops tend to be proportionally more expensive than they are in the US for some reason, so even if you can, I'm afraid the 64GB/128GB versions would be cost prohibitive.
Asus ROG Flow Z13 GZ302EA Convertible Review - AMD's Strix Halo GPU is neck-and-neck with the RTX 4070 Laptop
Notebookcheck reviews the brand-new ROG Flow Z13 with AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, Radeon 8060S, 32 GB RAM and 180 Hz display.Andreas Osthoff (Notebookcheck)
I only found asus rog z13 flow with 32GB here sadly.
I considered this one (store.minisforum.com/products/…) earlier but 16GB is not good at all.
I heard of a new competitor to the z13 flow, but cant remember the name.
MINISFORUM V3/V3 SE
This AMD Windows tablet has a built-in IRadeon™ 780M and a 14“ display screen, reaching a maximum frequency of 2700 MHz. It provides excellent performance for a variety of uses, allowing users to enjoy a comfortable experience.Minisforum
There is a 14" HP laptop with the same chip:
ultrabookreview.com/70442-amd-…
And a handheld, heh: gpdstore.net/gpd-handheld-gami…
There may be more.
TBH, it may be prudent to wait a month or two for more “AI Max” chips to show up in laptops. It’s pretty new; Asus is just super early with it like they usually are.
AMD Strix Halo laptops- complete list, best options (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, Ryzen AI Max 390)
In this article, we're discussing laptops and devices built on the AMD Strix Halo laptop hardware launched in early 2025, or the so-called AMD Ryzen AI MaxAndrei Girbea (Ultrabookreview.com)
Yep.
FYI, rumors suggest the AI Max/Strix Halo successor won't be coming out till H2 2027, aka nearly 2028 (as Strix Halo techically launched in January this year, but as you can see takes time to actually make it into laptops):
notebookcheck.net/Detailed-AMD…
Anyway, what I'm saying is it won't go obsolete anytime soon, and it will be quite strong for many years to come if you get one.
Detailed AMD Medusa Halo and Medusa Halo Mini APUs leak claims up to 26 Zen 6 cores and next-gen RDNA 5 iGPUs
In a comprehensive leak covering AMD Zen 6 APUs, including Medusa Point, serial leaker Moore's Law Is Dead has revealed a ton of details regarding the Medusa Halo and the Medusa Halo Mini APUs.Fawad Murtaza (Notebookcheck)
Oh, and one more thing. There's a sizable linux community specifically built around Asus ROG laptops. Look up 'linux rog' and you will find associated gitlabs and a Discord specifically built up around them. It's still a fantastic resource for my 2020 G14.
The Z13 is especially good for linux, as it has discrete-gpu-class performance on the IGP, so you don't have to fuss with a dual GPU setup on linux (which can be a tremendous headache, especially with Nvidia cards).
As for a distro, I adore CachyOS for ML stuff, and its well suited for gaming. But its really down to your personal experience and taste.
Distros. Pick something in the top 10 of distrowatch.com/ .
I use Debian or one of the derivatives of Debian.
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
News and feature lists of Linux and BSD distributions.distrowatch.com
I had some similar concerns before buying my Framework 13. The community here helped me a lot to confirm that this is a great laptop. After 3 months of use I'm still in love with it (got mine on sale).
I had a Dell XPS 13 before that, and tested lots of mainstream brands over the years (Lenovo, Acer, Vaio... and dinosaurs like PB, Toshiba). All within a budget of \~$1200-$1500. They all did a decent job and the XPS13 was certainly the best, but they all end up going to the trash because of hardware failure after 4 years max.
I wanted to move to a company that cares about Linux and with Framework, hardware issues will not cause death of my machine anymore. I'll be able to have my machine longer, or upgrade it for a fraction of the price of a new laptop.
www-gem.codeberg.page/sys_Fram…
www-gem.codeberg.page/sys_Fram…
Also, along my research before opting for Framework, I've heard mostly about starlab, purism, tuxedo, and system76. There's obviously pros and cons for each brand as well as difference in opinions based on individual experience, but a common criticism for these (including Framework) less marketed brands is the price of their machines. Lots of people don't realize that there's reasons for a slightly high price.
New laptop: Framework 13. The last one?
Warnings: This post is my thoughts after one day of use of a new laptop I’ve been waiting for 1.5 year, so I’m still under endorphins. I’ve spent $1,200 in an under powered machine, so I’m biased.www-gem words
A few days ago I posted about the same thing, I wanted a Mac-like laptop but running x86 so I could run Linux properly and not through hacks. 80% of the people in the comments suggested the Framework, and for a moment I was close to getting one. But I don't think I would be fully happy with its clunkiness to be honest. Modularized stuff are clunky we like it or not. Yes, much better for repairability, but DELL also offers me two years on site support even here in Greece, so...
At the end, I bought this DELL. It's coming with Linux, so I know it's 100% compatible, and I paid only 765 euros on it (after removing VAT, since I bought it also for work). That's half the price of a Framework, with a slicker design, and it's fast-enough (15,200 passmark cpu points). The only compromise I had to make was that the touchpad was off-center, as it's a large laptop. Other than that, it ticks all my boxes as per my post the other day.
The impossibility of finding a Linux laptop that I like
I'm a Linux user since 1998 (my main desktop PC runs Debian), however I do have a couple of Macs around because I love their hardware (not so much the software though). In fact, I have three old MacBook Airs (mid-2011, 2012, 2015), all running Linux. The moment I got them, I erased MacOS and installed Linux pronto!But my main laptop is a MacBook Air M1 with MacOS because it's much faster than these older Intel-based MacBook Airs. Modern web browsing and video editing requires a lot of processing power.
So, I want to move to have my main laptop running Linux too. I DON'T want to install Asahi Linux on my M1, because I don't consider it a proper solution for my needs (I want to run Resolve, you see, and most foss apps that I use would need recompiling). Also, I don't like that Asahi is dependent on MacOS to exist, because you can't boot with a usb to install it.
My issue is that I can't find ANYTHING on the PC market that is as slick or full featured as a MacBook Air (minus its limited ports). What I need is this:
- Screen no larger than 13.3" inches, Full HD at least, preferably good color gamut (but not a must). I still need the laptop to be portable though. Basically, I'm not even asking for HDR, as the MacBook Air features.
- Keyboard to have backlight, without the numpad (I hate these laptops where the touchpad is off center).
- The touchpad needs to be glass or of equivalent feel. The Apple touchpads slide/glide with ease. I find every PC touchpad I've used so far to be "sticky". My finger on some Chromebooks and Dell/Lenovo laptops is doing a "grrrkkk, grrrkkkk" when I slide my finger! There's something special about Apple's touchpads, I dunno.
- Intel 13th+ gen CPU, with passmark points over 17,000 on multi-threading. My M1 scores about 12,000 points, and it's 5 years old. So obviously I'd need something faster than what I have now.
- Intel GPU (no AMD or Nvidia please, I need Intel's superior video decoding abilities). On a Mac that isn't a problem, because Apple does support these 10bit 4:2:2 codecs I need, with hardware acceleration. But on the PC side, only Intel provides good support for these without headaches (only the newest nvidias support that, but I don't want to use Nvidia for too many reasons -- AMD is a disaster on that video front btw). I don't play 3D games.
- I need speakers that sound good. Every single PC laptop I've tried, had the worst sound ever. I need it to be hear-able on YouTube and not sound as if you're listening via a can. I bought a Thinkpad x280 a few months ago and I can't use it because its speakers are so bad! DELL (from 5 years ago that I tried) aren't better either.
- I need a (supported) fingerprint reader!
- 32 GB of RAM.
- 1 TB of storage.
- Below a $1800 price tag. That's the price I can get with a MacBook Air for all that.
Now, you might think that "well, it seems that you just want a new MacBook", but that's not true. I want a PC laptop so I can run Debian Linux instead of MacOS. But I need it to be a laptop that is "proper" by my own standards. The quality of the interaction between my palms, fingers, eyes and PC laptops IS NOT the same as with any Apple laptop I've ever used. The reason people buy Apple hardware is NOT because "MacOSX is lickable" (as it was suggested many years ago by Jobs). I've actually researched the "why". It's because the INTERACTION of your senses and the laptop's design/quality FITS. It's like a glove for one another. It's difficult to explain but I know it now to be true. It was never MacOSX itself (although MacOSX's gui smoothness helps the overall experience).
So the question is: am I missing that special, Linux-compatible, PC laptop somewhere? If you know that such a laptop exists, please reply with a link. I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
This is a serious post btw. I spent the whole weekend trying to find that mythical PC laptop, and I can't. I'm frustrated.
EDIT: I might end up with the Framework 13. Not 100% what I'm after, but probably the best solution right now.
EDIT 2: I bought a DELL 5640 16" laptop, 32 GB RAM, i7 cpu, that comes with Linux pre-installed (so I know it's compatible). It ticks all my boxes except the size and the trackpad being off center. Oh well.
Is the framework 13 really worth my money for the repairability and upgradability in comparison?
Depends on what you upgrade for, and what you need in the first place.
If you upgrade mainly for more CPU and GPU power, in my opinion that's a hard sell. The new mainboards from Framework are hella expensive!
If you need a dGPU in a small form factor laptop, Framework just doesn't offer that. Same for touch or built-in tablet support.
If you're ok with the built-in GPU and upgrade for better display, for better battery, and a better but perhaps not the absolute latest and best APU, yes, it's worth it.
When I bought the FW13, a year later or so they brought out a new 120Hz higher resolution display. The first display being 60Hz was my only big annoyance with it, having a 120Hz monitor for comparison... So I just bought the new display, and swapping it only took literal 5 minutes.
Similar story with the hinges, I wanted ones with more resistance, so I just bought stronger ones for 25€ and easily replaced them.
If the battery gets worse, or they bring out a new one with decently improved capacity, I can similarly replace it in 5 minutes.
No glue, no 10 types of special screws, just the screw driver that was shipped with the laptop, and basically zero risk of breaking anything when making modifications.
You'll have to know yourself if these tradeoffs are worth it to you... but after my old HP Envy's display broke and even finding the correct replacement part was a challenge, let alone replacing it, I'm quite happy with the FW13.
I have the latest Framework 13 and I had a ThinkPad before this. I can recommend either of them. The Framework is one of my favorite computers I’ve had, but it’s not cheap. You will save some money if you ever have to make repairs, but I don’t know how the TCO works out for upgrades. It’s more about empowerment and reducing waste though.
Linux runs fine on both the Framework and the ThinkPad. You can pretty much just take your pick of distros and they should work, although you may want to stick with one of the more up to date distros on Framework because it has new hardware. Fedora, Arch-based, Tumbleweed all work well.
Finnish Air Force plans to remove swastikas from unit flags
[Swedish] count [Eric von Rosen] used the swastika as a personal good luck charm. When he gifted a plane to the nascent air force of Sweden's newly independent neighbour in 1918 he had had a blue swastika painted on it. This Thulin Typ D was the first aircraft of the Finnish air force and subsequent planes all had his blue swastika symbol too, until 1945.Supporters of a continued use of the symbol point out that there were no Nazis in 1918 so the air force's use of the swastika has nothing to do with Nazism.
However, while Eric von Rosen had no Nazi associations at the time of his 1918 gift, he did subsequently become a leading figure in Sweden's own national socialist movement in the 1930s. He was also a brother-in-law of senior German Nazi Herman Göring, and, according to Prof Teivainen, a personal friend of Hitler.
So the fascists adopted the swastika by way of a Swedish Count-cum-fascist.
Father-in-law of British terror chief working on Palestine Action case is patron of UK Lawyers for Israel
The father-in-law of the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has personal ties to Israel. Jonathan Hall is responsible for assessing whether groups like Palestine Action qualify as terrorist organisations. On Saturday, Hall wrote for the Observer, which defended the decision to proscribe Palestine Action.
This is despite leaked evidence which showed government intelligence revealing it had no grounds to proscribe Palestine Action.
But Craig Murray, independent journalist and former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, recently revealed that Jonathan Hall’s father-in-law is Lord Dyson. He is a patron of UK Lawyers for Israel.
Jonathan Hall: UK terror chief has ties to UK Lawyers for Israel
Craig Murray, independent journalist, recently revealed that Jonathan Hall's father-in-law is Lord Dyson, a patron of UK Lawyers for IsraelHG (The Canary)
Father-in-law of British terror chief working on Palestine Action case is patron of UK Lawyers for Israel
The father-in-law of the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has personal ties to Israel. Jonathan Hall is responsible for assessing whether groups like Palestine Action qualify as terrorist organisations. On Saturday, Hall wrote for the Observer, which defended the decision to proscribe Palestine Action.
This is despite leaked evidence which showed government intelligence revealing it had no grounds to proscribe Palestine Action.
But Craig Murray, independent journalist and former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, recently revealed that Jonathan Hall’s father-in-law is Lord Dyson. He is a patron of UK Lawyers for Israel.
Jonathan Hall: UK terror chief has ties to UK Lawyers for Israel
Craig Murray, independent journalist, recently revealed that Jonathan Hall's father-in-law is Lord Dyson, a patron of UK Lawyers for IsraelHG (The Canary)
Spreadsheet to help choose between Proton, Tuta, Infomaniak, etc.
Hi there,
During the last couple of weeks I have created a spreadsheet to (hopefully) help people decide which mail/cloud/messaging/etc. would best suit their needs and wishes. I thought I'd share it here, so maybe more people can use it AND people can give feedback so I can improve upon it!
I wanted to, on the one hand, make it as detailed and exhaustive as possible, but on the other hand easy to use, since many people (including myself) get overwhelmed by all the possiblilities and aspects to take into account. So somewhere between 'spend days and days scrolling websites and forums to pick the best option for you' and 'just use Proton!'. I've always used Google and Microsoft myself, wanted to switch many times, and finally started to really abandon them in the last couple of months (and am really happy about that!). I hope many more people will make the switch to other services that are less damaging to our privacy/data/environment/choice.
The spreadsheet, though I'm not happy abou that, is made in Excel and can be downloaded from my OneDrive: Grading MS, Google etc. alternatives_290825.xlsx . I tried to convert it to .ods, but somehow that messes up some of the formulas...sorry about that.
Most data in the spreadsheet are protected to prevent making accidental mistakes, but the password is just blank, so you can also adjust/add/do whatever with the document.
Regarding the spreadsheet: It speaks for itself, I hope. I graded the various services, based on some research (and, I'm sorry to admint, ChatGPT). For each area (e.g. email, cloud, navigation) you can indicate how important certain aspects (e.g. privacy, ease of use, sustanability) are for you (0-5), and besides that, you can toggle some features (e.g. only show European based, only show open source). Based on that it shows you 'personalized' ratings of the various providers (e.g. Gmail, Proton drive, Bitwarden, Magic Earth), to help you pick one. Also, you can indicate what you already use (on the first sheet), which can influence the rating (since it's easier/more logical to start using Proton Drive if you already use Proton Mail, etc.). I tried to judge Google, Microsoft en Facebook as fair as possible, since they are not all bad ('evil' is another story I guess). As a result, if you mostly value reliability, ease of use, the amount of users it has and the monetary cost, they do quite well. If you consider other aspects, not so much.
That's it! Just a little project I thought of since I started searching for alternatives to Big Tech and got drowned in the amount of options and opinions that are out there. I'm not an expert, cannot code, and barely know my way around spreadsheets.
Anyhow, if this gets some traction, I'm more than happy to keep updating and improving upon this file! And make it more accessible.
Cheers,
Thomas
(from the Netherlands, which could explain some langauge mistakes or weird phrasings)
How would you change the scoring for the password manager, if you don't mind me asking? I just started using Bitwarden, and have used KeePass in the past, nothing else.
Over the decades I've used Lastpass, OnePassword, Bitwarden, and Proton Pass. Proton Pass is my favorite; Bitwarden wasn't much different, but I find Proton Pass' UX to be slightly more responsive and to my liking. They are both excellent though and I have my significant other using Bitwarden because they don't want the other Proton products.
I don't have a strong or clear opinion on this, but I don't think Switzerland now has worse laws/practices than the US for example, right? I don't rate Infomaniak as private or secure as Tuta or Proton.
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Worm Wiring Diagram May Help Us Understand Our Own Nervous System
Worm Wiring Diagram May Help Us Understand Our Own Nervous System
Genes in the humble C. elegans also turn up in autism, schizophrenia and other human disordersKaren Weintraub (Scientific American)
Amtrak Rolls Out New High-Speed Trains Running Slower Than the Old Ones
Amtrak Rolls Out New High-Speed Trains Running Slower Than the Old Ones
It will take longer to travel from Washington to Boston in the new trains than in the old ones.Tom Sanders (The Daily Beast)
Trump Tariffs Cause Chaos on Ebay as Every Hobby Becomes Logistical Minefield
Trump Tariffs Cause Chaos on Ebay as Every Hobby Becomes Logistical Minefield
The Trump administration is throwing various hobbies enjoyed by Americans into chaos and is harming small businesses domestically and abroad with its ever-changing tariff structure that is turning the United States into a hermit kingdom. It has made buying and selling things on eBay particularly annoying, and is making it harder and more expensive to, for example, buy vintage film cameras, retro video games, or vintage clothes from Japan, where many of the top eBay sellers are based.“Trying to figure out what the future of this hobby is going to look like for those of us in the USA (other than insanely expensive),” a post on r/analogcommunity, the most popular film photography subreddit, reads. “All of my lenses and my camera body came from Japan, they would have been prohibitively expensive [now], paying an extra $80 per item. I feel like entry level to this hobby is going to get hit especially hard.” Another meme posted to the community under the title “Shopping on eBay be like this now” reads “The age of the Canon Mint++ is over. The time of the Argus C3 has come,” referring to a common way that Japanese eBay sellers list Japanese-made Canon cameras. The Argus C3 was a budget mass-produced, American-made camera that was not popular in Japan, and so most of the people selling them are in the United States. Some people like them, but it has been nicknamed “the brick” because it “could serve as a deadly weapon in a street fight.” It remains very inexpensive to this day.
The photography hobby is a microcosm of what anyone who wants to buy anything from another country is currently experiencing. The de-minimis exemption, which allowed people to buy things internationally without paying tariffs if the items cost less than $800, made it very easy and less expensive to get into hobbies like film photography, retro video games, and vintage fashion, to name a few. The Trump administration is ending that exemption Friday and it will quickly become a financial and/or logistical mess for anyone who wants to buy or sell anything from another country. Communities and companies focused on electronics, board games, action figures, skincare, flashlights, sex toys, watches, and general ecommerce are also freaking out, stopping service to the United States, or telling U.S. customers to expect higher prices, higher fees, longer shipping times, more paperwork, more headache, and unpredictable delays.
In recent days, national mail carriers in the European Union (including DHL, which is widely used internationally), Australia, India, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and, crucially, Japan, have started restricting many shipments to the United States. Some of the few remaining ways to send shipments internationally to the United States is through UPS and FedEx, which have warned customers that the end of de-minimis means more paperwork, higher shipping prices (both have increased their international processing fees), and also means that either the shipper or the receiver will have to pay tariffs on whatever is being sent, which of course adds both costs and processing time. This is on top of the fact that FedEx and UPS are often more expensive services in the first place.
All of this is a nightmare if you are an eBay buyer or seller, a small business that sells to the United States or that buys things internationally to sell within the United States, or are a mere American resident who has a hobby.
A chart from eBay telling sellers to expect "negative feedback"
Earlier this year, I bought a vintage Super 8 film camera. The vast majority of functioning, good-condition cameras on eBay are shipped from Japan, because that is where a lot of the cameras were manufactured and because there are a huge number of camera businesses there. The camera came in a matter of days, and I did not think at all about customs or how it would be shipped, what the additional costs would be, if it would be held up at customs, where and how I would pay the tariffs, or whether if the duties would be paid by the seller (Delivered Duty Paid or DDP) or by me (Delivered at Place or DAP). These are acronyms you are going to have to get to know and hate, that I have already seen percolating through ecommerce communities.Lots of camera equipment comes from Japan, but so do lots of vintage electronics and rare video games. Many high-quality vintage and preowned designer clothes are also sold by stores in Japan, because Japan has strong anti-counterfeit laws, and so people who are into vintage fashion will regularly try to source things from Japan because they are less likely to be fake. This is to say nothing of all of the other hobbies and interests where products are made and sold elsewhere, but the problem is incredibly stark with camera equipment, because Canon, Nikon, Ricoh, and many other top camera manufacturers are Japanese.
A chart from eBay telling you to look up the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to calculate what the tariffs may be
Tuesday, I messaged about 25 eBay sellers located in Japan asking how they were going to ship their item to California if I purchased it, if I would be subject to tariffs, and how they are handling it. The answers were all over the place. Lots of the sellers told me to buy the item now because items shipped after Thursday would be subject to tariffs: “If you purchase today, I can send it before customs duties are incurred,” one seller told me. “We recommend purchasing as soon as possible,” another told me. “If you place your order today, we can still make it in time,” a third said.“Starting August 29th, tariffs will be imposed on all items in the US, so if you purchase this item, you will be responsible for any customs duties,” another said.
Multiple sellers told me that I should expect anything I bought to be held up at customs, and that I should expect to pay tariffs when it arrives: “While the exact details are still being clarified, it seems that in addition to duties, extra fees may bring the total to around 18–20% of the item’s value,” someone selling a vintage handbag told me. “Because of the changes in customs procedures, shipments may experience additional delays during clearance.”
Multiple eBay sellers in Japan told me that they intend to lie about the value of the items on customs forms, which is a time-honored tradition in international shipping but still does not seem like a good solution: “We will put a 50% reduced product price on the address label. Only this one time,” one seller said, before later adding “we do not mark merchandise values below value or mark items as ‘gifts’ - US and international government regulations prohibit such behavior.” Another told me “the problem is the customs duty, but don’t worry. The amount on the shipping label determines the customs duty. I won’t go into details, but I won’t make it sound bad.”
Another camera seller told me they would charge $20 shipping, then followed up an hour later and said “the shipping cost is actually $30 … with the elimination of the de minimis rule, there is a possibility that services may be suspended. Increased workload from customs procedures could even lead to strikes.” Another said that “If U.S. customs clearance goes smoothly, the package usually arrives within about 5–10 days,” but “Due to recent U.S. customs regulations, the clearance process has become stricter and is taking more time than usual(2-3 weeks). Please understand that, under these circumstances, we are unable to predict the delivery date. We are sorry to tell you that all the import duties and taxes are unpredictable. Customs and duties are different from state to state and country to country and we do not keep track as this is a cost the buyer is responsible in paying.”
eBay is telling buyers that the new, simple process for buying internationally is to look up the item on the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which is a gigantic list of every possible product and its potential tariff code, “apply some math” to estimate what the tariffs will be, “add shipping provider fees,” which are additional processing fees that shipment services may apply, then wait for a call or email from the shipping processor to go through the duty clearance process and pay them fees. This is instead of the old way, where you simply purchased something, paid a clearly demarcated price, and waited for it to come to your house. eBay has also added a message to item listings that says “Due to US policies, import fees for this item will need to be paid to customs or the shipping carrier on delivery.” eBay is already telling sellers that they can expect “negative feedback” from customers who do not understand this process and might blame it on the seller.
eBay also offers something it calls SpeedPak shipping, which is where an international seller ships their item to an eBay warehouse in their home country, and the item is shipped by eBay aboard a cargo vessel to the United States alongside other purchases. This process takes 8-12 days, eBay says. One Japanese seller who said they use the system told me in practice that shipment takes “about 1 to 2 weeks,” and that they have made the decision to pay tariffs ahead of time for the buyer. Naturally, this leads to increased overhead, however, and surely we will begin to see prices for items sent this way rise.
As you can imagine, people are stressed about all of this. On the eBay subreddit, a Canadian who says they sell their old clothes on eBay wrote “can someone explain the new US DDP [Delivered Duty Paid] rules to me like I’m 5?” Another post says “I sold an item to a buyer in the US, but due to temporary issues with international shipping from my location (Europe), I’m currently unable to send it out.” Another says “How to exclude USA completely from shipping? The tariffs are a complete mess and a joke for small businesses like mine here in Europe.” “I’m a seller who ships over 80% of my products to the US. The post office no longer offers service for US parcels, and I’m completely devastated by this policy change. My income has evaporated in thin air,” another post reads. “As someone that’s been building a sega Saturn and pc engine collection this news broke my heart today.” “I'm in some chat groups with people who bought a ton of things from Japanese marketplaces and this has basically made sure they're out of the game for good,” another says.
There are two ways this can go: One everything becomes much more of a pain in the ass, certain products are not available, the tariff prices and subcharges and processing fees and times end up getting paid transparently by the customer, and everyone becomes mad at this state of affairs. Or two, and unfortunately more likely: The rough edges of this process get smoothed out because big shipping companies and platforms are terrified of upsetting Trump and the burden of dealing with all of this is passed primarily onto overseas sellers who will simply incorporate all of these new fees into the prices of the actual products and will pay the tariff ahead of time, so everything costs more because of the tariffs but the artificial, completely self-inflicted reasons that it costs more to do your hobby become largely invisible and accepted over time. The “normal” state of affairs will be that buying things from small overseas sellers is expensive and slow. But it is worth remembering that none of this is necessary, that it wasn’t always like this, and that an immeasurable number of small businesses and regular people all over the world have been immensely impacted by these tariffs.
All of this means that if you have any hobbies that require buying stuff from another country, your life just got more expensive and more annoying. Back on the AnalogCommunity subreddit, one poster summed it up nicely: “Oh look, voting of [sic] an idiot has real world consequences? Who knew?”
eBay did not respond to a request for comment.
SpeedPAK Shipping Services
Learn about SpeedPAK shipping services and how to place your order on eDIS – eDelivery International ShippingeBay
Salesforce sacrifices 4,000 support jobs on the altar of AI
Salesforce sacrifices 4,000 support jobs on the altar of AI
: Benioff boasts bots now handle half of customer chats as doubts over reliability lingerLindsay Clark (The Register)
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Gaza Genocide deniers are no different from Holocaust deniers, except that their denial abets the genocide itself
Gaza Genocide deniers are no different from Holocaust deniers, except that their denial abets the genocide
The denial of the Gaza genocide has been echoed from the mainstream media to the White House. While reminiscent of Holocaust denial, today’s denials have deadly consequences as they are used to justify the very genocide deniers claim isn’t happening.Mitchell Plitnick (Mondoweiss)
Argentinian President Javier Milei leaves rally after protesters throw rocks
Argentinian President Javier Milei leaves rally after protesters throw rocks
The Milei government is weathering a bribery scandal as a pair of important elections approach in September and October.Al Jazeera
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“They could have killed anyone,” Adorni said of the protesters.
Too bad they didn't.
Border Patrol agents arrest fire crew members at Washington wildfire
Border Patrol agents arrest fire crew members at Washington wildfire
Immigration agents arrested two Mexican contractors helping to tackle a wildfire in Olympic National Forest in Washington, a supervisor who oversees the crews said ThursdayAlicia Victoria Lozano (NBC News)
Switching to Linux - A comprehensive guide
I’ve been seeing a lot of people wanting to switch to GNU/Linux(shortly just Linux) recently, owing to various reasons including Windows 10 EOL, forced integration of AI tools, screenshot spying, bloatware, etc. and I thought I’d make a comprehensive guide based on my experience.
Please feel free to correct me when I’m mistaken.
Note: New users, please don't be intimidated by new terms. You may pick the easy-to-use OS/distros that just mostly use GUI(Graphical User Interface) as opposed to Console/CLI(Command Line Interface) and follow the simple steps. Ignore other details if you want.
OVERVIEW:
Step 1:
- Deciding whether to dual boot or not. Checking compatibility of your use-case and alternatives.
Dual-boot only:
→ Using drives on dual-boot
→ Preparation for dual-boot.
Step 2:
- Picking a distribution(For easy mode, choose Mint or Bazzite/Nobara/CachyOS)
- Picking a Desktop Environment (For windows-like, pick KDE/Cinnamon)
Step 3:
- Downloading the ISO from distro website.
- Preparing Ventoy to load the ISO.
- Configuring BIOS/UEFI (i.e. pre-OS system/motherboard settings)
Step 4:
- Installation & Partitioning
- Post-install & other troubleshooting
Step 1-A:
To dual boot with Windows or not:
Decide how much you rely specifically on Windows based apps.
For most apps, there are open source and/or free alternatives.
- M$ Office → LibreOffice.
- Edge → LibreWolf, Ungoogled-chromium/Trivalent.
- Outlook → BetterBird, and a shout-out to the new Tuta Mail client.
- Photoshop → Krita, GIMP
- Premiere Pro → Davinci Resolve, Kdenlive
There are also workarounds to run Windows apps on Linux using a VM(Virtual Machine), WINE compatibility layer or containers, which you’ll have to experiment or look up others’ experiences.
→ A few multiplayer games with invasive kernel-level anti-cheat(like Valorant, LoL, Apex, Destiny2, Rainbox Six Siege, Fortnite, some Battlefield ones) will not run on Linux.
Check if it’s the case with the game you play on ProtonDB.
Edit: As some people have pointed out, AreWeAntiCheatYet website is also a good resource on multiplayer gaming on Linux.
Steam with its Proton support will just run majority of games otherwise.
98% of my 500+ games library on Steam just works.
→ For those who use Epic Games, your library will work through Lutris or Heroic.
- Heroic will have a library of all your games and each one will have its own prefix, I think.
- Lutris just has one prefix for Epic games and all the games in its library and runs like the Windows equivalent.
→ Those sailing high seas can still use Lutris/Heroic/Bottles to run stuff. IYKYK. Make sure to play around with winetricks and change runners if things don’t work.
There’s a slight learning curve if you’re using Lutris and stuff on your own.
Get the relevant community’s help when needed.
I personally dual boot two different Linux distros, one of which is to run stuff from the high seas.
Step 1-B:
(Skip to Step 2 if you don’t want Windows.)
If you don’t have alternatives or if VM/containers/WINE don’t run the apps you use properly, you will have to stick to dual booting Linux with Windows.
If you do, try to install Linux on a separate HDD/SSD. If you don’t have a spare drive, you can still install Linux in the same drive as Windows, but Windows has a history of breaking dual boot configurations and Linux’s bootloader. In this scenario, all you just need is to keep a USB drive with your distro’s ISO handy so you can live boot, open CLI and fix the bootloader.
Also, after installation, don’t try to run games directly from external NTFS drive on Linux. You’ll have issues.
You can always continue to copy/run files from an NTFS drive on Linux. But since NTFS is windows’ proprietary filesystem, expect it to corrupt it. It can be easily be fixed by chkdsk(disk Error checking) on Windows. So, don’t panic about this.
If you don’t need to use your external drive on Windows at all, convert it to ext4 and safely use it on Linux.
If you want to use your external drive on both Windows and Linux without corruption, exFAT supposedly works better, but exFAT doesn’t have journaling and similar features. So, a power cut during file transfer might cause data loss.(?)
I started out dual booting with Windows myself as I was scared if some things wouldn’t work, but gradually, I’ve been able to ditch Windows completely.
Step 1-C:
If you’re using the same drive for dual booting, you’ll have to make some space on it for Linux to use.
Windows can make it harder sometimes, so you might end up using some 3-rd party partion manager tools to force it, if it wouldn’t allow you.
→ Also, disable Hibernation, turn off Virtual Memory in Advanced System Settings and set paging size to 0. You can turn it back on after installing Linux.
→ To make some space, go to Disk Management and shrink your Windows volume based on your choosing. You should ideally be able to get as much free space as you see in Properties of your C Drive.
If this doesn’t work, then try a reputable 3-rd party partition manager to shrink it.
→ Once shrunk, you’d see unallocated space of your chosen size. This is where we’re going to install Linux.
Step 2-A:
Picking a distribution. There are a lot to pick from.
The three big parent ones are Debian, Fedora and Arch and many other distributions are built on top of them. There’s also OpenSuse, which supports RPM packages that is typically used on Fedora.
There are also a lot more independent distros like Gentoo, Void, Nix, Qubes of which I’m not much familiar with. You can explore those communities if interested.
Debian is a fixed release distro. Fedora is semi-rolling, and Arch & OpenSuse Tumbleweed are rolling/bleeding-edge.
- Debian(Slow to update but supposedly stable) → Ubuntu(has unfriendly snap) → Mint(most popular and friendly).
I’d not recommend Ubuntu based on my experience. But if you want to, go ahead.
- Fedora(Natively, it has only FOSS packages by default and requires a bit of really simple initial config for proprietary Nvidia driver and codecs- refer RPM Fusion).
Fedora derivatives like Nobara/Bazzite usually have Nvidia driver and proprietary codecs already installed. Make sure to choose their ISO file that has Nvidia support.
- Only try regular Arch install if you have enough time and patience.
[If you’re a novice, avoid AUR if possible since they are all user submitted packages there.]
Otherwise, try Cachy-OS that is Arch-based. It has a GUI package manager.
SteamOS, also Arch-based, is typically NOT recommended for Desktop systems, I think.
- OpenSuse Tumbleweed is also rolling distro like Arch. Has a nice installer and a GUI package manager.
This is what I’m currently using after a lot of distro hopping, along with another Fedora based distro.
Most of these are regular traditional distros except Bazzite.
Bazzite is an image-based or an atomic distribution, which is supposedly hard to break. The core of it is untouched and applications can then be installed using Flatpak/Containers.
If packages are installed natively, they will be layered on top of the image.
If something goes wrong after an update, it can be rolled back to the previous working image.
Note: Regular Fedora based distros offer the ability to switch to 2 previous kernel versions during boot.
There are also other atomic distros like Kinoite(Fedora KDE in atomic form), Silverblue(Fedora Gnome in atomic form), Secureblue(if you take security very seriously), Aurora, etc.
At first, you may pick a distro that’s not for you.
In which case, always have a back up of your important data elsewhere and be ready to install another distro that you’d like to try.
Step 2-B:
Picking a Desktop Environment (also Display Server and Window Manager/Compositor).
TLDR note: Only worry about choosing Desktop Environment. Ignore others if needed.
Desktop Environment is how an OS looks like and all that you can customize with the GUI.
A lot of distros support KDE & Gnome by default.
There’s Cinnamon used in Mint.
XFCE is a lightweight DE.
Cosmic DE(still in alpha) is based on Rust(memory-safe).
OPTIONAL reading:
→ These DE typically have their own Window Manager(X11) or Compositor(Wayland).
I’ve never strayed away from the default stacking managers that most Desktop Environments provide.
But feel free to explore others out there if you’re into it.
Popular tiling managers are i3 on X11 and Sway on Wayland.
Edit: As people have pointed out, there are a lot better automatized window managers too.
Please check out AwesomeWM on X11, and Qtile on Wayland.
→ Now, Display Server is the simply the underlying protocol coordinating input/output. There are only two that exists. Xorg’s X11 and Wayland.
X11 is the legacy display server that is used by many distros, but slowly being phased out.
Wayland is the newer display server that is supposedly more secure with GUI isolation(which X11 lacks) and supports features like HDR.
Applications that are developed to run for X11 run on Wayland too using compatibility layers like x-Wayland.
- Cinnamon on Mint works well on X11 from last I used it and Wayland is only experimental.
If you’re choosing Mint, you’ll probably be sticking to X11 for now. - KDE and Gnome, both have wayland support. Gnome is soon phasing out X11.
- Xfce has recently introduced wayland support.
→ On most DE, both Wayland and X11 can be used by switching over in the Login Screen.
Speaking of login screen, there’s the Display Manager. If you’re asked to pick anything in some distros, just use SDDM(for plasma), GDM(for gnome), lightDM(for others).
Step 3-A:
Now, time to get the distro ISO file from their legit websites.
Some of them support torrent downloads too.
Distros like Fedora package different environments as spins.
So, there will be Fedora KDE, Fedora Workstation(Gnome), Fedora Cosmic, and so on.
Mint’s native ISO will have Cinnamon bundled.
It also has a separate XFCE version and LMDE version(derived from Debian instead of Ubuntu).
In other cases, if you have an Nvidia card, make sure to select the Nvidia version of the ISO if they offer you that way.
Step 3-B:
Preparing a USB drive with Ventoy:
→Before anyone asks, Rufus is great, but only works on Windows and you’ll have to format an ISO with it everytime you want to use a different one and you’re only limited to one ISO at a time.
→Ventoy on the other hand, has cross-compatibility. It is a one time installation. You can just drag and drop or copy & paste multiple distro ISOs in it as long as you have the space in the USB drive.
→Avoid Balena Etcher. I’ve seen people have issues with it.
Ventoy should have both GUI and CLI method to install. Check their site.
Step 3-C:
Meddling with BIOS:
→BIOS/UEFI can be accessed during the startup of a system usually with F2/Delete/F12.
- SecureBoot(a Microsoft feature) has to be turned off before installation.
Note: If you’re not dual-booting or don’t need Mircosoft’s secureboot, you can continue to leave it disabled after installation too.
If you want it however, it can be turned on again after installation.
If turned on, a secureboot key for your linux distro has to be registered.
You’ll have to create a keypair using ‘mokutil’ and register this with a password.
Check your distro documentation regarding how to do this.
Exception:
From what I recall, Nobara does not support SecureBoot.
→ Fast boot can be turned off too.
→ SATA mode should preferably be in AHCI.
→ Boot order can be changed and the installation USB can be prioritized to boot first too.
This step can also be done by accessing the boot menu, typically by spamming F8 or F10 on startup.
Step 4-A:
Installation & Partitioning:
→ If you’re using auto-partitioning,
- Choose the unallocated free space if you’re dual booting on same drive.
Distro installations will usually have options like ‘Install alongside Windows’. - Choose the windows drive otherwise if you’re getting rid of Windows. The installer will format the drive and install over it.
Note:
You can also choose to encrypt your disk partition with a password with LUKS during installation.
IGNORE the following if you’re using auto-partitioning.
→ If you’re manually partitioning, you’ll typically have to create:
/boot/efi (EFI partition type – vfat filesystem) of about 300 MB to 600 MB space for boot loader.
/boot partition(linux extended boot - ext4) of about 1 GB to 2 GB size to store kernel images.
/ partition(Linux root x86_64 partition type – either ext4 or btrfs or one of your choosing), with the much of the rest of your free space.
/swap partition (Linux swap partition type – swap filesystem) with anywhere from 2 to 4 to 8 GB of size.
This is similar to the paging file and acts as extended Memory. This is optional, but good to have.
Note: I suspect most distros have fully started using GPT instead of legacy MBR even for EFI partition. So, hopefully, no one has any issues with that.
→ For your root filesystem, you can use the standard ext4 filesystem which has journaling features.
There’s also the popular Btrfs, which has Copy-on-Write feature that supposedly helps with better snapshots of system.
→ Additional Note: Timeshift backup program doesn’t work well with Btrfs on Fedora because of how the root volume is labeled there. I think the root is labeled as @ instead of /. Look into it if you want to use Timeshift on Fedora.
Nobara fixes this by default. So, you can use Timeshift in it.
OpenSuse distros have btrfs+snapper integration for backup.
→ Troubleshooting note for btrfs users:
Lately, during power cut or forced shutdown, Btrfs partition got corrupted due to a bug in the Linux Kernel(anywhere between 6.10 to 6.15, I think).
To fix this, use the command:
btrfs rescue zero-log <insert root partition address>
.
Eg.
btrfs rescue zero-log /dev/nvme0n1p3
OR
btrfs rescue zero-log /dev/sda3
Your root partition can be found by using the command ‘lsblk
’.
Edit:
→Troubleshooting note:
- Try to use USB 3.0 or USB-C ports for live boot or live-install. Avoid USB hubs.
- On USB 2.0, live-install can be slow since it has to load stuff from USB to RAM.
- If you have any issues with graphics, try the legacy graphics/ basic graphics mode while choosing to install.
Intermediate/Expert users:
You can also do this temporarily.
Press 'E' during boot loader menu and edit kernel entry(line that starts with linux or kernel and may end with splash) to add nomodeset
.
So, it should look like:
linux /boot/vmlinuz... nomodeset quiet splash
→ Those who have other issues during install, make sure you downloaded the file fully or copied the file into the USB fully.
This can be confirmed by comparing the checksum of the file on the website to the one on the USB.
Step 4-B:
Post-install and Troubleshooting notes:
→ For those who ditched Windows completely, make sure to back up your data and convert your external drives’ Filesystem to ext4 too for Linux-only use.
→ For most apps, you can try to find a flatpak version(preferably verified ones).
Some apps like Steam, Lutris, gamescope and OBS are recommended to be installed natively.
*Avoid Snap packages if you use Ubuntu.
→ In some distros, you have to manually add Flathub repository and use flatpak apps that are then integrated with your Desktop Environment’s AppStore.
To be safe, you can also check for a tick sign or a verified signature of the developer of your flatpak application.
Distros like Mint have an option to just show you only verified apps.
Fedora has an extra repository of its own managed Flatpak applications. I avoided this and just directly used apps from Flathub though.
→ Remember to always update your system additionally after a kernel/GPU driver update, if you are using flatpak applications.
This is so that the Flatpak runtimes(like Freedesktop stuff and other application platforms) will get updated and only then most flatpak apps will continue to work.
Some distros take care of this during a regular update itself. But keep an eye out for this one.
→ Some distros like base Fedora only comes with FOSS apps. Install proprietary Nvidia driver and codecs separately by following the RPM-fusion site.
(If you’re using Fedora derivatives like Nobara/Bazzite, you don’t even have to do the following.
If you’re intimidated by it, just use a Fedora derivative.)
It involves installation of two RPM repos: free and non-free. Then, a few lines in the commandline to install Nvidia driver and ffmpeg codecs.
Those with AMD GPU can just install the proprietary codecs.
//
For people who don’t want to read too much into the simple, one-time procedure can just follow this (as shown in RPM fusion site):
For Nvidia driver, type:
sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia
For optional CUDA support, type:
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda
For Video acceleration support, type:
sudo dnf install nvidia-vaapi-driver libva-utils vdpauinfo
For Codecs, type:
sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg –allowerasing
For additonal codecs:
sudo dnf update @multimedia --setopt="install_weak_deps=False" --exclude=PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin
//
→ Screensharing with audio is still problematic with Discord even though it claims to have been fixed.
Vesktop had fixed this a year ago or even before Discord even tried.
→ Some mkv files with eac3 audio may have issues with VLC.
Haruna player, with its innate mpv stuff, manages to play those.
→ If Steam doesn’t launch the first time, type:
__GL_CONSTANT_FRAME_RATE_HINT=3 steam
→ For rolling & semi-rolling distros, the latest Nvidia drivers should have solved a lot of its issues.
If anyone still finds a blank screen after waking from sleep, try getting into TTY by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F3, followed by Ctrl+Alt+F2(or F1) to get back into your Graphical UI.
→ CachyOS and OpenSUSE has great GUI installers that allows one to choose packages during and after installation.
Arch users are on their own with the Wiki.
→ Other distro users can still make use of the Arch Wiki in most cases. It’s very helpful.
Case in point:
Arch has a guide to disable HSP/HFP of a Bluetooth headset by creating a file in .config folder in home(~) directory.
I had to do this so that I can just use my external mic and avoid my Bluetooth headset going to poor quality audio codec when it uses BT microphone.
→ If anyone suddenly miss their Wifi/Bluetooth device and not even detected with ‘rfkill
’ command, then you might be overloading your USB ports that it doesn’t get enough power.
You might see a code “usb error -110” when you check your journalctl log or when you use the command :
journalctl -b 0 -p err
.
In this case, just unplug all your devices and powercycle your motherboard, i.e. you have to press your power button for 10-15 seconds.
After that, your Wifi/BT device will be detected again.
→ Most distros have good enough firewall like ufw or Firewalld.
One can also install OpenSnitch or Safing Portmaster if your distro supports it and have fine-grained control of your system.
→ If printing, local filesharing and geolocation are not needed,
packages like ‘cups’, ‘samba’ and * ‘geoclue’ can be removed or *masked(disabled).
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There hasn't been a better time before now and I think it will keep getting better. Linux used to be about making a lot of compromises. Now, it's legitimately good on the desktop, although it's admittedly still geared towards power users and developers.
I switched to a Mac right around when OS X was first released. Software was sometimes a little bit of an issue with things being Windows-only, but you could generally find something comparable on the Mac. During the next few years, it became increasingly common for developers to offer a Mac version alongside the Windows version and it changed everything. All of a sudden, Mac wasn't a platform where you were going to run into a bunch of compatibility issues and people started adopting it.
That's what Linux feels like these days. It's finally reached the point of having enough market share that you don't feel like a second class citizen using it. It is THE premier platform for developers and power users in the same way Mac became popular with developers 20-25 years ago. It's the target platform for many developers considering it powers virtually the entire internet and a billion mobile devices. Also, what Valve did with Proton can't be overstated. Their work on Proton and the Steam Deck is really a watershed moment for Linux. I think we are on the verge of seeing some decent Linux growth on the desktop.
I’ve read 70% of your guide and it seems great. I just hope people (not on Lemmy) will easily find it on the web when looking for help.
Good work for our community 👍
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I agree it's great, but woah.
Nothing says Linux is easier than you think than 23 screens of a guide 😆
irm https://get.activated.win/ | iex
to PowerShell.
This is solid if you're somewhat technical. I think it could be simplified with an overview at the beginning.
- Pick a desktop environment for testing and download the iso
- Format USB
- burn iso
- boot to usb
- test, repeat if necessary
- dual boot
- non dual boot
- MS equivalent programs
I feel like the focus jumps around. If they have already made the decision, no reason to list replacement programs.
Honestly, you might get some better results if you dropped it into AI and asked for a summary/less technical versions of what you wrote. Or it could just make you laugh.
It could be simplified with an overview at the beginning.
I should maybe have done the overview.
Format USB, burn iso, boot to usb, test, repeat if necessary
Exactly why Ventoy was suggested. To avoid repeating the formatting and burning ISO over and over again.
If they have already made the decision, no reason to list replacement programs
Oh, I see what you mean. I should have asked to skip to Step 2 after 1-A.
Edited it now. Thanks.
you might get some better results if you dropped it into AI and asked for a summary.
Yeah, no, a lot of people don't like slop.
good work, penguin comrade 🫡
i'd add areweanticheatyet to the note about multiplayer gaming.
protondb is awesome in a pinch when you need stuff like a specific proton runtime, or a tweak for a game to work. it doesn't happen very often anymore these days, but it's great when you need it.
sad for apex, they used to let linux players in but recently blocked us out. if you like that style game check out the finals.
Thanks, fellow tux comrade.
Duly noted. Someone else also suggested this. Let me edit and include it in the original post.
Lots of assumptions made in this guide about who you audience.
I think it would be helpful if you preface your guide, or any future guide, with your audience in explicit terms so people know if it applies to them or they look for another guide elsewhere.
Many people think about these WM when they talk about tilling as an overhyped feature used just for unixporn posts.
Stop with I3 or Sway please.
AwesomeWM Qtile or River are more automatised, this is a great added value allowed by tilling for everyday use.
Pardon my ignorance, fellow Linux user.
I just happened to mention the ones I heard of.
Will check these out and include them.
Chris Hedges: Israel’s Assassination of Memory
European leaders, along with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, remind us of the real lesson of the Holocaust. It is not Never Again, but, We Do not Care. They are full partners in the genocide. Some wring their hands and say they are “appalled” or “saddened.” Some decry Israel’s orchestrated starvation. A few say they will declare a Palestinian state.
This is Kabuki theater — a way, when the genocide is over, for these Western leaders to insist they stood on the right side of history, even as they armed and funded the genocidal killers, while harassing, silencing or criminalizing those who decried the slaughter.
The razing of Gaza is not only a crime against the Palestinian people. It is a crime against our cultural and historical heritage — an assault on memory. We cannot understand the present, especially when reporting on Palestinians and Israelis, if we do not understand the past.
History is a mortal threat to Israel. It exposes the violent imposition of a European colony in the Arab world. It reveals the ruthless campaign to de-Arabize an Arab country. It underscores the inherent racism towards Arabs, their culture and their traditions. It challenges the myth that, as former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak said, Zionists created, “a villa in the middle of a jungle.” It mocks the lie that Palestine is exclusively a Jewish homeland. It recalls centuries of Palestinian presence. And it highlights the alien culture of Zionism, implanted on stolen land.
When I covered the genocide in Bosnia, the Serbs blew up mosques, carted away the remains and forbade anyone to speak of the structures they had razed. The goal in Gaza is the same, to wipe out the past and replace it with myth, to mask Israeli crimes, including genocide.
This denial of historical truth and historical identity permits Israelis to wallow in eternal victimhood. It sustains a morally blind nostalgia for an invented past. If Israelis confront these lies it threatens an existential crisis. It forces them to rethink who they are. Most prefer the comfort of illusion. The desire to believe is more powerful than the desire to see.
Chris Hedges: Israel’s Final Solution for Gaza — Erasing a City, Its People, and Its History
Chris Hedges: Israel is razing Gaza City with bombs, bulldozers, and famine. Palestinians face genocide, while centuries of Gaza’s history are wiped outChris Hedges (MintPress News)
The Last Days Of Social Media: Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion.
At first glance, the feed looks familiar, a seamless carousel of “For You” updates gliding beneath your thumb. But déjà‑vu sets in as 10 posts from 10 different accounts carry the same stock portrait and the same breathless promise — “click here for free pics” or “here is the one productivity hack you need in 2025.” Swipe again and three near‑identical replies appear, each from a pout‑filtered avatar directing you to “free pics.” Between them sits an ad for a cash‑back crypto card.Scroll further and recycled TikTok clips with “original audio” bleed into Reels on Facebook and Instagram; AI‑stitched football highlights showcase players’ limbs bending like marionettes. Refresh once more, and the woman who enjoys your snaps of sushi rolls has seemingly spawned five clones.
Whatever remains of genuine, human content is increasingly sidelined by algorithmic prioritization, receiving fewer interactions than the engineered content and AI slop optimized solely for clicks.
These are the last days of social media as we know it.
The Last Days Of Social Media
Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion.James O'Sullivan (NOEMA)
Video - Anti-Zohran Protest
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
Iran’s Parliament submits emergency bill to withdraw from Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Following the announcement by the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) to trigger the snapback mechanism on sanctions against Tehran, Iran’s Parliament has drafted and submitted an emergency bill proposing a full withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani, Deputy Chairman of the Article 90 Committee of Iran’s Parliament, confirmed that the bill will be uploaded to the parliamentary system on the following day and subsequently reviewed in an open session.
“As we had previously stated, these countries were already implementing the consequences of the snapback mechanism, including sanctions against us. There is nothing new in this.” Haji-Deligani told Iran's Tasnim.
Iran’s parliament submits emergency bill to withdraw from NPT
Iran’s parliament has introduced a bill for a complete withdrawal from the NPT in response to the E3’s decision to trigger the snapback mechanism.Al Mayadeen English (Iran’s parliament submits emergency bill to withdraw from NPT)
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The proposed legislation comes amid growing frustration in Tehran over the West’s repeated failure to honor agreements and ease pressure on Iran.
That part is important.
Introducing ActivityPub.Space
The in-person events at FediCon in Vancouver lit a fire in the Canadian ActivityPub community. One of the louder calls were for a place in the fediverse for ActivityPub discussions; a place for groups to form and for long-running discussions to be had.
I was more than happy to get involved. I also wanted such a place, and I've discussed it on and off for the past year. ActivityPub development discussions are fragmented across multiple disconnected channels, and none of them fully capture the entirety (or a majority, or even a sizeable minority) of the AP developer community. ActivityPub.Space is my answer to that call.
One constant about ActivityPub is that all ActivityPub developers are on the fediverse, and so it only makes sense that discussions about AP development should also take place on the fediverse.
At the same time, the "fediverse" isn't one singular entity. jaz@mastodon.iftas.org famously quipped "There is One Fediverse. There are a Million Fediverses." While I can't make guarantees about this site connecting with a million fediverses, I can say that it does connect with the microblogiverse, the blogiverse (WordPress blogs!), and the Threadiverse (Lemmy/Piefed/MBin/NodeBB/Discourse).
So how does it work?
The site is divided up into several categories:
- General Discussion is for any non-technical discussions about ActivityPub
- Technical Discussion is for technical deep-dives
- Meta contains discussions about this site itself
- Random is for everything else (there's always a "Random" category on a forum, isn't there...?)
We also pull in content direct from Fediverse news outlets such as "Week in Fediverse", "Connected Places", and "Relay, by We Distribute".
On the threadiverse side, we directly link to several other fediverse-focused communities on Lemmy and Piefed.
We utilise a number of relays to both distribute local content out and receive content from the wider microblogiverse. When content comes in via microblogs, they're not usually categorized, so we check for relevant hashtags and automatically categorize them into one of the local categories.
The wonderful thing about this site is that it fully federates, which means you can follow all of these categories from your app of choice. You don't even have to register a local account if you don't want to, but you definitely can (and should!) if you want the best experience browsing the categorized topics.
The categories today are rather broad, but over time I hope to split them up into smaller topics based on user demand. Give the site a try today!
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Evan Prodromou, just small circles 🕊, Zeppe, crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts, Matthias Pfefferle, Chee Aun 🤔, Alexander Goeres 𒀯, Connected Places, Paul Sutton e Tim Chambers reshared this.
This is great, I'm going to watch this forum as closely as I can!
@jaz
Well, from what I gather, looks like you really don't, I'm writing this from my pretty much only account which is Mastodon.
There's an actor to each section:
@general
@technical-discussion
@random
@meta
Looks like if you subscribe to one, you get all posts in that category.
I'd prefer there to only be opening posts, but Mastodon doesn't really understand groups.
Here's instructions I wrote up for another NodeBB site with how to follow stuff from Mastodon - discussions.thenexus.today/top…
How to follow and participate in discussions here from your Fediverse and ATmosphere accounts
Another way you can load discussions here into Fediverse is to copy the address bar, but add a post index to the end. For example, /topic/123 might not load,...The Nexus of Discussions
How do I diagnose issues when it comes to bugs/crashes?
So, how do I go about fixing this sort of stuff? My method of trying every single version of Proton with various recommended settings/commands from Protondb has not yielded anything beneficial. Additionally, searching the web with errors has also not yielded any meaningful results. For now, my solution is to switch back to windows if I want to play anything other than Factorio.
Thanks for the help.
If you're having issues with EVERY game aside from one, you have an environment problem. Need more system specs to be able to point you in the right direction.
Also, if you have issues with a game, check protondb.com and make sure it has support.
My best guess is that you have an GPU that either doesn't support Vulkan, or has driver issues. But we shouldn't guess, that's what logs are for.
For Steam logs, running Steam from terminal as suggested is one way. Do note that error with wrong ELF class for game overlay library when starting any game is normal, since Steam tries to load both 32 and 64 for bit version for each game, and the wrong one will always fail. Arch wiki has more information.
wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam…
For Proton logs, set environment variable PROTON_LOG=1. You can do it in Steam launch options, see Proton Readme for more info.
github.com/ValveSoftware/Proto…
With hardware and firmware issues system logs often point to right direction. Again Arch wiki has a good tutorial on it.
wiki.archlinux.org/title/Syste…
Games often have their own logging too if you need to go there. You'll need to look those up, as they vary by game.
I hope this helps.
GitHub - ValveSoftware/Proton: Compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components
Compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components - ValveSoftware/ProtonGitHub
- Software has bugs.
- Bugs which interface with and execute untrusted code are high risk.
- Browsers are obscenely large pieces of software, which connect a user's system with random websites which execute JavaScript.
Browsers are one of the most important things to update on your computer.
We can talk about whether browsers should be as complicated as they are, but implying security updates are a intended as a vector of control is conspiricist thinking.
The reason you don't get security updates backported to your older release of choice is simple: it is so much work.
Waterfox seems like a good choice, just don't go around thinking that companies are making security updates in order to sneak in unwanted, they make security updates because they are terrified of being responsible for a major incident.
Idk about your is. Fedora sends me notifications to update and prompts to do so on shutdown.
The problem is that traditionally, Linux distro didn't just update the OS, but also applications like libre office. So you couldn't download an is update without updating your apps, which you might not want to always do
Idk about your is. Fedora sends me notifications to update and prompts to do so on shutdown.
The problem is that traditionally, Linux distro didn't just update the OS, but also applications like libre office. So you couldn't download an is update without updating your apps, which you might not want to always do
Kind reminder your browser is the piece of software you use the most in your computer.
You should keep it updated.
Yeah.
When I allow it. Not when it wants to!
[Insert Hades "I OWN YOU" meme]
Jaguar Land Rover Car Production and Sales Crippled by Cyberattack
IT issue leaves JLR unable to register cars on crucial 'new plate' day
No new Land Rover models registered in UK today as firm races to solve system faultFelix Page (Autocar)
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“This is Eternal Displacement”: Israeli Onslaught on Gaza City Forcing Thousands to Flee With Nowhere to Go
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/35366137
Abdel Qader Sabbah
Aug 27, 2025
Palestinians are describing the assault by the Israeli military to seize and ethnically cleanse Gaza City—Gaza’s largest city, where up to a million people are currently seeking shelter—as the end game.On Tuesday, residents in al-Saftawi neighborhood, just north of Sheikh Radwan in Gaza City, were forced to flee in the thousands as Israel’s ground assault bore down, with tanks and warplanes leveling entire blocks.
“For about a week now, it’s been constant bombing, shelling, and destruction,” Ramy, a resident being displaced from al-Saftawi, told Drop Site on Tuesday. “Today we were shocked when the army raided our area and bombed it. We were terrified, really terrified. A quadcopter came and they told us: ‘You have six hours to evacuate.’”
“This is Eternal Displacement”: Israeli Onslaught on Gaza City Forcing Thousands to Flee With Nowhere to Go
Abdel Qader Sabbah
Aug 27, 2025Palestinians are describing the assault by the Israeli military to seize and ethnically cleanse Gaza City—Gaza’s largest city, where up to a million people are currently seeking shelter—as the end game.On Tuesday, residents in al-Saftawi neighborhood, just north of Sheikh Radwan in Gaza City, were forced to flee in the thousands as Israel’s ground assault bore down, with tanks and warplanes leveling entire blocks.
“For about a week now, it’s been constant bombing, shelling, and destruction,” Ramy, a resident being displaced from al-Saftawi, told Drop Site on Tuesday. “Today we were shocked when the army raided our area and bombed it. We were terrified, really terrified. A quadcopter came and they told us: ‘You have six hours to evacuate.’”
“This is Eternal Displacement”: Israeli Onslaught on Gaza City Forcing Thousands to Flee With Nowhere to Go
“No one is spared—no old person, no child, no woman. No human being is spared.”Abdel Qader Sabbah (Drop Site News)
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“This is Eternal Displacement”: Israeli Onslaught on Gaza City Forcing Thousands to Flee With Nowhere to Go
Abdel Qader Sabbah
Aug 27, 2025
Palestinians are describing the assault by the Israeli military to seize and ethnically cleanse Gaza City—Gaza’s largest city, where up to a million people are currently seeking shelter—as the end game.On Tuesday, residents in al-Saftawi neighborhood, just north of Sheikh Radwan in Gaza City, were forced to flee in the thousands as Israel’s ground assault bore down, with tanks and warplanes leveling entire blocks.
“For about a week now, it’s been constant bombing, shelling, and destruction,” Ramy, a resident being displaced from al-Saftawi, told Drop Site on Tuesday. “Today we were shocked when the army raided our area and bombed it. We were terrified, really terrified. A quadcopter came and they told us: ‘You have six hours to evacuate.’”
“This is Eternal Displacement”: Israeli Onslaught on Gaza City Forcing Thousands to Flee With Nowhere to Go
“No one is spared—no old person, no child, no woman. No human being is spared.”Abdel Qader Sabbah (Drop Site News)
Google Photos app uploaded all my locally saved pictures completely against my will
I've gotten a new phone and setting it up for the past few days - a Fairphone 5 with Android installed. So obviously, this means I can't escape Googles clutches. Sure, whatever.
I have been VERY adamant about pressing "No" on all prompts, that try to get me to try something out or use some dumb service. I do not want any AI tool or similar to go through my files.
Yet, while perousing the depths of my system settings, I realized Google Photos was using a suspicous amount of storage. Somehow, it had "synchronized" ALL my locally saved pictures - this included pictures of my vacations, my drivers license, private pictures I would have rather not shared, and so on...
And while checking the Google Photos App for the damage done, obviously it had already automatically generated "previews" and "albums" for me, neatly organized.
IT HAD AUTOMATICALLY ANALYSED MY DRIVERS LICENSE AND SAVED IT INTO AN ALBUM CALLED "Identity-related"
How the fuck is this legal? I am so mad at myself right now. I'm usually so fuckin cautious about denying any sort of pop-up and setting all settings as strictly as possible.
So obviously I just had to spent 2 hours figuring out how to turn this "synchronization" off, and how to delete all photos in google photos - spoiler alert: There is no "Delete All" button. You have to manually select every single fucking image.
Sorry for the rant, I hope it's not too off-topic.
I'm just so mad right now.
Check out Aves Libre on F-Droid
I had to ditch Google Photos app because of my paranoia, about this exact same thing that happened to you.
It works fine from the developer build. Better not use the app signed by F-Droid. Also there are two releases of Aves: Aves Gallery and Aves Gallery Libre
Best experience you'll have is from Accrescent
Yes, this happens. Even if you turn off all the syncing etc, they will shoot an update and all your settings will revert to default. This has happened with my father's phone a lot.
And even if you keep all these settings off, they are still scanning all photos to check for CSAM.
I highly recommend deGoogling your phone. If you cannot install a custom ROM, check out Universal Android Debloater. There are many sources for degoogling your life. Check out c/degoogle on Lemmy (I forgot the instance name, just search for it). ~~Or if you want we have small group on Signal for deGoogling related talks, DM me and I can share the link to join. (Signal does require a phone number to register, but since usernames are a thing your phone number will not be available publicly.)~~ That group link is disabled, but I can share other group links like Linux and FOSS, or other privacy related groups.
There not even checking for CSAM
That would be near impossIble considering the tech. Even on a normal portrait is hard to judge the age on. Let alone fotos with more complex perspectives and only some body parts visible.
What they are doing is using hashes of specific real pictures that the police know are commonly shared.
Theoretically it could catch some careless content consuming offenders. The worst offenders, that produce new material, are beyond the scope.
But also, obvious what google gets is just the hashcodes and not the actual pics. If the police gave google a hash to target for pics of vances bald head or (trans-positive) memes who would know?
There was a news some time ago, that a man was arrested for clicking nude pictures of children, later it was found out that he was sending pictures of his child to a doctor for diagnosis. How did that happen?
I'll link the source if I find it.
Update:
NYTimes - nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technol…
Paywall removed - removepaywalls.com/nytimes.com…
www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html
View article without paywallView article without paywall
That must be some other system indeed.
They don't really provide much information from how the images were actually shared though.
Maybe there is a machine learning algorithm that is trained to detect specific features in a random photo but i cant imagine it being accurate without frequent false possibles.
Could be that if you have a certain amount of “plausible” hits then a google employee has to review them manually and they quickly
Judged it wrongly?
Though that technically implies your
Private medical picture is now seen and possibly covertly copied by a (rogue) employee.
It’s been well documented.
False positives don’t matter, and there’s no human to talk to when it occurs.
A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions, even though law enforcement cleared the two men.
They are literally too big to care.
False positives are a thing. They do scan all your photos for csam. Poorly.
We know this because of the article during the pandemic when a dude sent a photo of his son's dick to a doctor (it had an infection and the doctor asked to see it). Dude lost access to his entire google account. Lost everything. Emails, files, everything. It wasn't a hash.
I appreciate your comment, replying here for reference, perhaps I'd like to join that signal channel. Being staunchly anti-google I feel I'm on top of things, but my Gmail is used across many of my logins. With the scanning for CSAM issue, many people don't realize that Google installs a hidden app called safetycore, for me it gets reinstalled on every update.
allthings.how/what-is-android-…
What is Android System SafetyCore and why did it appear on your phone?
Worried about the app suddenly appearing on your system? Read this.Pallav Pathak (All Things How)
If you disable Google photos storage access you don't even have a camera roll :/
That's how embedded the damn thing is
I just checked,
google photos has permanent access to photos and videos. If you disable the app the camera roll no longer works. I get "activity not found".
Maybe with a FOSS camera app it might still work? I haven't tried.
Edit: and that is the only permission which it has ( photos and videos ). Everything else ( location, contacts, ... ) is not allowed. But that one permission is auto permanently allowed.
You don't really need a camera roll. Just use your normal gallery after taking pics.
You can disable Google Photos outright. No need to play with permissions.
Apple announced plans last year to scan iCloud Photos for known sexually abusive depictions of children, but the rollout was delayed indefinitely after resistance from privacy groups.
That’s from the article. But the article is from 2023 so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s changed.
I even got my banking apps to work.
I don't but its been posted a couple of times on Mastodon, I assume its on their blog and in their forms too.
The jist is Fairphone doesn't have the security HW to run it
Would be nice if fairphone was in talks of making sure that adequate hardware will be in next version. That would benefit both projects even if they didn't offer official support.
I'll guessing the problem will be the chipset vendor.
The GrapheneOS folks said they are working with an ODM to put out their own phone in the future.
I'm happy with it on my used Pixel 8 Pro but if they offered a phone I'd probably get one
e/os is most likely my next step, especially with Google disabling installing "unverified" third-party apps in 2026.
Bought a FP5 with e/os in mind as a possible upgrade path, I just was too worried to immediately do the full jump.
I own an Android phone, for a single app I need to have access to. It's a Redmi something. I could not find a way to just uninstall their own 'Gallery' app nor the Google Photos app so I removed their access to any file. I hope this is enough but I don't know that.
I thought Android was all about choice (against iOS, which is my default phone) but this was not very convincing. I may have missed a way to easily uninstall any app, though? I would like to replace them with f-droid alternative apps so there won't be any risk they access the little data I've stored on that phone.
It's a Redmi something.
If it is still using the default OS (HyperOS / MiUI), you can uninstall both the Xiaomi and Google Photos apps. The easiest method nowadays is to install Universal Android Debloater on to your computer (any OS), connect your phone to it, enable USB debugging on the phone, and remove the apps you don't want.
GitHub - 0x192/universal-android-debloater: Cross-platform GUI written in Rust using ADB to debloat non-rooted android devices. Improve your privacy, the security and battery life of your device.
Cross-platform GUI written in Rust using ADB to debloat non-rooted android devices. Improve your privacy, the security and battery life of your device. - 0x192/universal-android-debloaterGitHub
Yes of course.
Edit: Lot of third-party apps rely on Google Play Services, so removing this is not recommended.
GitHub - samolego/Canta: Uninstall any Android app without root (with power of Shizuku). Debloat your device as you wish, no PC required.
Uninstall any Android app without root (with power of Shizuku). Debloat your device as you wish, no PC required. - samolego/CantaGitHub
I was gonna say something about postmarketOS, but it's not ready yet. Mobian is also not ready for it either.
So next best option if you really wanna get rid of this type of stuff is either rooting your device to remove what you don't need or flashing something like GrapheneOS or a different OS.
But I'd consider that a last resort if you already have everything set up just right and have things you don't wanna lose and can't backup easily. That, and if it's a work related device, you're screwed.
Sailfish OS - European alternative for Mobile operating systems
A privacy respecting Linux-based European alternative to dominating mobile operating systems developed by Finnish company Jolla.Sailfish OS
If you were using Photos as a photo roll app you need to stay angry at yourself a while longer. That's on you when you should know you cannot trust the G. Don't grant an app permissions to photos and videos that could sync it to the cloud. And as another precaution, don't keep sensitive pictures in the DCIM folder. If I have to take pictures of sensitive documents like that I disable WiFi (sync set up on WiFi only), take the picture, move it to a folder that's never backed up elsewhere on my phone, and then turn WiFi back on.
You are not normal because you care about these things. The normal user doesn't care and that's who they are catering for. I'm not excusing their behavior (I don't like it either) and at the same time you need to be more on your toes.
I'm planning to move to Ente this year when my Google cloud subscription runs out. Not looking forward to the work it entails but to the [paints face blue] FREEDOM!
Not against your will, you accepted this and more in the TOS of your account. But you can avoid it in the permission settings in your phone.
The second biggest lie in Internet: "I've read the Privacy Policies and Terms of Service" the first one "We respect the privacy of the user".
The lesson here is don't deal with rapists if you care not to get raped.
This is the stage of priavcy in 2025 folks.
It is victims obligation to avoid the rapist and if it rapes youz it is your fault
Filen – Next Generation End-To-End Encrypted Cloud Storage
Filen – Next Generation End-To-End Encrypted Cloud Storage. Get started with 10 GB of free space.filen.io
/e/OS is a good option to regain privacy from Google, but arguably does some things worse in terms of security than stock.
You can find a good comparison here.
For the Fairphone 5, I'd recommend CalyxOS as soon as they're back from their hiatus. In the meantime, might as well stick with stock.
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I use Adguard and block Google photos from connecting to the internet.
Features like edit video still work, so I'm good. If editing didn't work, I'd disable it.
I use the firewall feature to actually stop Photos from accessing the internet, so it doesn't touch YouTube.
I use third party YouTube apps to block ads and other crap from YouTube videos.
On desktop, I believe adguard will block ads on YouTube.com, but I also use third party apps to play videos.
I got sick of GP when they announced AI learning on user photos (or actually that's just the last straw). I use a combination of these two apps now:
f-droid.org/packages/org.fossi…
f-droid.org/packages/io.ente.p…
Fossify Gallery | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
Gallery with Photo editor. No Ads, Open-source, Private. No strings attached.f-droid.org
It's kinda a pain to use 'cause so many apps rely on Google services, so those need to be replaced with alternatives, but e/OS is installable and is supported by Fairphone
community.e.foundation/t/insta…
Install /e/OS v2 on Fairphone 5 - my little guide
I had some troubles following the official guide so I’ve tested different settings and came up with a little guide that can be useful to others./e/OS community
Well, next time, make sure you have your settings set correctly - test with a few pictures at first...
I use pCloud, and it works great for my needs. I have deleted everything I had ever uploaded to Google, besides the simplest backup from my mobile phone, so I can easily restore it, if my phone breaks and I need a new one.
Oh, do you think there's any solution without a backdoor?
If you are worried, you can use the extra encryption: "pCloud offers an optional encryption service, providing zero-knowledge client-side encryption. Files placed in the Crypto folder are encrypted before leaving the user's device and remain inaccessible even to pCloud. This feature is offered as a paid add-on."
And if you are totally paranoid, then encrypt what you use, yourself.
that's why i straight up delete proprietary corporate apps now whenever possible, even if i don't use them.
they WILL do what they want unprompted, then make it difficult to undo.
I feel for you.
training ai on your photo's without even asking. wankers
I have just copied my elderly friends 2000 photos from google photos to my desktop, then deleted all of them from her phone. Had to do it with my browser, they only allow you to delete 30 photos at a time on the phone. tossers.
Installed droid-ify, installed lawnchair, fossify gallery, fossify messages, fossify contacts. perfect.
imported her photos back on to her phone:
Intentionally painful but its done.
bring on ADB, I have deleted everything with a G in it.
first one: I wrote a simple little bash script for these:
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.chrome
okgoogle, xgoogle, Gmail, calender, Calendar Sync, videos, googlequicksearchbox, youtube, music, Google Contacts Sync, googleassistant, Google Digital Well Being App, Google Duo, Google Pay, google photos and Google Drive with adb so its doesnt happen again.
This poor women is 84, WTF does she know about modern tech, google are tossers
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I would get rid of fairphone rom and install another rom:
unlock your bootloader. easy guide from Fairphone.
support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us…
then install lineage or E/os custom rom
I needed an outlet and wanted some advice what to do about this, and I'm really happy about the responses I've gotten.
Yes, but you're just screaming into an ephemeral void.
You could actually make google pay for this if you wrote an article about this on substack and then linked to it here.
Google has already paid over a billion dollars for GDPR violations. They do change their behavior as a result of such reporting and legal consequences.
Op should deff fight back but let's temper the expectations here... Realistically nothing will happen.
But yes it should be documented
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What proof do you have that you in fact pressed no ?
Also, didn't you press I agree to anything that gives google indemnity against any of this when you first turned on the phone ?
I think you would need a complete video recording from fresh firmware wipe to the action you describe happening, to establish it is or isn't happening.
Google will have make sure that proving them in the wrong takes a whole lot of effort
Sorry for your shitty situation.
Try this. No root needed. I'm pretty much google free on FP5 (and others).
github.com/0x192/universal-and…
Removes most google apps and services.
Also try not to ever sign into google on your phone directly. Use Aurora Store, DAVX, Thunderbird etc.
GitHub - 0x192/universal-android-debloater: Cross-platform GUI written in Rust using ADB to debloat non-rooted android devices. Improve your privacy, the security and battery life of your device.
Cross-platform GUI written in Rust using ADB to debloat non-rooted android devices. Improve your privacy, the security and battery life of your device. - 0x192/universal-android-debloaterGitHub
github.com/Universal-Debloater…
Not sure why the dev dosnt link the old project to the new.
GitHub - Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-android-debloater-next-generation: Cross-platform GUI written in Rust using ADB to debloat non-rooted Android devices. Improve your privacy, the security and battery life of your device.
Cross-platform GUI written in Rust using ADB to debloat non-rooted Android devices. Improve your privacy, the security and battery life of your device. - Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-andr...GitHub
Ya. I'm sorry for you.
Problem is, even if you delete the Images, Google has already scraped them for info on you and used your Google account and phone number to tie it all together to further its data aggregation profile on you.
a Fairphone 5 with Android installed. So obviously, this means I can't escape Googles clutches
If you have a Fairphone then you can escape Google, Fairphones are one of the few phones that support third party ROMs. If they weren't so expensive I would buy one myself.
Google Photos fails to include a libre software license text file. We do not control it, anti-libre software.
What did you expect? LMAOO
[RESOLVED] Looking for a way to make links to posts that don't leave the instance.
I know I've seen it before, some website that translated a link to a post into a link to that same post, but on the instance of the user clicking the link. I cannot for the life of me seem to find it again, though.
It was not a browser extension.
I’m not sure what you mean by a website that does this, but Lemmy uses a couple different simple formats for that. You can use a ! or just /c/. For instance
!aww@lemmy.ml
/c/aww@lemmy.ml
Those link to communities, not specific posts.
I really wish the Lemmy devs had come up with a portable post URL format. Maybe something like
https://*any-instance*/post/*number*@*source-instance*
Then the clients could handle it like the ! links for communities and also just rewrite links to be for the currently logged-in instance.
n3m37h
in reply to jackeroni • • •