Cathal Garvey @cathal@octodon.social

"Steam is banning sex games with young-looking characters"

Nothing else that's shitty about Steam was a deal-breaker for Gamers™, but this absolutely will be. Lolllllllll

welllllllll
I know it's time to let go of this, but I still never got a chance to get my PR in
sooooo I made this
https://github.com/diodelass/udpe506e

Proof that neither a sense of humor nor appreciation of the absurd are requirements for being involved in tech.

https://linuxwit.ch/blog/2018/12/e98e/

It's like there's entire generations of programmers who grew up never having watched a single episode of Monty Python or something.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/new-fight-online-privacy-and-security-australia-falls-what-happens-next

"With messaging systems like WhatsApp, the approach will be slightly different: your user interface will claim you’re in a one-on-one conversation, but behind the scenes, the company will be required to silently switch you into a group chat. Two of the people in the group chat will be you and your friend. The other will be invisible, and will be operated by the government."

bottom line: Don't trust the shiny advertising brochure which tells you about end-to-end encryption, security and privacy if you only get a black box at the end. Only #FreeSoftware, #OpenStandards, #federation and the ability to self host will be able to secure your privacy.

I don't have a political point to make here; I don't care about your affiliation, your party, or your vote; here's the only thing that matters this week for a huge number of Americans:

December 15 is the cut-off to register for health care at HealthCare.gov

Pass it on.

youve heard of catgirls
youve heard of catboys

now get ready for:
nyanbinary people

prometheus is best known for his hot takes

PSA: Naturalnews.com is a very bad, Fash-adjacent peddler of dangerous pseudoscience and garbage medical advice.

0/0, Do not recommend.

(They sometimes come up as a top result when searching medical/diet things, which is why I bring this up.)

#naturalnews #pseudoscience

This has factored into relocation decisions.
---
RT @jzellis@twitter.com
I cannot stress this enough: if you live in the US between the Rockies and the Cascades, you need to start figuring out how you’re going to GTFO in the next decade or so. Really, truly, no hyperbole. Because the water is running out and there’s no way to replenish it.
https://twitter.com/jzellis/status/1072626946222235653

If markets are so efficient, why doesn't every department store have a ladies wear line called "It Has Pockets!" or similar?

Hmmm!

conway's game of eeeee, recorded by hacker news user Nadya

I've updated https://linuxwit.ch/blog/2018/12/everything-that-lives-is-designed-to-end/ with e98e's permanent archive location, as both a zip file and a cloneable git repository.

Had a debate about #LiveJournal and whether its paid membership program was enough to sustain it back in the day without advertising. I'm pretty sure it was!

However it's been a long while and it's possible that my memory of it is fudged, so I'm asking other long time LJ users: prior to sponsored accounts in 2006 did LJ make enough to keep itself sustainable with paid memberships? 🤔

reminder that
(a) left-wing violence is almost nonexistence nowadays (https://www.thenation.com/article/why-does-the-far-right-hold-a-near-monopoly-on-political-violence/)
(b) the right wing has historically used violence as a way to break up left leaning organizations and protests, by committing violent acts themselves and making it look like the lefty folks did it

and with that, I've sent a final email to github.

https://linuxwit.ch/assets/github-email-4.txt

I honestly don't get #Mozilla's beef with #RSS.

"As of #Firefox version 64, Firefox no longer supports built-in Live Bookmarks"
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/live-bookmarks-migration

@cathal the usual issue I run across is the balance of agency and urgency. Too far in either direction, and people either just assume someone else will fix it / its not a problem OR that its so hopeless and they're so powerless that there's no point in trying anything. Both leave the person in the same place - inaction. You might like - https://plantyhamchuk.tumblr.com/post/171574097661/four-lessons-psychology-teaches-us-about-inspiring and http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541/meta