But without them most ecosystems would fail

a minor hiccup, at most. Many ecosystems wouldn’t even notice.

This broken english is printed with impeccable quality.

That’s probably the funniest bit about this whole thing. Absolutely impeccable workmanship, but horrendous English. If only they spent a touch more money for decent translator.

Legit impressed with the sharpness of that text at that size. That’s definitely not from any fly-by-night back-alley Indian factory using sweatshop labour.

Even up here in Canada, I’m getting similar vibes. Fucking disgusting, it is.

What I find incredible is just how slow-moving and cruft-filled it has become.

For example, DotNet has had string interpolation since C# 6, back in 2015. That’s a decade, already.

Java recently yoinked their implementation because they just couldn’t make it work.

That’s damning.

Right now - ignoring the wider ecosystem and looking purely at the core language - I am seeing the very latest LTR version of Java as being on-par with C# pre-2010 in terms of continual material improvements and ease of use.

Yikes.

I still use Java, but… yikes.

Another tool is yWriter.

This isn’t a tool for everyone, because it is research-first focused.

What I mean by that is that it’s a little clunky because background/research data is meant to go into it first, and then you are supposed to lean on that content to write your book second.

So for a non-fiction book, you would add all the data and facts and references, for a fiction book you would put in all of the important characters and plot points and things that the characters interact with.

This is so you always have a body of references to work off of so you don’t introduce inconsistencies.

Some people might find this software useful because assembling and fleshing out the underlying data is loads of fun and/or how they prep. Others might need this feature just to keep track of everything that goes into their book, as they might not be able to keep track of things like character quirks very easily in their head.

YMMV.

And I self-host precisely because of the money I save using surplussed hardware. I have a symmetrical 1Gb SOHO fibre connection from my ISP, so I can host whatever the hell I want, I just need to stand it up. And a beefy older system with oodles of RAM is perfect for spinning up VMs of various platforms for various tasks. This saves me craploads of money over even a single VM on cloud platforms like Vultr. Plus, even if I were to support a “heavy” service sufficiently in demand to warrant its own iron, it still costs me less than a year’s worth of hosting to obtain a decent platform for that service to run on all by it’s lonesome.

My only cloud costs end up being those services which are distributed for redundancy and geographical distance, such as DNS and caching CDNs.

Holy shit, those prices. Like, I wouldn’t be able to afford any package at even 10% the going rate.

Anything available for the lone operator running a handful of Internet-addressable servers behind a single symmetrical SOHO connection? As in, anything for the other 95% of us that don’t have literal mountains of cash to burn?

the key is to simply seed all of your content for as long as you have it in your collection.

Tell that to TheGeeks. If you aren’t actively uploading - not just sitting there sharing, but actively sending data to anyone else - you’ll eventually be warned, then banned.

Back when I was trying to use their site, they had only one system: strict 1 ratio on a time limit. If you couldn’t maintain a 1+ ratio, and achieve it within a very limited amount of time, it didn’t matter what you grabbed or how long you shared back out, you got banned. At the time they had no other way to get ratio other than sharing back out - no freeleech, nothing. Which meant if you were wanting any content more than 2-3 HOURS old, you were looking at a ratio shortfall because there was no way to make up that ratio you were losing by downloading that content. There were simply too few peers after you to overcome the masses of seeders ahead of you satisfying peers.

It was absolutely brutal, which is why I now refuse to deal with any sites with that rule (1+ ratio with time limit) even if they have other ways (freeleech, etc.) to mitigate it. Like, f**k those sites. I’ve been seeding some torrents for close to 15 years, I have no problem letting shit remain resident in my client. So sites like MyAnonamouse it’s going to have to remain.

If you are talking about sites that have a strict, non-negotiable seeding ratio requirement, it is impossible. Your only real long-term option is to write a script that will grab everything that gets uploaded on a 30-second cadence, and then aggressively super-seed that content back out. And this is regardless of what it is - this script runs 24/7, doing about 2,880 hits on the website a day for new content. Still, even with the script it will be difficult to have your overall ratio exceed more than about 1.5-2, and you may still get banned for individual seeds that never exceed 1 because no-one is very interested in them.

I have tried to use sites that have strict ratio minimums, and long-term success is impossible without an edge like the script I mentioned. It’s why I now work with sites - like myanonamouse - that have minimum seeding times for everything you grab, regardless if anyone else needs it. They tend to be far less stressful and user-hostile.

It is possible to be pro-Palestinian and anti-Hamas at the same time.

Similarly, it is possible to be pro-Jewish and anti-Israel at the same time.

They key is to be in favour of, and supporting, the innocent civilians that are NOT wielding hate and bigotry, and in direct and vociferous opposition to the power structures on BOTH sides that have looked true evil in the eye and said, “hold my beer and watch this”.

I am as anti-Hamas as I am anti-Israel. Both power/political structures are among the most reprehensibly evil orgs on the planet at this time.

I stand with the innocent civilians; with THE PEOPLE.

The paradox of tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance not as a moral or legal standard, but as a social contract:

If someone does not abide by the terms of the contract, then they are not covered by it.

In other words: the intolerant are not following the rules of the social contract of mutual tolerance.

Since they have broken the terms of the contract, they are no longer covered by the contract, and their intolerance should NOT be tolerated.

Will any patriot of democracy with a functional stinger rocket please pay attention?

They will fail.

Like all the other things they have “failed at” with almost zero consequences? Like ignoring judicial orders and deporting American citizens and dismantling the government and shredding the constitution and all that other anti-democratic crap?

Sure, buddy. And I have some premium sand for you to bury your head into.

as long as you didn’t use your two terms.

And even this is looking increasingly irrelevant. Trump has another 3¾ years to ensure nothing is in his way for a 3rd, 4th, or even more terms. And with Republicans working to ensure a permanent Republican ascendancy, even voting will become a performative act; a thin veneer of legitimacy papering over useless theatrics and a predetermined outcome.

Will have to look into that, thanks.

One of my key implementation requirements, however, will be resiliency, which means simplicity will be a core feature. The more “moving parts”, the easier it will be to break.

flip phone

Almost all such phones are actually smart phones in a flip phone Edgar Suit. Especially if it has maps or YouTube or any kind of an App Store. I see a crapton of flip phones that run Android, which has all sorts of Google spyware piggybacking along.

I think there may be only two or three dumb flip phones or feature flip phones left on the market, and IIRC two are locked to specific networks.

If you want a bona-fide dumb phone, you might be limited to something like the rotary un-smartphone.

or toaster can’t do its basic job offline

pats my 1962 Sunbeam Radiant Toaster

Obligatory Red Dwarf toaster scene

Go for older laser printers. They’re bulletproof, cheap on toner, free of DRM, and even if they only come with an LPT port you can always build your own print server that gives you all the bells and whistles like AirPrint.

About 3-4 years ago I took a bit of a dive into the firmware of IoT devices. The utter lack of security and the amount of information being hoovered up to the mothership made me swear to never build anything “smart” into the renovations of my current home. Sure, there will be automation. There will be CCTV. There will be solar with battery backup for essentials. There will be conveniences of all kinds. But virtually all will be air gapped, incapable of remote rooting, and under my full control.

Hell, even my laser printers are HP models over two decades old - an HP 4050DTN and an HP 5000DTN - that are totally devoid of any DRM or “smart features” and can trivially take generic overstuffed cartridges that can do 20,000 sheets at 5% coverage.