Adding my personal notes on search engines here for anyone’s interest. I personally use Qwant on Desktop and DuckDuckGo on mobile. I like Qwant because they are at least working on their own index and are EU-based. On the other hand, DuckDuckGo is faster and has a more comprehensive privacy policy. I’m really trying to use Mojeek on mobile but the search results are much worse than DuckDuckGo and Qwant in my repeated experience.

Useful background:

• https://stateofsurveillance.org/articles/technical/blur-pixelation-censorship-false-security/
• https://undercodetesting.com/the-vulnerability-of-pixelation-as-a-privacy-measure/

Spoilsport :P

Erm… OP, you know that blurring is not destructive, right?

Can you explain in a little more detail how enforcing online ID prevents WW3? Genuinely curious. The only thing I think of that national online ID might help with is counter intelligence, especially in defense against psyops. However, in the few cases that we do know about psyops toppling elections, e.g., Brexit, these were performed on behalf of or with the aid of party and government officials in the affected countries. If any, this would become easier, because widespread online ID silents dissenting voices, while well-financed entities can navigate and / or circumvent such regulation (also see, for example, the effect of GDPR on the market structure of attention merchants in Europe).

Introducing Athenian democracy: Place your name on a paper slip. Place that slip in a big bag. If your name gets pulled, congrats: You are now a politician for an allotted time. Also works with marble slips for extra flair.

Thank you for the context. Highly appreciated! I had gathered the gradual decline in funding and surveillance from this publication but they didn’t really talk about the damages done by COVID or DOGE.

Demokitten

Then they should’ve included a short TLDR even harder

TLDR: Open package repositories without some approval and oversight system, like AUR, will have even more problems in the future due to advanced coding AI and malicious foreign hackers.

Edit: Please normalize TLDR’s on bot posts with just a link.

Edit 2: I have been rightfully informed that this is not a bot post. I still think links should not be posted without a tiny abstract, one might say: a TLDR.

I have also been informed that the text does not spell out “foreign”. This is correct. The text does say

Not all of the packaging issues are as bad as the initial wave of trying to steal credentials, some are just adding ridiculous messages in Russian.

This implies but does not establish the nationality of attackers. While Arch has contributors from all over the world, it is commonly cited as being a Canadian distribution (example, see below). https://distrowatch.com/table-mobile.php?distribution=arch

Do you think, when Duerer and his contemporaries introduced perspective into painting, people natively understood and just saw it or did they first have to snap their eyes to it, like some optical illusion. Like, if you show someone a 2D projection of a cube for the first time, will they immediately be: “Yeah, that’s a cube” or will they have to train their eyes on it? Kinda like this Mary’s Room thing, in which they tested whether people born blind could distinguish a cube vs sphere visually after having their vision restored, by transferring qualities like “round” vs “edgy” between senses (they can’t). shower thoughts

This would make for a pretty cool SCP: A place or a person whom you can’t get super close to, because space around them behaves in a fractal manner.

The answer is no, but the other way round: If your regular poop stays inside long enough, it produces diarrhea again. Google paradoxical diarrhea. And don’t try it at home.

See it in 2 months wherever you get your memes 😎

If Chromium becomes incompatible with privacy, the only real and broadly accepted alternative is FireFox. Which implementation, and as always in these kinds of discussions, that depends on your threat model: On desktop, I am very happy with LibreWolf. Mullvad Browser is also great, especially with Mullvad VPN, though it breaks pages a little more often than LibreWolf. On Android, I am quite happy with IronFox.

https://www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/2175000/69-sex-positions/

Might be a new addition to the canon.

I’m not ideologically opposed to people earning money with their unique ideas and artistic execution. Creative work is work is work. But I don’t think that IP should be the gift that keeps on giving three generations after an authors death. IMHO, the public has a reasonable interest in works remaining available, that’s why the “maintenance / out of print” clause. Writing good code is authorship. It’s only natural the same rules apply, though I wouldn’t be principally opposed to applying different time lines, e.g., 5 years for unmaintained proprietary code vs 20 years for books, to reflect the uniquely fast pace of software development vs the more long-lasting beauty of traditional art and literature. Of course there would need to be some very careful wording to define maintenance (e.g., in respect to which platform? What about versions of the same software) and to prevent on-paper continued availability of books at an inappropriately increased price. However, I believe the law makers and the courts could handle this medium diff if there was political will.

Yeah, how about we shorten that to a cumulative 10 years out of support / maintenance / print or after the death of the author / artist, whatever earlier. For software, a five years out of support threshold would honestly be preferable but I’ll be generous.

Software that is not actively maintained for a certain time should become public property. The same goes for books or music that go out of print for so long. “you want to sell me your original product? That’s cool. You don’t wanna do that anymore? Alright, but no need to bury it in obscurity.”

Appreciate the recommendations. I will give IronFox a try.