Sadly most open source software is a usability disaster zone, filled with buttons and menus which have nothing to do with what the user is trying to do.

This comes from the people who run GrapheneOS e.g. https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-standard-privacysecurity-patches-and-protections-arent-private. Maybe they’re opinionated for some reason that extends beyond the hardware/software.

Fairphones seem okay from a hardware POV but the software is a bit lacking in terms of security and support.

Gaskets are a thing. Many, many, many watches would brag about their water resistance up to 10, 50, 100 meters depth. So I don’t think the excuse is credible.

Unfortunately there are some exemptions. Flexible / folding displays are not covered. Fitness trackers and watches are not covered.

There is also a battery regulation coming in next year to require phone batteries to be replaceable with no tools but that has loop holes too - long life batteries aren’t covered, IP67 rated phones aren’t covered. So you can bet your boots those two reasons will be what makers use to bullshit their way out of it.

I can’t see any useful application of AI within Reddit although I could see AI companies salivating at the prospect of hoovering up data from the site which could be monetized in all sorts of unimaginable ways.

If hypothetically you’re going to destroy a camera, consider the determination of police to investigate and the criminal charges before choosing your method. Spraying them with varnish is a lot more low key than shooting at or burning them, both of which are likely to attract felony charges.

He isn’t but all the losers who follow him and gave him money are. I’m surprised he doesn’t face charges of fraud for some of that stuff.

Andrew Tate is facing something like 42 charges at the moment and his brother another 17. For things like rape, human trafficking, possession of indecent images of children. Assuming these pieces of shit are deported they’re like to be in prison for a substantial period of time. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re held without bail before the trial and then get enjoy lengthy sentences after it.

This boils down to a Linux using a file system which allows files to be deleted or replaced in the inode table while something has the old file open. So it’s easier (although not simple) to replace packages while other stuff is running. Whereas Windows has to shut everything else down so nothing has the file open to replace it and also fix stragglers during the next reboot.

I probably still have a copy of the original Guildwars and played it a lot, all single player. IIRC there was multiplayer but it was optional, not mandatory and the game played more like a traditional RPG. I never got back into it despite there being a sequel but it definitely wasn’t the worst. I think that’s the way to do this stuff - make people buy the game and design the game to be enjoyed. If monetization is needed then sell cosmetics, clan stuff etc. which don’t impact on the game.

Around the same period of time I also tried games like Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes, City of Villains, A Tale in the Desert (a weird indy MMO), Lord of the Rings Online and a bunch of others. I even played World of Warcraft in beta, and a few times for short stints but always the same grind.

Almost every MMORPG. They start off fun and then the fun becomes grind - tedious quests, upkeep, travel time, hp recovery, crafting, rare spawns, penalties & debuffs for death.

My first experience of all this was Everquest. I quit because Verant screwed up a series of expansion launches leading to crashes and downtime and I questioned why I was playing this thing and realised it hadn’t been fun for a long time. But pretty much every MMO is the same.

Stuff like ydotool, wtype exist and presumably there are others for this. Search on automation testing on Wayland and see.

Since it is a niche I’m not surprised if it wasn’t a critical path for Wayland adoption but clearly there are solutions that work for certain compositors and I assume people working on a more robust solution. But allowing one piece of software to sniff or inject input, or capture its content is an obvious security flaw and Wayland devs are right to put it front and centre. If a desktop is to allow those things then it should be through a security model instead of in the absence of one.

Wayland enforces security to stop one process sniffing or injecting input into another. X11 basically has zero security boundaries. So certain things are easier in X11, but then again the price to pay is too much.

So things like virtual mouse positioning, autohotkey, screen capture are harder to do but not insurmountable. It requires protocols that the client / desktop understand and which are fit for purpose. Big desktops like GNOME & KDE Plasma do support xdg-desktop-portal which allows hotkeys to be registered with the desktop, and could potentially be what you need.

Games are one thing that keeps people stuck on Windows so more games on Linux, either native or through API emulation, does potentially allow more people to consider the switch.

The only thing I didn’t like about systemd was the unfamiliarity of the commands. Typing systemctl and a verb and a service and some more arguments feels a bit clunky.

But otherwise it all seems to make sense to me - lots of little services running with least privilege, very simple description of services in unitary files, secure binary logging with proper filtering, proper utilisation of cgroups to reliably kill processes and enforce limits, parallel startup/shutdown etc.

Most of the objections I’ve see to it online seem miss the point and ignore answers which would solve or refute their objections.

It’s like the Amish but with operating systems. Technology has advanced this far but must advance no further.

Systemd and Wayland have become ragebait for some people.

The purpose of a duress code is plausible deniability.

There is an encryption product for Windows called VeraCrypt (aka TrueCrypt). You can create a hidden decoy volume inside an outer encrypted volume which has all your stuff in it. When mounted an observer cannot tell the difference between the hidden volume and the real volume since they are mounted the same way with different passcodes. You can put files in the decoy for plausibility but not the things you actually want to hide.

The same should be true of a duress code in a phone. It should be possible to put files, apps and stuff in the decoy that show activity e.g. email, pictures etc. Providing the other profile is wiped while this screen is showing then there is no immediate way of proving it was a duress code.

It would have to at least convince the border guard, but it should withstand forensic analysis too. So it might be necessary to do what VeraCrypt does.

I really want one or more of these AI companies to fail hard. I think their only strategy is literally to burn through billions hoping it’ll be another company that goes to the wall first and they’ll somehow reap the rewards by hanging on longer.