Stephan Sokolow @ssokolow@qoto.org

@Venn Since YouTube's comment system isn't the most helpful, I'll mirror my comment here:

Those cables vary, depending on how much the particular batch-maker decided to pinch pennies. I have some that look identical externally and work fine, but I wound up getting a refund on another that didn't work.

Since then, I've discovered an explanation of what was probably wrong (missing components) and a DIY fix for it at https://karusisemus.wordpress.com/2017/01/02/cheap-usb-midi-cable-how-to-modify-it/

A little bit of a counterproductive phrasing to use for a single link to a site that's otherwise known to be trustworthy, don't you think, YouTube?

@fatboy ...a third option for ShowDotFiles would also be nice, so it hides them from the completion list by default but doesn't refuse to show completions if I explicitly try to Tab-complete something beginning with a dot.

@fatboy Yeah.

Not exactly what I'd like, but definitely the best balance for what I want right now.

(eg. At least in the newest version on *buntu 16.04 LTS, it still doesn't have support for staying resident (and binding the hotkey via XGrabKey) to ensure it stays snappy when a nightly backup run evicts the disk cache.)

I don't trust myself to write C or C++ but, if I can ever find the time to justify taking on another project, maybe I'll write some patches for https://github.com/buster/rrun

@lkundrak@octodon.social @sir

Except that it's not as good at finding niche stuff. When the answer is something like a tutorial on driving an OPL3-based soundcard from DOS or a forum post on some niche topic, Google blows DDG out of the water.

(I say this as someone who uses DDG as his default search engine.)

@ndegruchy@fosstodon.org @cavaliertusky

From what I've seen, it looks like their plan is going in the direction of "virtualize Win32 in containers on top of a locked-down iOS-like base Windows platform".

For example, https://www.osnews.com/story/131368/how-windows-10x-runs-win32-applications/

@Vergam It'd certainly keep me away.

I refuse to endorse any system which discriminates against people who can't afford to meet a certain hardware or bandwidth standard.

(Which is also one of the reasons that I steer people away from Discord whenever possible. Above and beyond the usual reasons, they reserve the right to demand SMS verification (with no exemptions) to regain access to your account if they ever see you coming from what they see as a suspicious IP.)

@cavaliertusky I wonder if it's the orange-ness.

Our current two cats are the first orange ones we've ever had and they love hanging out in the bathroom too.

@reykjalin @sir @newt

Three years later, the state of things then prompted a video explaining how to play the system to use Content ID yourself to ensure that, no matter what happens to your account, nobody else can take 100% of the revenue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz14Ul-r63w

(The TL;DR is that there exist distribution companies like cdbaby you can partner with, who have access to Content ID, so he composed an outro tune to use on his videos and had them monetize that for him, minus cut.)

@reykjalin @sir @newt Given that it's 42.5 minutes long, I haven't had time to watch that yet, but the super short abstract reminds me of Jim Sterling's "Copyright Deadlock" trick for giving the finger to people abusing YouTube monetization to steal ad revenue on videos they don't have a right to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8i6aMG9VM

@rfquerin Don't let misinformation spread.

(But I'm not exactly the best person to ask. I have no fear of being "that guy" and generally feel that, if someone has a problem with it, I should seek better people to interact with anyway.)

@apetresc Dark Mode? I'm pretty sure I remember seeing and annoyedly dismissing that announcement for being so bulky yesterday, before it hit April 1st anywhere in the world.

...or, actually, now that I think about it, it might have been the day before, because I was already quite annoyed at the SE crew not having the foresight to dismiss all the "You can now follow things" popups in the tabs I'd middle-clicked open after I dismissed the first one I saw.

@strypey It's not all rosy though.

* Too much interest in "the cloud" by the majority of computer users.
* We're seeing more IM moving to platforms that use web-based clients rather than a stable protocol something like libpurple can easily clone and keep up with.
* Microsoft requiring locked-down Secure Boot on ARM-based devices to get Windows Logo certification and cheap OEM licenses (and, one would guess, any other non-x86 ISAs).
* etc.

@freemo @LittleWytch Intentional or not, I just can't implicitly promote it, so I always use "post" as the noun and either "post" or "send" as the verb.

@freemo True or not (and Snopes more or less agrees: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc-budget/ ), the tone of that article makes me very suspicious of using them as a *reliable* information source.

...something that seems to be backed up by a quick check of what the Mises Institute is on Wikipedia. By their very nature, think tank websites seek to promote a specific view of the world... that means that, at best, they'll promote facts that support their views and downplay ones that disagree.

@skunksarebetter Good to see Synergy got forked after that decision to take it paid.

@mgiagante @n8 ...or saying that "Twitter" is the place you go to be a twit.

@papa@mastodon.sdf.org @sir Oh, and I can't remember if it was something I read or something I figured out on my own, but the stupid "I have to be taught to share a ball" argument by a former RIAA or MPAA exec led me to the reason it's so hard to stamp out piracy:

We have an instinctive understanding of scarce (property) vs. non-scarce (information) and an instinctive drive to gather and share non-scarce things for the good of the tribe... that's what gossip is.

@papa@mastodon.sdf.org @sir Rick Falkvinge (founder of the Swedish Pirate Party) wrote some *excellent* articles on TorrentFreak on the topic:

https://torrentfreak.com/author/rick-falkvinge/

He points out things such as how authors and artists are technically entrepreneurs and we should question thoroughly the idea that a special class of entrepreneurs should get to free-ride off a small amount of work for the rest of their lives while no other class of entrepreneurs get to do that.

(Work is supposed to be trading something scarce, like the worker's time, for something scarce, like money. Copies of a recording are non-scarce. Performances are scarce.)