like this
timeloopedpowergamer, DaGeek247, ShaunaTheDead, magnetosphere, Oofnik, SuiXi3D and Someplaceunknown like this.
It's named "Black Land". Their southern neigbors were black. why would they call themselves something that wouldn't distinguish themselves from everyone else? It's called black land because of the distinction between "Kemet" - Black Land, the Nile valley, and "Deshret" - Red Land, the surrounding desert.
But hey, afrocentrists gonna afrocenter
like this
Dessalines likes this.
it is quite literally named the “land of the blacks” after all that is what Egypt means
Egypt is from Greek and definitely doesn't mean that. The Egyptian endonym was kmt (traditionally pronounced as kemet), which is interpreted as "black land" (km means "black", -t is a nominal suffix, so it might be translated as black-ness, not at all "quite literally land of the blacks"), most likely referring to the fertile black soil around the Nile river. Trying to interpret that as "land of the blacks" should be suspicious already due to the fact people would hardly name themselves after their most ordinary physical characteristic; the Egyptians might call themselves black only if they were surrounded by non-black people and could view that as their own special characteristic, but they certainly neighboured and had contact with black peoples. And either way one has to wonder if the ancient views of white and black skin were meaningfully comparable to modern western ones. On the other hand, the fertile black soil most certainly is a differentia specifica of the settled Egyptian land that is surrounded by a desert.
someone got their Egyptology degree from Queen Cleopatra.
Egypt was actually pretty well mixed between lower Saharan Africans, Greeks, Turks, etc. that's because Egypt was a trusted trade route between many successful economies around the Mediterranean sea.
So, what percentage of Nubian blood must Mo Salah have before he is allowed to claim a connection to Ancient Egypt? Upper or Lower?
Pseudohistory aside, one’s own cultural history is not subject to some racial blood purity tests. That’s some borderline Nazi shit.
Anyway, fuck the Brits.
Time to expand the Empire again.
Edit: "it's not an empire, it's one big country!"
Now that you mention it, wasn't it about Kleopatra?
Edit: well that dynasty lasted for 275 years, before they were incorporated into Rome: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolem…
You see, when football is mentioned online, the collective intelligence of any comment section is cut by at least 90%. This stacks with another 90% if it’s women’s football or any token LGBT acknowledgement in football. The joke is Muslim Bad.
Which is a shame. I used to make fun of le sportsball amirite until it clicked that there was immense entertainment value in these matches, which could be super tense and exciting even when an individual match doesn’t have super high stakes. There’s storylines with each of the players and managers, there’s a lot of diverging personalities among them and they all handle the same game in their own way. And unlike scripted shows, when something unexpected happens it is so much more interesting. Like the story is real in a way that scripted entertainment isn’t.
You have expressed my feelings excellently. I find football a very entertaining sport (not that I have the money to watch it, or the time / energy / social media connections to keep very up to date with it) but the fanbase can be absolutely braindead.
I mean, I love rivalries and some shithousery, but things escalate too often, too much, and too quickly.
Still, wish I knew of ways that would allow me to keep up to date with stuff without costing me a good chunk of change or a huge amount of time, or having to have a twatter account or whatnot.
like this
Dessalines likes this.
Depends if you were watching the TV and taking care of or not.
E.g.
According to a Turkish local, marble sculptures that fell were being burned to obtain lime for building, and comparison with previously published drawings documented the state of rapid decay of the remains
This is a conundrum I can't wrap my head around. One (country, usually) can have something of cultural significance, and decide what to do with that. They can make it a museum, make it generally available, forbid access at all, and even destroy it completely (e.g. see Palmyra under ISIS).
If the object in question is not protected by UNESCO (and really, even if it is) no one has a say in that. The only remotely correct argument that can be made is that destroying historical artifacts makes it hard or impossible to study history, but one can argue that we don't need to study history, it's not like this is an imperative. Another argument may be that things do not belong to those who have it, but instead to their people as inheritors of people who lived long ago, but I don't think that also helps.
And so, on one hand, I am for preserving artifacts and not destroying those, on the other hand, I don't quite see what moral ground is there for it.
Temporary custody for future generations seems like a good moral standpoint.
I can't see the moral arguments for keeping the items.
Original items should be returned, but maybe exact copies should be made first (at the whose expense I don't know).
As far, as I know, there are many cases of not returning on the ground of owners not having conditions to preserve.
But thanks for replying at least, I was hoping to see opposing opinions to try to understand what am I missing, not just 'stealing bad' downvotes
like this
Dessalines likes this.
This is reasonable, but what if the culture that created the artifacts already went extinct like Maya? Besides, we're not only talking about how it shouldn't have been done in the past, but also about what to do today with that past.
It's easy to say that everything bad of today is only because of wrongdoings of yesterday, but it is not useful and usually is only used as propaganda for something that has no justification except for the past being bad.
Edit: although, now that I think about it, coming from this viewpoint, that past is past and we should care about present, it's clear that you're right. If the culture bearer (or the inheritor, but this is grey zone for me) wants to destroy what is rightfully theirs, so be it. There is a bit of an issue with making those decisions by all eligible people, not a couple of extremists, though. Well, I think I found the contradiction that I had in me
While there can definitely be some legitimate discussion and ambiguity over which culture/country gets to inherit Mayan artifacts, for example, saying that the British, for example, should inherit it is a very weak argument. It's not like the entirety of an extinct societies people just dropped dead. Some survived and after some time rebuilt new societies. Using Mayan artifacts as an example, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras have a better claim to them then the British. It's not propaganda or useless to say that items of cultural heritage should be returned.
So how about this what about-ism, if you live in the United States, the British took cultural artifacts from your lands too and aren't giving them back right this moment. Where did you think all those native American artifacts in British museums came from? They didn't make them and it's not like North America was spared from British plundering. Might be nice to get that stuff back.
saying that the British should inherit it is a very weak argument
Yes, I am not making that argument, inheritors mush be at least somewhat related.
Although, in case you're talking about, the indigenous people's artifacts will likely end up in the country of their conquerors and oppressors, which is also a shame
Football is one of the most scripted sports ever. I mean just look at Polish league for example, le huge sponsor arrives, puts locally large sum of money into some really shit team in 3rd league which barely existed for last 80 years due to persistence of local schoolteachers and suddenly boom, in 2 seasons that club is winning country championship.
The only real sports remaining are those that do not have money in it.
Iirc it was the ~~Abbasid~~ Rashidun Caliphate that was the first Muslims to take over Egypt. The ~~1000~~ years prior or so, it'd been Roman territory (Byzantine after the fall of Western Rome, but same difference).
Edit: My memory was shakey and I appreciate the correction.
It was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate some 1400 years ago, It had been a Roman Province for I believe just under 700 years.
Egypt's first major power since the Hellenic Lagid (Ptolemaic) Dynasty was the Later Fatimid Caliphate (The Earlier one was in Tunisia). The Fatimids were a highly underrated (both by westerners, because they aren't ancient, and by us Egyptians, because they followed a different sect of Islam which most consider heretical) golden age for Egypt, they established Cairo, and along with it one of the oldest operating universities on Earth, and were probably the most tolerant state of their time, they were Shia Muslims ruling over a majority Sunni and Christian Population, but Unlike the Safavids in Persia (who forcefully converted a major portion of their population to Shiism and were much more radical than the Fatimids), they were very tolerant and most positions of power were gained out of merit, in fact, the guy who founded Cairo (and prior to that invaded the entirety of north Africa and Egypt for the Fatimid caliphate) was a random slave's son from Sicily. The cultural renaissance that occured during their period caused accelerated arabization in Egypt as more and more people started to speak Arabic since that was the language of the new cultural powerhouse of the region.
We do not talk about al Hakim.
like this
Dessalines likes this.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_con…
It was pretty quick, just 639 to 642. The western half of the Roman Empire had already collapsed and the eastern half wasn't doing much better.
The Muslims conquered land and replaced its government, they did not murder and replace their entire population. This is why countries like Somalia are filled with black people who are Muslims and not Arabs.
Mohamed Salah has Egyptian ancestry. He is not a random Arab Muslim claiming that Egypt was Arab.
Settler colonization and replacing everything with 'superior white people' is a rather modern European tradion
To colonize doesn't exclusively mean to murder and entirely replace a population.
But keep on putting everything except European conquest and colonisation into perspective, you're good at it.
like this
Dessalines likes this.
There are multiple forms of colonialism. The term settler colonialism' is relatively new.
Settler colonialism is a logic and structure of displacement by settlers, using colonial rule, over an environment for replacing it and its indigenous peoples with settlements and the society of the settlers.
Practically every example you will find is Europeans getting on a boat and killing natives. The most famous example is Manifest Destiny also known as America.
like this
Dessalines likes this.
It’s pretty fair to assume that Mo Salah’s ancestors were of that same land regardless of what religious or cultural identity they came from.
The point is that before the Arab Muslim conquest Egypt was inhabited by many different ethnic groups and was ruled by leaders of many different ethnical and cultural backgrounds.
Its just as ignorant from Mo Salah exclusively claiming this cultural heritage as it is from the Brits, period.
Its the same if I was immigrating to Paris this year and 500 years from now my family claims the creation of the Eifel Tower.
As an Egyptian the sheer ignorance of this comment is absolutely stunning.
It's impressive
like this
Dessalines likes this.
Greece is in Europe.
So is Rome, but that's a terrible example after mentioning Greece.
storylines with each of the players and managers
Maybe that’s what some people are missing! Those who think the pitch is too big, it’s too slow, goals too infrequent, whatever the common gripes are.
for news I use an arabic site called Kooora I don't know what English site is popular, using a British free VPN you can view youtube videos of highlights from their local channels, they make these highlights cuz they hold copyrights.
I'm not urging you to watch football, just that not having money isn't a reason not to do so.
like this
Dessalines likes this.
On one hand, sure, the British took a lot of things from other places when their empire spanned the globe. And, it sucks for places that had their stuff taken that it is no longer where it was.
On the other hand the British Museum is probably one of the safest places in the world for these things. The museum cares about preservation, knows how to do it, and has the funds to do it. And, while there's undoubtedly corruption in the UK, there's a very low chance that any of these things is going to disappear out of the museum and into some powerful person's private collection.
Mohamed Salah is standing in front of a statue from Egypt, which was taken from Egypt to London. But, the British didn't manage to take the Buddhas of Bamiyan from Afghanistan to London, and what happened? The Taliban blew them up. The British also didn't fully loot Iraq when they controlled that territory, which meant that in the 2003 war the museum was looted but not by people who wanted treasures for a public museum. The poorer and less politically stable a country is, the greater the chances that their cultural treasures will be stolen or destroyed.
Despite the repression and corruption, Egypt is now probably stable enough that if any of these items were returned to Egypt, they would probably be well treated and put on display for Egyptians to see. The power of the military in Egypt and the level of corruption probably means a few small items would disappear from the museum, but the most important items would make it. But, is Egypt stable enough that the museum would be safe for another 20, 40, 80 years? I have my doubts. I do think London is probably safe for that long.
Maybe it's just me, but I think the number one priority should be preserving these things for the future. Displaying them for the public should be a lower priority. If there are items like scrolls or clothing that are too delicate to even display behind a glass case, they should be stored away. I know that's how they handle things at the Smithsonian, and I assume the British Museum is the same. Because of that, my bias is that the most important cultural items should be in the care of the richest museums in the world, even if it means that they're not in the places they came from.
don't like this
Dessalines doesn't like this.
Yes. Preservation that's why it was taken. You see that statue was in imminent danger of being left there for the local people to preserve. The horror!
My favorite story about the British stealing shit is that time they stole a cultures entire written history. They had it all written on tablets and arranged in a specific order. It never occurred to them though that they should put page numbers because who would jumble them up? Who would destroy their history like that? Ah yes, the British, that's who.
But that's all in the past, and now it's the only place on earth that can preserve these things. The only place. There is no other place. No possible other home for these artifacts.
Well, as I can see the comment remind you of what happen in when "Muslim Arab" did in Iraq where, "checking notes", the US and the UK destroyed the country and move it to a civil war while stealing oil and gold, then blame them for what happen to the museum.
Then he also remind you of what "Muslim" did in Afghanistan where, "checks notes", the US and UK made sure to fund an Islamic extremist ideology to fight the Russian, then complain when they destroyed a Buddhist statue.
The same comment doesn't seems to see the irony of colonizer stealing shit, making money of it, and then finding lame excuse and ignoring that Arab and Muslim lived in these lands for over 1400 years where all these artifact survived to modern day.
Point of order, the Iraqis used a worker action to prevent the US from taking the oil.
Or more specifically, from importing American oil workers and executives to rebuild the oil fields and run them in the near term. The Iraqis had a reasonable fear that they would be squeezed out of the industry and it would return to a Western corporation just taking all the oil, as it was before 1972.
Bush actually backed off and now Iraq administers it's own oil and sells leases like most other countries. Just recently they finalized a deal with Total(France), ACWA(Saudi Arabia), QatarEnergies, and Basra Oil Company (Iraq).
So hopefully it's working out for them long term.
You mean the ISIS which appeared after America invaded Iraq, destroyed it, and backed violent rebel groups with weapons?
Must be that "Islamic extremism" again.
I mean ISIS that Israel and US funded to move Syria to a disaster, allowing them to put bases all over the country and sign deals for oil extraction on recognized Syrian border..
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collab…
However, Moshe Ya’alon, former defense minister of Israel, has stated that IS "apologized" for a clash in November 2016. Communication with IS is illegal under Israeli law, and is considered to be contact with an enemy agent.[5] IDF refused to comment further on the issue
YNWA made me think of what Muslims say about Mohammed.
This is a famous footballer Salah (YNWA)
Google is preparing to let you run Linux apps on Android, just like Chrome OS
Google is developing a Terminal app for Android that'll let you run Linux apps. It'll download and run Debian in a VM for you.
...
Engineers at Google started work on a new Terminal app for Android a couple of weeks ago. This Terminal app is part of the Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) and contains a WebView that connects to a Linux virtual machine via a local IP address, allowing you to run Linux commands from the Android host. Initially, you had to manually enable this Terminal app using a shell command and then configure the Linux VM yourself. However, in recent days, Google began work on integrating the Terminal app into Android as well as turning it into an all-in-one app for running a Linux distro in a VM.
...
Google is still working on improving the Terminal app as well as AVF before shipping this feature. AVF already supports graphics and some input options, but it’s preparing to add support for backing up and restoring snapshots, nested virtualization, and devices with an x86_64 architecture. It’s also preparing to add some settings pages to the Terminal app, which is pretty barebones right now apart from a menu to copy the IP address and stop the existing VM instance. The settings pages will let you resize the disk, configure port forwarding, and potentially recover partitions.
...
If you’re wondering why you’d want to run Linux apps on Android, then this feature is probably not for you. Google added Linux support to Chrome OS so developers with Chromebooks can run Linux apps that are useful for development. For example, Linux support on Chrome OS allows developers to run the Linux version of Android Studio, the recommended IDE for Android app development, on Chromebooks. It also lets them run Linux command line tools safely and securely in a container.
wayDroid does let you do that, in a fairly lightweight way (uses Linux namespaces iirc, similar to lxc.
It's still not full native, which would be even nicer. I play droidfish on my Linux machines using it.
It always worked for me except in some cases the 'hardware' compositor (ie the wayland side) is a bit buggy for clipboards and inputs in general. I had issues with lxc network in past but that's long ago.
I still don't understand what borked your system. Waydroid downloads the images, mounts and runs them inside lxc just like normal android. It doesn't touch your /usr or anything else. Works well in immutable os too.
I've never tried it myself, but I think you can run full Linux VMs on Pixel phones already. A quick search brings up xda-developers.com/nestbox-han…
Anyone have experience with this or similar options? Personally I've never used anything more advanced than Termux (which is lean and super cool, but not a full-blown VM).
proot. It's a weird time to be alive.
IIRC, Android has always had native support for keyboards and mice. I remember connecting a bluetooth mouse to my old Nexus 4 running...Android 4, maybe 5? It worked out of the box. Saved my butt when the touch screen broke. :)
Can't say I've tried this in recent years but I think it still works, yeah?
Chroot/docker will use a more practical way to run Linux, as Android is just a Linux distro, why bother with running a whole another kernel!
A reasonable build of the kernel optimized for virtualization won't take more than a few tens of megabytes of RAM (and it will have support for memory ballooning, so the virtualized kernel will give the memory it doesn't need back to the host), and the userspace will need to be separate anyway due to how different Android is to normal Linux distros.
Containers are nice when you want to run dozens of separate services on the same server or want to get the benefits of infrastructure as code, but in this case they would provide minimal benefits at the cost of having no way of loading any kernel modules not built into whatever ancient kernel version your SoC manufacturer decided you have to use on your phone. Also, container escape vulnerabilities are still a bit more common than full VM escape, so this is also good for security on top of being more useful.
android just uses the kernel
Yes and the kernel's name is "Linux". No other software is named "Linux". Ask Linus Torvalds if you don't believe me.
winlator can run windows apps on android
Hey that sounds neat!
uses ubuntu as a base
Oh no...
MIT license
oh no
Have to install from github/no F-Droid build
oh no
So, I'm not that great with Linux. I know the basics, that's it.
Is it user friendly? I mainly want Linux with Android app support because I hate Google.
I've used windows my entitle life. Now windows 11 upgrade was done without consent, now they are doing their best to make it even worse then it already was. I would love to switch to Linux, it's just that I'm using some apps which do not exist for Linux yet. Next to that I'm not that comfortable with the Linux mechanics to make the switch on my main PC. As in: Like I know what I'm doing on the machine which I use a big part of my time. I need full control. I know I have it with Linux, I just don't know how. And I feel stupid for it.
The moral of my story is: I'm scared to make a switch from something I'm so familiar with for years and years to something new, even though I hate the corporations behind the stuff I use.
You can test Linux out by using a live USB instance or in a VM. You can also dual boot so you'll always have Windows available if you need it.
You can also install WSL on Windows or something like Git Bash or MSYS2 to get a Linux-y environment on Windows.
Looks like Google is calling it Play Integrity these days: developer.android.com/privacy-…
But it's this: developer.android.com/google/p…
It's an API that ensures you're running apps on the hardware and Android ROMs Google approves of. It can also ensure that apps are not running on rooted phones.
Developers can integrate it into their apps. Banking apps do it, for example, and won't run in Waydroid as a result. More and more apps integrate it over time.
like this
MaiteRosalie likes this.
Its not the "Linux OS" that we want, but it is Linux, it runs the Linux kernel, so does chromeOS.
Be cleat about what you want.
What you call "Linux OS" is actually GNU/Linux, or as I've taken to calling it lately, GNU + Linux.
Winlator is really just termux + proot + box64 + wine wrapped in a neat UI (+ controller support). You can, and people have set this up manually before winlator came along. You'll either need termux-x11 or vnc for the GUI.
Mobox is a similar project that does this automatically via a script... but I don't see a license in their github repo, plus they require the proprietary input bridge for touch controls.
Unless there is a x86 to ARM translation layer on Linux that I’m not aware of?
It appears Valve is working on Proton for arm64, I was wondering if this is to attend the mobile market, a new Index or maybe a smaller Steam Deck.
Steam requires it to be installed in an x86 environment, whether natively, or through emulation (and most x86 emulation has significant overhead and imperfections)
But java applications should run natively if you supply an appropriate build of java. I have an arm VPS that I've hosted several Minecraft servers on without any problems (other than those I created myself) and I also learned by accident that Microsoft's builds of OpenJDK actually work for (at least some) Minecraft versions that they aren't supposed to, so I have to wonder if that's a happy accident or intentional work by Microsoft
Why would you want to toggle air plane mode with Termux? That's doesn't make sense.
I see your point though. I misunderstood
Why would you want to toggle air plane mode with Termux? That’s doesn’t make sense.
You would think of some reasons if you tried very hard. The point is that it's my device and I shouldn't have to beg permission.
Chroot = change root, and needs root to do so. Doing anything as root is insecure. escaping a chroot really isn't all that hard. The second you elevate privledges, you need extra steps to to become secure. Chroot almost never involves any of these steps (though there is some selinux stuff you could do.)
This is an old example, but still a valid one github.com/earthquake/chw00t
there’s more to an operating system that a program needs other than the kernel(?)
Yes, and the other parts have other names, like the toolkit GTK or the C standard library glibc and all those things make up a Linux distribution, like Fedora.
Android userland is vastly different from 'linux' ie desktop linux people are used to. While there exists unshare/proot based containers (termux is an example) it might not be suitable for privileged features of kernel except for rooted devices.
Chromeos is much closer to desktop linux (init being upstart not systemd afaik) but still the 'linux' apps run inside crosvm to keep the locked down nature of the os intact.
chromeos yeah it makes sense aswell its linux with google spyware i seen some distros use sysvinit and runit instead of systemd (aka systemd-free distros)
correct, or rather more specifically virtio-wl is a serialization protocol for wayland. You need a specific compositor that implements virtio-wl see github.com/talex5/wayland-prox… and chromium.googlesource.com/chro…
The ideal thing I would like to see is each application working as it's own window, This should be possible with A12 since they allowed multiple app instances. Though multiple app windows introduced in I think A9 would also be usable for this.
U.N. inquiry accuses Israel of crime of 'extermination' in Gaza
A United Nations inquiry said Thursday it found Israel carried out a concerted policy of destroying Gaza's health care system in the Gaza war, actions amounting to both war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.
"Children, in particular, have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system," said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the U.N. General Assembly on Oct. 30.
Israel says that Gaza's militants operate from the cover of built-up populated areas including private homes, schools and hospitals and that it will strike them wherever they emerge, while also trying to avoid harming civilians.
Hamas denies hiding militants, weapons and command posts among civilians.
like this
frustrated_phagocytosis, aramis87 and Lasslinthar like this.
like this
LPS likes this.
"Israel says that Gaza's militants operate from the cover of built-up populated areas including private homes, schools and hospitals and that it will strike them wherever they emerge, while also trying to avoid harming civilians."
This claim is beyond ridiculous, this is exactly what Israel does with their settlements, which ARE the front line of their land grabs.
World News reshared this.
I made a post (mod removed) suggesting a campaign of posting the exact warnings and literature used by Israel on Israeli owned/properties/businesses/temples, etc.
Known terrorist command and control centre - evacuate now.
This post will probably be removed by the same mod.
Installing Linux Like It's 1999
How long has been your Linux journey?
Mine began while I was studying computer science, and I've been in love with Linux since.
Installing Linux Like It's 1999
https://www.pcbway.com - PCB fabrication, assembly, 3D printing, CNC machining & more! Red Hat Linux 6.1 was released in October 1999, 25 years ago this month! So let's install it out on period...MakerTube
like this
originalucifer, IHeartBadCode and ShaunaTheDead like this.
reshared this
Tech Cyborg reshared this.
is there a website with all the redhat box art of that time.
I remember having this box or another similar.
The .1 is very memorable.
like this
timlyo likes this.
like this
timlyo likes this.
Oh yeah. Ubuntu really simplified everything.
My first distro on my own PC was Mandrake. I don't know how many times I had to reinstall it because of my fuckups.
Two years later I was compiling my own kernel with the source code of special modules that I had downloaded for my NVidia card that had composite video input.
I've never had to compile a kernel since Ubuntu. I completely forgot to be honest.
like this
timlyo likes this.
I bought a copy of Corel Linux in 2001 at a USAF base exchange because I was a broke airman and was building my first homebuilt PC and didn't want to shell out money for Windows, and I didn't have Internet to pirate it in the dorms (this was the days of no wifi and pay as you go Internet cafes). I thought it'd be JUST like Windows, and I could get shit done, and the differences were just like those between Mac/PC. Just a different interface.
Boy was I wrong. It sucked balls. I didn't pick up Linux again until Ubuntu in 2006. Now I daily drive Debian. Oh well, at least it came with an inflatable penguin.
like this
themadcodger likes this.
I think in 2001 I was making a Linux from scratch system having not gotten enough from red hat and Debian with home configured and compiled kernels
Fun times and no, nothing like the commercial home operating systems back then
I just picked these up today
2005 here I come
like this
timlyo likes this.
What COM Port is your mouse on?
That question got me. SO glad we got past setting IRQs and setting up modems and dip switches and all that.
RH 6.1 is EOL thus should not be used. I would recommend Debian 12
/s
Heh, that box and version of Redhat was the first I tried Linux, as well as the same year - 1999 Cost me $110 brand new from a local stationary shop. Which was a lot for a poor student!
Sadly didn't last long as I just couldn't get everything done in Linux as I could in Windows. And this was despite studying computing at the time.
Oh well 15 years later I tried again (Mint then Arch) and haven't gone back to Windows since. 🎉
In the 90s during the first "mild hype", I had Suse for quite a while, twice. Same problem with unavailable software though, I remember PGP Disc not being available back then. I remember the cool kids talking about Red Hat and Debian, you must have been one of them.
Probably going back now, since my 2011 hardware won't work with Windows 11.
I started with a book about Red Hat 5.x that included a cd with the OS.
I generally went back to Windows after a while (except i did run a server on an old pc for quite a while), but tried I again every few years.
I always liked the idea of Linux, but gaming kept making me go back to Windows. Early last year I tried installing EndeavourOS alongside windows and have stuck with it since. My new PC that I got later that same year has never seen windows.
I'm loving it, and don't foresee a return to Windows.
Oh man same!
2000s, with permission from the HS computer teacher, I was installing Red Hat on a few computers. It was ROUGH. Like, yeah we got it to show a desktop, but it was a nightmare to use anything but the basic applications. Windows just worked and after a few months, went back to that.
Only during the pandemic did I finally go Linux. Started with ElementaryOS (highly recommend for old people) and went through a dozen other flavors. What really pushed me to expert level was setting up Linux servers.
I no longer code on a Windows machine (unless I have to), and absolutely would recommend Linux to any end user. And now with Steam Deck/SteamOS, it's only getting better. My gaming computer is still Windows, but I'm going to let it sunset. I barely use it except to play high-spec games that aren't on Steam Deck. But that's getting rarer and rarer.
It's been fun. I've had it for a few months and I love it. Currently trying to figure out why my PDFs get corrupted and how to fix it - I'm pretty sure it has to do with signatures but not completely sure. The other thing is that I was having trouble figuring out how to hibernate my computer, so it was sleeping all the time (except when off or in use), but then one day it just started hibernating. Not sure how that happened.
I chose Fedora with the KDE desktop and it's great. I'm not entirely sure I understand the differences in the desktop choices but it works for me for now.
I'm trying to get my partner to switch but they're worried about it not being compatible with/not being able to find suitable replacements for certain Windows software used for work. So basically I just need to get better with Linux before they switch lol
Years later, I switched to Linux due to a problem with Windows on my old laptop. I didn't regret it.
Way back in the day (say 1990) I used the Commodore Amiga platform, loved it, made me want to become a developer. It also already back then instilled a hatred for Microsoft in me.
Then windows 95 happened, the Amiga platform pretty much died, and I reluctantly switched to using Microsoft windows. For years I gave it a chance, I really did! I hated pretty much everything about it, except total Commander and Irfan view
Somewhere in 99 i bought a mini home server, and a friend of mine installed Slackware. I managed to break it within days and thought Linux was just too hard.
Then in 2001 or so I started working with a Redhat server, I believe first over telnet, then SSH and I started learning about the command line and loved it. I leaned compiling which was a bit of a drag to have to always do, but then I learned about packages and very shortly after that, package managers (yum was the first, I believe) and fell in love.
Then in 2002, I believe, I saw either fedora or Redhat desktops and learned about dual installations. I installed fedoara next to my windows install so that o could try it and work with the familiar windows, but I loved it so much that I quite literally never looked back. 3 months later I deleted my windows partition.
2004, I think, I switched to Ubuntu with KDE which later became Kubuntu.
I worked on a Linux desktop machine that allowed on 1 gigabyte Celeron CPU computer with one internal graphics and 4 graphics cards, usb splitters and usb Audio, keyboards, and mice, 5 users to work with KDE on that single computer. Novus, it was called. The project was a technical success and a huge commercial failure and since it was with an external investor, we weren't allowed to make it open source, unfortunately.
I started working in a large data center in Latin America in around 2007, I believe, as a senior Linux administrator for 4 years, had a lot of laughs at the expense of the windows team, seeing how clunky and work intense their windows servers were in comparison with my Linux servers.
Some four-five years later I started my own software development company, all Linux only. Everyone, including the devs, secretaries, sales, all worked on Linux machines. I transferred ownership someone else, and the company still persists.
But I've been on Linux desktop only for well over 20 years now, still using Kubuntu or sometimes KDE neon or mint, but I'm "old" and much less interested in experimenting, I need a stable dependable desktop but I love the bling like KDE 3D desktop to show off to windows users to get them over to the dark side, we got cookies.
LLMs don’t do formal reasoning - and that is a HUGE problem
LLMs don’t do formal reasoning - and that is a HUGE problem
Important new study from AppleGary Marcus (Marcus on AI)
like this
originalucifer and Hoohoo like this.
Gary Marcus should be disregarded because he's emotionally invested in The Bitter Lesson being wrong. He really wants LLMs to not be as good as they already are. He'll find some interesting research about "here's a limitation that we found" and turn that into "LLMS BTFO IT'S SO OVER".
The research is interesting for helping improve LLMs, but that's the extent of it. I would not be worried about the limitations the paper found for a number of reasons:
- There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that there's a ceiling on scaling up
- LLM's reasoning abilities improve with scale (notice that the example they use for kiwis they included the answers from
o1-miniandllama3-8B, which are much smaller models with much more limited capabilities. GPT-4o got the problem correct when I tested it, without any special prompting techniques or anything) - Techniques such as RAG and Chain of Thought help immensely on many problems
- Basic prompting techniques help, like "Make sure you evaluate the question to ignore extraneous information, and make sure it's not a trick question"
- LLMs are smart enough to use tools. They can go "Hey, this looks like a math problem, I'll use a calculator", just like a human would
- There's a lot of research happening very quickly here. For example, LLMs improve at math when you use a different tokenization method, because it changes how the model "sees" the problem
Until we hit a wall and really can't find a way around it for several years, this sort of research falls into the "huh, interesting" territory for anybody that isn't a researcher.
like this
SaltySalamander likes this.
Actually we do know that there are diminishing returns from scaling already. Furthermore, I would argue that there are inherent limits in simply using correlations in text as the basis for the model. Human reasoning isn't primarily based on language, we create an internal model of the world that acts as a shared context. The language is rooted in that model and that's what allows us to communicate effectively and understand the actual meaning behind words. Skipping that step leads to the problems we're seeing with LLMs.
That said, I agree they are a tool, and they obviously have uses. I just think that they're going to be a part of a bigger tool set going forward. Right now there's an incredible amount of hype associated with LLMs. Once the hype settles we'll know what use cases are most appropriate for them.
The whole "it's just autocomplete" is just a comforting mantra. A sufficiently advanced autocomplete is indistinguishable from intelligence. LLMs provably have a world model, just like humans do. They build that model by experiencing the universe via the medium of human-generated text, which is much more limited than human sensory input, but has allowed for some very surprising behavior already.
We're not seeing diminishing returns yet, and in fact we're going to see some interesting stuff happen as we start hooking up sensors and cameras as direct input, instead of these models building their world model indirectly through purely text. Let's see what happens in 5 years or so before saying that there's any diminishing returns.
I'm saying that the medium of text is not a good way to create a world model, and the problems LLMs have stem directly from people trying to do that. Just because autocomplete produces results that look fancy doesn't make it actually meaningful. These things are great for scenarios where you just want to produce something aesthetically pleasing like an image or generate some text. However, this quickly falls apart when it comes to problems where there is a specific correct answer.
Furthermore, there is plenty of progress being made with DNNs and CNNs using embodiment which looks to be far more promising than LLMs in actually producing machines that can interact with the world meaningfully. This idea that GPT is some holy grail of AI seems rather misguided to me. It's a useful tool, but there are plenty of other approaches being explored, and it's most likely that future systems will use a combination of these techniques.
like this
SaltySalamander likes this.
I think it is a problem. Maybe not for people like us, that understand the concept and its limitations, but "formal reasoning" is exactly how this technology is being pitched to the masses. "Take a picture of your homework and OpenAI will solve it", "have it reply to your emails", "have it write code for you". All reasoning-heavy tasks.
On top of that, Google/Bing have it answering user questions directly, it's commonly pitched as a "tutor", or an "assistant", the OpenAI API is being shoved everywhere under the sun for anything you can imagine for all kinds of tasks, and nobody is attempting to clarify it's weaknesses in their marketing.
As it becomes more and more common, more and more users who don't understand it's fundamentally incapable of reliably doing these things will crop up.
like this
missingno likes this.
like this
missingno likes this.
Adam Tooze: Bidenomics is Maga for thinking people.
Facing war in the Middle East and Ukraine, the US looks feeble. But is it just an act?
The idea that all Biden is doing to trying to avoid a third world war isn’t convincing. Look closely and his foreign policy has been as radical as Trump’s, says history professor Adam ToozeAdam Tooze (The Guardian)
Until then, you know, you just have to be true to yourself because, if you're not being true to yourself, you'll be living a lie.
In the end you've just got to remember that it is what is and you've got to what you've got to do. You gotta do your thing you, know?
So just be you but a you that's true to yourself while going with the flow and bossing it your way, all the way.
Most of all, be lucky.
Future antiquities researchers
like this
SuiXi3D and ShaunaTheDead like this.
Despite Chrystia Freeland’s denials, her grandfather was complicit in the Nazi genocide
Despite Chrystia Freeland’s denials, her grandfather was complicit in the Nazi genocide ⋆ The Breach
A new book provides the most authoritative study of Mykhailo Chomiak and the history of Ukrainian Nazis in CanadaPeter McFarlane (The Breach)
3 New Wayland Protocols about to drop (commit & presentation timing) - Needed for 3rd Protocol (FIFO)
wayland/wayland-protocols!248
Needs 2 Acks + Review
wayland/wayland-protocols!320
Just got Completed:
wayland/wayland-protocols!256
FIFO Just got completed too.
like this
ShaunaTheDead likes this.
- NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
- The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
- Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU
- US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup
- Former German Chancellor Merkel Admits that Minsk Peace Agreements Were Part of Scheme for Ukraine to Buy Time to Prepare for War With Russia
- Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreements
- The West’s Sabotage of Peace in Ukraine In May of [2022] Ukrainian media reported that then-British prime minister Boris Johnson had flown to Kiev the previous month to pass on the message on behalf of the western empire that “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”
- History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
- BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
- Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
- The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
- The Guardian, 2017: 'I want to bring up a warrior': Ukraine's far-right children's camp – video
- WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
- Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
- The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
- Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
- Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
- Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
- The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World
- CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
- Noam Chomsky, 2023:
- Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism
A ‘dark period’ of repression: Jordanian authorities arrest thousands in year since October 7
A ‘dark period’ of repression: Jordanian authorities arrest thousands in year since October 7
Jordan has witnessed increasing popular protests expressing solidarity with Gaza and demanding an end to normalization with Israel. The Jordanian government has responded with an unprecedented crackdown on protests and free expression.Synne Furnes Bjerkestrand (Mondoweiss)
TC_209 [he/him, pup/pup's]
in reply to lousyd • • •DeathbringerThoctar
in reply to lousyd • • •v_krishna
in reply to lousyd • • •PapaStevesy
in reply to v_krishna • • •evidences
in reply to lousyd • • •DeathbringerThoctar
in reply to evidences • • •davel
in reply to evidences • • •- Newly Declassified Document Indicates FBI Misled Congress on Reliability of Steele Dossier
- FEC fines Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC over Trump-Russia dossier research