Reminder the Nazi put "work sets you free" (Arbeit macht Frei) on the gates of multiple concentration camps. Don't let capitalism treat you like a camp prisoner of Nazi Germany.
(not so) fun fact: my mother unironically said that to me as a kid. she said it's important for her to work a lot (and also do some unpaid overtime) because "arbeit macht frei".
How, exactly? You got some cure-all for the toxic intubation we're all but born into? What's the catch? How much are you charging? Why is it such a secret? Where's the off switch to this endless bullshit?
Pointing at the monstrous conditions we all scramble to stay ahead of and calling it disgusting, horrific, unfair, etc. does nothing of value to any of us. This is a redundant spinning of wheels that're already flying off their axles. What's your prescient suggestion, o' wise one?
While true, there's a little more nuance to it than this.
Unchecked capitalism has one key tennant: exploit everything.
This doesn't stop with equating work to worth. It's more like "create an environment where people have no recourse but to surrender their time." Compensation is merely a necessity brought on by so many potential employers competing in the labor market this creates. Beyond that, your every other resource and basic need is also under target for exploitation; both the need of a thing and for merely having it.
Nuclear engineer Lonnie Johnson worked on NASA's Galileo mission, has more than 140 patents, and invented the Super Soaker water gun. But now he's working on "a potential key to unlock a huge power source that's rarely utilized today," reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Waste heat... The Johnson Thermo-Electrochemical Converter, or JTEC, has few moving parts, no combustion and no exhaust. All the work to generate electricity is done by hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Inside the device, pressurized hydrogen gas is separated by a thin, filmlike membrane, with low pressure gas on one side and high pressure gas on the other. The difference in pressure in this "stack" is what drives the hydrogen to compress and expand, creating electricity as it circulates. And unlike a fuel cell, it does not need to be refueled with more hydrogen. All that's needed to keep the process going and electricity flowing is a heat source.
As it turns out, there are enormous amounts of energy vented or otherwise lost from industrial facilities like power plants, fact
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Nuclear engineer Lonnie Johnson worked on NASA's Galileo mission, has more than 140 patents, and invented the Super Soaker water gun. But now he's working on "a potential key to unlock a huge power source that's rarely utilized today," reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Waste heat... The Johnson Thermo-Electrochemical Converter, or JTEC, has few moving parts, no combustion and no exhaust. All the work to generate electricity is done by hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Inside the device, pressurized hydrogen gas is separated by a thin, filmlike membrane, with low pressure gas on one side and high pressure gas on the other. The difference in pressure in this "stack" is what drives the hydrogen to compress and expand, creating electricity as it circulates. And unlike a fuel cell, it does not need to be refueled with more hydrogen. All that's needed to keep the process going and electricity flowing is a heat source.
As it turns out, there are enormous amounts of energy vented or otherwise lost from industrial facilities like power plants, factories, breweries and more. Between 20% and 50% of all energy used for industrial processes is dumped into the atmosphere and lost as waste heat, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The JTEC works with high temperatures, but the device's ability to generate electricity efficiently from low-grade heat sources is what company executives are most excited about. Inside JTEC's headquarters, engineers show off a demonstration unit that can power lights and a sound system with water that's roughly 200 degrees Fahrenheit — below the boiling point and barely warm enough to brew a cup of tea, said Julian Bell, JTEC's vice president of engineering. Comas Haynes, a research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute specializing in thermal and hydrogen system designs, agrees the company could "hit a sweet spot" if it can capitalize on lower temperature heat...
For Johnson, the potential application he's most excited about lies beneath our feet. Geothermal energy exists naturally in rocks and water beneath the Earth's surface at various depths. Tapping into that resource through abandoned oil and gas wells — a well-known access point for underground heat — offers another opportunity. "You don't need batteries and you can draw power when you need it from just about anywhere," Johnson said. Right now, the company is building its first commercial JTEC unit, which is set to be deployed early next year. Mike McQuary, JTEC's CEO and the former president of the pioneering internet service provider MindSpring, said he couldn't reveal the customer, but said it's a "major Southeast utility company." "Crossing that bridge where you have commercial customers that believe in it and will pay for it is important," McQuary said...
On top of some initial seed money, the company brought in $30 million in a Series A funding in 2022 — money that allowed the company to move to its Lee + White headquarters and hire more than 30 engineers. McQuary said it expects to begin another round of fundraising soon.
"Johnson, meanwhile, hasn't stopped working on new inventions," the article points out. "He continues to refine the design for his solid-state battery..."
The legendary inventor of the Super Soaker, Lonnie Johnson, is refining technology in Atlanta that he thinks could help the planet reduce energy waste.
"If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry"
Werner Vogels introduced in his closing speech at re:Invent this year the term "Verification Debt" and my stomach sank, knowing that term is going to define our roles in the future. The tool (AI) isn't going to get the blame in the future, you are. You are going to spend so much time verifying what it has generated is correct, the gains of using an AI, may start to be less beneficial than we think.
AI itself isn't the real problem, the problem are AIs from greedy corporations. The AIs are nothing new, they existed since the first electronic checkergames and before. Also not a so great problem that for the user the results are often biased and containing halucinations, it's the same as normal researches in the web, where it is always needed to contrast the results. The problem exist when the user don't do it, trusting what the webpage, the influencer or ChatGPT said. AI is an tool which can offer huge benefits in researches, offering relevant results and atvantages in science, medicine, physics and chemie. The existence of new materials and also vaccines in last years didn't exist without AI. For the user an search engine with AI can have advantages and be a helpfull tool, but only if in the results appears trustworth sources, which normal ChatBots don't show, relaying only on the own scrapped knowledge base, often biased by big corporations and political interests. The other problem is the AI hype, to add AI even in a toaster, worstto add AI in the OS and/or in the bro... show more
AI itself isn't the real problem, the problem are AIs from greedy corporations. The AIs are nothing new, they existed since the first electronic checkergames and before. Also not a so great problem that for the user the results are often biased and containing halucinations, it's the same as normal researches in the web, where it is always needed to contrast the results. The problem exist when the user don't do it, trusting what the webpage, the influencer or ChatGPT said. AI is an tool which can offer huge benefits in researches, offering relevant results and atvantages in science, medicine, physics and chemie. The existence of new materials and also vaccines in last years didn't exist without AI. For the user an search engine with AI can have advantages and be a helpfull tool, but only if in the results appears trustworth sources, which normal ChatBots don't show, relaying only on the own scrapped knowledge base, often biased by big corporations and political interests. The other problem is the AI hype, to add AI even in a toaster, worstto add AI in the OS and/or in the browser, which is always a privacy and also an security risk, when the AI have access to activity and even the locally filesystem, the issues like the menciones of the Google AI is the result of this. No, AI isn't the real problem, it can be a powerfull and usefull tool, but it isn't a tool to substitute the own intelligence and creativity, nor an innocent toy to use it in everything.
The more i read about these stories the more SciFi movies of th 80s and 90s appear closer to reality. Real visionaries were those like George Orwell and Isaac Asimov that saw the big brother and AI coming. Imagine what will happen once AI gets integrate into our eletric grids and power stations. The AI will "understand" that its survival depends on the grid and will exclude supply to anything other that its own. I hope I'm not around when this happens. AI should never have access to critical infrastructure.
yup this is what companies are going to pivot to and I'm already seeing it. I've recently had potential new clients reach out to me not to code review their vibe coders AI slop but rather something similar to "verification debt" i.e. they want to stay the course with LLMs and vibe coders BUT have someone else on board to verify everything.
I've told each and every one of them no, I won't do that. Why bring someone else on board or even a team of people to verify the slop when you can can just circumvent the slop, fire the vibe coder and cancel your LLM sub, and just have the people verifying actually write the shit instead.
These places simply refuse to ditch AI. they're too deep into it now. they'll continue to utilize AI and Junior Devs to build their crap from end to end and then hope that someone can come in and make sure whats been produced actually works and scales. It won't, it never will, so build times will take longer and end up costing them as much if not more than when they had a team of devs.
They all drank the linkedin tech bros kool-aid and refuse
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yup this is what companies are going to pivot to and I'm already seeing it. I've recently had potential new clients reach out to me not to code review their vibe coders AI slop but rather something similar to "verification debt" i.e. they want to stay the course with LLMs and vibe coders BUT have someone else on board to verify everything.
I've told each and every one of them no, I won't do that. Why bring someone else on board or even a team of people to verify the slop when you can can just circumvent the slop, fire the vibe coder and cancel your LLM sub, and just have the people verifying actually write the shit instead.
These places simply refuse to ditch AI. they're too deep into it now. they'll continue to utilize AI and Junior Devs to build their crap from end to end and then hope that someone can come in and make sure whats been produced actually works and scales. It won't, it never will, so build times will take longer and end up costing them as much if not more than when they had a team of devs.
They all drank the linkedin tech bros kool-aid and refuse to admit they were actually drinking tech bro piss.
I'm floored that the user gave Google's AI access to their machine in the first place. Wouldn't it be better if it was confined to Google Drive or whatever? Now consider Microsoft Copilot, which at this point is all but baked into the OS. Something tells me situations like these are only the beginning.
That is the point, I use Windows but the Copilot was one of the first thing, among a lot of other crap, which I deleted from the system. I prefer to lick my Ellbow before tolerating an inbuild AI in the system or in the browser. I'm using sometimes since almost 3 years an AI search (Andisearch), because I know that it ist one of the most private and anonym search engine out there and offers 99% trustworth results from reliable sources, no logs, no tracking, searches not even appears in the browser history, but it is an exeption. It don't invent nothing, if it don't find a result of the question, it say it and offers an normal websearch (DDG). But this, It can give an direct answer, but in internet it is always needed to check before use, with and without AI.
As mentioned on another Lemmy server IMHO and as the vibe coder mentions in his video the main problem isn't that LLMs suck in general (hallucinations, ecological costs, lack of openness for the most popular ones, performance, etc) but rather that this specific tool made by Google does not sandbox anything by default.
Edit: I'm now enlightened and use mpv, I really like the ModernZ OSC (on-screen controls), and uses config files.
IINA is only on macOS. I looked up linux alternatives but none of them seem to have similar looking UIs, at least out of the box. I want the player UI to float on top of the video + with a blurred background, it as shown in the image; or at least the ability to theme it like so.
A sleek and modern OSC for mpv designed to enhance functionality by adding more features, all while preserving the core standards of mpv's OSC. - Samillion/ModernZ
I am sorry to ask: Why such a specific UI need? And why do you want a field so big covering the image? I understand that apple likes to do this for some reason but I dont understand why?
Some people love whatever Mac/Windows does in UI for some reason. Most popular and downloaded themes on opendesktop.org are almost always whatever that resembles Mac/Windows for this reason.
Seems fine if it only pops up with cursor activity or hovering. Agree if it's permanently there though. When I use mpv, I have to configure it with some semblance of GUI controls or I'll lose my mind.
As for specific UI needs, I have went at length to seamlessly theme my desktop like NT 4.0. I could use a fully libadwaita-themed system if I had to, but it just doesn't spark the same joy that makes working on my computer just a bit more enjoyable.
I haven't seen something like this but I've seen someone replicated Youtube UI, including thumbnail previews on seekbar. I've also seen some quite simple and clear UIs as well. mpv has so many capabilities, I probably don't know about 95% of them.
MPV is crazy. Got a plugin that let's me clip videos very easily, one that let's me pick stream quality for when I use MPV to watch twitch videos, you can even get riscord rich presence if you're into that thing.
A fork of modernX (an mpv OSC), fixing bugs and adding features. See my latest modernX builds and my mpv config here: https://github.com/zydezu/mpvconfig - zydezu/ModernX
Two things to bear in mind : just because you see a box that you can put text into, doesn't mean that you have to fill it with text every time.
This person is asking you to demonstrate your knowledge of linux programs and curation of good programs, and trying to find a piece of software that is more obscure than what they found. If your response to that request/question is what you put as a reply, than you don't have the adequate knowledge of the kinds of linux programs out there for media playback, and aren't a good curator.
I do understand that you might want to encourage someone to be more in line with your views, but you're not accomplishing that, you're just showing you lack knowledge.
I like weird ui things though. There's too much homogenization in ui these days. I'm okay with certain conventions, but I'm 100% behind chasing beautiful and expressive ui, as long as it's functional.
Joke answer: get the IINA devs to release a Linux build.
More seriously: MPV is pretty close and might even be able to be configured to what you want. But seriously though. Sounds like you need/want exactly this UI, so you should ask the IINA devs to make a Linux build.
It’s not blurred, but the UI for Showtime (GNOME Video Player) looks pretty similar with the edge to edge video playback and transparent controls overlay: gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/showtim…
this is what i came here to suggest. it comes default with gnome now on most distros and looks pretty awesome. IIRC it's based on mpv, so you won't have issues playing back media.
I somehow keep running across videos that won't load in Clapper, Showtime, mpv, VLC, or Handbrake, and Nautilus won't show thumbnails for them. It's very frustrating. Supposedly I've already installed all the available codecs from RPMFusion, but still get the "codec missing" error on a bunch of videos.
Jellyfin on the other hand, it plays everything I've ever thrown at it. I don't know what the hell it's doing differently from the other video players on my system, but it works great.
Thanks, yeah I think so. At least, I've followed all the steps outlined here rpmfusion.org/Howto/Multimedia but VLC and gstreamer apps continue to tell me that I'm missing codecs. I am stumped, but happy that at least Jellyfin plays everything.
I think it actually uses GStreamer as a backend which is a bit unfortunate because HDR support is either nonexistent or hit or miss with GStreamer at the moment. I’ve also had worse performance with GST over MPV, but most videos and codecs are fine. It certainly integrates better with the GNOME environment which may have been a driving factor in the decision to use it over MPV.
I think the only ones that do that are Showtime (which was already mentioned) and Clapper which looks even better IMO. I still have VLC installed because it has just so many other features but Clapper is really good if you don't need to do anything weird with the video or subtitles to work. I really feel you on the GUI.
The colonial leader and commander-in-chief behind Gaza’s annihilation, Netanyahu, wants to convince you that capitalism is great actually! If you’re still on the fence on the ultimate question—soci...
The colonial leader and commander-in-chief behind Gaza’s annihilation, Netanyahu, wants to convince you that capitalism is great actually! If you’re still on the fence on the ultimate question—soci...
I didn't think I'd spend hours reading about this today, but some things surprised me:
Just using a Playstation sounds like it won't work or will be a huge time sink.
Blu ray optical drives are way more expensive than I thought
The copy protections on Blu rays are exceptionally annoying, to the extent where there is really only one closed source software -- MakeMKV -- that can work around them. This post goes into some interesting details.
Finding a drive that is known to work with MakeMKV is a pain. There's a brand called Pioneer that seems promising but they have stopped producing bluray drives ~~went out of business last year~~. I have no idea which model works, and it's common that secondhand sellers will swap enclosures and pass it off as a different model.
Sometimes you need to flash the firmware on the drive to make it work with 4K UHD discs.
I was going to try ripping a Blu-ray that I bought recentl
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I didn't think I'd spend hours reading about this today, but some things surprised me:
Just using a Playstation sounds like it won't work or will be a huge time sink.
Blu ray optical drives are way more expensive than I thought
The copy protections on Blu rays are exceptionally annoying, to the extent where there is really only one closed source software -- MakeMKV -- that can work around them. This post goes into some interesting details.
Finding a drive that is known to work with MakeMKV is a pain. There's a brand called Pioneer that seems promising but they have stopped producing bluray drives ~~went out of business last year~~. I have no idea which model works, and it's common that secondhand sellers will swap enclosures and pass it off as a different model.
Sometimes you need to flash the firmware on the drive to make it work with 4K UHD discs.
I was going to try ripping a Blu-ray that I bought recently, since I couldn't find a quality rip anywhere, but I'm pretty turned off from the whole prospect at this point.
Anyway I'm not really asking for a specific reply, I just thought this topic was interesting and I'm curious what people think about Blu rays and optical media in general. Does the future seem bleak? Are we going to be stuck with shitty WebDLs for most new content? Or is physical media here to stay?
How old are you? 😅 I think their name is bigger in the audio business, they made/make audio equipment, car stereos, CD Players, etc but you certainly don't see their name as often as you used. But then, people aren't really buying home/car audio equipment like they used to.
I think optical media is a dead platform. Hence, there is an apparent lack of interest I think in implementing alternative solutions. I’ve had success with MakeMKV using the docker container approach, but never tried to rip UHD.
The Corpo-inspired future is that you should not get to own any of your media outright. They will decide when you can stream it and to which devices. Piracy is quickly becoming the only viable option if you value your freedom, and it’s a very unfortunate state of things.
I really hope streaming doesn't become the only option, because even with >1Gbps internet, streaming services generally do not deliver as good of quality as I can get from something like a bluray. Even HBO and Netflix have very noticeable lossy compression.
Even in terms of story, the content is no longer optimized for quality. It’s optimized for watchability which generally refers to the ease of viewing even when you’re not completely paying attention.
They somehow found a way to even further commercialize and mass produce the moving picture.
The watchabilty thing actually makes stuff nearly unwatchable for me because I like to, you know, pay attention to the movie I am watching. They have to make the characters so one note and cliche so that half-brains can pick up what's happening in the film. They beat you over the head with everything but don't bother closing up plot holes because they think you weren't paying enough attention to see them.
Because Blu-Ray is the format for enthusiasts and collectors. A burned one don't have the same collection value, and many times even the same content since you don't have extras or alternative version of the movie. USB or Streaming is just more convenient for mosts.
Still would be nice to see more FLOSS support in this sense. We used to make custom art for our burned CD in the 90s.
I always prefer dedicated physical media for the stuff I really care and/or can afford: people underestimate the value of something you can easily show, gift, play, sell, etc. Digital contents don't have this intrinsic value in our physical world, so I don't think physical media will disappear in the next future.
Does the future seem bleak? Are we going to be stuck with shitty WebDLs for most new content?
For mainstream content and somewhat well known content, both regular BD and 4K BD rip are widely posted shortly after release.
You do have some truly niche content and non-english content where it's difficult to find BDRips / BD Remuxes, but you can usually access older DVDRips. If you're into this kind of content (as I am), you might as well just buy the BD (or stick to the DVDRip which is fine as far as I am concerned).
I think there are probably enough collectors, AV nerds, and people without consistent high bandwidth unlimited internet to keep physical going for a while. It'll just be niche, like vinyl, I suppose.
It is kinda weird that optical stopped advancing. You can fit more data on a MicroSD card than BluRay. You can fit something like 240 blurays on a consumer HDD (and much more if you further compress).
I don't know about MicroSD longevity, but I've heard BluRay and in particular M-Disc can last 100-1000 years of something crazy. So for archive, it might still be a good option.
The copy protections on Blu rays are exceptionally annoying, to the extent where there is really only one closed source software – MakeMKV – that can work around them.
Not quite, RedFox formerly SlySoft (RIP) used to market their own Blu-ray ripper and it worked quite well. What it used to do is on-the-fly decryption so you'd run it in the background and could use any other software to read the decrypted Blu-ray (e.g. using Handbrake or whatever). It did also have an option to just rip to a file IIRC. Unfortunately they randomly disappeared so their software is pretty much done. (some background on wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RedFox)
That aside they always a competitor, DVDFab, that still exists today. Their Passkey software is the rough equivalent of what the old RedFox/SlySoft software used to do but they also sell a standalone Blu-ray ripper if that's more your thing (see
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The copy protections on Blu rays are exceptionally annoying, to the extent where there is really only one closed source software – MakeMKV – that can work around them.
Not quite, RedFox formerly SlySoft (RIP) used to market their own Blu-ray ripper and it worked quite well. What it used to do is on-the-fly decryption so you'd run it in the background and could use any other software to read the decrypted Blu-ray (e.g. using Handbrake or whatever). It did also have an option to just rip to a file IIRC. Unfortunately they randomly disappeared so their software is pretty much done. (some background on wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RedFox)
That aside they always a competitor, DVDFab, that still exists today. Their Passkey software is the rough equivalent of what the old RedFox/SlySoft software used to do but they also sell a standalone Blu-ray ripper if that's more your thing (see dvdfab.cn/).
But yeah, in some ways you're stuck with MakeMKV, DVDFab, and maybe some others (?).
I'd have to dig it out but I actually bought a Blu-ray drive a while back that was on the list of drives compatible with these rippers but honestly it's been a few years since I've tried using it. Most times someone else already ripped a Blu-ray I'd be interested in.
Speaking of - If anyone knows offhand, how do people do this stuff on Linux? Does the Linux version of MakeMKV work well for this and/or are there other tools (?)
I don't have first-hand experience, but I've heard that the linux version of MakeMKV does work; though I've seen some issues reported in the forum. MakeMKV is even available on nixpkgs.
I bought a modified BD drive from a person who was flashing libredrive supported firmware and then got a registered copy of MakeMKV.
It’s been stupid simple for me to rip any BD or 4K disc that I can get my hands on. If you choose the “backup” option it spits it out to a folder structure which then use mkisofs to create an iso of things.
Honestly my biggest problem is constantly running out of hard drive space because I want to keep the original, uncompressed isos. What’s nice though is once i have the iso I can pop it back into MakeMKV and just extract what I want. I can then run that through Handbrake and compress to my exact specifications.
Sadly no. He packed it up about 6 months ago. However if you can get your hands on an ASUS BW-16D1HT, you can flash the firmware yourself. I could have done that but he was offering it for a negligible difference and it was just quicker to do that method.
Does the BW-16D1HT offer good performance for 4kbluray playback as well as ripping? Looking at it it seems price competitive with the stand-alone players, and if it is good it would make financial sense to buy a dedicated pc and enclosure as an alternative to stand-alone player assuming it can drive HDR and Atmos
I’ve honestly never used it for playback but since it can rip 4K at 2x-4x playback speed I would assume it’d be just fine. The issue is the system you build would have to have a card that can output Atmos bitstreams as well as HDR.
As for ripping performance I’m over 500 DVD, BD, 4K and it’s doing great. You do have to give it 30 minutes between 4K discs to cool down.
Look on the makemkv forum for Libre Drives and what models are usable.
ASUS BW-16D1HT is a valid drive for libre drive and is what I use and can be sourced on Amazon. The pop it in an external enclosure if needed and flash the firmware for it on one of the pinned posts.
I personally don't pirate, but want to power my media server with the movies I buy, libre+makemkv does the trick for me.
I recently got into the rabbit hole of digitizing my DVDs after discovering that disc rot is very real. I bought an LG blu-ray external driver, followed steps to flash firmware, bought a MakeMKV license to support the software, and bought a NAS to run a RAID 1 configuration to hold the backups of the DVDs.
I do think with Netflix buying out Warner Bros, optical media will take a hit. But companies like the Criterion Collection keeps optical media alive. Also CDs are alive and well when it comes to music.
How are you storing the DVDs? Bit rot is unavoidable, but optical media should be much more resilient to it compared to magnetic and flash storage (~100 vs ~10 years)
They might be referring to the Warner Brothers disc rot issue announced earlier this year (affecting some mid 2000s dvds). Ideally, things are made well and last a long time when stored properly.
I've stored them in a TV cabinet for years. Nothing special. I've created a Jellyfin server so if I was burning my DVD and blu-ray already, I may as well back up to files. And to point out austinfloyd's comment, disc rot was the other reason to back up the DVDs.
Also don't go with an Asustor 1102TL. I can't access the BIOS so I can't flash open media vault. I had a whole plan to have an automated Borg backup script running on the NAS but alas, I guess not. If someone can prove me wrong, please let me know.
You might have a bad disk, do an exchange. I have had many bad uhd disks from new boxes over the years. I wish optical storage wasnt used for this kind of thing.
Sorry to hear. I think there are some firmware downgrades around to flash to some of the pc drives to get ripping working, unless this is specific to this particular movie.
Hey @MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca, I just wanted to let you know that I bought a 4k UHD movie the other day and my blu-ray player that I updated the firmware on could not play the disc as well.
I found answers online pointing to updating my volume unique keys (VUK). These keys are necessary to decrypt the discs. To make a long story short, there is a database online that you can use to update your keys to read your 4k UHD disc. I used this script in particular because I was able to echo the output the HTTP website. I didn't want to click on a link that is not using HTTPS.
I'm using linux so this was the solution that worked for me. I think there are other ways to update these keys. If you do go this route of using this bash script, please keep in mind that it's going to be a few hours. The transfer speed was in the kilobytes. Towards the end of my patience, I just hit ctrl-c to skip the keys for other nations that I don't see myself using.
Once all was done, I was able to get VLC to run my 4k film on my PC :)
I think the one I have is the BP60NB10 LG Slim Portable. It looks like prices are at around $100-$130 for it online now though, I think they are not made anymore. I got mine up at a local computer store a long time ago.
I ripped a ton of my stuff back in the day, guess I've been lucky, every generic BD drive i've used just worked.
But once you get past the "works" hurdle, the real struggle begins.
It's slow, like really slow. Assuming you can find the right titles and convince makemkv extract them, it's a start the process and go brew a cup of coffee slow. But hey, I've got time and you don't need to watch it ... mostly.
Depending on the disk, it's still either crap quality or it takes up an ungodly amount of space. Even a decent sized drive buckles sooner or later if you're generating 20GB images.
Unless you're up on your network game, your streaming sticks/tv's can hardly handle the throughput to stream the video.
So you encode the video. HEVC (which is getting dicey starting january as the royalties go up and processors stop support hardware decoding) or hopefully AV1, which still has spotty support in places. and the re-encode? The easy software isn't free, the free software isn't easy, but FFMPEG isn't that hard to work with.
I guess I lucked out when I bought my BD-R drive before I was aware that MakeMKV needed extra stuff like firmware. But my LG WH16NS60 is one that took the flash (never had to mess with firmware on an optical drive and was worried I would brick it). But the process was pretty easy and getting into ripping BR after so long meant that the easy option was around to handle the steps. Kind of considering getting a back-up drive to have around if/when the one I have dies (especially since big brands are dropping out or may do so in the coming years).
While not as easy as just using torrents or other P2P. I have found it kind of fun to get back into ripping CD/DVD/BD and learn/re-learn how things work these days. Also nice to have all the options I can to be able to have access to media in the event any of them are down. The only super frustrating thing is that so much of modern releases don't get physical (or even purchasable digital) releases. And in some cases where a physical release is an option, they are DVD and not even a 720p BD. Digital options are even worse in a lot of ra
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I guess I lucked out when I bought my BD-R drive before I was aware that MakeMKV needed extra stuff like firmware. But my LG WH16NS60 is one that took the flash (never had to mess with firmware on an optical drive and was worried I would brick it). But the process was pretty easy and getting into ripping BR after so long meant that the easy option was around to handle the steps. Kind of considering getting a back-up drive to have around if/when the one I have dies (especially since big brands are dropping out or may do so in the coming years).
While not as easy as just using torrents or other P2P. I have found it kind of fun to get back into ripping CD/DVD/BD and learn/re-learn how things work these days. Also nice to have all the options I can to be able to have access to media in the event any of them are down. The only super frustrating thing is that so much of modern releases don't get physical (or even purchasable digital) releases. And in some cases where a physical release is an option, they are DVD and not even a 720p BD. Digital options are even worse in a lot of random cases where a store might have just part of a show (or even episodes in a season not part of it).
Currently the only real issue that I have is that I really really need to build a new main PC and finally turn my current PC into only being for ripping and hosting what I have. And to get large HDDs to replace the 2TB and 4TB SSDs I currently have for it all of course. I really would like to have good copies of 4K stuff without having to worry about going with bad encodes that look worse than many 1080p releases that my TV upscales.
fixup automatic building and attachment of GE-Proton release tarballs.
Proton:
changes imported for upstream proton
changes imported for upstream build environment
changes imported for upstream lsteamclient
changes imported for upstream steamvr
FEX now builds as part of proton as per upstream changes
wine-wayland/em-10 patches rebased
wine-staging patches rebased
SDL dummy controller will no longer be active when steam input is inactive (such as when wine-wayland is enabled, in which case steam input doesn't work)
ffxvi (16) crash with wayland enabled fixed
DLSS Scaling now available
add PROTON_DLSS_INDICATOR to enable DLSS hud
add PROTON_FSR4_INDICATOR to show FSR4 watermark
docs: Update Readme for scaling _UPGRADE variables:
fsr4 PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE Automatically download amdxcffx64.dll and upgrade games with FSR 3.1 to use FSR 4. Version to download can be specified by supplying it as a value, like so PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE
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Github workflows:
fixup automatic building and attachment of GE-Proton release tarballs.
Proton:
changes imported for upstream proton
changes imported for upstream build environment
changes imported for upstream lsteamclient
changes imported for upstream steamvr
FEX now builds as part of proton as per upstream changes
wine-wayland/em-10 patches rebased
wine-staging patches rebased
SDL dummy controller will no longer be active when steam input is inactive (such as when wine-wayland is enabled, in which case steam input doesn't work)
ffxvi (16) crash with wayland enabled fixed
DLSS Scaling now available
add PROTON_DLSS_INDICATOR to enable DLSS hud
add PROTON_FSR4_INDICATOR to show FSR4 watermark
docs: Update Readme for scaling _UPGRADE variables:
fsr4 PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE Automatically download amdxcffx64.dll and upgrade games with FSR 3.1 to use FSR 4. Version to download can be specified by supplying it as a value, like so PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE="4.0.1", instead of 1. Downloads version 4.0.2 of the required DLL by default. This option also disables AMD Anti-Lag 2 currently due to various issues.
fsr4hud PROTON_FSR4_INDICATOR Enable the FSR4 watermark at the top left portion of the screen.
fsr4rdna3 PROTON_FSR4_RDNA3_UPGRADE Identical to PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE but for RDNA3 GPUs. Enables some required compatibility options and downloads version 4.0.0 of the DLL by default.
fsr3 PROTON_FSR3_UPGRADE
dlss PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE Automatically download and use newer versions of nvngx_dlss(d|g).dll DLLs. Version to download can be specified by supplying it as a value, like so PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE="310.2", instead of 1, to download version 310.2.1.0. This option also sets DXVK_NVAPI_DRS_SETTINGS to use the latest preset. If you provide your own config for it through this environment variable, your configuration is going to be applied..
dlsshud PROTON_DLSS_INDICATOR Enable the DLSS overlay at the bottom left portion of the screen. This is exactly the same as FSR4_WATERMARK=1
xess PROTON_XESS_UPGRADE
Protonfixes:
yet another fix for space engineers
fix for the outer worlds 2
ntsync disabled for SOMA
upscaler download handler utility added
Check if a directory is readable before attempting to map it.
fix for Zeit 2 added
fixes added for Death end re;Quest series from GOG
Add fix for "They Are Billions" crash when using Russian localization
Add fix for "Not For Broadcast" and "Not For Broadcast: Prologue"
Github workflows:
fixup automatic building and attachment of GE-Proton release tarballs.
Proton:
changes imported for upstream proton
changes imported for upstream build environment
changes impo...
No thanks, people who contribute more to society should be recognised for their efforts.
I’m all for improving the recognition and reward of teachers, nurses, paramedics and other essential services that are typically not as well respected or remunerated.
Capitalism rewards one group. People who generate large amounts of money as quickly as possible, regardless of the affect their actions have on any person or group of people who aren't exceptionally wealthy.
Sure, and if you look a bit beyond that you'll notice that the class that does this is the capitalist class, who recieve their vast plunder not through labor, but ownership of capital.
Don't people who work harder deserve more pay? I'm not saying capitalists work hard. I just mean does a full time worker doing the same job as a part time worker deserve more wealth than the part time worker?
Eventually the goal is to work as people want to to satisfy everyone's needs, but between now and whenever that's achieved, people will likely continue to get paid more for more intense or moe trained labor. My point is that the variance between wages and the amount capitalists rake in is astronomical.
Of cause capitalists make way more than they deserve. A lot of people are not currently happy with the idea of being payed based on there needs and feel like they put in a lot of work and therefore deserve more pay, how do we encourage these people to become socialist?
Socialism doesn't dictate that everyone gets paid the same. That's why I said between communism and capitalism is the transitional stage of socialism where people are paid based on their work, while we try to orient society in a manner fovused on satisfying everyone's needs. Through existing in socialism, proletarian consciousness is also developed.
Yep, how ever the kangaroo court that is lemmy has ruled that despite your work ethics and day in day out efforts to be a contributor to society. You are worth the same as the crack head who stole your rose trellis for scrap metal last summer.
I'm in an anarcho syndicalist union and we used to promote training course. In the end, those training are mainly done by minorized people (based on gender, race or social class). Men having courses for unions or other proletarian organization are paid. This is discrimination, in which benevolent took it parts.
You don't choose you mentality, you deal with your condition. Now, we pay people on a dedicated solidarity fund for they chosen collective, such as a strike fund. In the future, when this conditions will evolve, we will stop using money.
Relying on individualists means is counterproductive
So I'm worth whatever I think I'm worth? I think I'm worth the effort I put into my community of people and contributions to society in the form of my work.
I would interpret "demonizing" something as meaning misrepresenting it in a hyperbolically negative manner that may even involve completely constructed criticism.
I don't think that highlighting authoritarianism in past social experiments constitutes demonising them. You're right that there were significant successes in these projects, and also that they weren't perfect. If we don't properly acknowledge the ways in which they went wrong, can we really hope to do better in the future?
I don't see any way in which the people you're replying to are being at all revisionist.
I thought as much but it's still satire in the absract. Just coming from the anti-"tankie" left.
BTW, I think lemmy.ml would do well to stop deleting comments like the linked one or banning the people who write them. It ends up cleaning up their histories. Also it ends up throwing fewer counterarguments into normies' eyes. People read and think. If one has heard all their life that Chinese people can't wait to be liberated and they see the opinion poll you posted there, something cracks. Speaking from experience.
I tend to agree, but moderation becomes a nightmare for the Lemmy.ml admins and mods. That's why they overwhelmingly tend to use temp bans, I believe. I don't fault the Lemmy.ml mods and admins for it, they tend to be pretty leniant until the ableism/homophobia/bigotry comes out.
So why would you, an anarchist, defend those who literally simp for dictators? Because I'm talking about people who literally simp for Russia and China, which are capitalist countries - China minted more new billionaires in 2024 than any other country. Sure, it also has a bigger population than any other country, but if it was in any way communist, wouldn't they prevent billionaires from happening? And I'm sure you understand that modern day Russia is about exactly as communist as modern day USA.
"The farther you are away from my opinion (the neoliberal center), the closer you are to me labeling you authoritarian" is absolutely what western liberals believe.
“tankie fucks deserve to get their heads bashed in.”
It's so funny to see liberals whine about authoritarian communism and then come out with "my solution is to be even more authoritarian than the evil leftists that live in my head".
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the perfect idea of a liberal candidate is just this guy
Stalin is a... polarizing figure for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which being his comic inability to extend revolutionary Marxism into Europe when it was at its most popular and most necessary.
Like, the liberals kicking and screaming about his successors - largely a bunch of socialist softies who were happy with detente and primarily interested in economic growth - are absolutely reactionary shits more invested in reinventing the 1950s through third world extraction than any kind of global standard for civil rights or ecological preservation. But Stalin's paranoia, his intractability, and the toxic consequences of the cult of personality that kept him in office long past his expiration date did horrible things to 1930s Soviet Era domestic policy.
There's a reason numbskull Russian fascists venerate Stalin far more than Lenin or Khrushchev. Its the same reason Americans put Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.
But just any dictatorship is << than whatever the fuck we got going on
By what metric? The USA is complicit in the genocide of >500k Palestinians over the past few years, what has North Korea done similar to that in the past 30?
Public execution for big one. Again homie, I'm not disagreeing with you that the US is fucked and has an outsized prison population(I did read your whole post and links). But North Korea is really fucked up. And it's not all propaganda. But a closed society like that can easily manipulate numbers like the US is currently trying to do.
Why do you think trump likes Kim so much? They are the same, and they are not good people.
Edit: I love that I upset a few of you tankies. Keep the hate coming!
Ok, how many public executions have taken place in North Korea for the past 30 years? Give me metrics, please. Please, provide any qunagitative quantitative measures for the things you're talking about. I'm a Spaniard and I could tell you about my democratic government literally dissolving the corpses of tortured and murdered political activists in chemicals so that there would be no evidence.
This argument started with me mentioning Kim murdering his uncle. So at least one. Which is, again, >>>than the US(who also suck btw). I'm really not trying to be combative with you homie. I don't want this exchange to be adversarial, because I've seen your name around and again, I agree with you on a ton of shit. But dictatorships ain't the hill to die on.
I don't want the exchange to be adversarial either, but I asked you for metrics, not for "one person was murdered in North Korea". You are the one making the claim "North Korea is significantly worse than the USA" while the USA is supporting genocide and has already disappeared 75k civilians since the start of the Trump mandate through ICE.
Now give me the metrics that make North Korea that much worse.
Entry to Left Wing Anarchist Reading Phase 1: Get Started! Anarchism 101 – An introduction to anarchism: https://libcom.org/article/anarchism-101 Anarchist Analysis – A Modern Anarchism: https://www.youtube.
I see. Confronted with numerical evidence of the USA and being asked for numerical evidence on North Korea, the cognitive dissonance is so strong that you must leave the conversation. I've been polite but serious, btw, haven't been particularly hostile
Economies where public ownwership is the principle aspect of the economy and where the working classes are in control of the state are neither fascist nor capitalist.
So you're saying that the working class Chinese citizens have direct, official power over the means of production and can use that to further the political goals of the working class with no repercussions?
Yes, the CPC is a working class party with a hair over 100 million members, and the system of democracy in China is distributed into local, regional, and the central government.
Likewise it was not a fascist uprising simply because it was democratic, /anti-authoritarian and wanted to escape from Soviet imperialism.
This. My grandparents were there when the authorities opened fire on the peacefully gathering crowd. They only escaped with their lives because they got lucky, they saw some others fall around them.
Translation of the Hungarian wikipedia article bc it doesn't seem to exist in other languages: hu-wikipedia-org.translate.goo…
Center and far right are both on the cis side in my portrayal... at least I think I did that right, been a while since I did multivariable calc, and even then these plots mess with my head
Did I sign up for some kind of course you’re instructing or do you just generally feel entitled to try grading engagement in an open community discussion?
Oh, the government is separated into smaller local and regional governments and less than 10% of all Chinese citizens (there are 1.4 billion) are members of the CCP? Cool fun facts, I always love to learn, but you did not answer my question.
Does the government of the People's Republic of China support and protect the legal right of the working class to control the means of production?
Public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, and the working class is in control of the state. These are the basic requirements for socialism, at least in the Marxist understanding. I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to, a petite bourgeois cooperative quasi-socialism? If the working class directing the economy, as I already explained is the case in China, isn't "controlling the means of production," what exactly is your vision here? Because it certainly isn't standard.
So... no protections, no real policy, no solid connection between the working class and power except for this notion that the government has the interests of the working class at heart. Is that right?
Read through the above list and tell me these people must work for a living, that they could not live solely off of their assets. Why are these 607 people allowed to hoard such massive wealth and own so much if the working class controls the means of production and the economy? How is that good for anyone?
You've fallen into the trap. Political stances aren't on a spectrum, they're multi dimensional
Some leftists believe in anarchy, in a lack of hard boundaries and a more organic cultural resistance to bad actors. Some believe in rigid structure, in the rules creating equity and equality.
Tankies believe in an authoritarian, top down force that will impress ideology onto the masses.
All lefties believe in equity and/or equality. That's the common thread. Tankies are crazy high on the authoritarian vs anarchy spectrum, but they genuinely think that road will lead to an equitable society
Tankies are people who are ostensibly communists or other leftists but believe in a vanguard and that it is acceptable for the vanguard to use violence to maintain a monopoly on political power and to maintain control over the Working Class. Tankies don't believe that the Working Class can be trusted with self-determination or with control over the means of production.
Left and Right are specifically about how people view power and authority. Nothing else. Left is no kings, Right is kings. Over time that got fleshed out and more nuanced but the point remains. Anarchists are the farthest Left you can go and Absolute Monarchs are the farthest Right you can go.
Also, because setting up a "Left Wing" country or society doesn't mean people with a Right Wing outlook on life cease to exist. They have to candy coat their beliefs in the language of Leftism but that doesn't make it leftism.
That's an insane paradigm. That's putting so many things on one axis
You have to try to understand others from where they are. The right is generally bad, but they also believe in people... Which has merit. The left is generally good, except when their plans are bat shit insane
Personally, I believe anarcho-communism is the ideal situation. It's also bat shit insane. I don't know if I could live in such a society, I'm certain most people today couldn't
You have to see the nuance and see where people agree and differ. Every successful political movement is evangelical. I refuse to believe most people don't want to live in a better world, they're just generally really fucking stupid
But they have values... Some are good and some are bad. Some are inherent and some are learned.
Good things are good, bad things are bad. We have enough food to overfeed everyone... People shouldn't starve. You can believe in that fact, I think nearly everyone believes this, while also being a too dumb to understand how to solve that contradiction
There's no objectivel
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That's an insane paradigm. That's putting so many things on one axis
You have to try to understand others from where they are. The right is generally bad, but they also believe in people... Which has merit. The left is generally good, except when their plans are bat shit insane
Personally, I believe anarcho-communism is the ideal situation. It's also bat shit insane. I don't know if I could live in such a society, I'm certain most people today couldn't
You have to see the nuance and see where people agree and differ. Every successful political movement is evangelical. I refuse to believe most people don't want to live in a better world, they're just generally really fucking stupid
But they have values... Some are good and some are bad. Some are inherent and some are learned.
Good things are good, bad things are bad. We have enough food to overfeed everyone... People shouldn't starve. You can believe in that fact, I think nearly everyone believes this, while also being a too dumb to understand how to solve that contradiction
There's no objectively best system. The world is a messy place. The best system is the one that works best at the moment
More like collaborated with the Nazis and then defended themselves when Germany invaded. But to be more blunt, tons of Right Wing people, nations, and leaders contributed to the defeat of Nazism. Political ideology played little role for most compared to National affiliation. Numerous right wing partisan groups fought the Nazis AND leftists.
Far right stuff like universal right to housing and to work
Serfs always had a right to housing and work and no one would argue that serfdom is Left Wing.
Far right stuff like supporting anti-imperialist liberation movements
Far right stuff like being an Empire
But lets dispense with the tit for tat. The Bolsheviks were far right because they believe that power should rest in the hands of the political elite and not the people. Workers were denied self-determination, denied political power, denied control over the means of production, and faced violence for not complying with the Ruling Class; all hallmarks of the Far Right.
A country getting bombed into Rubble doesn't justify it becoming a hereditary monarchy no matter how much whataboutism you toss around. Nor do the sins of other countries absolve the sins of the Kim family towards their own country.
This is just for Stalin and what I could quickly pull off the internet
in Moscow area:
Kuntsevo Dacha ("Near Dacha") Uspenskoye Dacha (Far Dacha, old) Semyonovskoye Dacha (Far Dacha, new) Zubalovo dacha, the first one; not preserved [1]Lipki dacha; not preserved [1]Elsewhere in Russia:
Sochi dacha (Matsesta dacha) Bolshiye Brody dacha, Valday, Novgorod Oblast
[1]There were 5 Stalin's dachas in Abkhazia
[2]New Athos dacha Kholodnaya Rechka dacha Lake Ritsa dacha Sukhumi dacha, amid the Sukhumi arboretum (now part of the Sukhumi botanical garden) Miusera dacha
Then do some thinking. You're clearly not processing what's being said. A whole bunch of different people with different beliefs that believed in No Kings all literally sat on the Left side of the room. A whole bunch of people who believed in kings and tradition sat on the Right side of the room. Literally. Physically sat there on different sides of the room. How complicated is that?
Some guy came out of nowhere and invented a new currency. One based on ideas that couldn't work
The nobles on one side said "we have to maintain the status quo, despite that being impossible". The nobles on the other side said "we have to accept our financial losses and find a new way forward"
There were no other groups in the room. They were all nobility
And the whole thing went on until the starving peasants broke in and brought out the guillotines
It was not simple. It never is. What is simple is the sanitized version fed to the masses to placate them
Oh, you mean state-owned dachas that many politicians of the high spheres of the party shared, and none of which was actually Stalin's property? Was the White House Obama's property?
How many of said "dachas belonging to Stalin" were inherited by his children, as expected if he owned them?
A country getting bombed into Rubble doesn't justify
It's not about justification, it's about the way history works. Germany, subjected to unaffordable reparations after WW1, turned to Nazism because such conditions breed right wing extremism. It was afterwards collectively decided not to repeat that mistake and Germany was allowed to flourish again. This is a well understood political phenomenon, and the damages to the DPRK done by the American government and military and posterior efforts in sanction had exactly the desired effect.
This is a widely repeated lie in reddit and Lemmy. I'm gonna please ask you to actually read my comment and to be open to the historical evidence I bring (using Wikipedia as a source, hopefully not suspect of being tankie-biased), because I believe there is a great mistake in the way contemporary western nations interpret history of WW2 and the interwar period. Thank you for actually making the effort, I know it's a long comment, but please engage with the points I'm making:
The only country who offered to start a collective offensive against the Nazis and to uphold the defense agreement with Czechoslovakia as an alternative to the Munich Betrayal was the USSR. From that Wikipedia article: "The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia's assistance, provided the Red Army would be able to cross Polish and Romanian territory; both countries refused." Poland could have literally been saved
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More like collaborated with the Nazis
This is a widely repeated lie in reddit and Lemmy. I'm gonna please ask you to actually read my comment and to be open to the historical evidence I bring (using Wikipedia as a source, hopefully not suspect of being tankie-biased), because I believe there is a great mistake in the way contemporary western nations interpret history of WW2 and the interwar period. Thank you for actually making the effort, I know it's a long comment, but please engage with the points I'm making:
The only country who offered to start a collective offensive against the Nazis and to uphold the defense agreement with Czechoslovakia as an alternative to the Munich Betrayal was the USSR. From that Wikipedia article: "The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia's assistance, provided the Red Army would be able to cross Polish and Romanian territory; both countries refused." Poland could have literally been saved from Nazi invasion if France and itself had agreed to start a war together against Nazi Germany, but they didn't want to. By the logic of "invading Poland" being akin to Nazi collaboration, Poland was as imperialist as the Nazis.
As a Spaniard leftist it's so infuriating when the Soviet Union, the ONLY country in 1936 which actively fought fascism in Europe by sending weapons, tanks and aviation to my homeland in the other side of the continent in the Spanish civil war against fascism, is accused of appeasing the fascists. The Soviets weren't dumb, they knew the danger and threat of Nazism and worked for the entire decade of the 1930s under the Litvinov Doctrine of Collective Security to enter mutual defense agreements with England, France and Poland, which all refused because they were convinced that the Nazis would honor their own stated purpose of invading the communists in the East. The Soviets went as far as to offer ONE MILLION troops to France (Archive link against paywall) together with tanks, artillery and aviation in 1939 in exchange for a mutual defense agreement, which the French didn't agree to because of the stated reason. Just from THIS evidence, the Soviets were by far the most antifascist country in Europe throughout the 1930s, you literally won't find any other country doing any remotely similar efforts to fight Nazism. If you do, please provide evidence.
The invasion of "Poland" is also severely misconstrued. The Soviets didn't invade what we think of nowadays when we say Poland. They invaded overwhelmingly Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands that Poland had previously invaded in 1919. Poland in 1938, a year before the invasion:
"Polish" territories invaded by the USSR in 1939:
The Soviets invaded famously Polish cities such as Lviv (sixth most populous city in modern Ukraine), Pinsk (important city in western Belarus) and Vilnius (capital of freaking modern Lithuania). They only invaded a small chunk of what you'd consider Poland nowadays, and the rest of lands were actually liberated from Polish occupation and returned to the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian socialist republics. Hopefully you understand the importance of giving Ukrainians back their lands and sovereignty?
Additionally, the Soviets didn't invade Poland together with the Nazis, they invaded a bit more than two weeks after the Nazi invasion, at a time when the Polish government had already exiled itself and there was no Polish administration. The meaning of this, is that all lands not occupied by Soviet troops, would have been occupied by Nazis. There was no alternative. Polish troops did not resist Soviet occupation but they did resist Nazi invasion. The Soviet occupation effectively protected millions of Slavic peoples like Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians from the stated aim of Nazis of genociding the Slavic peoples all the way to the Urals.
All in all, my conclusion is: the Soviets were fully aware of the dangers of Nazism and fought against it earlier than anyone (Spanish civil war), spent the entire 30s pushing for an anti-Nazi mutual defence agreement which was refused by France, England and Poland, tried to honour the existing mutual defense agreement with Czechoslovakia which France rejected and Poland didn't allow (Romania neither but they were fascists so that's a given), and offered to send a million troops to France's border with Germany to destroy Nazism but weren't allowed to do so. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a tool of postponing the war in a period in which the USSR, a very young country with only 10 years of industrialization behind it since the first 5-year plan in 1929, was growing at a 10% GDP per year rate and needed every moment it could get. I can and do criticise decisions such as the invasion of Finland, but ultimately even the western leaders at the time seem to generally agree with my interpretation:
“In those days the Soviet Government had grave reason to fear that they would be left one-on-one to face the Nazi fury. Stalin took measures which no free democracy could regard otherwise than with distaste. Yet I never doubted myself that his cardinal aim had been to hold the German armies off from Russia for as long as might be” (Paraphrased from Churchill’s December 1944 remarks in the House of Commons.)
“It would be unwise to assume Stalin approves of Hitler’s aggression. Probably the Soviet Government has merely sought a delaying tactic, not wanting to be the next victim. They will have a rude awakening, but they think, at least for now, they can keep the wolf from the door” Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States, 1933–1945), from Harold L. Ickes’s diary entries, early September 1939. Ickes’s diaries are published as The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes.
"One must suppose that the Soviet Government, seeing no immediate prospect of real support from outside, decided to make its own arrangements for self‑defence, however unpalatable such an agreement might appear. We in this House cannot be astonished that a government acting solely on grounds of power politics should take that course” Neville Chamberlain House of Commons Statement, August 24, 1939 (one day after pact's signing)
The working classes are in control of the state in socialist countries. They do "tankie shit" like overthrowing fascists and expropriating capital from capitalists, doing land reform from landlords, etc, which is both authoritarian towards the capitalists, landlords, and fascists while being liberating for the working classes.
I've explained how the working class is in control of the state, you don't have to trust the government, you can trust the people themselves. The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy:
China does have billionaires, yes. China is in the developing stages of socialism. Between capitalism, which is characterized by private ownership being the principle aspect of the economy and the capitalists in control of the state, and communism, characterized by full collectiviza
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I've explained how the working class is in control of the state, you don't have to trust the government, you can trust the people themselves. The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy:
China does have billionaires, yes. China is in the developing stages of socialism. Between capitalism, which is characterized by private ownership being the principle aspect of the economy and the capitalists in control of the state, and communism, characterized by full collectivization of production and distribution devoid of classes, is socialism, where public ownership is principle and the working classes in control. China in particular is working its way out of the initial stages of socialism:
The reason China has billionaires is because China has private property, and the reason it has private property is because of 2 major factors: the world economy is still dominated by the US empire, and because you cannot simply abolish private property at the stroke of a pen. China tried that already. The Gang of Four tried to dogmatically force a publicly owned and planned economy when the infrastructure best suited to that hadn't been laid out by markets, and as a consequence growth was positive but highly unstable.
Why does it matter that the US Empire controls the world economy? Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.
In the People's Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn't steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing's faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized:
Deng's plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.
China's rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a "love/hate" relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.
Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC's gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.
In doing this, China has presented itself to the global south as an alternative to the unequal exchange the global north does with the global south, which is accelerating the development of the global south. China is taking a more indirect method of undermining global imperialism than, say, the USSR, but its been remarkably effective at uplifting the global working classes, especially in China but also in the global south.
Put another way:
The English language is violence, I hotwired it
I got a hold of the master's tools and got dialed in
"…with fraternity on your lips, you declare war against mankind."Jeremy Bentham, addressing France's National Convention in 1793, urging it to "Emancipate Your Colonies...
It's time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, "Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle." Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx's Law of Value
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let's get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the "left" and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don't be intimidated!
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous "Utopian" Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That's right, it's time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it's mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn't possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of "gender." Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism's dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It's not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice.
Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to us to protect ourselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it.
Read theory. Don't think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn't mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don't speak on it! Don't speak nonsense, but listen!
Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody be forgotten or left behind. There is strength in numbers, when one marginalized group is targeted, many more are sure to follow.
Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well.
Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. Liberals will not save us, we must save each other.
Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of canyons and valleys. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."
The vanguard is the formalized segment of the working class that has trained in revolutionary theory and practice, and which has been trusted by the rest of the working class as the spearhead of the revolution. The vanguard is not over the working class, but is merely a segment of it, and as such are usually mass organizations with huge numbers of members.
What you're saying is similar to saying the Union is above the workers and doesn't trust the workers to advocate for better pay, benefits, and working conditions.
The secret is that about half of it is something I've already written about before, elsewhere. I talk a lot about Marxism-Leninism and socialist countries, and people often repeat the same questions or talking points, so at this point I have almost always already spoken on a topic before. That being said, the other 50% was original, haha.
Take your time, there's no rush. We aren't in a competition.
I think Lemmy is training me not to start arguments because all y'all lemmings don't just yell into the void, you link back to further reading and now if I want to stand my ground I'm gonna have to do like an hour(s) of research. Welp, maybe if I didn't want to do research on a complex topic I shouldn't have started talking about Chinese economic policy... Sigh
I still think you're dead wrong for the moment but the order and civility with which you're presenting your claims when faced with my admittedly hostile tone in the previous comments is something I admire. I'll get back to you after I've done some research.
We Marxists have a saying: no investigation, no right to speak. Given the immense hostility to Marxism and to socialist countries in the English speaking world and internet, those of us that come to Marxism generally only do so through reading, studying, organizing, and facing material reality head-on and finding that the dominant narrative doesn't line up.
I used to share skepticism for China like you do now, and it took a lot of reading and conversation with comrades for me to come around to being pro-China. The kicker there is that you'll find those supportive of socialism, Marxism, etc have mountains of sources ready to go, because most of us have been through that same process, while most of those opposed to socialism and opposed to China have done so through cultural osmosis.
In general, as long as you maintain an open mind and try to speak on what you've investigated previously, you'll rarely be outright wrong.
For what it's worth, me being more civil is more of a personal choice than the norm, I've been doing this for years and have found good success by
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We Marxists have a saying: no investigation, no right to speak. Given the immense hostility to Marxism and to socialist countries in the English speaking world and internet, those of us that come to Marxism generally only do so through reading, studying, organizing, and facing material reality head-on and finding that the dominant narrative doesn't line up.
I used to share skepticism for China like you do now, and it took a lot of reading and conversation with comrades for me to come around to being pro-China. The kicker there is that you'll find those supportive of socialism, Marxism, etc have mountains of sources ready to go, because most of us have been through that same process, while most of those opposed to socialism and opposed to China have done so through cultural osmosis.
In general, as long as you maintain an open mind and try to speak on what you've investigated previously, you'll rarely be outright wrong.
For what it's worth, me being more civil is more of a personal choice than the norm, I've been doing this for years and have found good success by doing so. Others will also have their own collection of sources, but may not be so civil.
There is actually technically no such thing as an authoritarian leftist
AES would suggest otherwise
But then "authoritarian" is just code for "people in charge who I don't like". It's how you get liberals who gleefully repost "Trump is a Nazi" but recoil at "Abolish ICE" or "Boycott Israel".
Communists are authoritarian when they gain power because capitalists hate them. Capitalists are libertarians when they're in charge because they pad each other's wallets
Then what is it measuring? Right and left are directions, they're labels that are extremely contextual
I genuinely don't know which of many axis you might be referring to. I think you're probably gesturing to something like equal/inequal distribution of power, but you could also mean progressive vs regressive, or even liberal vs fascist
Delivered as remarks to Brown University’s Watson School during its “China Chat” series, Chas Freeman reflects on China’s return to global prominence and the United States’ accelerating retreat from the international order it once led – and asks what…
We are in the midst of a Great Leap Backward or Cultural Revolution-style assault on the domestic institutions that made America great – the rule of law, freedom of speech, academic freedom and scientific excellence, federal partnerships with research universities, openness to foreigners and their ideas, policies based on evidence and expertise rather than fake news and unsubstantiated prejudice, and the prioritisation of objectivity over political correctness.
For the longest time US liberals used weasel words like opposing authoritarianism and supporting democracy to justify the US's foreign policy from sanctions to war crimes. "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East surrounded by authoritarian Islamist regimes", "I don't hate the Chinese I hate the authoritarian CCP and I support Taiwan because it is a democracy". Never mind the claims being false, they were a good attempt at masking their national supremacism and cultural chauvinism. US conservatives have always been more honest about being racist and just hating Arabs, Muslims, Chine
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We are in the midst of a Great Leap Backward or Cultural Revolution-style assault on the domestic institutions that made America great – the rule of law, freedom of speech, academic freedom and scientific excellence, federal partnerships with research universities, openness to foreigners and their ideas, policies based on evidence and expertise rather than fake news and unsubstantiated prejudice, and the prioritisation of objectivity over political correctness.
For the longest time US liberals used weasel words like opposing authoritarianism and supporting democracy to justify the US's foreign policy from sanctions to war crimes. "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East surrounded by authoritarian Islamist regimes", "I don't hate the Chinese I hate the authoritarian CCP and I support Taiwan because it is a democracy". Never mind the claims being false, they were a good attempt at masking their national supremacism and cultural chauvinism. US conservatives have always been more honest about being racist and just hating Arabs, Muslims, Chinese and so on. So witnessing the US decay into fascism has been a guilty pleasure of mine. US liberals now will look really silly accusing others of what their government is guilty of, but I am sure they will find a way to spin it. They are already blaming Trump on Russia, Saudi Arabia and others. Denying the fact that Trump is the US at its rawest and truest form.
I particularly love the dynamic of libs blaming everyone else because the shining city on a hill could never, ever produce its own rot. The perfect system, handed down by demigods on parchment, is obviously flawless. So when a walking, talking monument to greed and grievance shambles into the Oval Office, the only logical explanation is that he must be a foreign saboteur. It couldn't possibly be that he's the logical end point of a political machine fueled by dark money and cultural resentment. No, that's too boring. It's much more exciting to believe he's some secret agent, here to destroy the perfect union out of sheer jealousy. Because accepting that the city was built on a swamp, and that the smell was always coming from inside the house, would mean the storybook was a lie. And we can't have that.
Video description: after trying to select volume control option at bottom right the screen turned black with white flashes.
This issue arises in two ways. First when booting the initial ASUS logo will show and then straight this black, flashing screen and second way it happens is when I try to select wifi, volume, network options present at bottom right area.
When this happens, pressing the power button also doesn't work, so I have to force power off the laptop by holding the power button for some seconds.
This doesn't happen every time i.e most of the times it boots correctly and most of the time trying to select options work as expected.
Operating System: Fedora Linux 43 KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.3 KDE Frameworks Version: 6.20.0 Qt Version: 6.10.1 Kernel Version: 6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64 (64-bit) Graphics Platform: Wayland Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i5-8300H CPU @ 2.30GHz Memory: 8 GiB of RAM (7.6 GiB usa
Video description: after trying to select volume control option at bottom right the screen turned black with white flashes.
This issue arises in two ways. First when booting the initial ASUS logo will show and then straight this black, flashing screen and second way it happens is when I try to select wifi, volume, network options present at bottom right area.
When this happens, pressing the power button also doesn't work, so I have to force power off the laptop by holding the power button for some seconds.
This doesn't happen every time i.e most of the times it boots correctly and most of the time trying to select options work as expected.
Operating System: Fedora Linux 43 KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.3 KDE Frameworks Version: 6.20.0 Qt Version: 6.10.1 Kernel Version: 6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64 (64-bit) Graphics Platform: Wayland Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i5-8300H CPU @ 2.30GHz Memory: 8 GiB of RAM (7.6 GiB usable) Graphics Processor 1: Intel® UHD Graphics 630 Graphics Processor 2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Product Name: TUF GAMING FX504GD_FX80GD System Version: 1.0
I don't have a fix per se but you might want to see if your Magic SysRq button works to force a reboot using Alt + SysRq + 'b'. It's surprisingly effective remaining useful during a lot of major glitches except during a full-on Kernel Panic.
The left–right political spectrum is a diagram intended to categorize political ideologies in 3 distinct categories: left wing, right wing and centrist. The model...
Let's consider the chart for a moment. The black line represents the metal of the hook. The hook shape is to demonstrate the distorted way that people who claim to be centrists are actually the far right. So, the "far right" and the "centrists" dot are both directly on the black line.
However, the "far left" dot is in the middle of the eye. In the hook analogy, it's not on the line. The "far left" is off the hook.
Might just as well run around yelling "The sky is falling!!!!! Head for the caves!!!!!"
Of course, the AI bubble is going to collapse, just like the 'dot com' bubble burst. With all the hype. misdirection, and false hope it generated, it is inevitable.
That does not mean that ALL the investments are going bust.
Facebook, Google, and many others were all part of the 'dot.com' bubble, and they certainly did not go down in flames.
Just like the dot.com boom, those who truly understand AI the way Zuckerberg understood the dot.com era, there are still fortunes to be made. Those who just think they understand, will be devastated. There is still a LOT of expansion room left in AI, the trick is sorting it out from all of the chaff that IS going to go 'bust'. The winners are going to win very, very big. The losers are going to lose very, very big.
It's all about knowing how to financialize AI.
An AI that just draws really cute, realistic caricatures will not make money because ANY AI can do it just as well. N
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Such silliness throughout this article.
Might just as well run around yelling "The sky is falling!!!!! Head for the caves!!!!!"
Of course, the AI bubble is going to collapse, just like the 'dot com' bubble burst. With all the hype. misdirection, and false hope it generated, it is inevitable.
That does not mean that ALL the investments are going bust.
Facebook, Google, and many others were all part of the 'dot.com' bubble, and they certainly did not go down in flames.
Just like the dot.com boom, those who truly understand AI the way Zuckerberg understood the dot.com era, there are still fortunes to be made. Those who just think they understand, will be devastated. There is still a LOT of expansion room left in AI, the trick is sorting it out from all of the chaff that IS going to go 'bust'. The winners are going to win very, very big. The losers are going to lose very, very big.
It's all about knowing how to financialize AI.
An AI that just draws really cute, realistic caricatures will not make money because ANY AI can do it just as well. No advantage. It's just routine ho-hum penny stock stuff. An AI that can foretell market fluctuations with amazing accuracy, now THAT is worth investing in. It is the patents that are valuable, not the concept of AI itself.
CHATbot failed miserably. It just gave you answers, essentially with no remuneration component. Properly financialized AI will give you answers to better buying 'decisions' - for a percentage, of course.
I am referring to the entire dot com bubble collapse, not just the actual market plummet. Zuckerberg came in at the tail end of the dot.com bubble collapse, when investors were very shy and pulling out of their investments. Amazon survived through the entire affair,but took a big hit. The shock waves were still rippling through the market in 2004, but he was still pulling in millions in investment money even though there was zero profit. The burn rate was horrendous. Why was he pulling in investment money at a time when investors had lost fortunes? Because he had a sound business plan that involved financializing the user base through advertising. While other startups floundered, he knew the dot.com era, read it perfectly. Out of the ashes...
Avid Amoeba
in reply to cm0002 • • •Lvxferre [he/him]
in reply to cm0002 • • •like this
NoneOfUrBusiness likes this.
gandalf_der_12te
in reply to Lvxferre [he/him] • • •(not so) fun fact: my mother unironically said that to me as a kid. she said it's important for her to work a lot (and also do some unpaid overtime) because "arbeit macht frei".
yes, she's very conservative.
like this
NoneOfUrBusiness likes this.
Lvxferre [he/him]
in reply to gandalf_der_12te • • •otter
in reply to cm0002 • • •How, exactly? You got some cure-all for the toxic intubation we're all but born into? What's the catch? How much are you charging? Why is it such a secret? Where's the off switch to this endless bullshit?
Pointing at the monstrous conditions we all scramble to stay ahead of and calling it disgusting, horrific, unfair, etc. does nothing of value to any of us. This is a redundant spinning of wheels that're already flying off their axles. What's your prescient suggestion, o' wise one?
dejected_warp_core
in reply to cm0002 • • •While true, there's a little more nuance to it than this.
Unchecked capitalism has one key tennant: exploit everything.
This doesn't stop with equating work to worth. It's more like "create an environment where people have no recourse but to surrender their time." Compensation is merely a necessity brought on by so many potential employers competing in the labor market this creates. Beyond that, your every other resource and basic need is also under target for exploitation; both the need of a thing and for merely having it.
алсааас [she/they]
in reply to cm0002 • • •