Great amount of work today for TROM II, second part. Almost done with it. Probably 1 or 2 days left to finish it. Can't wait! This 2nd part is the biggest by far, around 1h 40min.
Then moving to the 3rd part to finish the last 10 minutes of it. I will be so happy when these are done so I can finally start the last part of the documentary.
I do not celebrate Christmas or the New Year or any holiday. But is not like I'm against any. I do see the perverse transformation of all holidays into consuming-events, and that I despise. But overall whatever....if people enjoy, then enjoy it. I personally do not really care. I feel great pretty much every day :) - and I create my own "holidays".
I wish people would celebrate better things like the nature side of things. This period of time, for example, is a great one to see Mars and Jupiter. Or celebrate when we first discovered cells, the atom, other galaxies, and so forth. Make it really wonderful, for all. Kids and parents and everyone else. We could do better than gifts, a tree with lights, and a fat dude dressed in a red costume ;).
So yeah, for me life is a continuum not a day, a month, a year, a holiday, and so forth. Just enjoying the ride.
We live in the Bullshit Society, where new products are being made for the purpose of being made. To trade. Often these products are pointless. Like the example above. A classic fan vs a "modern" one that costs 50 times more. Despite this, the classic fan is better at....well...cooling you down. And yet, these nonsense products are advertised as better.
As long as we live in this trade based society we will be flooded by such nonsense. Wasted resources. Pointless products. Wasted lives in the end. Both for those making them, and those using them.
We need to move away from this cancerous trade-based society. #tromlive
When I was young, I was a little obsessed with how cool Dyson fans were. But are they actually worth that amount of money? In this relatively silly video, I'm going to compare it to my $15 Walmart fan with wind speed and sound level tests!
Dyson Pur…
Hey guys just look at the latest self-driving car demo ytb.trom.tf/watch?v=9nF0K2nJ7N… - you know, the tesla, who has self-driving for the past many years....but still in beta...but still not fully self driving!? but....well....marketing to see their cars.
I was fooled by Musk a few times. No more!
The guy is a trader like any other traders. He lies, and deceives, and exaggerate claims....like all traders.
An uninterrupted drive with Tesla Full Self Driving (beta)
Version #: 10.69.3.1 (2022.36.20)
Full PLAID review coming soon to AutoFocus: http://youtube.com/AutoFocus
MKBHD Merch: http://shop.MKBHD.com
Tech I'm using right now: https://www.amazon.
After the latest Friendica update the RSS feeds seem to worm again. I had to nuke a bunch of queue processes so let's see how this goes from now on. We have more than enough server resources so the question is what should we optimize? For now I will wait and see how it goes. I was really missing the RSS feeds....and now I got spammed by hundreds of entries haha because they started to work suddenly.
I got a refund for the Slimbook Executive 16 that I sent back. Although they refused to pay for the transport which, form what I read online, should have been covered by the refund. It was around 20 euros in total and I didn't want to "debate" over it anyway. They were generally nice over email and I also removed their stickers from the laptop and perhaps I should not have done that. So it is ok.
Am happy that I returned it because I want to test other laptops. Now I am convinced I will order (to test) the Dell Inspirion 7620 2 in 1:
It has a 16inch screen at 16:10, something I fully love. I has a good keyboard it seems with no nonsense numpad: ... show more
I got a refund for the Slimbook Executive 16 that I sent back. Although they refused to pay for the transport which, form what I read online, should have been covered by the refund. It was around 20 euros in total and I didn't want to "debate" over it anyway. They were generally nice over email and I also removed their stickers from the laptop and perhaps I should not have done that. So it is ok.
Am happy that I returned it because I want to test other laptops. Now I am convinced I will order (to test) the Dell Inspirion 7620 2 in 1:
It has a 16inch screen at 16:10, something I fully love. I has a good keyboard it seems with no nonsense numpad:
It is very well built I've heard. Fully aluminium. A bit heavy at 2kg, but because it is really sturdy I'v read. My laptop is 3kg....and shitty built :D
It is also a convertible and has a touch screen + fingerprint reader:
Not that I'd use these much, but it is a nice bonus considering that I tweak TROMjaro for touchscreens too, and now I can directly test it on my machine and not rely on the old tablet that we have. I would also love to add a proper fingerprint reader support to TROMjaro, so now I can test it.
As for the internals, I will go for the i7-1260P CPU and perhaps the MX550 Nvidia GPU combo. Not as powerful as the Slimbook, but a lot more than my current laptop. The advantage is that this combo consumes a lot less power than what Slimbook had under the hood. Which means much better battery life (they say it lasts all day) + a much slimmer and usb-c power adapter that you can buy for like 20 Euros from any tech-store if you need to replace it.
So in a way although the Slimbook is half a kilo lighter, its charger is massive so....this Dell with such a small charger despite being heavier I would like it to be like that.
Another cool thing about this laptop is that it has dual channel RAM slots that you can upgrade. For a 2 in 1 this is quite unique. They say max 32GB in total, but I've heard you can put 64GB and I will try that. As for storage unfortunately it only has 1 m2 slot and they say that it supports up to 2TB, but again I've heard you can add up to 4TB. I will compromise to 2TB of storage if this laptop is as good as I read it is, but 4TB would be perfect for me....will have to try and see.
Actually the entire laptop seems quite easy to fix and upgrade:
And being a bit popular you can already find components despite being released just a few months ago. They have a detailed manual about how you can replace and upgrade parts.
Speaking of that, the awesome Framework 13.5inch laptop that is marketed as very repairable (and it is) clocks at around 1.400 Euros with the same CPU and no GPU. This Dell clocks around 1.300 Euros new via ebay and around 1k second hand via the same ebay. So it is much cheaper overall, seems very durable, much larger screen, yet still relatively easy to repair/upgrade.
Oh and I've read that the speakers on this Dell, 4 of which, are one of the best out there. Same goes for the webcam that even has a camera shutter for privacy.
Overall the laptop (in theory from what I read and see) seems quite slim, very robust, very powerful, decently upgradable and repairable, amazing screen, good keyboard, great speakers and good webcam, great battery life. At least in theory, let's see in practice.
I will likely buy it second hand since this laptop is a very new model and so second hand units should be barely used. Getting it much cheaper allows me to buy a 4TB m2 and even some 64GB of RAM, if the laptop can handle all of that.
For now I will continue with the work on TROM II but I plan in February or so to order it and test.
Massive thanks to Roma and the few others who donated for my laptop campaign. Basically Roma made this possible.
The laptop is my sole enabler of everything you see TROM-made. Websites, video editing, TROMjaro and all of that. Therefore it is the most important piece of technology in my life, and thus I want to choose with care. Basically I would love to just have 1 laptop and that's all.
Anyway, I am sharing these in case it helps others too.
Any federated platform: Mastodon, Friendica, Peertube, Pixelfed, you name it - will get as corrupted as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and the like if the trade society we live in takes a hold of them. What do I mean by that?
If your platform is based on trades, it means that it wants something from the users (a trade). Their currency (say a subscription for access or for more features, a badge and such), their data (it collects the user data and trades it for currency or influence and the like), or attention (will insert ads into the platform). These are the methods used to trade in the online world. And any federated platform is subject to these practices.
When any platform engages into trades with their users, the balance of motivation tilts. And the owners of that instance will have to prioritize whatever it is traded (data, currency, attention). And you guessed it, they will become just like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. Business as usual, quite literally.
Does not matter that these platforms are "federated" since big instances can user their influence and power to keep users on their platforms. Can stop defederating with any other platform and force their users to only use the instance via their own trade-based apps.
This is what we are trying to scream about at TROM for the past 10+ years. Everything gets eventually corrupted by TRADE. Nature, websites, people, projects. Everything.
So don't get fooled by "federation", "open source", and the like. All of them can and are being corrupted by this trade based society. Therefore we need trade-free platforms more than open source or federated ones, so that we remove the bad incentive of trade. Trade-free can also be federated and open source, and in fact it encourages these other practices.
I may not update Friendica today since the YNH package is again pulling a dev version of Friendica....I submitted a pull request github.com/YunoHost-Apps/frien… but it failed....so let's see....
Whenever this is done properly, I'll try an update. And from now on I'll try to directly do the changes for the YNH package so we make sure there are no more such mistakes.
Problem
The latest commit pushed to the main ynh branch was again a dev commit and this will again break all friendica installs.
Solution
Add the proper commits that come from the stable branch, th...
I see there is a blocklist for Peertube instances peertube_isolation.frama.io/ - anyone who has a Peertube instance can install a plugin that will make sure it defederates their own instance from the ones on that "ongoing" list.
I am still not liking this attitude/approach. We have a Peertube instance at videos.trom.tf - we have our own rules such as we only accept videos that are about science/nature/tech in english. We only promote the content we want on our Peertube, regardless if it is local or remote. We have that power thanks to the great tools that Peertube has for admins.
Now...it is beyond me why I would want to stop the users from videos.trom.tf to connect with users from other remote instances. If they like watching the so called "right wing" (whatever that means) videos, it is their life. Let them do that. Those videos are not on our instance.
Stop treating people like little children. Sure, manage your own home and let in th
... show more
I see there is a blocklist for Peertube instances peertube_isolation.frama.io/ - anyone who has a Peertube instance can install a plugin that will make sure it defederates their own instance from the ones on that "ongoing" list.
I am still not liking this attitude/approach. We have a Peertube instance at videos.trom.tf - we have our own rules such as we only accept videos that are about science/nature/tech in english. We only promote the content we want on our Peertube, regardless if it is local or remote. We have that power thanks to the great tools that Peertube has for admins.
Now...it is beyond me why I would want to stop the users from videos.trom.tf to connect with users from other remote instances. If they like watching the so called "right wing" (whatever that means) videos, it is their life. Let them do that. Those videos are not on our instance.
Stop treating people like little children. Sure, manage your own home and let in the people you like, but the moment you tell your guests who they are allowed to call from your phone, you become a little dictator that will expand its little powers in more and more outrageous ways. Why do you care who your guests call? It is their own personal life. Have some respect for that.
I am a big fan of curating your own instance, and I am 100% against defederating with other instances. There are better way of dealing with this. Also, pushing these "bad actors" into a corner you amplify their echo chamber. Not smart.
@Tio Yeah, Luke smith might say some stupid things at times, but he's good at teaching you about linux, I've learned a lot from him. I totally understand why some admins don't want his videos showing up on their instance, and AFAIK you can prevent that in peertube, but if a user manually searches for the channel and decides to subscribe then you shouldn't interfere and block them. At the end of the day, the whole point of fedi is that you could follow anyone from any instance, if that feature is broken then fedi is just like any other social media.
Also, in my opinion, if admins block out all the right wing instances then all that does is to make sure that these people never get exposed to any left wing ideas and change their views. You cannot make any kind of social change without interacting with people who disagree with you, or else you're just preaching to the choir.
Yeah it is easy to make your peertube only show the videos you want, from the instances you follow and such. Even disable the global search so people can't even search for any other videos but the ones that you have locally. So you have total control. But if I am a user on your instance and wanna subscribe to luke-the-right-wing-guy, you should not interfere with that. Because if you do, as admin, then you become a curator of what people should or should not watch. Plus you ruin the idea behind the fediverse.
But it seems people are not thinking long term at all over here....
@Tio Actually I know there are some people who's thinking about the long term consequences of defederation and is trying to find a solution to this problem. I haven't looked much into it but they're working on this project ufoi.org/ which aims to form a community of instances that agree to federate with each other, its not perfect but its much better than the current way of doing things which is not very transparent. FYI, this is not like a closed off group, they promote openness and decentralization, you'll get the gist once you take a look at what they're proposing. I first heard about this project from @admitsWrongIfProven and @🎓 Dr. Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱, they seem to be very open minded and transparent about everything which I really appreciate.
idk why we even need this sort of project....just let people discover the fediverse and follow whatever they like....would be great if you can "promote" certain instances/accounts in an easy way so others can follow them. I saw this recently search.noc.social/
As you point out the issue isnt about defederation at all, its about the gossip, manipulation, and lies that results in uninformed defederation.
You pointed out one example already, where a group of people with the clear intent to spread rumors without any evidence were able to get QOTO removed from the official list, but it goes much deeper than that. That same misinformation has gotten quite a few servers defamed for things that never happened.
The reason, among other things, is that when an instance hears a rumor they defederate and stic those rumors in the "Reasons" column with no transparency or evidence, others pick up on this, rinse repeat. They have used some pretty nasty tactics to make this more prolific too. For example they have hordes of single user instances that defederate then maintain lists that list instances based on how many instances defederate them. So they are able to say "look this instance is in the top 10 most defederated" but leave out the fact that they are counting single user instances and in fact they arent really very defederated at all.
... show more
As you point out the issue isnt about defederation at all, its about the gossip, manipulation, and lies that results in uninformed defederation.
You pointed out one example already, where a group of people with the clear intent to spread rumors without any evidence were able to get QOTO removed from the official list, but it goes much deeper than that. That same misinformation has gotten quite a few servers defamed for things that never happened.
The reason, among other things, is that when an instance hears a rumor they defederate and stic those rumors in the "Reasons" column with no transparency or evidence, others pick up on this, rinse repeat. They have used some pretty nasty tactics to make this more prolific too. For example they have hordes of single user instances that defederate then maintain lists that list instances based on how many instances defederate them. So they are able to say "look this instance is in the top 10 most defederated" but leave out the fact that they are counting single user instances and in fact they arent really very defederated at all.
What is needed less than the collaboration between instances the UFoI provides is the **transparency** on why defederation takes place with evidence and a chance for the other side to speak their piece. This way defederation can be informed.
Say if I joined an instance and my friend joined another, if one of our instances block the other then we can't communicate anymore, this is a big problem with defederation. I can of course ask my friends to join the same instance I'm on, but this will lead to centralization which is bad for fedi. This is where #UFoI comes in, its a group of instances that I know for sure will be federated with each other, so I can just ask my friends to join one of the instances listed there.
And the transparency bit is something I really appreciate, I know there are some bad actors on fedi that engage in slandering and false accusations without any evidence backing their claims, so I hope #UFoI can solve these issues.
Yea, without UFoI the only way you can garuntee you and your friends all communicate is if you all join free speech servers (servers that dont defederate from anyone).
The nice thing about UFoI is it solves the problem while still allowing instance admins to defederate from bad actors.
From what I understand, #UFoI doesn't say anything about how an instance should defederate and it is left up to the individual instances to decide for themselves, just that they should keep the federation open for other #UFoI members, right?
Thats more or less accurate. Outside of the UFoI instances can choose how they federate. Inside the UFoI they should federate.
If an instance in the UFoI shows itself to be a bad actor and worthy of defederation then there is a transparent process centered around due process that is used to eject a bad actor instance from the UFoI at which point its members can decide to defederate if they wish to.
This is where #UFoI comes in, its a group of instances that I know for sure will be federated with each other, so I can just ask my friends to join one of the instances listed there.
Wait until your instance from that select group may not be on par with the rest and they kick you out. I don't like when they make these little groups of friends. This is entirely different from what I first thought the fediverse is. The fact that you have to create such groups tells me that the fediverse is a bunch of facebooks and twitters and they use their power (many times the user count) to bully the other small instances. The fediverse should have been about a protocol that allows any instance to communicate with any other. The moment instances stop federating with other instances, this protocol is censored, broken, incomplete, nontransparent. And a mess in general.
@Tio @🎓 Dr. Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱 @admitsWrongIfProven I know, I'm now realizing that fediverse is not decentralized enough to make a real difference. We're now talking about instance admins fighting each other over disagreements, but wait until corporations begin to pour money into it and create instances of their own, that's when this power difference becomes obvious and by then it'll be too late.
Once a better p2p social network becomes viable then I'll be among the first to jump ship, we need to put power back in the hands of individual users, not a small number of admins or corporate entities who're capable of running massive servers.
How awesome when XFCE JUST WORKS. That's why I love it. They pushed this huge update and yet everything works the same on TROMjaro. No bugs it seems. No nothing. Our Layout and Theme Switchers work perfectly fine too. Enjoy!
This is it folks, XFCE - the desktop environment that we use for TROMjaro - has had the big release. Two years in the making. And it is very exciting yet very unexciting. And that’s great actually.
This is it folks, XFCE - the desktop manager that we use for TROMjaro - has had the big release. Two years in the making. And it is very exciting yet very unexciting. And that’s great actually.
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I will have to add 15 more minutes from the 3rd part to the 2nd part to make the 2nd part more relevant. They are almost complete in terms of the story-line (interview cuts) but prob need a day of work to make them better and trim them down. After that I need to "design" (edit) these 15 minutes and that may take me a week or so....maybe more!? I hope not.
For the 2nd part I need to design/edit 10 more minutes. That too may take me a week.
I think it is now reasonable to finish the 2nd and 3rd part by mid January at least (if I stretch it more than I am expecting now). Then I'll have 3 or so months to finish the last part of the documentary + improve a bit here and there the other parts. Plus make a trailer and add the sources....
Someone uploaded an 8h long video on our Peertube instance....good to see that it can handle even such extreme cases :D. I will push these trade-free services more and more once am done with the TROM II documentary. Eventually we should move the storage for our instance to an object storage solution. We will do the same for our Nextcloud instance and once we do that I hope to raise the storage from 5GB to something a lot more appealing like 50GB per user :D.
Telling you, we've done a ton with very little financial support. If we had some more serious financial support we could do a ton more. But it is fine, I will try to support myself and make these projects better and more compelling. It is a different story when you provide 50GB of storage for Nextcloud vs 5GB....
Anyway, I am working again on TROM II. I finished the coloring for now. Trying to finish the 3rd part this month. Let's see how it goes...
It is a trap! I collect your data and sell it to the local farmers :D
But yeah 50GB would be very appealing since 5GB is like "meh"...."I can't backup my stuff there, my photos and videos are more than 5GB...." but 50GB is really useful for lots of cases. Let's see....
TBH, I probably won't need more than 5 GB since I don't backup my media files in the cloud. And I think maybe it's the same for a lot of people with a limited bandwidth 🤔
Sure, and thats great :) - but prob many have a lot more files. Even now if anyone wants we can increase the storage space for them if they request that.
I will try to eventually move all of my 500GB of photos and videos to files.trom.tf via an object storage extension. This Photo App is now better than perhaps any Linux Photo Gallery apps out there.
We have updated our TROM Files https://files.trom.tf and now we provide a much better Photo Gallery app. An almost complete alternative to the Google Photos. You can sort your images in albums, sort by date, add tags, folders and more.
On top of that you can now directly edit your photos from the app itself:
You can add text, resize photos, add filters, tweak the brightness, contrast and the like.
We give 5GB for free for everyone. And if anyone needs more you can let us know. We do it trade-free of course.
Enjoy the beauty of Nextcloud!
PS: a few features are missing now, such as the ability to extract archives or convert videos. We will enable them as soon as they become compatible with this new version of Nextcloud.
A reminder that if you do not like Musk and his Twitter you can host Friendica, Mastodon, Pleroma or other such networks yourself via @YunoHost - start here yunohost.org. It is easy easy, you won't regret it. Ask around, I and others will help you out.
If this is too difficult, join the many instances out there. Start here for Friendica or here for Mastodon.
If you do not trust yet another boss to boss you around and tell you what you are allowed to do or not on the platform, and you are not skilled to create your own instance, then I and others provide managed instances. Basically you pay a monthly fee and have your own instance. I do this so I can support the 30+ free projects like tromsite.com or trom.tf.
I do not know honestly. It could be about the processes that happen in the background maybe your server does not have enough resources to handle them all? Also depends what you mean by "having problems". Do you see any error? Anything like that?
Excited to bring the new XFCE release to TROMjaro xfce.org/about/tour418 with our own tweaks and such. XFCE is such a wonderful desktop environment. And they are bringing a ton of new cool things, especially for the file manager that is now, in my view, by far the best file manager out there. I am already running many of these changes on my TROMjaro machine, for months, and all rock solid. Should release a new TROMjaro ISO this month or the beginning of the next.
I was trapped into a mystery for the past few weeks. You see, I like what Slimbook and Tuxedo provide for the Linux community in terms of making their laptops geared towards Linux. And I want to buy a new laptop. Now....their laptops look like identical twins. So I thought it is the same company that makes them but different brands. They confirmed this is not the case. One is a Spanish company, one is a German company.
Ok. Fine.
But Tuxedo told me their Infinity series, which I was keen to buy, was not made out of magnesium alloy like they advertise on their website, but made out of plastic and the magnesium alloy is steamed onto it.
But look, the Slimbook looks identical:
Even inside, ports, specs, weight, ... show more
I was trapped into a mystery for the past few weeks. You see, I like what Slimbook and Tuxedo provide for the Linux community in terms of making their laptops geared towards Linux. And I want to buy a new laptop. Now....their laptops look like identical twins. So I thought it is the same company that makes them but different brands. They confirmed this is not the case. One is a Spanish company, one is a German company.
Ok. Fine.
But Tuxedo told me their Infinity series, which I was keen to buy, was not made out of magnesium alloy like they advertise on their website, but made out of plastic and the magnesium alloy is steamed onto it.
But look, the Slimbook looks identical:
Even inside, ports, specs, weight, EVERYTHING! Yet the Slimbook people told me: no no, our is FULLY metal. No plastic what-so-ever in the chassis.
Which one was right? Me, CONFUSED.
If they are so identical they must come from the same manufacturer....right? I then watched this video review of the Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro 14 and bellow someone comments that they basically buy these laptops from a Hong Kong manufacturer named TONGFENG Computers....and Tuxedo confirmed in the reply:
Now you can go on the TONGFENG Computers website and you'll see those laptops hk.tongfangpc.com/thin-6h1-ser… - they are identical to the Slimbooks and Tuxedo ones.
I asked the Slimbook folks if they get them from there and rebrand them, but they said:
I'm sorry, but due to company policy, which I'm sure you understand, we do not provide that information.
At least I like that Tuxedo seem more honest in that regard. Maybe because they had to respond to the claim publicly!?
Now on the TONGFENG website they claim that these 16inch laptops are "all metal design":
Look, it is not a bad thing ok!? Of course these are not German or Spanish manufacturers, these are German/Spanish companies that buy laptops and rebrand them. Then they sell them. However Tuxedo advertises the laptops as "made in Germany":
So, my thoughts are these: both Tuxedo and Slimbook buy their laptops from the TONGFENG Hong Kong company. They simply deal with the software side of things to make them more Linux friendly, and do some custom chassis/keyboard prints. After testing the Slimbook Executive 16 my feeling is that Tuxedo seems more on the honest side of things and those laptops are made out of plastic with magnesium alloy steamed onto them. They are not bad at all, and I may buy a Tuxedo eventually if I can't find better alternatives.
But they for sure seem not honest to me. None of them to be honest. If Tuxedo tells me one thing but one their website they write another....or if they say their laptops are "made in germany" while they are not....then....you get the idea...
I do not trust any company. Period. They are entangled with whatever they trade so they can never be reasonably honest. Maybe Tuxedo and Slimbook do want to do good things and I still have that hope. Overall maybe they are nice people, but they for sure are shady, here and there at least.
In a trade-based society humans will sell you anything, and wrap it to appear as if they do so because they care. It is an old tactic. But they need to care about their profits too, more so. So don't simply take it for granted when these Open Source driven companies tell you that they are there to do a good thing for the Open Source. Be skeptical of their claims.
Both the Slimbook and Tuxedo people provided a great email support for my questions. All are nice. The Slimbook Executive 16 was very well put together, but probably not by the Slimbook team, but the Hong Kong one. I am still tempted to buy a Tuxedo to test it, these next months, but don't expect much honesty from companies in general.
Or that they claim their laptops are made out of magnesium alloy when in fact are plastic with magnesium alloy steamed on them? Something they confirmed to me several times over email.
Not bad laptops at all, but deceiving practice in my view.
They’re not rebrands, they’re chassis from other companies, they assemble the computers entirely in Germany, AFAIK. As per the magnesium, I don’t know the difference between an alloy or vapor bonding. Not issues at all for me, especially after using these devices, I can attest if their quality.
Well at best they are "assembled in Germany" but not "made in Germany". If that's not deceiving...
And I wonder if they are even assembled more than changing the ram, ssd, or the motherboard. Like add them to chassis. In any case maybe we can tag @TUXEDO Computers to clear some things up...
Except regional labels like that can be more or less permissive. Like Swiss Made for watches doesn’t mean everything has to be made in Switzerland. Maybe Made in Germany doesn’t require to be that strict either, while still being allowed to use that term. In any case, I don’t give a crap about that stuff, what matters is the quality of the final product!
Except regional labels like that can be more or less permissive
Yeah well I care more about why would you try to use that label anyway. Marketing I suppose.
don’t give a crap about that stuff, what matters is the quality of the final product!
Of course the quality matters, but being deceptive is a red flag. Are they also deceptive about the materials used for the laptop? Or other things? idk...
That’s not deceptive, that’s a term they might be legally allowed to use. Just like “Made in France” here: people know it doesn’t mean every si file thing came from France.
Nah that's naive. Let's be honest. If they say on their main page "made in Germany" but it is made in Hong Kong, that's objectively deceptive. If I order from China, via Amazon, a pair of headphones, then I paint them and put a logo on them and say they are made in Spain, that would be deceptive at best.
Again, nothing wrong with the laptops being made in Hong Kong. And they seem good quality. But what they do in terms of marketing is deceptive at best.
From what I know, they pick all the components that go inside, they assemble them, they test the hardware, etch the keyboard layouts and logos, develop drivers or improve on existing ones, and work on their own suite of software to enable it to work well with the device. That’s more than enough for me to differentiate their devices from just rebranding!
Interesting. Every-time I clicked that link it redirected me to the homepage. So it seems that if you select EN for your website, then click that "made in germany" it basically sends you to the same EN homepage.
Now that you sent me the link directly it worked. But it is only in German.
I have translated it but the translation is not great I suppose. From what I understood you guys are choosing the hardware that is most compatible with Linux (although Nvidia is notoriously not very compatible). And then you develop some software for it as seen here github.com/tuxedocomputers
I understand that the hardware is ordered from companies such as Tongfang, assembled there or at times in Germany. You also provide a repair shop for these laptops.
Did I get it right?
If so, I think the wording is misleading. These laptops (the hardware) are not "made" in Germany, but at best "assembled" in germany together with some basic software support.
Would it be more fair to change that and say "Assembled in Germany with custom-made software support"?
I think many people would feel outraged if Apple advertised on their website "Made in the USA". Even tho Apple, from my knowledge, designs some components themselves and do most of the software for their products. Still, you can't call that "Made in the USA" because it is not made in the USA. At best "Designed, developed and assembled in the USA". I hope you get my point.
If you hadn't bought this up then I would've for sure thought that Tuxedo and Slimbook makes their own hardware from the ground up, makes sense why the Slimbook people don't want to provide you that information. But to be fair, designing & making laptops from the ground up is expensive, so its not a bad thing what they're doing in terms of improving linux compatibility. I just wish they were a bit more honest about what they're doing.
BTW, That company's name is TongFang, not TongFeng.
Yeah that's what I don't like if they give the impression that they make these laptops. Call me crazy but if I see on a website that sells laptops "Made in Germany" I would expect the laptop to be made in Germany....
I wonder if they just customize the laptops a bit and resell them, at least that's what I get from that YouTube comment. If this TongFeng company sells completely assembled laptops then why does Tuxedo & Slimbook have to reassemble them? That youtube comment mentioned they do keyboard lasering and chassis logo printing, maybe that's what they're referring to as "assembling" ? 🤷
TBF, their work on software and all is great, its just that there's not enough transparency from their part.
Even if they assemble in Germany it is misleading to say "Made in Germany". Their software work is all good, and all that. Great that they contribute the the FOSS community. But I still think putting "Made in Germany" on their main page is misleading. And I am quite sure it is done consciously since people associate germany with well-made products. So I believe they use that as a marketing strategy.
And just to say this, I do not want to "stab" Tuxedo or anything like that, but if I see such practices I will be vocal, regardless if they also do some good for the Open Source world.
> Even if they assemble in Germany it is misleading to say "Made in Germany".
This maybe a bit subjective, because there are many steps involved in manufacturing something. When that TongFang company says that their product is made in China, they probably mean its assembled in China, I'm not sure if all the individual components are made in China itself. Or maybe it is, IDK 🤷
Also its good that you are vocal about such things, I don't think you're being rude, its honest criticism.
It baffles me that it can be subjective....if you say "This laptop is made in Germany", but you order the hardware (and perhaps entire laptops) from somewhere else (regardless where), then it is beyond me how that sentence makes any sense. Maybe that Hong Kong company also orders parts from somewhere else, regardless I was talking about "not being made in Germany" but at best "assembled and customized in Germany".
My experience with this world tells me that this is a marketing scheme.
Of course the hardware has to be made in the country at least, but the framework and stuff could be imported from other parts and assembled there, I think that's how most products are made, rarely a product is made entirely in one country. I don't think Tuxedo & Slimbook could claim they make the laptop themselves, since its made by the TongFang company. So that is probably a marketing scheme like you say, they make it appear like they build their laptops from the ground up.
I made a blog post a few days ago when I received my Slimbook Essential 16 and basically I was not happy with it. Now things have changed, some of them 180 degrees. But still not enough to keep it.
Why? How?
First of all, I need to take into account a few external factors: 1. I am in the middle finishing the TROM II documentary. I did not want to distract myself from it until April or so. I need to finish until May. The only reason I bought this laptop was because of a limited 150 Euros discount. 2. I work on many things, servers, stuff, including WebApe and I may have to take 2 new WebApe projects this month. Not a great idea to be distracted by a new laptop now. 3. I have TB of data and hundreds upon hundreds of packages and custom config files....moving them over to the new laptop will take me many many days.
Ok. What's up with the Slimbook.
The build quality I am still not 100% liking it.
... show more
I made a blog post a few days ago when I received my Slimbook Essential 16 and basically I was not happy with it. Now things have changed, some of them 180 degrees. But still not enough to keep it.
Why? How?
First of all, I need to take into account a few external factors: 1. I am in the middle finishing the TROM II documentary. I did not want to distract myself from it until April or so. I need to finish until May. The only reason I bought this laptop was because of a limited 150 Euros discount. 2. I work on many things, servers, stuff, including WebApe and I may have to take 2 new WebApe projects this month. Not a great idea to be distracted by a new laptop now. 3. I have TB of data and hundreds upon hundreds of packages and custom config files....moving them over to the new laptop will take me many many days.
Ok. What's up with the Slimbook.
The build quality I am still not 100% liking it.
I got used to it. It still feels more like plastic than metal to me, feels super light and all of that, however using it for the past days I realized it is very well built (put together). Not bending, no flexing....really good. I opened it up after they allowed me to, and that made me like it much more. Inside, everything is well organized and very well put together. Feels more like a metal build now to me that I opened it up.
It is also fantastic that you can put up to 64GB of RAM and has 2 M2 slots that support at least 4TB if not 8...This is crucial for my needs. Also opening it up was so easy, I loved it. Unscrew a few screws and that's it, the bottom cover can be easily removed. Great job with that!
Despite this, I am concerned that being so light and plasticy-feel, it will easily be damaged in time. But being so light is fantastic in terms of portability. Speaking of that, the charger is massive and will annoy you if you want this to be portable, which kinda makes it being so light, less relevant. If this had an AMD processor it would have made a lot more sense since right now the battery is not that great. Overall will last some 4-5h and I've been using the Slimbook app that allows you to switch to an energy saving profile. If you use the Nvidia card, even a bit, it drops down to half. Considering that batteries degrade quite fast, this is not a great beginning.
That keyboard...
I type a lot (I write books) and I need a decent keyboard. The keys are a bit too shallow for me, it feels a bit weird to type, but the worst part is that some key symbols are not centered as mentioned previously. After a few days of use I still did not get used to this. It looks weird especially at night when they are lighten-up. Looks like the laptop is tilted one side. The keys feel a bit "cheap" and not that "fun" to type on. Plus I HATE the numpad...I'd love a normal keyboard...big keys...centered....
The camera is usable or bad, like it is the case with most laptops. But probably no one uses them since all laptops have shitty cameras. And the speakers are ok.
That touchpad!
I hate touchpads - I can never use them. But Slimbook made me love their touchpad. It is an amazing experience. Smooth, glassy, HUGE. Makes it so easy to use it, even for someone like me not used to them. Great job with that. Tho, again, even that is a bit not centered which looks weird....
What about that screen?
At first I hated it because I thought it as washed-out. And it was, compared to my laptop and Sasha's. But then I realized it was like that only when it came to blue-purple....the rest looked great. Just so happened that the default TROMjaro wallpaper was the most obvious in that regard. I then compared the Slimbook screen with our phones and other screens and it seems that my and Sasha's laptops are the ones adding more contrast at times, for blue and purple. Anyway, the colors are probably more accurate on the Slimbook after all, but yeah many screens, many color variations...
In any case I ended up LOVING the screen. 16'' and a 16:10 aspect ratio, with those thin bezels makes the perfect screen for me. For video editing, designing books, websites, you name it. Awesome. I can't go back to any screen after this experience. So much so that this will be the first thing I'll look for in a laptop.
A beast. But does it matter?
The core i7-12700H + Nvidia 3050ti make up for a great (on paper) hardware. However for the day to day use, even for me doing so many things at once, it makes exactly ZERO difference. Even on my laptop I can have hundreds of tabs opened, watch stuff, edit, whatever. Could make a difference in terms of video editing and code compilation. Unfortunately in Linux the GPU is almost never used. All in all, great hardware, but unless you do heavy video editing, code compilation, or game, you don't need this.
Speaking of hardware....from my tests there is almost zero difference between a normal SSD that has like 1GB speeds r/w and these new M2 that have many GB speeds. Unless you posses hundreds of GB of media and copy them frequently....there is no difference. Just marketing.
Actually I'd say I have confirmed, for me at least, that fullhd screens are almost identical to any K screen for a 16'' screen. M2 SSDs are as good as SSDs for pretty much most uses. And the difference in power (GPU and CPU wise) only matters for specific tasks. The vast majority of those are ok for the vast majority of people.
Marketing....
Summary.
The Slimbook Executive 16 - things I like: - lightweight, easy to carry around - very well built - great screen - amazing touchpad - great hardware - perfect ports availability and slots - easy to open and upgrade
Things I did not like: - feels more like plastic than metal - massive charger - overall bad keyboard - not a great battery life - bad webcam in dimmer conditions - bloody full of stickers - extremely expensive
For 1750 Euros (1600 with the discount) I would definitely want a fully aluminum build, a good keyboard, and a decent battery. Maybe even a fingerprint reader....could be cool to have that and super useful.
I want to mention something unique and special about Slimbook: their support. You can talk to humans there, and they are super friendly. Many thanks for putting up with my many questions and helping me out. Stellar support.
Where from here?
I would like to see other laptops too. Lately I found 2 candidates but of course I will look for more. For example I found the Dell Inspiron 16 to be a great choice:
Comes in different hardware variations, even with AMD for some. That keyboard looks amazing from photos (no numpad). Centered touchpad and huge. All aluminium built, thin, even tho heavier.
The downside, max 34GB of RAM and I think max 3TB of SSD....fuckers...You can change these yourself but what I realized is that the vast majority of these well-built laptops have the RAM and storage soldered into the motherboard. No way to upgrade them. Such a fuckery.
Anyway, the second exciting choice is the Dell Inspiron 16 2 in 1: Not as powerful as the Slimbook, but a lot more than mine. Can transform into a tablet and has a touchscreen. Although I may not use any, it is likely more solid since it is built for this. Sasha's is similar to this, but at 13'', and I love it.
This one too has a 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD limit...
I can find these on ebay from 800 Euros to like 1.400 Euros. Much cheaper than the Slimbook. Even new are not more expensive than the Slimbook Executive 16.
Anyway, I will package the Slimbook and send it back. Then I'll focus on TROM II and these next few months I'll look to see if I can find better alternatives. There is a slim-chance I will buy the slim-book again :) . It was very interesting to have it around to test, and i went from "I won't keep it" to "I'll keep it" a day after another. Last night I was almost sure I'll keep it. But I do not want to rush with this since it is an extremely expensive thing for me to buy. I don't want to regret my decision.
Honestly if this Slimbook had a powerful AMD and was around 1k Euros, I would not have thought twice.
Tio
in reply to Tio • •like this
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in reply to Tio • •@Tio
Yeah, Luke smith might say some stupid things at times, but he's good at teaching you about linux, I've learned a lot from him. I totally understand why some admins don't want his videos showing up on their instance, and AFAIK you can prevent that in peertube, but if a user manually searches for the channel and decides to subscribe then you shouldn't interfere and block them. At the end of the day, the whole point of fedi is that you could follow anyone from any instance, if that feature is broken then fedi is just like any other social media.
Also, in my opinion, if admins block out all the right wing instances then all that does is to make sure that these people never get exposed to any left wing ideas and change their views. You cannot make any kind of social change without interacting with people who disagree with you, or else you're just preaching to the choir.
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Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Yeah it is easy to make your peertube only show the videos you want, from the instances you follow and such. Even disable the global search so people can't even search for any other videos but the ones that you have locally. So you have total control. But if I am a user on your instance and wanna subscribe to luke-the-right-wing-guy, you should not interfere with that. Because if you do, as admin, then you become a curator of what people should or should not watch. Plus you ruin the idea behind the fediverse.
But it seems people are not thinking long term at all over here....
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •Actually I know there are some people who's thinking about the long term consequences of defederation and is trying to find a solution to this problem. I haven't looked much into it but they're working on this project ufoi.org/ which aims to form a community of instances that agree to federate with each other, its not perfect but its much better than the current way of doing things which is not very transparent. FYI, this is not like a closed off group, they promote openness and decentralization, you'll get the gist once you take a look at what they're proposing. I first heard about this project from @admitsWrongIfProven and @🎓 Dr. Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱, they seem to be very open minded and transparent about everything which I really appreciate.
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Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱
Unknown parent • • •As you point out the issue isnt about defederation at all, its about the gossip, manipulation, and lies that results in uninformed defederation.
You pointed out one example already, where a group of people with the clear intent to spread rumors without any evidence were able to get QOTO removed from the official list, but it goes much deeper than that. That same misinformation has gotten quite a few servers defamed for things that never happened.
The reason, among other things, is that when an instance hears a rumor they defederate and stic those rumors in the "Reasons" column with no transparency or evidence, others pick up on this, rinse repeat. They have used some pretty nasty tactics to make this more prolific too. For example they have hordes of single user instances that defederate then maintain lists that list instances based on how many instances defederate them. So they are able to say "look this instance is in the top 10 most defederated" but leave out the fact that they are counting single user instances and in fact they arent really very defederated at all.
... show moreAs you point out the issue isnt about defederation at all, its about the gossip, manipulation, and lies that results in uninformed defederation.
You pointed out one example already, where a group of people with the clear intent to spread rumors without any evidence were able to get QOTO removed from the official list, but it goes much deeper than that. That same misinformation has gotten quite a few servers defamed for things that never happened.
The reason, among other things, is that when an instance hears a rumor they defederate and stic those rumors in the "Reasons" column with no transparency or evidence, others pick up on this, rinse repeat. They have used some pretty nasty tactics to make this more prolific too. For example they have hordes of single user instances that defederate then maintain lists that list instances based on how many instances defederate them. So they are able to say "look this instance is in the top 10 most defederated" but leave out the fact that they are counting single user instances and in fact they arent really very defederated at all.
What is needed less than the collaboration between instances the UFoI provides is the **transparency** on why defederation takes place with evidence and a chance for the other side to speak their piece. This way defederation can be informed.
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Rokosun
in reply to 🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 • •@🎓 Dr. Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱 @Tio @admitsWrongIfProven
Say if I joined an instance and my friend joined another, if one of our instances block the other then we can't communicate anymore, this is a big problem with defederation. I can of course ask my friends to join the same instance I'm on, but this will lead to centralization which is bad for fedi. This is where #UFoI comes in, its a group of instances that I know for sure will be federated with each other, so I can just ask my friends to join one of the instances listed there.
And the transparency bit is something I really appreciate, I know there are some bad actors on fedi that engage in slandering and false accusations without any evidence backing their claims, so I hope #UFoI can solve these issues.
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in reply to Rokosun • • •Yea, without UFoI the only way you can garuntee you and your friends all communicate is if you all join free speech servers (servers that dont defederate from anyone).
The nice thing about UFoI is it solves the problem while still allowing instance admins to defederate from bad actors.
@tio @admitsWrongIfProven
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Rokosun
in reply to 🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 • •@🎓 Dr. Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱 @Tio @admitsWrongIfProven
From what I understand, #UFoI doesn't say anything about how an instance should defederate and it is left up to the individual instances to decide for themselves, just that they should keep the federation open for other #UFoI members, right?
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🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱
in reply to Rokosun • • •Thats more or less accurate. Outside of the UFoI instances can choose how they federate. Inside the UFoI they should federate.
If an instance in the UFoI shows itself to be a bad actor and worthy of defederation then there is a transparent process centered around due process that is used to eject a bad actor instance from the UFoI at which point its members can decide to defederate if they wish to.
@tio @admitsWrongIfProven
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Rokosun
in reply to 🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 • •@🎓 Dr. Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱 @Tio @admitsWrongIfProven
Yeah, so far this sounds like a much better approach than the current way of doing things which is not transparent at all.
🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱
in reply to Rokosun • • •Let your instance admin know your opinion and see if he might consider joining then.
@tio @admitsWrongIfProven
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Soy_Magnus
in reply to 🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 • • •Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Wait until your instance from that select group may not be on par with the rest and they kick you out. I don't like when they make these little groups of friends. This is entirely different from what I first thought the fediverse is. The fact that you have to create such groups tells me that the fediverse is a bunch of facebooks and twitters and they use their power (many times the user count) to bully the other small instances. The fediverse should have been about a protocol that allows any instance to communicate with any other. The moment instances stop federating with other instances, this protocol is censored, broken, incomplete, nontransparent. And a mess in general.
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in reply to Tio • •@Tio @🎓 Dr. Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱 @admitsWrongIfProven
I know, I'm now realizing that fediverse is not decentralized enough to make a real difference. We're now talking about instance admins fighting each other over disagreements, but wait until corporations begin to pour money into it and create instances of their own, that's when this power difference becomes obvious and by then it'll be too late.
Once a better p2p social network becomes viable then I'll be among the first to jump ship, we need to put power back in the hands of individual users, not a small number of admins or corporate entities who're capable of running massive servers.
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